I hate video game companies, especially small "indie" companies like Unknown Worlds. I hate them because they make a product I want, a product I use several hours a day - video games - but they ###### around, tease, lie, and generally seem like they are run by incompetent morons.

When the Source engine was released and Valve provided Half Life: Source as an example of how easy it is to port mods to Source, I assumed that all my favorite mods NS, Sven, ZP, Science and Industry, etc... would all quickly make the jump to the new engine. I know they all use custom code so I was expecting an effort that would take several months, but as months became years it became apparent that no one was content to just port a game they all wanted to completely remake them. Why?

Natural Selection 2 should of been a straight port of NS to Source with enhanced textures, some new weapons and classes, and gigantic maps. They should of charged $10 for it (think Garry's Mod) and it should of been released a year and a half ago.

Instead they decided to just meander around doing nothing. If Duke Nukem Forever developers had a podcast, I bet it would sound just like the Unknown Worlds developer's podcast.

Here are some of the most recent podcast topics:

• New office!!!
• Let's talk about a single piece of concept art for 25 minutes.
• Features that are too complicated for us to pull off.
• We visit a submarine for inspiration.
• Engine switch <3 !!!

Unknown Worlds: stop adding features, stop talking about your office space, don't switch engines, just port NS to Source.

If you don't release something soon, there won't be an audience to buy your game. There has already been a precipitous drop in NS servers over the last year.

Edit:
I just noticed that I made the title of this post "Create a product the I can buy." I meant "Create a product that I can buy." I am going to get out my dunce cap.

While there are many inaccuracies in your post, this is the most glaring. NS1's current player numbers in no way reflect the numbers for NS2. A much better predictor is the number of Steam users.

Btw, to sum up this guys post for anyone who thinks it's too long and not worth reading:

Nobody is going to port NS to Source. There is not going to be an NS: Source. If you want NS: Source, you are out of luck. Unknown Worlds is making NS2, and it will sell NS2. It's clear this is not what you want, but it's certainly what a lot of other people want, and you'll just have to live with it.

I vaguely remember the issue coming up in the opening months of HL2's release. Something about the alien movement systems are a series of hacks into sections of the HL1 engine that were replaced by the Havoc physics engine. Wall-walking and winged flight would of needed reinventing from scratch. I believe the line of thought wasn't "let's remake our game from scratch", but rather "oh crap, we have no choice but to remake our game from scratch".

On top of that, the source engine & hammer editor are on a level of complexity that requires exponentially more skill and time to manipulate. That is why there really hasn't really been anything all that new or exciting outside of Valve's pet projects: Source modding is just too damn hard. While Valve succeeded in creating an awesomely modifiable engine, they raised the barrier to entry significantly, and that may well be the real reason as to why hardly any mod teams survived the transition.

That being said, while I really don't like the original poster's tone, I do think he has a fair complaint against the state of Source modding. I however place the blame on Valve's shoulders, not on the individual dev teams.

I think its funny because his entire post is banking on this:


What Valve has said is the absolute TRUETH and in no way shape or form are they stretching it.





HAHHAHAHHAHA

Im such a nerd

when hl2 initially came out the team did a lot of research, and discussed this issue with the entire community, and the decision was made based in large part upon the community's decision.

the team laid out the issues, described that huge parts of ns were hacks of the goldsource engine, and to port ns to source would require a lot more work than porting something such as halflife. I personally have looked at the source code for halflife 2, and it is quite a huge collection of code, and can be quite difficult to understand at first. the reason it took halflife such a short amount of time to port was because the people porting halflife were already knowledgeable about the sourcecode in the source engine, but more importantly the fact that halflife is a much MUCH simpler game in terms of code than natural selection.

because of these issues the community actually took a vote and voted on NS2, which would be a completely new game, on a new engine. Most people were hoping at the time for the new engine to be Source since it was quite a big deal at the time, but everyone knew regardless of what engine was chosen that this would be no short term endeavor.

Also, on the subject of people claiming that the new engine is a huge setback:
being a software developer myself I know how much easier it is to work with code I have written as opposed to code that someone else has written. In my job I personally have rewritten code that was readily available from someone else, just because I could work faster with my code than with someone elses. This gets more true exponentially with how difficult the code is that is being written.

The source engine is incredibly complex, and to actually create a new game on it would probably require the programmers to spend probably 95% of their time researching how the Source engine's code actually works, and only 5% of the time implementing their own features.

If they were to write their own engine, this would be almost reversed. The downside is that it takes time to write the engine, but once the engine is written their progress increases at the very least 10-fold.


