ixkillxforxrice

Competitive NS is on its knees, at the mercy of Flayra and his Council of Developers. Anywho, competitive NS is dying, that will have a HUGE impact on the community if Caleague were to take NS off the list of competitive games.

My theory is that if Cal shuts down, most of the competitive players will leave NS for other games. Will much of the competitive players out of NS servers like NSA games, whose main players are competitive players, those servers will be losing money breaking even. Eventually those servers will shut down and there will be a huge influx of players migrating to other servers.

Those once empty servers will have people constantly connecting and leaving. Once they are near full, NSPlayers will join the game. They will be clueless, they will drop DCs or OCs and make everybody yell at that NSPlayer or spawncamping might occur and that NSPlayer will 'owned' over and over again. That NSPlayer might rage from the game, say that it has a community full of *******s (sorry for the language), sending negative vibes to those NSPlayers after him.

With the NSPlayers out the the picture now (there will be a few left after raging), It will be the experieneced players versus the normal, everyday, average pubbers. Problems might arise from these two conflicting groups. Admins may ban those experieneced players and they will go to other servers till they are banned from all and quit the game.

Now the gaming servers will be limited to atleast 20-30. Zombie panic (when i played it) is a another HL mod. When i played it, it had only two servers online! With both servers full, I quit the mod (even though i thought it was the most funniest and replayable mod). Which brings me to my next example. Players of NS will experience fullservers. Somepeople (like me) might quit the mod out of the blue and leave NS.

As one server becomes popular over another, other servers die. I forgot to mention that the number of players and servers affect what number the mod is on the top 20 mods in the steam window. I didn't want to play HLRally because it was near the bottom, same with the soccer (or football as some of you call it) mod. NS will gradually work it's way down this ladder if you say so, and people will play the mod only out of popularity, not game mechanics or uniqueness.

With fewer and fewer players entering this mod, due to its popularity, NS will have a short period of 'safety'. Things are great, you know everybody in the server and you are the best person in the game. After a few weeks, it gets boring playing with the same people OVER and OVER again (like playing in the server for 4 hours and 80% of them are the same people at the same skill level). Pretty soon those players will quit out of insufficient player database.

With only few average players in the server and below average players. Those below average players will seek out advice of there fellow natural selectors only to find out they have none. After that they will try acessing the Mod website, to find out that its not fixed. After finding out that this mod has a website that been down for a long time. They figure out for themselves that this mod is dead and quit the mod.

Dedicated servers like TGNS and aeRO MIGHT still playon. With a small database of players, the same thing will happen to these servers. Pretty soon, less and less players will be playing on these servers. Inactivity of the servers will lead to the server owners to be losing money instead of breaking even and eventually shut down.

There you go NS is dead, the most dedicated of the Natural Selectors will try to start their own servers and Lan Servers but will die without a boom. The death of NS is not like a Big Crunch stated in the Big Bang Theory. There you go, one of the best mods (imho) is dead. Like I said, this is only my theory, but the death of NS is its fate.

What can TGNS do?
Hope can start here. Players of TGNS should be interested in CAL. We could prolong the death of NS or even stop it if there were more servers like TGNS. Some Ideas that i have is to have more and more Captains Night. Or we should have a date which Captains night will occur, like Friday or Saturday. People could be interested in this, picking teams, MORE communication, MORE teamwork and MORE intesnse gameplay, because your honor is at stake. (LOL? didnt know what else to say).

TGNS could also have 'unoffical matches', CAL style 6v6. Where they could go on this forum and try to make a team of 6 that they feel comfortable with. This could happen everyweek or so and people could spectate these 'unoffical matchs' and say "I WANT IN!" Another way TGNS could get people interested in CAL is by hosting a "Admins versus Regulars" or "Supporters versus Regulars" night.

