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First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Natural Selection v3.0 Final 52

Posted by Zonk from the finally-selected dept.
iethree writes "Natural-Selection version 3.0 final is released today, after several years in beta. NS is the most popular third party mod for Half-Life, it features a combination of RTS and FPS to create one of the most unique games out there. You can view the changelog and read an interview with one of the creators discussing the changes in the final release and the future of Natural-Selection."
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Natural Selection v3.0 Final More

Natural Selection v3.0 Final

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  • The most pupular? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Last time I checked, that would be counter-strike. Just because you wish it were the most popular doesn't make it true.
    • The most popular 3rd party mod. Didn't Valve buy CS?

    • Re:The most pupular? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Isamil ( 843308 )
      Wrong
      CS is the most popular mod for HL, but CS is not a mod anymore; it's a game. Valve bought it. NS is the most popular 3rd party mod(not owned by Valve) by far. Deserves it to, I've been playing the game for over a year nonstop, and I havn't gotten boerd yet.
  • Don't play this game it'll ruin your life as its too addictive!

  • Changed a bit since I last looked at it... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by biglig2 ( 89374 ) on Sunday March 06, 2005 @12:04PM (#11858636) Homepage Journal
    ... they've included a new combat gametype that is more like a standard FPS.

    I wonder if this is good or bad... the learning curve to get in the game is what put me off NS before. Even SI is not that hard to pick up, but NS just baffled me.
  • This is seriously an incredible acheivment (does I come before E in that word?). It surpasses many retail games in terms of strategy and gameplay and all that good stuff. And the best part is that it's free, woohoo.

    • Re:Amazing Mod (Score:3, Informative)

      by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 )
      And the best part is that it's free, woohoo.

      Free if you own Half-Life...

      • And if you don't own Half-Life you obviously do not care about computer games, free or otherwise.

      • Re:Amazing Mod (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pxtl ( 151020 )
        That does raise a good point - if it were developed for, say, Tenebrae, it could be a completely free game. Why do modders insist on sticking to Half-Life and leave their creations to be trapped under Valve's licensing?
        • That does raise a good point - if it were developed for, say, Tenebrae, it could be a completely free game. Why do modders insist on sticking to Half-Life and leave their creations to be trapped under Valve's licensing?

          Because it's far easier to start with a working engine and a game's content than (almost) from scratch?

          NS may be a near-total-conversion for Half-Life, but there's still a fair amount of Half-Life content in there. I remember from its development that much more Half-Life stuff used to be u
          • Off-topic : Any approximate releasedate for that MINERVA-map in your sig ?

            What's it exactly : One or multiple maps?
            It looks very nice.

            • Thanks for the comments! :-)

              Phosphenes is my 'teach-myself-HL2-mapping' map so I've no idea when it'll get finished, but it's going very nicely. The outdoors geometry is effectively all done and just needs scripting and entity work, and I've made a start on the indoors, underground stuff. And just in the last few minutes, I've finally decided what the Horrible Dark Secret is going to be. Woo!

              It's a single map, but will probably take half an hour or so to play - I'm already notorious for a particular singl [man.ac.uk]
    • We all like nostalgia, but after playing NS 2.0 for months and seeing the same exploits being uncovered, I think it's time to move on.

      Not like the source engine is much better, but at least SOME of the exploits don't work. My favorite exploit for NS: if you switch to a gun really quickly before entering the commander's chair, you can shoot enemies from a God-like and untouchable position.
  • Which cheeses me right off.

    Oh, it's nothing to do *specifically* with windows XP, just that you can't find OpenGL capable-drivers for my old 16MB rage card, and NS doesn't run in software mode.

    Funnily enough, on Windows 98? No problem.

    This is what cheeses me off.
    • if you really want to play, fork up $50 for a new video card which will run any half life mod beautifully.
      • That was the point..

        You just missed it.
        • the point was, even if the drivers worked, your video card would still choke on a simple game like NS. Buy a new one, your computer will thank you. Windows doesnt support it becasue they figure anyone that doesnt care enough to upgrade their video card every 7 years or so doesnt care enough to play games that only support openGL.
          • No, the point was that it worked before. I didn't say NS wouldn't let me play it, I said Windows XP woudln't let me. Can you comprehend the difference?

            The graphics card worked with it just fine with Windows 98 and appropriate drivers, as I've been playing since late in 2.0 with the exact same hardware. Am I going to claim it was stunning graphics? Hell no. But it was certainly decent, and more importantly, it ran with reasonable frame rates.

            Why should I have to upgrade my hardware when it demonstratably
            • Really, what is the point of Windows XP?

              And was it worth the money?

              You have to wonder how many paying customers of XP are using hardware from last century and playing games on it.

              Also, isn't it ATI's job to write drivers?

