Natural Selection 2 Announced

[Ennui]

This past Halloween, on the fourth anniversary of the initial release of the asoundingly-popular third party Half-Life modification Natural Selection, Unknown Worlds Entertainment announced the release of Natural Selection 2.
[br]Unknown Worlds is an independent developer started by members of the original NS team, and they've managed to amass enough funding to develop NS2 as a commercial game distributed through Steam. As the official site describes it:

Natural Selection 2 is the next wave in the war for survival between humankind and the Kharaa. Natural Selection 2 is the next evolution in multiplayer action/strategy gameplay and will be targeted for both competitive and public play. New features include dynamically changing environments, a new resource model, flexible game scripting and modes, and new weapons, abilities and upgrades.

What are you waiting for? Head on over to the NS2 website for more.

 

[Ennui]

Editorial Note: We apologize for the late nature of this news. Our newsposters were all asleep, it seems.

 

[NeoNight]

Those bastards how dare they sleep! How dare they do any normal needed by their bodies!

In any case great news! can't wait to see what the NS team comes up with.

 

[Asuka]

Sweet. Wasn't a fan of the originals feel. Hope this one is better.

 

[eAi]

I'm a huge fan of NS, so I can't wait!

 

[Majestic XII]

The only true rts/fps mod/game

/me looks at ND

 

[hool10]

Thanks for posting this Ennui. NS2 needs all the hype it can get! :imu:

 

[CyberPitz]

Can't wait for some news on the Source version of Natural-Selection. NS2 is going to be awesome, and I really can't wait for it to be done already.

Hell, I've been waiting since last year. D:

 

[[Dragoon]]

Can't wait for some news on the Source version of Natural-Selection. NS2 is going to be awesome, and I really can't wait for it to be done already.

Hell, I've been waiting since last year. D:

I don't think they've decided on an engine yet, though they're leaning towards Source.

 

[Insano]

They're still checking out the possibilities of Source, because they want dynamic changing environments.

 

[cyborgguineapig]

Yesterday at work my colleagues and I were discussing what our favorite games of all time were. Initially I said half life and then for 5 minutes sat thinking and realized no, infact my favorite game ever was NS. The first game where I actually felt part of something big. This is exciting news!

 

[Para]

To quote a certain wonderful beta moment...
"OH NO!"
"oh no"
"OHH NOES!"
"ONOS!"

...no really, this is awesome

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Obviously I can't wait huge NS fan, used to be active on the UKW forums and in an awesome clan. Bring on NS2 baby!

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Whaaa!? When did this happen, you see when I'm not here for 1 day & Smash is busy the news posting is dead! Rawr. I'm not a NS fan, but I'm sure this makes manyyyyy people happy.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Can't wait for the tech demo of it!

 

[bigburpco]

Oh damn. Too many good games, too little monies to buy.

How potentially depressing.

 

[CyberPitz]

I don't think they've decided on an engine yet, though they're leaning towards Source.

They've already talked about putting up Natural-Selection: Source. They were putting the planning and everything down last news post *a couple months backish.* As for NS2, they are looking at Source, but if Source won't do what they want they will go with whatever fits their needs.

That post I was talking not about NS2, but NS:S.

 

[MiccyNarc]

I always wanted an asoundingly-popular third party Half-Life modification

 

[COALslaw]

Meh, i got yelled at for morphing into some sort of creature "too soon" or something when i played NS1. Basically that was it for me.

 

[Insano]

Probably an onos

 

[Para]

Or since it was NS1 it could've been a fade. Man, back then it was all about strategy, too bad NS3 is kinda crappy when compared to the games that lasted for hours and we're very well balanced...

 

[Wardancer]

Para the problem is that back then people was inexperienced and still playing for fun, thus the games could last for hours. But as the game get older and less exiting people play to win and games will be over fast, and as such needs to be balanced. Its sad i know

 

[StardogChampion]

Or since it was NS1 it could've been a fade. Man, back then it was all about strategy, too bad NS3 is kinda crappy when compared to the games that lasted for hours and we're very well balanced...

