This is honestly a really good idea, I hope you're listening UWE. We've cherished this and Subnautica with you for years, while this title has suffered from less than an inviting playerbase of around 200 users active at most these days.

Now that development has ended;

Just let this one go, allow the game to find new players and establish an actually inviting presence to the game for the first time in years.

At the very least, lower the price to $1.99


Nobody wants to continue watching this game die

Originally posted by Babbles:

They made US$15 Million in the first year from NS2, used that to make Subnautica, which was Steam Silver for 3 years - why care about this game?

Making the core game F2P and having skins in shop for premium currencies seems to be the 'Go-to' now days. I don't see why they couldn't make even more money while attracting new players with a free game.

Originally posted by Svikt (Tahoma):

Just let this one go, allow the game to find new players and establish an actually inviting presence to the game for the first time in years.

Yep!

Population is low because it's a niche game with a high skill curve.

Lot's of fresh faces, but they don't stick around because players need Dark souls tolerance levels for frustration and MOBA ♥♥♥♥-talking before they get better and have fun.

I love NS2 to death, but it'll never be popular for the modern gamer.

F2P would probably just piss off the committed core audience & inevitably water down the experience via greed creep & casual gamer coddling.

Originally posted by Baconbits:

Population is low because it's a niche game with a high skill curve.

Lot's of fresh faces, but they don't stick around because players need Dark souls tolerance levels for frustration and MOBA ♥♥♥♥-talking before they get better and have fun.

I love NS2 to death, but it'll never be popular for the modern gamer.

F2P would probably just piss off the committed core audience & inevitably water down the experience via greed creep & casual gamer coddling.

You've never played a MOBA (or various other online toxic communities) if you think ns is anything like that bad

yeah, first match i had half the entire team saying constant horrible stuff to me and trying to kick me. NS 2 so far is very uninviting with that and the very hard skill curve that's more like a skill 90 degree turn.

Originally posted by Kearvahn:

yeah, first match i had half the entire team saying constant horrible stuff to me and trying to kick me. NS 2 so far is very uninviting with that and the very hard skill curve that's more like a skill 90 degree turn.

You were probably griefing/saying some racist sexist vitriol in the chat and got votekicked for it

For me, toxicity is a non-factor, I grew up with the internet & played MOBA's when they were invented.

However, you'd be niave to think it doesn't impact new players who are already frustrated @ learning Natural Selection. People care about toxicity to the point of removing chat in games like Rocket League.

If you wanna improve popularity you have to consider other people's thoughts, not just your own.

Once the devs went 'peaceful' and stopped making anything with 'gun violence' this game was already over. we got lucky they still supported it for so long and gave us updates. Nothing short of having a different company buy out the rights to this franchise would save it.

Originally posted by Baconbits:

Population is low because it's a niche game with a high skill curve.

Lot's of fresh faces, but they don't stick around because players need Dark souls tolerance levels for frustration and MOBA ♥♥♥♥-talking before they get better and have fun.

I love NS2 to death, but it'll never be popular for the modern gamer.

F2P would probably just piss off the committed core audience & inevitably water down the experience via greed creep & casual gamer coddling.

They dont stick around because of the toxocity, not becaus eof the 'difficulty'.

Letting it go F2P is actually in a way a semi-commitment to keep supporting the game during the initial "launch" of F2P. I think it's easier for UWE to just keep the status quo. Less hassle for them.

Maybe it is the nail in the coffin we all need though...

Nail in the coffin? This game will never die.

Besides a few small changes & additional maps the core audience is satisfied with having at least a rock solid product to keep playing.

Communities like Populous or Infantry had to reforge their game from old internet scraps of patches, mods, and DvD's.

Global Agenda (the most promising F2P MMO ever) had no access for years until Hi-rez recently allowed old players access again so they can experiment with the model.

Ns2 is quite strong when you consider what other niche small game communities go through.

F2P would improve player counts for a week until all the dedicated players vote kicked all the newbies from their matches enough to kick them from the game.

removing concede vote option would make the matches fun.

Sorry about spam replies, but I have the game knowledge to answer a lot of these and I like writing sometimes.

Originally posted by Snake:

removing concede vote option would make the matches fun.

Concede vote option saves servers from dying to matches that are clearly over, but dragged out.

After 30+ minutes of 1 or 2 bad matches, players will begin to leave, leading to a cascading effect other players leaving.
In 30 seconds a 20/20 will turn into 12/20 & those not willing to seed the next match will also leave, sometimes killing the server outright.

Originally posted by Henbog:

F2P would improve player counts for a week until all the dedicated players vote kicked all the newbies from their matches enough to kick them from the game.

There wouldn't be a massive influx of players because $5 is already free unless you're <13 y.o.

NS2's popularity is again tied to it's weakest & strongest factor of unique niche gameplay.

The vast majority will never notice or care because it is unique, different, & difficult; but it will never die because it will always attract new players curious about unique gameplay & keep those who love it.

My roommate has a free copy of NS2 (from me) loves MOBA's (Dota2 fiend) enjoys & misses shooters (CoD, overwatch) but never gives NS2 a second glance despite my constant recommendation.
The reason? Not interested enough to escape the skill curve to have fun being good at the game.

Personal ancedote IK, but it really is how most view NS2 if they are even aware of it.

Originally posted by Baconbits:

Sorry about spam replies, but I have the game knowledge to answer a lot of these and I like writing sometimes.

Originally posted by Snake:

removing concede vote option would make the matches fun.

Concede vote option saves servers from dying to matches that are clearly over, but dragged out.

After 30+ minutes of 1 or 2 bad matches, players will begin to leave, leading to a cascading effect other players leaving.
In 30 seconds a 20/20 will turn into 12/20 & those not willing to seed the next match will also leave, sometimes killing the server outright.

Originally posted by Henbog:

F2P would improve player counts for a week until all the dedicated players vote kicked all the newbies from their matches enough to kick them from the game.

There wouldn't be a massive influx of players because $5 is already free unless you're <13 y.o.

NS2's popularity is again tied to it's weakest & strongest factor of unique niche gameplay.

The vast majority will never notice or care because it is unique, different, & difficult; but it will never die because it will always attract new players curious about unique gameplay & keep those who love it.

My roommate has a free copy of NS2 (from me) loves MOBA's (Dota2 fiend) enjoys & misses shooters (CoD, overwatch) but never gives NS2 a second glance despite my constant recommendation.
The reason? Not interested enough to escape the skill curve to have fun being good at the game.

Personal ancedote IK, but it really is how most view NS2 if they are even aware of it.

$5 isn't f2p, its not even close in terms of players it would attract
Even if the game cost $0.01 lots of people wouldn't buy it.