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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Natural Selection Mod to get Sequel, Source port 38

Posted by Zonk from the newer-shinier-better dept.
kingphreak writes "The popular Half-Life mod, Natural-Selection is undergoing an update. Natural-Selection: Source (a port of the original to the new Half-Life 2 Source Engine) and Natural-Selection 2 have been announced. It is not known by Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland and the rest of the NS Team whether NS:S will be a direct port or whether NS2 will use the Source Engine, UT2004 Engine, etc." They're currently testing Beta 6 within the community.
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Natural Selection Mod to get Sequel, Source port More

Natural Selection Mod to get Sequel, Source port

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  • If you don't know what Natural Selection is or haven't played it your missing out. I swear this is the best video game since StarControl2 Melee. Going to source will make it pretty I'm sure, but pretty doesn't make NS good, game play does. I also have to say that the fact that I can play the current version on my $400 used Laptop is a big plus. I go over to my buddy's house have a beer and kill aliens and its fucking great.

    Source or Quake2 engine it doesn't matter to me, just give me some more NS goodness.
    • You can't imagine how having tons of junk and barrels would improve the strategy gameplay in NS?
      What about combining movable objects with webbing?
      What about using barrels and junk to remove webbing or make it easier to spot?
      The possibilities are endless. Just webs and objects alone would drastically affect game play.
      • I am in no way saying that a source version wouldn't be awesome. I'm in no way saying that I wouldn't pay for it as a full game. I'm just saying the basic version is great becasue of the game not the engine. I'm not a source hater, I'm a lover. All NS is good NS. Hell I even like combat!
      • hmm. What about using webbing to launch barrels and junk? What about having to melt the webbing with welder, and having it actually resist you, instead of just slow down your walk speed?

        Seriously, though, Source isn't the only game engine with Havok physics, and Havok isn't the only physics engine. I want my Linux support!
    • Indeed I played it for a couple years myself. K9black from OSS. :D
      • You know Yumosis was a hacker, Right?
        • eh, he didnt hack before i took a break from the ns scene, when i came back, all that drama had started up.. pretty much just kept myself contained in Oss and we went on to win some pretty big games. no props to nitro of course
    • Thanks for the unbelievable compliment, I only wish it were true. Star Control II is tied for 'Best Game Ever' in my book, tied only by Starcraft and Chess (I'm totally serious).

      Just wait until you see NS2. :)
      • Have you found the Ur-Quan Masters sc2.sourceforge.net ? Wait never mind don't you dare go to that site. You've got work to do.

        Bob has some funny stuff to say on the matter too.

        http://www.angryflower.com/loving.gif

        http://www.angryflower.com/urquan.gif
  • Natural Selection was one of the freshest and most original games I'd played in loooong time when I first gave it a shot c ouple of years ago. I haven't played it in a while, and this will probably be just the ticket to give it another go.

    This was the first game I ever played that basically required voice communication among players - especially the Marine team. I got a usb headset specifically because of this game.

    • Re:NS (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cronostitan ( 573676 )
      Hi!

      If you havent played it in a long time you might get disappointed. the NS community is very much split up about the changes the developers did to the origina gameplay. They optimized it more and more for fast clan games meaning that the play time was reduced to games under one hour. By these changes the original RTS- (Real Time Strategy - like Starkcraft as FPS) style of NS suffered alot and the game lost much of its complexety.

      Ahhh.. those were nice times when NS games lasted up to 3 hours and the lo

      • Re:NS (Score:1)

        by Flayra ( 79912 )
        While I can't claim that the game got better for everyone with every subsequent version, I can tell you that the online player numbers have remained solid (though basically unchanging) throughout our development.

        It's my opinion that a lot of people SAY they like 3-hour long games, but the number of people that PLAY games of this length are much less then those that enjoy games that generally finish within 15-20 minutes.
  • Natural Selection is one of the best mods for any game out there. For those unfamiliar with it you play with two teams, aliens and marines (think Aliens the movie). One of the marines plays a commander just like any RTS out there. But instead of computer-controlled drones he commands real players. He can give them orders to build resource towers or group them to attack an alien hive. Of course players can choose to ignore such orders but NS shines in teamplay since the superior aliens will literally shred y
  • The problem with the mod is that HL2 itself barely runs on most people's PC nowadays. Who can develop except those with super 3Ghz processors with $500 video cards. I'd expect another year and a half before the mod community really picks up.