It might be a little longer before we see something like ingame screenshots than if they were using the Source engine, but now that they are making their own engine the finished product will most likely be out a lot sooner.

So basically you're calling Charlie, Max, and the other developers working on NS2 morons, and telling them to just release NS on the Source engine with a price tag on it? That's a bit rude, don't you think? Have a little respect for the developers. Even if they did just port NS to the Source engine, it would NOT be out right now. Trust me, I know how long it takes to develop games/mods, even when you have something to work from (I am working on Black Mesa).

I really think you could have re-worded that entire post and left it open for discussion. However, you've worded in such a way that it is just flame bait, and you are going to get shot down, being on a Natural Selection 2 forum.

I think according to this guy, porting the game is as easy as just copy pasting the code into the Source engine and just launching the game.

Clearly, he got the technical aspect of this argument down well [/sarcasm]

What, it isn't?

Sounds like AGreyOne will love Intelligent Design, an NS like HL2 mod. A real flamer for your first post.

Ok yes there are less ppl playing NS, however if you release it on steam ppl are going to see it and buy.
saying that no one will buy if it dosen't come out soon, look at my topic about (If ns2 comes out in 2 years will any one play it?) ppl have put there answers and have agreed if the game is good there are going to buy it. You really should have put on a "flame proof vest" on

There is no way other way to put it, you are a fool. Do you really think that Unknown Worlds actually tries to go slow and mess with people just because it gives them kicks? Max and Charlie are pretty much rellying on NS2 for their income, they are banking everything on it being a success. There is no logical reason why they would not put close to 100% of their efforts into it to make the best game possible. If it was as easy as YOU think it is to make a completely working balanced bug free game that they could sell, they would have realeased in a hearbeat.

Unfortunantly for us, creating games isnt as easy as porting code. And I think you seem to be forgetting the fact they want to make some massive changes to the gameplay and game mechanics.

If you dont want to wait, go make your own game.

Sums up the thread. As a counterexample to the 'losing interest' point, team fortress 2.

1. Why are you here?
2. Making games is a difficult business. They don't aim to port the HL1 mod to Source, they aim to make a new experience. If it were so easy to 'port code' then why haven't you done it yourself? In fact, how many developers do you see actually wanting to just re-create their game on a different engine? Exactly the same.

I know he posted this and probably left, but the degree of stupidity and thoughtless, ignorant impudence in his post is outright retarded.

Most of you are right. I haven't personally looked at Source and the closest I have gotten to modding Gldsrc was map making.

I assumed that because Valve said modding was easy and because it is in their best interest to have a thriving mod community - that they would make it easy.

As to me inferring that Charlie, Max and other devs are morons. They're not morons. They just seem to be doing a lot of research and not a lot of development.

About how long the dev cycle is taking: Pogo your mod is free and made by guys doing it for fun. Unknown Worlds is a software company trying to create a product. A company with dedicated full time staff should be able to create a mod much faster than hobbyists.

Garry's mod was developed by one person, Garry Newman, on his own time for fun. It's been in ongoing development for over 3 years, and was free for the first year and a half after its release. This just proves if you make a good product people will buy it, which is why it has been on the Top Sellers list since it has been released. NS was one of the the better mods for HL1, and is still being played 6 years after its first release, which MANY HL1 mods can't say they have done the same. NS2 has a huge fan base, whether the amount of people playing NS now shows it or not. I myself haven't played NS in a couple of years, but I know that I will buy NS2 because I believe Unknown Worlds will be able to create an exceptional game.

And honestly, you have to give Max and Charlie some credit. They started this company from nothing but donations, and I'm sure a huge amount of their own income. Considering the almost monopoly-like producers like EA, they are lucky to even be where they are now. Having a proprietary engine and being a start up company is a huge deal. And the fact that they have one man creating the engine from the ground up is just remarkable.

And if they did just 'port' NS over to the Source engine and call it NS2, well, what's the point? Look at TF2, they rebuilt it from the ground up, and it took them 6 years to do it. Yea, I might not be an active member of this community, but I follow Unknown Worlds progress and I read this forums and this post gave me the urge to say something. That is all. And a ba'day to you.