              And if you really did pay for XP there were probably better computer related investments to make, like 15 USD for Cedega, a newer grapics card, and still have some money to spare.
      • $50?!?!?! Are you kidding? :)
        http://www.imagestore.us/product.asp?pf_id=VG-MX44 0-64MS [imagestore.us]
        $34 and it will play any HL game or mod just fine. Anyone not willing to fork out $34 doesn't deserve to complain.
    • My 16MB Rage card works happily under WinXP with the ATi drivers from their web site which provide the OpenGL that Half-Life needs.

      You're right, it is funny that the drvier bundled with Windows XP doesn't work with Half Life. A more-recent one came to me through Windows Update which appeared to be the same as the ATi download, but I haven't tried running HL on it.

      NS 3.0 may be a reason to reinstall Half Life...
  • I really like how the implemented two completely different gametypes/playstyles ; And still not make it biased to one team.

    For another hybrid of FPS/RTS ; Have a look at the (commercial) Savage : Battle for Newerth ;
    If you can't afford the game, be sure to check out their excellent demo.
    More info at http://www.s2games.com/ [s2games.com]

    • I really liked Savage, but never played NS. (I don't want to deal with Steam.) How would you compare the two?

      PS. - Battlefield 2 [eagames.com] is supposed to have a similar commander/troops type structure:

      "Enhanced team play features allow players to enter the action on the front lines as part of a formal squad, or work behind the scenes in Commander Mode to direct the strategic assaults of their teammates."

      • How would you compare the two?

        Both the games have teams that require a different approach :
        The aliens in this mod can do alot of damage up close, and the humans are much more efficient with the enemy away from them.
        The aliens make up for this in speed, but also other rts-like capabilities (cloaking, extra damage, different aliens/classes you can evolve into).

        Since it's the HL engine, you -are- confined to very small spaces though , and not the vast landscapes you get in Savage.

        If your only reason to

  • Dang, this game looks interesting.

    Now that Half-Life 2 is out, it would be great if Sierra removed the requirement for a legit CD-Key to play online. Then HL1 could be played for free...

    Not that they have any financial incentive to do this, but I can always dream.
  • ...is, IMO of course, the best version by far since 1.04.

    Grab it now. And if you've never played NS, now is a great time to get into it.
    • I liked beta 5 much more than this final version. My main problem is that I generally play as a Frontiersman, and the Kharaa cloaking is insane under the new ruleset.

      Fractional visibility at top speed for aliens? No uncloaking unless you attack? On some maps it's nearly impossible to pick out the skulks running across the floor towards you to bite your face off before he succeeds splendidly at it.

      I understand that Sensory Chambers were useless to drop first, but I think in their attempt to make them more
      • Sensory first needs to be pretty amazing to make up for the lack of Defensive upgrades. Fades and onoses really, really benefit from Carapace/Regen, and forgoing DCs in favor of making your skulks better is a major sacrifise. I'm not convinced yet that it's worth it, even with the really good new cloaking/SoF-SC/free upgrades for skulks. Non-Defensive upgrades fades and onos are much more limited than ones that have access to Carapace or Regen, and fades and onos are a heck of a lot more important than s
      • What about scanner sweeps and observatories? Traveling in groups also helps immensly. Both of these improve teamwork, which is the foundation of the marine team. I see nothing but good stuff here. :D

  • ns is wonderful but... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've been playing Natural Selection for a year or more now.

    I used to play counter-strike constantly but there was alway ssomething missing in that game and whether the skill level was rising up or the cheat level was... I don't know but I got tired of the same old thing. Then there were the warcraft, diablo and superhero mods which were great but too little too late.

    I found ns (found for myself) and I've been enjoying it. People say co (combat - team deathmatch) maps suck but I like playing combat after
    • Complaining about balance at this point is very premature.

      In the 2.0 (as I recall) version, sensory got a big boost with the "cloaking fields" around sensory chambers and aliens won a lot at first on pub servers. Then the marines got the hang of how to cope with that and in the end aliens gave up on sensory first as a strategy.

      This is the exact same thing again - people want to try the new thing so aliens will build sensory first a lot for a while, but in the end I'm guessing the same build order will be
    • If your tired of getting on a marine team that sucks, learn how to command. Seriously. I used to get the dumbest commanders who would hop in the chair, drop what they want and they go run out and get killed. Not many people want to command. I finally got sick of it and learned how to comm. Just the other night, I was the first one in and we practically devastated the alien team in a 12v12 match. They couldn't even grab an extra resource node the whole game. Learn how to comm.

      If all you want to do is
  • Never seeded before but thought since no torrents have shown up I'd give it a try. Hopefully it will work, and hopefully my ISP won't freak out thinking I'm distributing illegally. :)

    http://members.cox.net/gothzilla/ns_install_v3.exe .torrent [cox.net]

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