The latest update to Natural Selection 2 has added team emblems to the Steam Store and Organised Play to the lobby system. There are four emblems on offer, representing each of the four teams taking part in the first NS2 World Championship. 50% of the money made from each emblem sale goes straight to the team it represents.
There are a lot of other changes in the new update, too.
With the emblem purchases, developer Unknown Worlds seems to have taken note of what Valve were up to with last year’s Dota 2 International. In the run up to that tournament Valve sold Compendiums that allowed fans to support their favourite teams. Each compendium sold also saw a further $2.50 added to the prize pot. This eventually stood at more than $2.6 million.
You can buy all five emblems in a Championship Pack or any of them individually through the Steam Store.
The emblems also track kills so at the end of the tournament Unknown Worlds can say which team’s fans racked up the most kills during the tournament period.
The update, nicknamed the Dropship update, also brings organised play to NS2. Essentially it’s a party system. You can now form a team with your friends and search for a game together, meaning you all drop into the same server at the same time and get to play together.
Here are the rest of the many, many changes:
Fixes
- Fixed “name” console command not working with spaces in names
- Fixed bug where a bad value in the options file for the player skin would cause the menu to stop functioning
- Fixed aliens sometimes not being able to hear distress beacon sound
- Fixed sounds cutting out on Skulks and Fades
- Fixed lifeform name being hidden behind the lifeform icon in the Alien buy menu
- Fixed some structures not immediately destroying collision when destroyed (most prominent with Resource Towers)
- Fixed power nodes not blinking red on minimap when being attacked
- Fixed requestweld console bind not working for Exosuits
- Fixed progress bar for Aliens having a tiny piece of texture being where it shouldn’t in the top of the progress bar
- Fixed players being able to see the enemy commander on scoreboard
- Fixed mouse wheel events always being blocked in unpredicted code when mouse cursor is visible
- Fixed room name on hud not updating when the game first starts
- Fixed being able to use commander interface while menu is open
- Fixed voice chat being stuck on when entering a Command Structure
- Fixed alien buy menu Fade description
- Fixed Armories giving health while stunned
- Fixed main menu tip video layer being behind the tip videos content page.
- Fixed tip videos not hiding when you close the training page.
- Fixed bug in main menu with MouseIn / MouseOut events not handled properly
Features
- Added NS2WC emblems (Available in the Steam Store)
- Added NS2WC emblem stat tracking
- Added Organised play system (Organised play in main menu)
- Added subtle highlight to Steam friends nameplates and minimap icons
- Added ammo bars for the Marine Commander to nameplates
- Added low light graphics quality option (Thanks to Mendasp and Dragon for helping)
- Added random team console bind. j3 or jointeamthree in the console
- Added a new vote which tries to balance teams using previous round and hive stats
- Added previous menu theme back into the files under “sound/NS2.fev/main_menu_old”
- Added option to precache extra files. Default to ‘Off.’ (Allows you to balance load times against your desire to avoid early game hitching)
- Added queuing for servers with reserved slots in server browser. You can attempt to join the server if you think you can (i.e. you have a reserved slot)
- Added numerical values and input for sliders in options menu
- Added next / previous weapon keybind to main menu options
- Added evolve last upgrades keybind
- Added ability to unbind/clear keybinds
- Added interface sounds
- Added open/close fade animation to GUI’s on right side of menu (news box, logo, Reinforcement/store buttons)
- Added fade effect when opening credits
- Added line wrapping for long text chat messages
- Implemented option description tooltips
- Rearranged server browser tabs (all game modes are now grouped up on the left side)
- Added microphone input volume bar colours, which change based on input intensity
- Server list and chat font size now resizes for really small screen resolutions
Optimizations
- Consistency checking now uses a much faster algorithm which in many cases may decrease loadtimes
- Drastically reduced network traffic generated by scoreboard updates
- Optimized cloaked effect
- Reduced hitching when opening pages in the menu
- Changes
- Player outlines now work in first person for neutral spectators
- Inactive/unbuilt structures appear now in a darker color on the minimap
- Observatories will now reveal nearby cysts on the minimap
- Rookies are now always highlighted green on the scoreboard
- Muting a player will now also mute voice requests (like need ammo / medpack)
- Removed Drifter icon from tech map
- Made unavailable color very slightly darker to provide better differentiation between unbuilt grey color
- Increased weight of exclusive Female Marine Shadow badge taunt from 3% to 8%
- Increased max chat length to 120 from 80
- Remove skill ranking from main menu and scoreboard
- News ticker now opens in Steam Overlay for improved experience
- Smoother catpack view effect in dark areas (No more black oval when in dark places)
- Doors now open from further away for fast moving players to compensate for the speed of the player
- Moved HUD detail option to general options tab
- SDK
- Added MouseWheelUp and MouseWheelDown as separate keys to bind (note for modders: InputKey.MouseZ is no longer being used)
- Added InputKey.None to allow clearing of bindings
- Added Client.GetIsSteamFriend(steamId)
- Added GUIHoverTooltip for providing tooltips offset from mouse cursor when hovering over something
- Added mapinfo console command to print out information like light and prop count to console
- Added MultiCheckbox form type which allow to have more than just true/false values
- Added console command chattime
to set how long chat messages display on screen. Must be at least 3 seconds. - Changed profiler to use Left and Right key since old keybinds didnt work well with other keyboard layouts
- Added ControllerMixin:SetIgnorePlayerCollisions(time)
- Added client side loadtime console output
- Removed Cooked Mesh console output
- Fixed out of memory condition on Linux Kernel 3.12
- Fixed fatal error message box on Linux machines that didn’t have GTK
- Added gather_server tag in ServerConfig.json
- Send Commander time to Hive
- Biodome
- Lighting optimisations, approximately 200 lights removed
- Removed 2 glass sections in Falls to reduce render calls
- Moved Condensers power node away from Filtration
- Improved occlusion in Falls and Alley
- Fixed gap in Gallery
- Cleaned up commander view in Falls.
- Repositioned Condensers and West Route power node.
- Eclipse
- Hole fixes
- Removed center rail on Triad stairs
- Pathing fixes in Maintenance
- Docking
- [Note – There is a game-critical bug in Docking, and we recommend not playing it in 263. It will be fixed in 264.]
- Added additional vents to Ballcourt, Maintenance and Junction
- Reduced clutter around Maintenance RT
- Enlarged the space around Departures techpoint
- Fixed some CommanderInvisible around Departures
- Fixed the train in Departures not playing
- Slightly increased travel time to Maintenance through Courtyard
- Summit
- Smoothed out movement in Flight Control
- Minor cosmetic fixes
- Veil
- Fixed bad collision in Dome
- Tram
- Removed buggy cable bundle from Logistics->South Tunnels connection.
- Refinery
- Fixed Removed some unneeded collision geometry in Conduit
- Fixed pathing in Extraction
- Fixed gaps in location entities
- Fixed some unconnected pipes
- Fixed death trigger entities in lava falls
- Rotated smelting RT 180 degrees
- Fixed some flickering textures
- Smoothed out stairs in Falls Approach