Honestly sounds like your everyday 12 year old gamer kid. The type that thinks cause he can use a GUI map maker he is the sole authority on game making. Because the internet is a series of tubes made my Al Gore......... Being a networker i have first hand experience with how complex every little simple looking thing in computers is when you get down to the nuts and bolts. Its the same for networking as it is for programming and game making. It may LOOK simple to the untrained eye or LOOK like it takes little amounts of time but when you really get stuck into it the complexity, difficulty and high skill/talent requirements hit you in the face like a sack o bricks. Don't mistake this for flaming cause i really couldn't care all i want to do is tell how freaking hard this stuff is to do and how most people who get the end product (weather its internet access to your favorite site, a program you like or a game you just bought) seem to take this stuff for granite. I truly believe his problem to be entirely pebkac. Have some respect for people.

see even I(who knows very little about modding and code making) knows that it takes a long time to make something just "WORK", let alone playable.

Funny you should mention them...

When they hired Cagey, both the B.U.S. & his work on a brand new map compiler optimised for NS vanished. Even here, they've left their mark.

And yet we keep buying their unfinished soon to be abadonned products (ahem battlefield series )

I love going off-topic, don't you?

He has a good point about the blogs.

you guys are getting trolled, and hard.

yeah he does. i can understand that programming a new stand alone game engine would be quite a set back for those involved in the programming of ns2 but where the hell are the models/maps? how many years has it been? and still, all they do is more concept art, you have enough, start turning these into actual game assets. i can never get back the time i wasted listening to those pod casts but u can at least put the bloody wacom away and show us something new next time.
now, bring on the defensive fanboys.

OMG DUUD U NUB
U NOE NUTHING IT TAEKS SOOO LONG TO CODE

That may be, but where are models and maps, like the above poster said?

Now I may not have followed the development too closely but I remember when NS2 was first announced I was stoked. From then on I have checked every few months or so and I'm continually disappointed with the lack of models, maps and sounds.

I understand that there are only a small amount of developers but after these years you would expect to see at least some stuff that would make it into the game, no matter how pressed for time they are, they still get quite a lot of donations and if they spent half as much time as they did on models then they do on concept art podcasts then I would expect there would be some eye candy to keep people interested.

In short, instead of jumping on original poster's back and blindly insulting him with cries of "you don't know anything, I used to do XXX (where XXX is something barely even REMOTELY related to generic computer stuff), it takes ages", think, what about models and maps? They're pretty quick, and yet there are none.

What do you want, an apology that development takes time? Because you assumed it would be quicker? If the behind the scenes updates anger you so much don't listen to them, there are overwhelmingly many more of us that appreciate them taking the 10 minutes out of their day for us.

You see that's the problem, there are so many people that are content to throw money at them and get concept art back every couple weeks.
If that's all the people expect, that's all the developers are gonna give.

Development takes time, sure, but what development? I'm not seeing any.

and wouldn't you say they've had a fair bit of time by now?

regardless of your assumptions or feelings, NS2 is their game and they're pretty much allowed to take all the time in the world to complete it. not one person on the dev team owes anyone here a single goddamn thing and if you're not content to wait for the release of the game then there isn't anything keeping you from walking away and trolling elsewhere.

yep you cant do much except for wait really

sure they don't, but in considering their position in a business sense, they are not doing themselves any favors in letting interest and awareness of their product die down, especially since they now apparently have an office which isn't going to be paying for itself. If i was someone who had donated to the future development of NS then i think i would feel the dev's do owe something a little better than a cool blue icon for all this time.
I'm not posting here demanding they make this game just because i hate the dev team, before you get all defensive in the hope of getting a beta key or a big hug, think about why i would speak out. I post because of how much i enjoyed the original NS and i don't want to see it die. if this dev team is not going to carry on the legacy, if the fans are willing to work harder than the creators, then there is a problem here and the torch should be passed on to someone who is actually motivated to see this thing live.



last time i checked, waiting 4'ish years for anything is a pretty good effort before i start b####ing.

QFT

beta key? please leave.

ibtl

That's just so wrong... If that had been the case. Sure it MIGHT have been a nice way to make a cheap buck out of a "franchise"... and also create a lot of resent from your fans. The EA Battlefield franchise is the prime example where they just came up with countless expansions and sequels one after the other leaving previous games and thus current fans behind and without support (ouch!). Now I think that is a pretty nasty way to treat the consumer. Consequently this makes me resent the ##### gamers that feed these companies poor behavior and just buy any ##### big companies throw at them.

I appreciate companies and do care about making high quality and innovative games and tend to come up with fewer well done games which actually offer NEW experiences.

That said, I find it incredibly disturbing that you come here (UWE's "home"), insult, and ask one of my favorite game developing companies to behave like the companies I don't like and sell you some #### port with no innovation. Just "new textures, more weapons and classes".

Seriously, what were you thinking?