    • Re:HL2 mod problem (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )
      The performance hit might not be as big as you think.

      The biggest problem with Natural-Selection is it's heavy use of entities. The Half-Life engine wasn't designed to handle maps with hundreds of entities, which caused enormous load on the server (And much more on the client than was normal).

      Source, on the other hand, can efficiently handle a great number more entities than Half-Life could. There WILL be a performance hit going to source, but part of it will be offset by substantially better entity handli
    • Rubbish, HL2 runs fine on lower spec systems if you reduce the DirectX level to 7.

      You still get nice models physics and so on, just less pretty shaders.
    • I get 50fps on an $80 Athlon and a $100 GF4 4200

      Anyone who says the reqs are too high either hasn't played the game, or they have a 500MHz Gateway.
      I've been testing Beta 6 this week and so far its pretty good. Can't wait for the Source port.
    • I run on a 1.7 ghz Athlon XP with a $225 video card, most settings on medium detail. I don't think it ever ducked below 20-some fps, and I could always turn the detail down if it started to.

      CS:Source lags when I find servers I can cheat on. I bind a key to "give weapon_flashbang" and piss everyone off. Or I use the same trick to make a giant pile of AWPs to hide in.
    • HL2 runs fine on my oldish 1.8GHZ AMD, Geforce 3 PC.

  • Clarification (Score:4, Informative)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @02:19PM (#11350422)
    When the news post said this: " It is not known by Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland and the rest of the NS Team whether NS:S will be a direct port or whether NS2 will use the Source Engine, UT2004 Engine, etc."

    To clarify that, NS:Source and NS2 are two different products. NS:Source would be a free Source mod, and NS2 will be a commercial product, who's engine hasn't yet been decided (though Source and Unreal Engine 3 are two engines that Flayra mentioned as possibilities).

    According to Flayra (Charlie Cleveland), NS2 will be a ~$50 game (In other words mainstream), and will require a multimillion dollar budget to pull off, in addition to requiring several years of development.

    Normally for a first time developer to get such a huge budget would be rare, but Charlie has proven with the original NS that he can put out a cutting-edge genre-defining game that pushes the rendering engine to the limit. That will count for something.
    • Not to mention the fact that it would be a perfect way for Valve to start forcing Steam mod purchases on us. This was the one reason I didn't want Steam to be mandatory. Just watch, they're going to start partnering with all the good big fun and formerly free mods, and charge you $5 to download a license for it.

      I may sound a bit paranoid now, but just you wait. Dice already bought up the DC team for bf1942, and now you'll be forced to pay for the next DC.

      I'm glad the NS team got some money, but what I'd

      • I don't think that will happen to Steam. There would be a huge uproar from mod developers if Valve started charging money for mods and didn't compensate the mod teams.

        On the other hand, if they DID compensate the mod team, I'm all for it. Actual budgets means nothing but better mods. One of the reasons NS has been such a great mod is that it followed the commercial development style, with professional paid voice actors, and the main coder working full time. The only difference is Natural-Selection was paid
  • Where exactly did the submitter get this info? I've heard nothing and I've been an NS player and follower since Day 1.

    • I'm wondering the same thing, but it isn't so hard to believe. The NS team did go and found Unknown Worlds Entertainment, and their jobs [unknownworlds.com] page does not look like your typical MOD. The Half-Life community has spawned games off of MODS before and no MOD is more deserving then NS.

      I personally would love to see NS developed on a better engine; I only feel it could enhance gameplay and the NS experiance. I am curious as to why they would consider another engine other than the source engine for the game thoug

      • Actually, the story is factually wrong. They are checking out the tech and the SDK of Source and seeing whether they want to put NS on Source. Their website [unkownworlds.com]'s latest news post says Charlie is THINKING about porting to Source. It's not a definite.
  • I'm sorry, this comment is almost totally pointless, but... YES YES YES!!!! I'm so happy, the original was one of the best multiplayer games ever, though it needed some attention that it never got to really balance it and make it a great competitive game. I really hope they get it this time around, what awesome news!
  • The NS site is really unstable at the momment(to be fixed soon) Anyway, NS:S IS NOT CONFIRMED. "We don't know for sure if we're doing this, as we haven't had time to evaluate how much work it will be, but everyone on the team is excited to do it, so I think it will happen." I'm preaty sure its going to happen, but it isn't confirmed yet

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