I have searched the forum to find out whether or not somone has posted this suggestion before; I had already decided to suggest this the moment I heard that NS2 would be developed. Over the years that NS1 exists, many things have changed; nearly all were for the better, yet some of the most loved features got lost in the process.

If you know what babblers are, continue to the next paragraph.
The babblers, for those that weren't around for the earlier versions; or those that just haven't heard of them before, I'll describe what they were like in NS 1.xx.
Babblers were Computer-controlled, skulk-looking aliens, spawned by the gorge. It was the gorge's 3-hive ability. Upon spawning the babblers would start jumping around randomly, trying to find marines to chomp at, once found they'd jump near it and start biting. They had little HP and weren't all that intelligent, but could be a great tool for the gorge to survive some of the harder situations. Once spawned, they remained for a set amount of time, or until they died; the damage was fairly low, I believe around 20 per bite, but it's been a while, so I'm not sure. Main problem was that they got stuck or bugged a lot, the HL1 engine just didn't have proper support for aliens like that.

The suggestion I would like to add for NS2 is similar to what Babblers used to be. Some main features to start with:
- Low HP (around 30% of a normal skulk)
- Low Damage (also around 30%)
- One unit can spawn more than one, say max. 4. If 4 are up and the ability is used, the oldest disappears.
- The ability can not be obtained easily (e.g. 3 hives required)
- One spawn should take around 50% of spawner's energy
- When no enemies are nearby, the spawns should follow the spawner around the map
- Duration of one spawn should be around 20~30 seconds.
- The ability should belong to a class that can not defend itself easily, such as the current Gorge.
* An NS2-related suggestion would be to only enable this ability when (dynamic) infestation is nearby (lore-wise bacteria clumping together to form the spawned lifeform, which fall apart after the set amount of time), this would also have a nice defending role in terms of gameplay. (not to mention the cool graphics)

Naturally, the HL2 engine and AI allows for far more sophisticated AI-controlled units. Perhaps you could even create a system to give the spawns orders; where you could make them a bit weaker, but last longer. The possible variations are countless. Also; they shouldn't look like skulks, in my opinion (also keeping in mind the lore), they should look very simple, just a body, paws and mouth. Creating them as bipedal would also be a nice variation. (Though don't make them look like chicken ) Finally, we could preserve the lifeforms' name; "Babblers", but something else, sounding more... serious would be nice as well. Just an idea: "Bacta" (Bacteria!)

Now I've done my suggestion, I would like feedback, preferably lots of it, but on-topic. Most of all, support! Help me get the loved ones back into the game!

Very cool idea!

May I suggest they look like the little dinosaurs that are used in, umm, I think it was Jurassic Park 2, they swarm a guy in a stream bed. Another possible look could be a spider-like creature. Or maybe even blend both those looks.

I like the inclusion of the Dynamic Infestation (DI) into the idea.

Plus, I would make them stick around till they die or until the creature that spawned them (maybe even the hive?) de-spawns them back into the DI.

Again, have to say, I think this idea has all kinds of fun for both the Kharaa and the Marines.

haha, i forgot all about the babblers and had to read your first paragraph. but yes, the babblers were cool, and it would be pretty nice to see these again. they made a nice change from the intimidating environments and other aliens. I don't condone a name change however

I liked the tactical importance of babblers, but I disagreed with them doing damage. The best thing about them wasn't the fact that they could kill marines, it was that a normal skulk could hide in with them and get in to entrenched marine areas because of the chaos. I'd love for babblers to be reintroduced some way to allow for this (as a second or third hive situation obviously), but if the coding of their movement etc couldn't be handled a lot better there's little point.

Yeah I'd like see them be more decoys than anything, maybe providing an effect like umbra and disappearing after taking 30%-50% dmg.

It would be cool if a gorge who chose them as an upgrade, upon death would spawn these. So just like the "last ditch effort" that redemtion brings, a gorge could choose to spawn these when he dies. The HPO they do could be very little, so it is more of an annoying thing to the marine, but it would still make them stop to shoot these creatures, opening them up to other aliens, plus would be kind of a funny thing if say the marine had lo health and these little guys killed him >D

yeah bring em back, ive mentioned a few times on these forums to bring them back. They weren't the smartest of creatures but they were funny to watch lol.

yeah, i like , i like

I think the name should still be babblers, too; when you think of what they are, the name just kind... fitted in well. And it would be nice for the oldskool fanboys. ^_^




I would say that damage is not the most important function. In my opinion they should do *some* damage at least, some passive aliens would seem somewhat useless. It doesn't have to be much. But there has to be reason not to ignore them. When they were still in the game, I did indeed use them to cause confusion; e.g. spawn a few when skulks were nearby to help or spawn some when I ran off. If they'd have no damage, marines would just ignore them and run on. Also; I really don't like the idea of them becoming some sort of umbra-like creatures. They have to be active and semi-retarded. (which means that they don't have imba bunnyhopskills, but will go and jump at a marine when nearby)


I'd say.. no. This would totally eliminate all the tactical purpose of the ability. You have to be able to choose to spawn them at any point in a fight, to turn the outcome. Your ability, however, does sound like a nice ability for another alien; more of in the sense of "flies" buzzing around the corpse, stinging or biting nearby marines, doing little damage.

