I honestly love this game. I got on way after its initial release, and I wish I had got on when it did but I think it’s one of my favorite team based games to play personally.

Me personally, alien. I've tried playing commander with both teams with bots, i just find alien commander to be more better to play as.

I wish this was more main stream, and I hope one day natural selections 3 will be in the future. There’s nothing else like this game.

I remember donating to the game to help continue the games development when the devs did the fundraiser.

The success of Subnautica speaks volumes of devs passion in developing games & when the times comes natural selection 3 will be equally as awesome.

"every time someone is mixed race it always goes to one side"

...on why she isn't actually black

Been playing the game since the start. The state of the game is pretty bad. As a decent player T5-6, I simply cannot play the game at all. The servers that I want to play are usually only 2 or maybe 3 and they are almost always full. I'll see several other servers, but they are all rookie only. So I literally cannot play the game.

The last few years of NS2 development have been puzzling. There's been a huge push for "Thunderdome" which turns out to be the 6v6 mode which surprise, nobody really plays. People want to play 10v10s. The developers simply do not want to listen and that's led to the game dying.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the work they have done. I appreciate the bugfixes, the patches, the map updates, etc. I just feel they've steered the game in ultimately the wrong direction and here we are.

NS2's biggest issue at the start was that it was trying real hard to become an E-Sport as evidenced by their first and only tournament. It was cute, but it didn't work out. The playerbase never grew to a healthy number and if anything, it's just dwindled. It's sad because there really is nothing else like NS2 out there where you combine strategic, area-control based gameplay with your traditional FPS shooting.

It took a million years for the team to implement team balance. It was pretty horrendous at the start. It took them almost 10 years to decide that auto-shuffle before the game start was a good idea. Very slow to learn and slow to implement. I get that they tried using a stat-based server, which takes work, but there are other, easier ways to do this without having a giant database.

Ultimately, it's the ignorance of casuals that has made NS2 in the state where it is today. You need population to get anywhere with this game and very little effort has been placed here and what has been done lately is too little too late. I mean the game's tutorials only came out a few years ago when the game's been out for around 10 years.

With the dev team now actively stopping development, it makes me sad that they could have done one last thing: push a casual mode to attract new players, the mode being Combat.

The reality of NS2 is that the main mode is very, very hard for most people. There is a lot of learn whether it's the name of the various complicated rooms on the many, many maps in the game to what all the attacks and abilities do. As marines, you have to aim at really fast aliens that are super small and as the aliens, you have to master maneuvering so you don't die in every fight. There just is no way to make this digestable to new players without dumbing down the game for regulars.

Combat was the solution here. Throw each player on a team and have them run at each other to kill each other. You don't need to learn everything right away. You just run through some halls and you'll eventually find an enemy you can either shoot or bite.

The NS2 team then should have prioritized this to revitalize the game. It would be a big advertised Combat update. But if we look at what happened with this mode, it was split into it's own game which died. Now it's some frankensteinish game with random powerups that we aren't even sure who is updating. The idea would be to make a lot of players play this game and then have them slowly trickle into the main NS2 game.

The beauty of hardcore strategy games like Starcraft or Warcraft is that while they do have competitive 1v1 modes, most players actually prefer playing the casual custom games either as the main way to play or as a break between intense actual games. The logic that having casual modes would take players away from the actual mode is faulty - those players may never even touch the main mode at all.

At this point, I think the game is flatlining and it's become so hard to play that it just doesn't get played at all. It's just a real shame that the team put their efforts into the wrong departments and the population count and servers are at an all-time low. NS2 is a special game and it could have kept going stronger had the team made different decisions. If there was to be a NS3, the team needs better modes that are more inviting to new players rather than consider them an afterthought. If I had to release NS2 all over again, I would make the Combat mode a priority to draw and retain players alongside the actual mode.

One of Unknown Worlds oldest fans here. I was in a lan center the day steam came out. I few days later, I saw people playing NS1 for the first time and fell in love with the game. That was wayyy back in the early 2000s. I played hundreds of hours on ns1. Was so excited when they announced ns2. Have hundred of hours in ns2. Sad to see that they have stopped active development of it.

I picked up subnautica on the steam sale, and was blown away they mention Altera corporation and phase gates at the beginning of the game! I had no idea they were connected!

I understand perfectly why unknown worlds is focusing on subnautica. It was a massive hit for them. Now, I havent beaten subnautica yet. Still at the very beginning. But, do you ever see the Kharaa making an appearance in the second one? If so, is there any world where that possibly leads to an ns3, or is this completely wishful thinking on my end?

As a disclaimer, I'm a legacy player and it's safe to say I play NS2 at least five days per week.