Agreed.

The whole "onos before 3 hives" thing ruined the entire game completely. Combat has split the community too, halfing the amount of servers playing normal NS.

 

[Kester^]

Hive 1 onos turn around on a 2 hive rine lock down is awesome, how can having onos before hive 3 ruin a game.

If you can't handle them get a better team. A good rine team can easily fend off an onos.

 

[StardogChampion]

Hive 1 onos turn around on a 2 hive rine lock down is awesome, how can having onos before hive 3 ruin a game.

If you can't handle them get a better team. A good rine team can easily fend off an onos.

It's not that they're hard to kill. It's made them useless because they're so easy to kill now. It just undermines the whole point of Onosing. Back in the good old days an Onos was something to be scared of.

 

[hool10]

I'm gonna play some NS because that new version is coming out soon. :bounce: Catch me for a round of NS on xfire will ya?

 

[[Dragoon]]

They've already talked about putting up Natural-Selection: Source. They were putting the planning and everything down last news post *a couple months backish.* As for NS2, they are looking at Source, but if Source won't do what they want they will go with whatever fits their needs.

That post I was talking not about NS2, but NS:S.

Ah. From what I've heard, they don't have any plans to create a direct port of NS to Source.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Natural selection was probably the geekiest game i've ever played. My first experience was of some complete and utter nerdmonger on the mic demanding the team get to the phase gate. I was so fascinated by all the geek terminology being used by the clan guys i stuck around. Their enthusiasm really made it feel so immersive..and geeky.

GET TO THE PHASE GATE. nyuk nyuk

 

[COALslaw]

Natural selection was probably the geekiest game i've ever played. My first experience was of some complete and utter nerdmonger on the mic demanding the team get to the phase gate. I was so fascinated by all the geek terminology being used by the clan guys i stuck around. Their enthusiasm really made it feel so immersive..and geeky.

GET TO THE PHASE GATE. nyuk nyuk

ROFL exactly.

 

[Para]

It's not that they're hard to kill. It's made them useless because they're so easy to kill now. It just undermines the whole point of Onosing. Back in the good old days an Onos was something to be scared of.

Indeed. 750hp health + 950hp armor with charge and the old regen...omgwtfpwn to the max.

Like said, NS used to be very well balanced, 1.04 being the best version of NS ever. (1.01 would've been better but it had that steady 300-700ms lag...) NS1 was one of the best games I've ever played and I hold a lot of good memories from it, including the following:

Game that lasted for 8 hours. Yes, eight. Teams were so well balanced along with the game that it was constant fighting over every single resource node on the map, sometimes when someone had to go eat for 15 minutes rines pushed one hive down but when that one person came back and rine had to leave, we pushed it back and took a resnode...it was pure gold. We had three onos rushes in that map (the one with refinery hive, rine start had that rotating door, double res...can't remember the name), every single time it was barely stopped by an army of heavies with HMG:s...I don't remember who won or lost but I do remember that we all were shouting in chat after three hours how totally awesome the game is and we still were screaming of joy when 8th hour started.

Voogru Hive 2! I love you guys! SILENCE, WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB!!!!!! Thanks to VH2 community I started replaying NS for a while when NS3 had been out for some time. Those guys rocked and most probably still do.

Wonderful little things like xenobombing, lorks taht hovar witout flaping, turretfarming, mine ladders and mine Matrix, parasiting aimbotters to death(yeah, cheats didn't make you a better player at all :cheese...


OK, I have a feeling I'm going very OT here...in conclusion, NS1 was awesome, NS2 was OK, NS3 was mostly crap, NS team owes us nothing for giving us NS1.0x but we owe them since those who were around back then know why it was beyond awesome and thus the creators of it should be treated as such too.

 

[Freebound]

A Holdout on bast in engine hive for 4 hours = best game ever for me.

Although it sounds bad, the exploits in ns (getting outside map and stuff) were very fun. They were not impossible to get to though, so I didn't think of it as cheating. Hiding as an alien at the end of the game was great. People get annoyed if you do that instead of fighting though.