---

Another small elaboration; I already suggested a way of ordering them around, for instance you could use a "spit"-like ability. Where the spit hits, the babblers go, if it's a marine or structure they attack, if it's something else, they'll move there. (Think of the game overlord)

yeah, that sounds neat. You could spit into a vent, and have it so they stay put until some marines come by > babbler ambush maybe even make them cling to walls and ceilings so you could have them wait above doorways.

Or even another twist, use them as "guards" for the poor little gorgie.
Gorge is working an area, hears marines... Spawn 1 or 2 babblers and they just sit there until marines come into view, at which point they attack doing 25% damage of a normal skulk. That gives little gorgie time enough to wander away in search of a more friendly environment.

I have always wished that the gorge had some sort of "cry for help"... I am always trying to text others to say "hive! hive! hive!", and using the voice comm to yell at them the hive is under attack, or that I am building and am under attack [i play gorge everytime I am an alien, I love it]. Why does the gorge not have some sort of battle cry [but for help]? Kind of like the lerk, whos voice can be quite loud.

Please do stay on topic, if you would like to make a suggestion of your own, feel free to create the topic!

Keep the ideas flowing guys! The ordering around sounds promising to me.

babblers ftw! I'd love to see them come back in one form or another.

i quite liked having them look like skulks for the reason that they are decoys for the real skulk players, marines get confused and won't know which to shoot.

Wow, I had to read your first paragraph to. Been a long time since I have seen those in game. I think it would be an excellent addition to the gorges arsenal and a great throw back to ns1. Personally i would hate to see Bile Bomb or web lost but I think having them as a 2nd hive ability would be useful. I suppose depending if the Kahraa have more abilites from hives then adding them won't be a problem. I do hope to see them back in, able to do a little damage and work as a distraction for gorges. Would be a great tactical addition to many potential problems any battle gorge would face.

hmm, i didnt play NS alot, but i think i recall some hordes of skulk-like thingies coming down halls like madmen. it was one of those LAN moments of "wtF are you kharaa players doing over there?!?!?!!!" and they would just laugh and we marines would scream out as we fired bullets into these things that came in hordes.

i only really got three things to say about babblers in ns2 though: left.4.dead. not a bad thing though, i'm just saying that doing something like that(clever AI, fluid animations) would really kick posterior when it comes to aliens. but it would probably quite quickly unbalance the game as the marines have to fight off hordes of AI-controlled aliens and players at the same time.

there is always a way to balance - e.g. babblers take double damage from turrets or something - or just make them weak so they are more of a decoy or meat sheild for the players that do the real damage etc etc

of course you can balance things by giving them a smaller impact on the game, but then they might become more of an annoyance than a game-defining moment.

what i'm trying to say is really that i don't want to see them ingame just because that its cool with hordes, i want them to fill a niche that helps the kharaa. sure being cannon-fodder is basically a niche, but it should be more than just a "spawn and forget" weapon.


one option would have been if they were like the 'children' of the gorge, following it around and protecting it in case someone is out hunting gorges. the gorge player would then have the possibility to give the babblers orders depending on what he wants them to do.
Put them on sentry somewhere and they'll be defensive and warn the gorge and the hive about intruders.
Order them to follow the gorge around and they will distract the enemy while the gorge finishes what he was planning to do/running away.
Order them to hide in corners and ventilation shafts in a room, wait for the marine to come in, start shooting after the gorge, the gorge runs past a corner, the marine comes after, the gorge orders the babblers to attack. the marine suddenly realizes the room he just ran through was crawling with little buggers that now will crawl all over him and practically do him in. hehe, now this is something that i would have loved to see in a multiplayer fps

Gorges being the master's of miniature army of alien minions?!?!. GREATEST IDEA EVER!!