With a taste of CAL people of this server might be interested to Join CAL ( but first this forum would have to make a mIRC guide and tell them what channels are the major ones). With more and more players an clans join CAL, the division might be restored back to Omega and Delta instead of just the Big and Variably Skilled Gamma division. For those of you who don't know, Omega is the division of NS with new clans or 'lesser skilled' clans. and Delta is for those really good and competitive clans. If you people have anyother good ideas, post them here for consideration by the TGNS board of NS. (=D FAKE)

Conclusion
Overall, NS fate CAN be prolonged or even over, the developers have been there for us when we had problem, now we must give a hand to the developers and restore the community back to its former glory.


-RICE OUT

Iceberg

Hi, welcome to the TGNS community! (I see this isn't your first post, but it is your first topic )

Please remember to read over our rules and SOPS.

Many NS PTS and CAL Players are members and regulars to our community. Not only that, but there have been many times in the past where the TGNS community has created in house clans and played through a CAL season or two (meaning there are quite a few CAL vets in this community). I'm not sure if what you are asking... for TGNS to save CAL? I'm sure if our player base was interested in CAL, they'd be playing in CAL.

Furthermore: NS is dying? I have yet to see a night where I was playing and the server wasn't full. In regards to the TGNS community, it isn't dying. I'm not here to argue with anyone over this matter, as I've seen the overall player base decline, BUT I don't think the death of CAL will have any impact on the NS player base as a whole.

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aeroripper

PLEASE, admin, insert line breaks, its making me cry .

Hasn't this problem been around a long time?

Well I can't attest to even being close to the best person in the game, but of course your going to get bored after playing for 4 hours on the server... it'd be like that in any game, regs or not. Take a break.

Good points, flayra and his dev team seem to be struggling right now, and the long downtime of something as seemingly simple as a forum is hurting their image.

It's not dead, its still fairly popular for a HL mod, although I do believe it needs more content updates, or at least some major production being done on NS:S to keep people interested in the game. I think the issue is more to due with the HL engine. NS isn't going to get a MASSIVE influx of new players on a consistent basis just because its kind of a niche' game. It's built on an old engine, it takes quite a while to learn and is confusing at first, voice comm is used a lot more than most other mods and a few bad experiences can turn people off. It's kind of a hard game to get into for somebody not familar with HL mods in general. Counterstrike is an exception, but that's a completely different game, completely different theme. Gladly NS is not even close to what counterstrike is.

I doubt that's possible without a resurrection on a new engine.

Tempus

I stopped reading after 5 sentences... Gave me a headache.

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FROM THE TACTICAL GAMER PRIMER.
3) Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine.

DON.MAC

?
I'm pretty sure there has only been one TGNS community clan that participated in CAL and we only played through a single season. We were also not very active. Other than that I only have knowledge of two in house tournaments.

I think it is entirely possible that there are players who frequent this server who would enjoy playing with a competitive team. Not too long ago I would've never even considered playing in a competitive environment. Now, the most fun I have playing this game is with my team whether it be scrimming or playing weekly matches. The teamwork I've been able to experience, while not really impressive by CAL standards, is simply incomparable to any public game I've played in.

ixkillxforxrice

Kind of, I'm asking TGNS to be more of a, um, lets see, a place where people can transition from pubs to competitive matchs.

When i first played NS, i never knew that this game was on CAL. That is one of the disadvantages of having a small community for NS. Few players talk about competitiveness, whereas in counterstrike, at least one person on 75% of the pubs of counterstrike have a person going, "LOLOL NUBS IM IN CAL-O" "scrub im in CAL-M". I never new about the league until i got bored of hearing this 'cal' chatter if u call it. In NS, poeple rarely do that because of the small player database and the people in those clans rather be training then boasting of what division and clan they are in. Because of the 'NSPlayers' or 'Pubbers' won't find out about NS::CAL unless they were bored and looked all the games of CALeague. The point is we have to get the word out.

Depends on which servers you play on. Populars servers empty out late out at night where as "average joes" pubs tend to empty out earlier.

TGNS is a great community, but i meant the NS community as a whole. I only mentioned TGNS in my very last part of my theory and remember it was a theory!