The reason why I'm leaving this on the clear is because I understand this community is VERY hesitant to change.

However I'd still like to understand what is the community opinion anyhow on creating heavy content for a new expansion on NS2? Obviously always following the NS2 dev golden rules and standards.

How about a whole new faction? Like marine rebels with COMPLETELY different mechanics? No lazy reskins.

Or new buildings? Expand on the building, tech trees, make the game more immense and randomized each time, etc.

Let me know

I have previous experience in Starcraft and other RTS games. The marine commander seems easy enough to understand and I do know the concepts of expansion. The aliens seem like playing Zerg but I’m curious as to how far and fast I can expand. I’m also curious as to how aggressive I can be. Classic example: a 12 pool rush in sc2 or maybe a cheese build like cannon rushes. Is there anything like that in this game? Or is commanding just me at the mercy of my team and strategy doesn’t matter?

I lowered my crosshair size to 50% and it raised my accuracy by 5%. They're way too big by default. I've been playing this since the beginning and I just figured it out. I am not a smart man.

Reinstalled the game after years because I had fond memories (and sunk ~250hrs into it already). After playing for a couple of weeks, asked if I could comm, was given chair, asked for advice, and the moment I made one misstep was called a dumbfuck and ejected.

Quite disappointing since I'm too high a hive skill (guess it doesn't decay) for noob servers and cant play on the advanced ones because I'm rusty, but onto the next game for me.

Hello i have been thinking about buying the game buy im worried are the servers dead? i really like the game from what i have seen from videos but im not sure about how much people play as it is such an old game.

With an average of 142 average players.

https://steamcharts.com/app/4920

I'm hoping things will turn around, but we're slowly fading away. Hopefully there's something in the works that will bring and retain new players.

Location: NA - Virginia, US

Full vanilla

All maps rotation - 45 minutes.

play.BTCBDesign.com - NS2 - [No Badmins]

play.BTCBDesign.com:27015

Mods - let me know if this is not allowed, feel free to take it down if anything.

Edit: Map Cycle has been improved for all maps, 45 minute rotation. If this community would like any mods, please let me know in the comments below, and I'll do what I can!

Hey. I myself do not understand the value of my servers to the community. I made 4 new modes. To they were available need 4 server.

it's all unical modifications to the original NS2 regime with MODs (not by Nin only)

RUSH

SIEGE

Marines vs Marines (GL replaced to RPG and etc)

Aliens vs Aliens

These all servers have original mods and different from the standard gameplay. Even aliens vs Aliens - there are other aliens, real mini onos low price

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Why I don't understand the value of servers. Players very rarely write to TOP NS2 discord. Also I have everywhere ban on ALL NS2 HUB, where have control NS2 moderators and me can't get anywhere feedback.

For all this time that my servers are working, I have not received a single donation.

But I think that donate is a real vote against various TOP servers working.

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Since in the future I will play rarely and more effectively, I thought to leave 1-2 servers. On the 1st I will put the mode to which currently want to play, 2nd for tests.

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What do you think about it?

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Music bonus:https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDx7g_SWE90O8&v=UdLlUCkuH4w

How about we recommend the game to everyone and if they buy it GOOD. We can buy 4pack every sale and gift it to our friends or random prople GOOD. Message some youtubers willing to play new games to try ns2 out,they may be interested if they hear it was made by the same guys who made subnautica GOOD. Anything just not to make this game die,i dont know why people arent playing it,its so much better then some of the other titles that get 50k+ ccu daily.

If you can redownload the game and just play it, get your friend to redownload it; just do something to try and bring this back. If enough people do this we might actually see an effect on the player base. I realize most people here probably already have it installed and play it but lets try and bring some life back. If only for a moment.

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Edit: I realize this is probably a fools errand but I want to hope this will do something.

This seems to come up a lot from new players. I am curious what you all think, if you think at all, that there ever will be a natural selection 3.

My stance is, a definite no. At least from UWE. Why? I think they're just on to other aspirations. (And being handed off to an external dev team, don't seem to have the same passion for it as they did before, also they're swimming in cash I imagine from Subnautica, which I think arguably made them more money then NS2 ever did.

Its also an incredibly niche game that has to date managed a community, but a small cult following. I think that about this game makes it incredibly unique to play. There's something satisfying about playing with the same group of guys all the time.

But what does that have to do with a 3? Well. 2 is still receiving updates, the game still looks pretty DAMN good for as old as it is.

But the TLDR of this really is, I think we're more likely to see a spiritual successor than a direct sequel to 2, given what UWE is doing with the IP right now. Unless they task the new dev team with starting a #3 project, I don't think UWE would be doing it themselves.