But I don't think gorges role should be changed. I think slot one should be the babbler's. Since I believe alt fire was likely to be included into this game, I think the alt fire for the first ability should spawn your babbler. You would have a small limit (2-4 depending on balance, I would rather them be weaker and be able to have more though) on how many you could have, you would have to stay still for a moment when creating it, and it would cost a TON of energy (like 90%). Primary fire would be your current standard spit attack, but instead of being an attack it would direct your babblers to do something, if you spit a marine, they would attack him, same with buildings. You could direct them to certain points, but this would only make them go their and stay for a moment, then come back. They wouldn't be able to assault a base without you going in too, they would essentially be glued to you and follow you everywhere. They would be very weak though because I don't want the gorges to become a combat race, or even really to have the potential to do so. Babbler's would be defenders and distractions and would suicidically throw themselves at the gorges enemies like little nub skulks allowing the gorge to flee or call for help. (or if the marine is weak/bad/not expecting the gorge, possibly even kill him)

but yes, gorges with little babbler minions... YES YES YES YES YES YES YES but gotta keep the gorges as support and not evil little war machines

"Omg Haxxor..." "nothing can stop the babbler!!!"

That is a cool idea, gorge would be kind of like a hive mind, might be overly complicated to actually do in the game though - and it might step on other players toes a bit - but i guess as an end game ability it would awesome seeing the gorge as a skulk master

What about this idea -its very simple and probably sounds dumb now that ive read your post lol - you can only spawn one babbler at a time, but you can control it as you do a normal skulk (it could be faster but weaker ), when it dies you spawn another one. Kind of like those old quake mods where you fly a missle from the missles view.
Basically this would give the gorges two uses for babblers, scouting ahead, and overwhelming the marines with a constant barrage of skulks.
The gorge could even be invisible if it gets the sc upgrade.
All without the server crashing goodness haha.

woo positive replies, better watch out so i don't burst my head myself



the gorge role wouldn't be greatly compromised if you gave it the option to have babblers. it wouldn't and shouldn't be compulsory. consider it a sort of mutation available for gorges, so that they can sacrifice speed or stealth or whatnot for the ability to spawn and control babblers. it will still be a very supportive class as babblers would( if they were implemented, goes for my entire reply as i prefer not to add the "if" all the time) wouldn't really be trustworthy enough to use against a properly defended site.

How you create your babblers is a bit unimportant. you could spawn them from your own body at timed intervals, filling up your "babbler-pool" which varies in size depending on hives. you could have them spawn at some alien buildings, just go up to one and fill up your pool, or you could create them as minor buildings and nurture them up. probably many other options as well, like using energy to spawn them, but its important that its either easy or quick.

whats more worrisome is how you would control them. a drop-down menu would be the easiest to make (fresh) people understand. But the most reflexive would be a "pheromone-grenade"(if thats what they call the stuff they use to control the ant-lions in hl2). but depending on the tactical demands, you would have "aggressive pheromones", "defensive pheromones" and "stealthy pheromones". All of these would have the standard "squeeze to center on yourself"-alt-attack, and "spit/throw" primary attack to send them in a direction.
Defensive(blue?) would cause them to stick around a place and attack people coming within range, if on personal they will follow you around and attack things that attacks you.
If you use aggressive(red) and spit on something, they will probably go into search-and-destroy(in groups, not alone like some black guy in the beginning of a cheap horror-movie), if you use it on yourself, they will probably follow you around and attack anything in sight.
Stealth(purple/black?) would cause them to "hide"(if its even possible to try to make an AI try to hide itself while being invisible, would require a minor AI-genius) and perhaps run away if attacked depending on the distance between themselves and the aggressor. used on your person and they would probably spread around a bit away from you, so that they would be able to jump at anyone trying to sneak up on you if you give them new orders.

one of the advantages of spitting pheromones though is that you can put aggressive on a skulk, and they would follow it around like if they were following you around. if you put them on aggressive on the skulk, he can just get them around a corner to spawn chaos, and then come around himself later on





i thought NS was known for being a complicated game . it can probably be annoying to other players though. but think of it this way, the biggest difference on a babbler and a defensive tower is that its moving around and doesn't take as much punishment(and doesnt do ranged attacks but the mobility kinda makes it a projectile). and yeah, being a master over like 6-10 babblers at 3 hives would have something of a charm to it

its not a bad idea, but it kinda sounds like something different in my ears, kinda surveillance-stylish. sending off some bug to 'bug' the enemy is handy, but it doesnt sound like what I expect from babblers(i.e meatshields in groups). would have been fun with a parasitic "giant" mosquito that you can fly around to spot marines, and with the right upgrades even being able to use as a kamikaze attack that gives them the parasite-detection thing.
or to simplify it, perhaps they've already figured out a new way to use the parasite, so that you as a kharaa player are able to see what the enemy sees in some distorted manner. would make the parasite even more handy than just tracking down marines.


hrm, i'm getting late for bed, all write and no sleep will make me a dead man tomorrow.

