Hi, I've been a spectator of these forums for a month or so after learning about Natural Selection by chance on Steam. I'm a younger gamer, and unfortunately have a low tolerance for dated graphics...so I don't have any interest in NS. On the other hand, Natural Selection 2 sounds really great from the podcasts. I'm curious though, since I have no experience with the first game, how steep will the learning curve for NS2 be? Will the HUD for the Commander be different so that I am on an equal playing field with veterans of the previous installment? Will there be some sort of Commander or Alien tutorial?

Thank you for answering my questions.

can't answer for the dev's but from i've heard so far the game mechanics will be different enough that ns1 veteran commanders will not have much of an advantage, appart from little things, like knowing how to best layout a marine base or a better understanding of the tech tree - and those kind of things that can only be learned by playing the game.

poor vets lol

it even nowadays doesnt mean a veteran ns'ler is a good comm and such Oo
doesnt veteran only mean you're one of the oldschool players who are playing for ages?
if so, i know a lot of ppl playing a game (like ns) for years and still suck
its more about reflexes, coordination, processing gift.

so if you're talented you'll be good at ns2, but its quiet obvious a good ns(1) player is going to be good at ns2 aswell, but not because hes a vet, because he PROVED hes good at such things (in ns(1)).

and about the learning-curve: i hope its easy to learn, but hard to master. so you can easily become a average gamer, but hard to become really good. like tis!:

With comming specifically being a vet helps a lot. Knowledge of the game/maps can give you a big advantage even if you don't have the fastest reflexes. The maps for NS2 will be new so I suspect NS1 players will pick up the game quicker but everyone will have some learning to do.