This latest release adds in a new tutorial named "Skulk Challenge", which will help you learn the various abilities it has like wall jumping. It also serves as a challenge mode, since you can download ghosts of other players and compete against them and earn badges and get a global rank.
They finally updated the confusing spectator system too. Spectators now have dedicated slots, meaning server owners can have full 24 player servers with 24 spectator slots too. A much nicer system, as I was often confused when trying to join a game and seeing "25/24" or something.
It took a long time, but 64bit is officially going into beta and will be released as a small update. Their 32bit version will officially retire, so if you're playing and you're on 32bit, you should seriously upgrade already.
On top of that, they also polished the game as a whole with balance fixes, bug fixes and so on. You can read the full changelog post here.
Anyone here still playing it? There's still a few hundred people playing it every day. It's also rather cheap now, at £6.99 it's not a bad price. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
I gave up on it because a) a bad commander means losing, no matter how well you play and b) I didn't understand the mechanics of a lot of what was going on, so couldn't make good decisions about how to play well. The learning curve just seems to keep going through the roof! Might try it again later.
0 Likes
I really wanted to like this game because I played the freeware mod for a good minute but in the end I removed this game from my library for the same reason I am about to do the same to 'Ballistic Overkill'
Servers were wonky too often. And teams would stay lopside for so long that matches were lost 2 minutues into a map.
- lag
- team balance
Servers were wonky too often. And teams would stay lopside for so long that matches were lost 2 minutues into a map.
0 Likes
I play it from time to time.
The players on the servers I'm on usually vote to shuffle the teams according to hive performance, which usually results in somewhat balanced teams (of course it heavily depends on the commander and team communication whether you win or lose).
- team balance
Servers were wonky too often. And teams would stay lopside for so long that matches were lost 2 minutues into a map.
0 Likes
I've played it occasionally since release. It's got its good and bad sides. I still think the Quake 2 modification called Gloom was better. :)
I do have to admire how this game keeps getting updated so many years after its release. From what I've understood the control of the updates has been given over to a group of volunteers which was a very smart move from the development team.
I do have to admire how this game keeps getting updated so many years after its release. From what I've understood the control of the updates has been given over to a group of volunteers which was a very smart move from the development team.
The players on the servers I'm on usually vote to shuffle the teams according to hive performance, which usually results in somewhat balanced teams (of course it heavily depends on the commander and team communication whether you win or lose).Unfortunately this also makes the game not easily played with a friend or a small group of friends. I cannot recommend this game for that.
0 Likes
From what I've understood the control of the updates has been given over to a group of volunteers which was a very smart move from the development team.That was quite a while ago, now UWE directly make the updates. They hired some of those volunteers though.
Unfortunately this also makes the game not easily played with a friend or a small group of friends. I cannot recommend this game for that.Considering the small amount of players that's fine. A small group of pros stacked on one side can easily steamroll the opposing team so it's a no go. And it's hard to find another such group to balance them because yes, the playerbase is small.
Overall, The Thirsty Onos #22 is a good place full of mostly adult, respectful and cooperating players (looking at you, Dota 2). I play it every evening (nickname's Sytch because the game requires voice and my regular nick is hard to spell). Just please don't go comm if you have less than 100 hours and even after that if you don't understand what the comm role is (figure it out in the field). No one blames each other for losing and rookies usually don't undermine the team's performance (looking at Dota 2 again where a single rookie can ruin it irreversibly).
So: join up, speak much, ask questions, win, lose, have fun!
Technical issues:
Spoiler, click me
If it crashes often for you, chances are your "Texture handling" parameter is too high so the game runs out of RAM/VRAM OR address space. Lower it and try again, heuristically, your GPU RAM minus 512 Mb is the optimal setting here but YMMV. Turn everything else to a minimum except texture quality maybe (I have it on High). Also, to reduce the mouse lag turn VSync off, if you have it enabled in nvidia-settings you might want to force it off for this game explicitly using "Application Profiles". I noticed significant improvements in my reaction time and aim when VSync is forced off.
0 Likes
I expected to love the game because I loved Savage 2, but it just never worked for me. Others mention the problems, but in addition to that, the game is just too dark, fast and frenetic. It would actually be much better if you could play it from third person, like Savage. Aliens move too fast and in combat it's so easy to get lost and not know where you or the enemies are.
0 Likes
Aliens move too fast and in combat it's so easy to get lost and not know where you or the enemies are.Yeah, it requires a good reaction and aim but it all comes with practice. It's a competitive game after all. I was playing like a potato at first and look at me now (still a potato, but shiny!).
2 Likes, Who?
I am still playing it; in fact, it's one of my favourite games! :)
3 Likes, Who?
I watched championship once. It was good. Really good. They're probably getting ready for another one. I was playing it a lot (because of AvP <3 years back) but the way the camera works when aliens climb walls totally puts me off.
0 Likes
I haven't played it for over two years.
Last time I tried, it took over 10 minutes to even load a game and crashed so often that it took me three attempts to even complete the tutorial of one fraction.
Are those problems fixed by now?