I agree with most of what you said here. I like your idea's of having the babbler-pool growing with the number of hives, though I would rather see the babbler as an ability then something you spawn from a building, if only because when you need the babbler's most is probably not when you have structures all around.

I REALLY don't think babblers should be able to go very far from the gorge. If they can go wherever, you could rush gorges as a team, camp out in a gorge fort and send the one skulk on your team run around with 40 babblers on his tail. If one died or even all of them, who cares, you can just keep replenishing the stock from the safety of the fort. I would hate to see babbler's only be available very late in the game too, (to stop the gorge/babbler rush) because I think they would be a very useful and fun tool for the gorge to defend himself with early game, and would become pretty useless against tools like electricity and gls, which can be plentiful late game. The babbler's role should be defensive, and they should only attack a base if the gorge is too.

What about make a new alien with the babblers and leave the gorge with the skills it has now?

That's why I left the "spawner" in the middle. It can be a gorge, but doesn't have to be. Whichever alien gets it, it'll be my favourite!

one way to stop blabber rushes is to make them slowly loss health when not on DI, so they cant be used totaly offensively

First thought, Snark, which is awesome! =D

I really like the idea, imagen the first case of gorge rush EVER! =D

Maybe if they were small long-legged like creatures? =D

I think something with eight long legs and a tiny body would be really scary to encounter in a vent! x3

yeah, i also would say that it can't be a lurk-clone. has to be something creepier . though try thinking of something without facehuggers and headcrabs as inspiration and you got a bit of a tricky job to do.


don't think blabbers would be as scary as player-controlled aliens, so the risk for them being overly effective on the offensive is very small in my opinion.

i wonder if the egg laying on the about page has something to do with babblers.

Gorge lays eggs.
after a few seconds they grow into babblers!
Babblers go mental and chomp stuff

I think instead of time based they could be like Kharaa-style proximity mines, so to say. Babblerbombs? Anyways, gorge could lay one of these, walls ceilings only on infestation or whatever could be worked out, and whenever a Marine walks in range.... POP! A babbler shoots out and goes after the nearest marine.

this is slightly off topic but vaguly similar. I recon the comm should be able to drop hologramatic marines. They would not have to do much other than look convincing from a distance. When you get close they may appear more transpartent or different in some way. But theyd make dam good decoys. Theyd have to cost res and be limited in number and they wudnt be able to do any damage. I guess they coudl either be destructable or only last a period of time. They would nessesarily have to move round much thro theyd hav to move a bit like human players. And they shoud be able to shoot but not do any damage as in perform the animation and make shooting sounds with out actually discharging ammo. If the comm dropped on of these with a group of marines it could make their numbers seem greater. It could be used to draw out camping skulks. The hologram could be the first in to a room and the skulks may come out and attack it loosing the element of supprise. It could also be used to draw skulks down corridors away from other marines

This is a very cool idea, like the hologram in Duke Nukem 3D, and perhaps it should have its own thread?

One thing that always bothered me about babblers/snarks is that.... when they die, its just a bit stupid... why would they just explode?

I think maybe if shot by marines, they could explode, like a gorge spit frag grenade, or bile grenade...

I dont think they should have timers


Also... uh...
I think babblers should have a more intelligent AI control, and should have a proximity around wherever they were dropped, which they would randomly roam around, and attack if enemies come.

They would last forever, but in the same way as web, you could have only say... 3 in proximity to each other, for each player.

I like the idea. Either the gorge spawning them or dieing and they spawn would work and be very cool. I also agree and think 100% they should be used as a decoy role. This would allow others to run in among then and help get revenge on those marines that just killed that gorge. As well as distract them that little extra time you needed.

Well, this can easily be explained lore-wise. Bacteria clumping together forming the lifeform, after some time becoming incoherant, eventually falling apart. The only things you'd have to do is make a nice animation for it (cloud of bacteria expanding from the dead babbler). And the explode should only occur with enough force in my opinion, like a GL or mine. There's many ways to go on this. Secondly, I don't like dropping them as free sentries; that would degrade the tactical use as opposed to having them follow the gorge, enabling the gorge to order them around. An option there could be to just put them on sentry somewhere, somehow.


They are decoys. Babblers have never been strong enough to easily solo marines or anything; perhaps if the gorge is really skilled, the combo of healspray and babblers could keep him alive long enough to kill the marine, but that wouldn't be easy. I think people are afraid this would become too strong, tipping the balance in the alien favor, but that won't happen easily, since there's a lot of things you can do to make the babblers weaker; less hp, less damage, slower attacsk, name it. (I'd go for decent HP, low damage, slow attacks to make them useful)

i loved babblers, i used to go gorge and help at the end of the game attack marine base with babblers. while they did a bit of damage to marines, they did a bit more to structures and would explode upon death and damage everyone around it..

