The Natural Selection Technology Release is now available! It is now available for download and is 20 megabytes. There is nothing playable or pretty in this release, as Worldcraft knowledge is required to use it. It is for mappers only. If you're a mapper...rejoice! Then start posting your work to the mapping forum...
The screenshots section has been updated with some recent mapping screenshots from maps in development. Many of these are shots from the mapping forum. Click "screenshots", then "Player view".
We're getting ready to release a stripped-down version of Natural Selection for mappers so they can better create maps. Here's the breakdown:
Non-playable, for mappers ONLY Based off of Half-life version 1108 Fully customizable particle systems New lighting and sound entities Functional "commander mode" The custom .fgd, with many new gameplay entities Over 10 megs of custom textures Many sample maps with examples of all new entities and features Will be released as separate mini-mod, it will be a 27 meg download
Once again, this build is NOT playable and not meant for most players, but is for those who want to try creating a map for Natural Selection. The release is coming soon, check back here and in the forums for more information.
We're still waiting for word back from Valve, but we're hopeful that we'll be going to San Francisco in a couple weeks. In the meantime, the team has been adding new goodies from the upcoming Half-life 1108 patch. Natural Selection has now been updated to 1108 and now has voice support and HLTV support. The voice support allows players to easily talk without setting up extra software or introducing lag and HLTV is Valve's spectator mode that allows thousands of players to watch a game. HLTV also allows the mod to give hints about interesting events in the game so spectator's have a more interesting and dramatic viewpoint. It's great stuff and will really change how online games are played.
Natural Selection is being submitted to the 3rd Annual Half-life mod expo in San Francisco. If you're in San Francisco on September 27th, you may be able to see us demo Natural Selection to the public! Check this space for details as they arrive.