Natural Selection (computer game)
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| Natural Selection | |
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| Developer(s) | Unknown Worlds Entertainment |
| Designer(s) | Charlie Cleveland |
| Engine | GoldSrc |
| Release date(s) | October 31, 2002 (1.0) July 31, 2003 (2.0) March 5, 2005 (3.0) November 11, 2005 (3.1.3) November 21, 2006 (3.2 Beta) March 2, 2007 (3.2) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Input | Keyboard, Mouse |
Natural Selection (NS) is a modification for the computer game Half-Life. Its concept is a mixture of the first-person shooter (FPS) and real-time strategy (RTS) game genres.
The game was created by Charlie 'Flayra' Cleveland. Natural Selection v1 was first publicly released on Halloween 2002, and is presently at version 3.2. A complete change log for the various Natural-Selection versions can be seen on Bry's Natural Selection website as well as downloads for older versions of the game. Production of Natural-Selection 2 is underway. The official Natural Selection forums and constellation money donation system were disabled for months due to repeated hacking attempts, but have recently been brought back up with the announcement of Natural-Selection 2.
The game features two teams: Kharaa (alien species) and Frontiersmen (human space marines). The alien vs. human conflict is a common science fiction theme, notable examples being the StarCraft game and the 1986 film Aliens. It should be considered that the visible Kharaa "units" are actually simply the spawn of the real Kharaa (aliens) which are microscopic life-forms according to the NS story line.
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[edit] Gameplay
Marines attempting to take over a room held by Aliens
Natural Selection is played primarily in the first-person perspective, using atmospheric maps of spaceships or space stations, which have been invaded by the Kharaa.
There are two game modes in Natural Selection: Classic and Combat.
[edit] Classic game mode
Classic is the original Natural Selection game, mixing action and strategy elements.
In this mode, one member of the marine team must enter the "command chair" to lead the team. From here, he can purchase upgrades, issue movement orders and drop supplies - all from an overhead perspective, as in many RTS games. The commander can also place buildings, although these are inactive until built by players in the field. The role is somewhat similar to the Intelligence Officer of Global Operations in that it is provided an overview of the map, though the ability to place objects and control is much more extensive. A similar 'commander' mode can also be seen in Battlefield 2.
The alien team has no defined leader, and so must communicate and co-operate to ensure different roles are fulfilled as needed. They too extend their control by building, to do this they must first gestate into the Gorge evolution. Kharaa "Hive Sight" reveals teammates through the walls and structures of the map, this was originally their answer to the commander with his top-down overview of the game. However in later versions both teams have gained substantial advantage from the addition of a map hotkey. This overlays the whole level, showing teammates and friendly structures; plus enemies and structures currently in view of comrades, and areas under attack.
The aliens start with one active hive, randomly chosen from the 3 hive spots of the map. Active hives heal damaged aliens and respawn dead players. Marines spawn in a set location on the map, and spawn from Infantry Portals, which can be built in a set radius of the Command Chair. Healing and ammunition can be dropped by the commander in 'packs' (at a cost) or obtained free from an Armoury.
The teams compete for territory, and critically for the resources ('res') it offers. The currency for both sides, resources are obtained by building resource towers to tap the nozzles sited around the map. This is another area where the teams have a key difference - while marines draw on a common pool of resources, each alien accumulates a personal store. This further increases the requirement for teamwork on the alien side, to achieve the right balance of hives, lifeforms, resource towers and chambers.
The game ends when one side has destroyed the other's ability to survive. For the Frontiersmen (marine) side, this usually entails destroying all alien hives, ensuring no further alien players may respawn, and then hunting the rest down. For the Kharaa (alien) side, winning requires destroying all marine "Infantry Portals", ensuring that they do not respawn, and then eliminating the rest of the marines. Other possibilities exist such as destroying the command chair, or destroying all finished hives, and killing the whole alien team before the remaining hive is fully grown.
Game duration has varied through the game's development. In v1, games were slower and often measured in hours. One of the stated aims of v2 was to address this, by introducing a broad range of changes to abilities, structures, etc. In current releases (v3), a typical game lasts 15-30 minutes, but can run over an hour, with both sides vying for control over strategically important Hive Rooms and Resource Nodes.
