Unknown Worlds

[Reasa]

Since this is an NS community I think we should have a topic pertaining to the Natural Selection web site, or rather the lack of one.

Christmas has come and gone, and while I'm certainly happy they didn't put the site back up on Christmas day, as that seems a bit...tacky...New Years would have been fine, new site, new year, makes a wonderful connotation.

I just think it's a little annoying that they keep missing self set "deadlines" and then they don't give us any info.

Don't get me wrong I fully support the NS team and their efforts; if I didn't care I wouldn’t have made this topic. However they aren't EA games or some other huge company who has grown into such a morass that they can't keep their supporters updated.

Your thoughts?

[Vinegar Ninja]

monkies
thats my thoughts.

[2_of_8]

I can understand how you people can feel right now, but the developers are people too. Maybe they're vacationing? Or spending time with the family?
Also, even though updates to the site are nice: what would you want, an up-to-date site on 1.04, or b6 out with news lagging behind from pre-beta days? So what if they take a long time to update the site. I'd rather have a new version of NS to play with

[GrayDuck]

How difficult would it be to simply update the flipping site.  OK - something went wrong, they said it'd be down 2 days, its 2 months now and we've gotten ONE update.  The least they can do write a little something.  Even the loyalist NS fan is going to lose interest real fast.

[Asal]

Yeah, when I stop checking the site for updates, it tends to become fairly obvious that they have lost a lot of enthusiastic followers.  As a rule, I tend to be obsessive about things like that....

[bacon_flaps]

How difficult would it be to simply update the flipping site.  OK - something went wrong, they said it'd be down 2 days, its 2 months now and we've gotten ONE update.  The least they can do write a little something.  Only the fan with an addiction equivalent to that of a heroin junkie is going to lose interest real fast.

[snapback]37717[/snapback]

Fixed

I could care less where the damn site is as long as they're actually DOING something.

[Isamil]

Grayduck they updated it a few weeks ago

[Dubbilex]

I figure the hardcore forumites will be loyal and that's a good thing.  A smaller community is always better, in my opinion.  

And plus I'm pretty excited to see the newness.

[lolfighter]

I'll be back as soon as I find out it's up. But somebody will have to tell me, or it may be up for weeks before I notice. Then again, I guess I'll catch wind of it through the grapevine.

[devicenull]

How difficult is it to set up one of the IPB news scripts, and give us a post once in awhile saying what's happened since the last update.  The changelogs from 1.0->1.1 were nice

[2_of_8]

A smaller community is always better, in my opinion.

[snapback]37738[/snapback]

Well that's really not what Flayra is thinking, since he's starting his own company and making the game (or some other game) retail and all, then he'd want a larger community so he is more known and makes more money.
I think that was severily run-on.

[Diablus]

Well one way your going to grow your community by "1 game" so far is to keep the hardcore fans, who reccomend the games to their friends / others, and so on and so on. Keeping your big fans would be logical to update to keep the fans excited. It doesnt take to long to write alittle something, im sure their lives arent THAT busy that they dont have 2-3 minutes to update the "growing" community.

[Dubbilex]

A smaller community is always better, in my opinion.

[snapback]37738[/snapback]

Well that's really not what Flayra is thinking, since he's starting his own company and making the game (or some other game) retail and all, then he'd want a larger community so he is more known and makes more money.
I think that was severily run-on.

[snapback]37742[/snapback]

Of course Flayra does not want a smaller community; however it will be a byproduct of the current state of Natural Selection.  Obviously he will not sell Natural-Selection to say, valve (like CounterStrike and DoD have been) because that is not the way he does things.  I reckon that his first release under Unknown Worlds will be relatively small in scale perhaps something available for order from the website.  But hey - perhaps Flayra will snag a great publishing deal (if they even exist anymore) and will go global overnight.  

But Jesus, I hope not.

Also realize that Flay is mostly a figurehead now - he has the final say in everything but does not deal with the inner workings of the mod anymore (big fish in a small pond and all that).  He has said that NS will never become retail; we can see that he has some interest in keeping the old community together and does not wish to 'sell us out' for that cash that is probably being waved in front of his nose.  We'll hope.

[esuna]

How difficult is it to set up one of the IPB news scripts, and give us a post once in awhile saying what's happened since the last update.  The changelogs from 1.0->1.1 were nice

[snapback]37741[/snapback]

The thing is, they're entirely integrating the site, the forums, the icon databases (CM, PT icons, etc) and god knows whatever else into one big site, it's by no means a small feat.

Add also that rather than just starting afresh with all of this, they're also transferring the epic sized forums database to a new server, and are integrating the existing community into the new setup.

The site was done, and working fine (CM's got a chance to test out the site months and months ago), so i very much doubt that any delays or problems were at all expected, it's all new issues that have cropped up as and when they happen.

Ontop of any bugs, errors, problems or whatever that have occurred during the implementation of the new site, it's also just been christmas and new years, they have families too, they have friends as well, and just because they're not catering for your every need 24/7, doesn't mean they're lazy or incompetant. And yet another issue, they no longer have a dedicated web developer, so all the issues with the site are being tackled by Flayra et al, as WELL as working on the new version and playtesting.



Be patient, the forums will return, the site will be back, yes they missed a deadline, but really, you're acting like a bunch of smack addicts. Go outside, meet up with friends, play NS, go on IRC, anything, just quit whining about the forums.

[Necrosis]

It IS Christmas, most people are with their families or on holidays or enjoying one of the few times of the year where its effectively legal to take a 2 week holiday and not end up backlogged when you return to the office.

Hell I haven't even gamed over Christmas, because i've had so much free time that I can clean up some models, do a bit of writing, finally watch LotR back to back, etc etc etc.

Just a bad time of year for expecting people to do "office work". I for one think this might be helpful to the NS community, as we could lose some of the griefers or people who don't really understand what NS is about anymore.

We shall soon find out, I guess.

[GrayDuck]

Grayduck they updated it a few weeks ago

[snapback]37737[/snapback]

And that was the ONE update I was speaking of.

[duherman]

I'm sure this update to the site will be worth it all. As someone else said, you can't expect someone doing office work during the holidays.

[Dark]

eh well they all aren't as into making the mod as they were when it was freshly released but hey at least they did give us hours and hours of enjoyment.

i for one do hope to see beta 6 and the website soon but i'm not going to hold my breath

[Crispy]

It doesn't take more than 5 minutes to put up a Christmas or New Year's message.

Considering how much time and effort we put into NS as part of our free-time, you'd think that just a Chrimbo or 2005 update, simply a greeting for those who care, wouldn't be too much trouble at all. It takes one team member to do it (two if you assume that the person writing it needs someone else to update the website for him) and overall it couldn't involve more than 15 minutes work.

Instead they've neglected to do this and even I, who during the first few months was checking the site (well no, all three: NS.org, NS.com and UW.com) everyday, frequently thrice daily, have stopped regularly checking and have found something else to get involved in (Citadel Utopia Mod). When the website does go back up I doubt I'll be contributing as much as I had been (I&S, Modelling, Mapping, FanFiction, Off-Topic) because I won't have time. You can't just make a club and then close it for two months, expecting everyone who used to take a few or more hours out of their week to frequent it to resume a routine that was "postphoned" for 60 days.

Personally I think it's very bad marketing judgement, very bad PR judgement and overall very bad judgement to neglect the most important part of a game, it's players.

[Loke The Sleek Peruvian]

I agree with Crispy, it doesn't take a lot to update the frontpage. And I don't check the site anymore as much as I did when it first went down.

Also, we will no longer be the NS community, we will be the UWE community!