NS is still there as awesome as ever for you to play and enjoy at no extra cost. So go play it. I still play it more than any other game I have.

NS2 will be a NEW and different game with the same core game play principles. I'm quite happy with that, as I would not pay for just fancy textures.

[edit]

I grant the point about the updates (though I prefer "crappy" updates than no updates) and sure we all want NS2 to be out faster. But the OP was asking for NS:Source=NS+fancier textures... how many of us want that? Not me.

The constellation issue is one I'm not familiar with. What exactly was the point of those donations?

I love NS, like UWE, and if NS2 is good: THEN I'll give them my money.

Look, I understand your concern for their business prospects, I share the same interest in seeing more to assuage my concerns but don't be too harsh:

- pretty sure its only been around the 2 year mark since they ran that survey asking us what we wanted and then announcing their intention to do NS2
- considering that it was only until recently in the development cycle that they have been financed from anything other than their own savings from other work
- considering that the team used to be one person with off site help, then two people with off site help, and only recently office site with a fluctuating but growing development team size
- considering they have shown us tools, proof of concept, work in progress code blocks

All things considered, their kimono is so wide open right now they practically run a nudist colony just a few steps shy of being open source.

Consider for a second why you wouldn't reveal a piece of work you consider to be incomplete to public scrutiny? Have you ever done it? I remember doing it as a kid, and people assume its the finished deal! You end up explaining till you are blue in the face how its a work in progress and even then people think your work is sub-standard, judging your final product before they see it because they just don't care enough to pay attention long enough to realize what they are looking at is incomplete at this time.

I am proud of their business to public relations acumen up to this point without casting aside their open and honest natures, traits hard learned from publicly releasing a mod, something people freely berate them for even though its free of charge.

Cut them some slack, its not like they are balancing your life's work and future prospects on a razors edge, its theirs.

Doing indy work is incredibly risky, if threads like these are anything to go by, since we are obviously all so understanding of the process of making the jump from free mod to purchased full game.

You know what, to answer the title "Create a product that I can buy.", have you tried the very casual priced game that they made? Zen of Sudoku. You can get it off of Steam and here is the website - http://www.unknownworlds.com/zen
Personally, I enjoyed it, especially the art. Better than buying those paper Sudoku books, that's for sure. IIRC, you can even try it for free for a bit before you buy a product they created. One of the easiest ways to help fund the development of NS2 too.

yes, typical fanboy thing to think, since i am criticizing the methods of the beloved dev team i am therefore, sitting here screaming my head of at my computer screen in a fit or rage..."



I am, and considering "its only been around the 2 year mark..." I'm saying that's slow.



sure, the only tiny difference being that this will not be free.



ahuh, and back then they managed to produce the wonderful ns1, what has gone wrong since then?



I'm not wanting them to show me their WIP's or wire frame renders that u think may be interpreted badly. By now they should be far beyond that, they should be able to show some complete and finished game assets such as models which are finished.
also, you are somewhat contradicting yourself in suggesting first that "their kimono is so wide open right now they practically run a nudist colony just a few steps shy of being open source.", mentioning "their open and honest natures" and then going on to say that they are hiding their monumental progress from everyone to avoid "people think[ing] [their] work is sub-standard."




... you've gotta be ######ing kidding me, now your advertising for them...

...

Wow.

Forget it, I tried to be constructive here, bridge the gap of understanding, propose a compromise in ideology but the trolls are under the bridge, which is well on fire now, demanding their toll, huh? Just want to stoke the flames higher, eh?

At this point I could hardly expect you to understand these are concerns that have been voiced before by myself before in past pod cast threads and the like.

Yup, that's me, big unthinking sheep like fan boy, not some one with an interest in indy developed games so I get some different gaming experiences than the main stream titles. Sheesh. *shrug* Oh well, just another forum goer to add to the ignore list.

No, I think Jackson3113 is actually just trying to have a discussion on the development process of NS2, and so am I.
If you notice, all of your points have been separately rebutted and argued. But I guess that's just trolling, eh, when people have different opinions.