The stark asymmetry between the two sides makes "balancing" Natural Selection a difficult and perpetually contentious issue. Almost every release includes some balance changes, most via tweaking of numerical values - e.g. damage inflicted by a certain attack, or time taken to complete a certain building. The difficulty of balancing the game is complicated by the need to address varying levels of skill and numbers of players. Competitive games are normally played 6v6, whereas it is not uncommon for public Internet servers to have 20 slots (allowing 10v10) or more. Skill is more difficult to quantify, but one can regularly observe members of top clans achieving high kill:death ratios against experienced non-competitive players.
[edit] Combat game mode
Combat is the team deathmatch, or beginner mode of NS. It was introduced in NS 3.0 to help new players learn how to play alien lifeforms in an easier environment.
Neither team can build structures, the marines do not have a commander, and aliens have only one hive. Each player has an individual experience meter, increased by killing enemies; dealing damage to the enemy hive/command chair or healing/repairing their own hive/command chair. When the experience meter reaches maximum, the player gains a level and it resets. This level provides 1 point which can be spent on upgrades (which includes higher lifeforms for the alien team).
Field experience can also be gained, simply through proximity to teammates who are scoring kills. Players will sometimes position themselves near higher-level players, while avoiding immediate danger, to gain experience. This is commonly called 'leeching'.
There have been various changes to the spawn system in the various betas to try and make matches more interesting and more winnable but also without making it such that a team that suffers a major loss of players can still come back. An admin configurable time limit (default 15 minutes) was introduced in beta 5 which remains in the final version. With the time limit, Marines are usually on the attacking side and Kharaa are on the defending side. Failure of the attacking side to win within the time limit results in a victory for the defending side. This has somewhat reduced the phenomena of both sides "camping" in their respective bases, unwilling to attack the other side.
[edit] Server-side Customization
Natural Selection is the most popular third-party mod for Half-Life [1], and numerous communities have modified the game with plug-ins. Most notably was the Voogru community originally, but a significant portion of the NS server base now runs gameplay-altering modifications.
[edit] Bot servers
An image of team Damage Networks "botcamping" against team WhichBot
These servers are generally seen as the training ground for new players. However most bot servers only allow players to join the marine team, so learning the skills for aliens remains a 'Baptism of fire'. Bot servers do serve an important role in being the only realistic way for a new player to learn 'commanding' since on normal servers, new commanders are ejected almost instantaneously, as an inexperienced commander will have no grasp of the early game and can ruin it for the rest of the team very easily. Nevertheless the low intelligence of the bots limits the potential of these servers in teaching tactics. The alien bots never usually win unless there are only one or two marines playing. Many top players believe that WhichBot skulks are actually better practice for marine aim than any real player can be. This is due to the fact that the bots move in an extremely unpredictable fashion and have a very high bite-hit rate, so if they get within bite range they are extremely hard to kill with a light machine gun.
[edit] Player-side Customization
There are a number of models, sounds and sprites floating around the NS community. These customizations are client side only and can provide a very different feel to the game. Aside from models that make use of transparency, they do not interfere with cheat detection programs or normal game dynamics, though the server variable mp_consistency, when enabled, disallows the use of most such customizations.
These customizations can be classified as single releases or "packs". Single releases usually involve changing of the ambient sounds, alien/marine commander HUD, crosshair, minimaps or player, map and weapon models, while the packs are collections of customization files of the same style or theme. The Special Ops pack and AvP pack are some examples of such packs.
[edit] Natural Selection 2
A development image of Dynamic Infestation on the Source Engine
Natural Selection 2 will be the sequel to Natural Selection. Natural Selection 2 will be built on the Source Engine, and will have the same basic gameplay as Natural Selection, but with new weapons and abilities. It will be released commercially on Steam. According to an interview with the Game Director, Charlie Cleveland (Flayra), the sequel will continue where the original left off and will feature environments that are dark and denser. Several gameplay modes only currently available as community-developed mods (such as Marines vs. Marines) will now become officially supported modes. Cleveland did not state any information as to when the game will be available, however there is currently a development blog [2] in which players can monitor development progress. The first major possible new feature of Natural Selection 2 revealed so far is Dynamic Infestation [3]. The proposed feature would dynamically generate bacterial infestation based on what areas of the map the alien team controls.
[edit] Notes
[edit] See also
- Half-Life
- Tremulous a similar multi-platform GPL'd free software/open source game
- Steam