Don't strain yourself =P

Think of the headache after thinking this theoryup in 15 minutes base on facts that you dug out of the bottom of out head =D

Iceberg

Two teams from the Tournament went on to try out CAL. To my knowledge, there have been TGNS community clans in CAL in the past as well. You'd have to poke wyz for the details (point me for passing the buck).

Those players interested in CAL (I'm not saying all of competitive NS here) are probably already playing in, or have participated in CAL.

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kormendi

You want more? I already sweat beads and pull my hair out while playing on the server.

Been there, done that... We ran a tournament a few months ago. It was a mild success. I had fun with it. A group of us also started a clan, half of which vowed never to return to CAL while the other half started a new clan.

I'm not sure why people equate the success of the competitive community with the success of the game. Clan players != good team players... Many of the clan players I have come across are selfish and poor teammates.

It seems you are holding CALNS and its members on a pedestal. Having experienced it, I suggest you don’t.

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DON.MAC

The Tactical Rage that played in CAL season 7 was not one of the teams that played in the latest TGNS tourney. We (barely) made it through the season and as kormendi said, half of us wanted to give competitive NS another shot, only this time we wanted to be active. Micro, Taco, and myself decided to stick around and we recruited some other people to form a CAL team. We didn't have enough participation though, so we ended up merging with addiction, which also had a shortage of players.
I read what you posted the first time. Seeing it twice isn't changing my mind :/

Wyzcrak

Agreed, but, then, pedestals are overrated no matter who you're putting atop one.

The wonderful thing about TG is that you're investing in players, not in a title. If one game dies, you've an entire community of friends with which to consume "the next big thing." Precedent supports that design. Heck, given the TG Game Club, old titles (GR, last week) can become new again given any Sunday night.

There are wonderful exceptions, but my experience of CAL was sorta the opposite. More power to them, but I saw players investing first in a title and second in its players. That's a fine line, but it was a deal breaker for lil' ol' me, as NS is first, for me, a social experience and second (a close second, to be sure) a competitive one. But then, that's gaming for me altogether, online or not.

We could talk ad nauseum about NS dying or not dying, but why repeat the natural-selection.org forums of 2004? Come to think of it, what does it say about today's death arguments when they're the same as those of two years ago?

I gave CAL a chance. You don't find better quality people to "CAL" with than I found.

The experience still sucked, and I don't get off on announcing that. DON's way right... we could have put a lot more into it than we did, but we each clearly were not enough motivated to do so. For me, it was the undesirable way most of the pre-adults carried themselves. Cursing. Pejorative slurs. Hostility for hostility's sake. Punctual impotence followed by derision. Teams leaving in the middle of matches. I gave it one season, and I didn't quit, and I have no interest in trying it again.

Bottom line: I gave CAL a fair shot. You guys watched me stop playing NS for a solid month when BF2 came out. You know I go where the quality is. I would have stayed in CAL if I had seen quality. Having given CAL a fair shot, I've got all the quality I need in TGNS.

Having said that, everyone should try CAL at least once, for a full season. To regular TGNS without ever having tried CAL is like enjoying a fine steak having never tried lamb. You can't really appreciate one to its fullest without having tried the other.

Lots of people have lots of alternatives for gameplay (other servers, other titles), and people like that. We could argue about whether people think TGNS is "best," but I most certainly have observed one thing: people come to TGNS when they're really needin' a good game of NS (WAY more times than not, they get it). That has proven true for over three years of the title's newest of players and most competitive veterans alike. Indeed, many folks who play here end up playing competitively. If we're blessed, it will continue for another three years in just the same fashion, TG, TGNS, and NS growing all the while.

I don't want NS to die, and I want TGNS to stay quality folks' favorite place to play the healthy game that I see it to be today, but, if I lose on both counts, at least I've got great folks, rice included, to lose with.

TGNS enjoys today's success because of the community on which it is built. CAL need only that community strength to thrive, but I just didn't see in CAL the respect and maturity that was absolutely CRITICAL in making the TGNS community of today possible.