Once again, it's merely a rebuttal of your points and so I think you should settle down, tone off the sarcasm and actually be prepared to maintain a reasonable argument rather than calling "LOLWUT TROLLZ I CBF U = IGNORED" as soon as someone has taken the time to point out the flaws in your post.

can you please tell me how I'm the troll here and your the one being "constructive?"
your not trying to bridge the gap of anything, your trying to tell me to shut up when all i'm trying to say is it is sad and frustrating to see this project going nowhere when i want to see it grow. (and so do you, i thought)
there's no conflict in ideology here that you need to find a compromise for, i'm expressing a valid point and so far you haven't said anything of weight to the contrary, all you've done is said "shut up and leave the devs alone, i love them and no one should care how long they take to make this game"
i don't have anything against you at all and i'm not attacking you as a person but what can you expect me to say when u post something like you did
where you where only trying to act as the dev teams' guardian angel by hushing me and not giving me or anyone else a reason, then why wouldn't i call you a fanboy?
in a debate one is meant to rebut another arguments, thats all im doing here. But you can call me a troll for expressing my thoughts on the points you made if you want.
noone needs to defend the dev team, why cant the dev team defend themselves? this is there website/forum we're on after all.

I seriously just got lost. Can someone try to recap in a few sentences what was the argument about? I'll give it a shot.

Let me try to recap.

*We ALL want NS2 to come out fast and good!
*Its apparent that UWE is not able to deliver on that (not that they ever promised it)

And now we stand divided in two groups:

*1st group says: If you can't make a good product fast, then make the product FAST then. (Original Poster included)
*2nd group says: If you can't make a good product fast, then make the product GOOD then. (Myself included)

Is that about right? Well... you may proceed then, because I got nothing to say that will settle this argument. Even though I wish I had.

no, i'm more saying: "make a product. (instead of making nothing slowly...)"
or at least: "If you cant make a good product at all, then don't pretend you are."

Honestly this thread is basically an angry widdle guy screaming to other angry widdle guys because there game got insulted or something.

Anyways here goes my opinion.

The NS2 blog isn't really a blog but more of a "here is what we carefully planned to tell you in a nice round table with a microphone every week" then it turned into a "we ran out of furniture we bought at this store to talk about so were going to be quiet while the game gets 100% complete" then it basically turned into a "um we are making game really cool look here is generic Lua code" being the nerd I am cheered for Lua then stopped because they didn't post annnnything remotely interesting.

It would be better if it was stuff like.

We are currently making a cool shader for NS2 so it doesn't look like ###### like the Iron Grip port to it's own engine did or here is a map we started working on last week it's not done but then again we aren't nazis who are afraid to show WIPs.

I have to agree that it is frustrating having a lack of updates that show us some of the real nitty gritty they've been working on.

But I am holding out high hopes that NS2 will be a great game and will be as popular, if not more, than NS once was. But it would be nice to give the avid NS2 followers something juicy to see.

Holy crap, there are some pretty insulting comments and accusations being made in this thread.

Look, we appreciate the passion people have for NS, and understand that a lot of this anger comes from people's desires to get their hands on NS2. But please, try to realize that we are busting our asses on this game, there is progress being made despite the assertions to the contrary being made in this thread, and posting angry comments with no facts to back them up is really not helping the situation at all.

We have 4 fulltime people in the office. I was only hired a few months ago. Previous to that, there was very little concept art being created, which meant that the textures and models that were being made, were being created in a vacuum, more or less. I'm sorry if you feel that creating quality textures and models is fast and easy, but I've worked in the game industry for over 8 years now, and I know that it's not, especially when there is no concept art to work from.

Every game goes though a pre production period, where they are focused on concepting, R&Ding, and designing. This can last anywhere from 6 months to a year. Yes, NS 2 has been worked on in some form for longer then that, but during most of that time there were no fulltime, artists, and a lot of Charlie and Max's time was spent on the business end of things trying to get some money to be able to hire some artists. I have worked on games at other companies that took years to make with teams of up to 80 people. At Unknown Worlds we have 4.

Yes, we have been creating a lot of concept art oriented podcasts and videocasts. This doesn't mean that we don't also have level textures and prop models, and player models and textures either finished or being worked on. But, releasing a videocast showing a finished concept painting is a lot easier for people to visualize, then to make a podcast around a wall texture.

We are trying to be open with our fans, and include them in the development process as much as possible. We wouldn't be here without your support, and we want to give you a game that we are proud of and lives up to your expectations. I can't see how taking the time to release every little half finished model, texture or map, contributes to that end goal.

I really don't want to turn this into an even bigger discussion, and I'm not trying to make excuses, but it's hard for me to sit by, knowing how hard Matt is working on environment art, how much effort Charlie is putting into gameplay programming, game designing, and game directing, and how many nights Max has stayed up until 3 in the morning working on his awesome new graphics engine. I hope everyone can chill out a bit more, and try to keep these forums from turning into a negative place to hang out. Thanks.

--Cory

Cory ftw. 'Nuff said.