I really liked the game even though I couldn't really play it. I'm still a huge fan of Aliens vs Predator 2 which is very similar but unfortunately not on Linux (but it runs perfectly via wine).
Last time I tried, it took over 10 minutes to even load a game and crashed so often that it took me three attempts to even complete the tutorial of one fraction.
Are those problems fixed by now?
I really liked the game even though I couldn't really play it. I'm still a huge fan of Aliens vs Predator 2 which is very similar but unfortunately not on Linux (but it runs perfectly via wine).
0 Likes
I have it, but then I realized I need friends to play it with.
And the first 2 or 3 years it would not even start on my pc.
So I've taken a plunge and walked through it. And that's it.
The time has come that I can choose not to buy multiplayer-only games.
And the first 2 or 3 years it would not even start on my pc.
So I've taken a plunge and walked through it. And that's it.
The time has come that I can choose not to buy multiplayer-only games.
0 Likes
I have it, but then I realized I need friends to play it with.
And the first 2 or 3 years it would not even start on my pc.
So I've taken a plunge and walked through it. And that's it.
The time has come that I can choose not to buy multiplayer-only games.
Yeah, I made that choice a few years back. Now, it's only local MP only. On occasion, I give a MP only game a shot and it's usually a disappointment.
1 Likes, Who?
Unplayable on AMD Vega with Open Source drivers :'(Do you know why, by any chance? I'm curious; also, I hope that when I upgrade my GPU in the future that I will still be able to play this game with a free-as-in-freedom driver. :)
For what it's worth, it works with my AMD Radeon HD 6970, using the free-as-in-freedom radeon driver, in Debian stable/stretch, but it didn't in the previous Debian release (which is now jessie/oldstable).
0 Likes
Unplayable on AMD Vega with Open Source drivers :'(Do you know why, by any chance? I'm curious; also, I hope that when I upgrade my GPU in the future that I will still be able to play this game with a free-as-in-freedom driver. :)
For what it's worth, it works with my AMD Radeon HD 6970, using the free-as-in-freedom radeon driver, in Debian stable/stretch, but it didn't in the previous Debian release (which is now jessie/oldstable).
It works fine for me with radeonsi userspace driver (Mesa 17.1) and radeon kernel driver on R9 270. So just a default distro install (Fedora in my case), nothing changed, works great. There has to be some problem with Vega, it's very new and the opensource drivers are not even upstreamed yet.
1 Likes, Who?
I haven't played it for over two years.According to your PC specs, you only have 2 Gb of VRAM, try to set Texture Handling to 1-1.5 Gb. Most of the crashes I experienced are because of that.
Last time I tried, it took over 10 minutes to even load a game and crashed so often that it took me three attempts to even complete the tutorial of one fraction.
Are those problems fixed by now?
0 Likes
I haven't played it for over two years.According to your PC specs, you only have 2 Gb of VRAM, try to set Texture Handling to 1-1.5 Gb. Most of the crashes I experienced are because of that.
Last time I tried, it took over 10 minutes to even load a game and crashed so often that it took me three attempts to even complete the tutorial of one fraction.
Are those problems fixed by now?
That depends. If he uses opensource AMD drivers, the problems were caused by NS2 running out of 32-bit memory space. That is resolved with Mesa 17.1 with shader caching. The first load after new NS2 update or new Mesa drivers might take a long time (several minutes), and might have 32bit memory problems (that's why NS2 devs push to convert it to 64bit). But all future load times are much faster (e.g. 30 seconds) and the memory issues no longer occur, at least in my case.
0 Likes
Oh, I see; that makes sense.Unplayable on AMD Vega with Open Source drivers :'(Do you know why, by any chance? I'm curious; also, I hope that when I upgrade my GPU in the future that I will still be able to play this game with a free-as-in-freedom driver. :)
For what it's worth, it works with my AMD Radeon HD 6970, using the free-as-in-freedom radeon driver, in Debian stable/stretch, but it didn't in the previous Debian release (which is now jessie/oldstable).
It works fine for me with radeonsi userspace driver (Mesa 17.1) and radeon kernel driver on R9 270. So just a default distro install (Fedora in my case), nothing changed, works great. There has to be some problem with Vega, it's very new and the opensource drivers are not even upstreamed yet.
0 Likes
That depends. If he uses opensource AMD drivers, the problems were caused by NS2 running out of 32-bit memory space.As I said, according to his PC specs. Luckily, we have it right here, one click away:
GPU Vendor: Nvidia
GPU Model: GeForce GTX 760
GPU Driver: ProprietarySo AMD could not be involved here. However, it's true that because of memory fragmentation NS2 used to run out of address space sometimes even though it doesn't utilize 4 Gb in total. It's not an issue now, except that maybe on Mesa as you pointed out, but for NVIDIA it's been resolved for a couple of years already.
I noticed that Windows players experience crashes much more often than me, could be the same problem with texture handling.
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
How to set, change and reset your SteamOS / Steam Deck desktop sudo password
How to set up Decky Loader on Steam Deck / SteamOS for easy plugins
See more from me