I really do hope I simply overlooked it (respect/maturity), but competitive players having to work so hard to recruit quality people (indeed, any people) doesn't encourage me.

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Darkilla: In short, NS is pretty much really fast chess. With guns. Apophis: I haven't seen anyone say that SM's are better than non-SMs. Nordbomber: This is THE first server I've seen where either side can comeback from out of seemingly nowhere with the right teamwork. en4rcment: I have NEVER experienced the type of gameplay that I have found here. Nightly I am amazed at the personalities and gaming talent. Root: Welcome to TG. Feel free to punctuate your sentences correctly. Monkerz: Its gonna take all my skills to beat those boys off in the future.

ixkillxforxrice

aeroripper! it's a theory! everything i said in the first paragraph was theorys not real, but some maybe!

What im trying to say that is, some people only play a game if it's competitive. I know that sounds too general but i will try to explain it to the best i can through an analogy. Lets say NS is a cake. People can bake a cake for other people, am I right? (Meaning they can play ns with out getting anything.) Somepeople don't bake the cake because they won't get to eat it at the end. (People sometimes don't play games just because there's no competition. Look at CS for example. Some people just play that game to get famous and recognition. I read an article about a player of a good cs clan once, he said that he didnt wanna play cs, but that it was his 'job' even though he didnt wann play that day, he practiced for five hours.) What I'm saying really is that If these people are looking for a league for this game, they will still have one and it'll grow! Whereas if they don't find one, they won't play and tell their friends not to play. (Remember I said SOME people are like this.)

I also don't want NS to die, Its uniqeness grabbed onto me and never let go. (LOLZ TITANIC ANYONE?) And theres still stuff i need to do in this community. I mean i dont wanna finish mapping NS_veil2 with onlyu 40 player base =D

It's competitive, like in real life. Some people are good samaratins some aren't . Somewill help you get up if you fall down in football, others will be jealous and stuff.

Iceberg

Besides Tactical Rage, I thought Cat Punchers entered CAL along with one other. Aside from that, Im pretty sure that TG community members have formed teams to compete in CAL in the past.

You are missing the point. PM sent

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Irish Pirate

Mods are remarkably resiliant. I blame fickle old people who don't want to stop playing the classics (like loadrunner and packman).

I thought that souce would spell the end of my gaming carrer. At the time I was playing TFC in a clan (a very unstable clan which probably doesn't exists anymore). My computer did and still does lack the ability to play online using the source engine. They kept putting off the TFC Source thing so I never got to see, but I don't think tfc will go away anymore because counter-strike seems to be unaffected. There are still tons of counter-strike servers, and many more source ones. Source makes mods available to all those hip hop youngins buying half-life2 having never experienced the original.

If the NS division of CAL shuts down, everything will not come to a grinding halt. I would say the majority of the NS players are not active in CAL, and at least some of the CAL players would stay. I was never keen on the really competetive side of these games, but I did it for quite a while because I was in a clan (read: peer pressure). If all of a sudden all the competetive leagues collapsed, people would start thier own. I would have probably either quit or helped found a new leauge.

Cal going away doesn't mean people don't want to play matches, it just means it's harder to coordinate and will probably devolve into clans challenging each other outside of the context of a leauge, which I think would actually be pretty cool (rules would be harder to set and agree on though).

Besides, there's a place you can go where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came. (Except earlier today when orlanth wasn't glad I came). Cal going away would probably not greatly impact my ns experience seeing as this is the only server I play on unless I'm really really in the mood for combat.

aeroripper

Orlanth is an angry man .

Zephyr

I don't want to see in the future, as they have never existed in the past for more than a week, a person on TGNS who is not a good samaritan. I think that if you broke down our entire population, the one thing that would unify us all is our love for others and our commitment to those who need our help. I refuse to step on anyone who falls or to reserve the oustretched hand from above to anyone who aspires to stand for what we stand for.

We are no clan.
We are TacticalGamer.
-Zephyr

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