I must admit, i died alot from my own babblers because they would hurt anything near their mouths, i think it was a bug, not sure, but they would kill your own team if not placed properly.

yes for babblers again.

How about have an ability that shoots a small egg that spawns a babbler. You would need to shoot it onto infestation then you will see a babbler spawn out. If their is no infestation nearby you can shoot the egg into a marines corpse.

I still have yet to find a video or see some pictures of these so called "babblers", does anyone have even one picture or Youtube link?

I had a quick look corpsman but no luck, just imagine a gorge spawning 4-5 babblers (skulks) in front of a marine, although they had very little armor and were pretty dumb, they were fun

They're creatures of old. I don't remember 100%, but I think you should still find them in NS 1.3 --> Good luck finding one of those clients. You could test them with a dedicated server though, just enable cheats to start the game.

lol, Bob killed by blabber

Anyway, this would actually work out great for my nonlinear evolution idea, i mean to have these for the first stage of the tree, and mabey head crab blabers for the second? It would be great!

(ive always wanted to see something headcrabish in ns)
mabey limit it 2 one head crab though, to have a marien to a gorge like beings bidding

Reason babblers were removed to begin with is because they used hl1 code for the snarks, which i'm pretty sure they wanted as little of the original code as possible without crippling the engine.

I'd love to see them back too, as i'm a big fan of =<1.04.

Were that the only reason, wouldn't they have added them back in? So many people loved them.. This topic is the... uhh... living? Proof of it!

I really love babblers, and if theres a chance to bring them back, they should be implemented in the best way possible.

In 1.04 babbler were just shot out of the gorge, and most of the time if the marine was already shooting the gorge, the babblers were killed as they came out and only worked as a sort of meat shield. There were few times where babblers were actually useful, like taking out resource towers and buildings, or trying to get away from a lone marine. But, now that gorge has bile bomb one of its uses is well, useless. And when your in a group most of the time the gorge should be healing, and not spewing out babblers.

Now I'm not saying that babblers weren't totally awesome, because they are! The only problem is having an ability like this, takes away one of the gorge's current abilities and is subpar to the ones the gorge currently has.

Rather than an ability, babblers would be built as an egg. And stay as an egg until a marine came into range a FoV. For example, a gorge just dropped a resource tower and is worried about leaving it alone. Well if its the start of the game, that gorge might not have enough resources to drop an offense chamber, so maybe he could drop a few babbler eggs. And then as the marines come into the RT room and think they get to take it out without a fight, babblers pop out of their eggs and attack them. Now depedning on the skill of the marines they could all die, or destroy all the babblers, but the babblers would have warned the aliens to the marine presence, and would have bought the aliens time to save their resource tower.

Umm i know this is off topic but that would go great with well lets say someone wants to gestate and is worried about being pwnd as a egg, just lay a few blabber eggs near him and hes well defended ^^.

i recon they should have hullucnagens (poor spelling) instead of babblers. In short the gorge should be able to shoot a barb kind of like the skulks parasite but with no sound effects and the marine doesnt get a warning. The marine can then see a skulk that isnt really there. Only the infected marine can see the skulk, and since it isnt real he cant kill it. The effect would ware off after a preset time, and the gorge wouldnt be able to reinfect the same marine with in a certian time period.

It would be uber cool cos the gorge could infect a rine and hed be shooting off at nothing while the gorge gets away. If he infected several rines they'd all be shooting nothing too.

Obviously pros would clockon to this trick pretty fast. alone gorge, suddenly becomes a gorge and a skulk? shoot the gorge. but if there was a real skulk with the gorge, which skulk is real which isnt? The hulluniation skulk with have to have a reasonably good ai so it wud move like a real skulk and when it eventually goes for the bite on the rine it dissapears.

This isnt quite the same as babblers and maynot be as powerful but i recon it wud be fun, and it would help the rines explore their sanity

This would be a really nice idea for another ability, but it doesn't do what I'd like the Babblers to do. The babblers should remain what they were in ns 1.xx - small chompy aliens that swarm targets. Variations on this can apply, ofcourse, but in essence, they should remain just that.

that was a kinda interesting idea, but not a very babbler-like one. i like the theory of affecting a marine so that he sees "ghosts", add in some sound-effects on top of that and you would easily be able to distract a marine enough to get close to him.
make a new thread for it...