If you had $1500…

Would you pay the developers? Would you pay for something that would improve development of the mod or community?

How could you improve Insurgency with $1500?

There was a time that the mod received this amount of money, for winning an award, and it obviously went into somebody’s undeserving pockets since it was not invested back into improving the mod or community.

Viva Insurgency!

I have a habit of checking the Steam stats page to see how many people are playing Insurgency.

The new decade has arrived for much of the world, and overall activity is below normal on Steam.

As I check the stats page at the moment of writing, I witness for the first time Insurgency’s absence from the 75 games listed. The reason is not solely because of New Year’s Eve.

A patch to fix the game crashing, experienced and reported by many players since November, has failed to arrive before the holidays, as promised.

It is too late in the mod’s life cycle to reverse the damage done to the community. Insurgency has been on its death bed, and I am afraid it is slipping away.

The legacy of Insurgency left by the current developers is dismal. If you have followed this blog, you will know I have done all I can to try and save the project from its demise.

I foresaw this project’s life, and I could foresee its death.

Expect an official postmortem soon.

Community Assessment

A fair assessment of the community from a player’s perspective. It generally matches mine, although I could go into much more detail on how to solve the issues outlined below:

player numbers tend to either go up or decline. patches sometimes ruin the game like in this current version alot of people crash after round win or 3rd round ect. the dev team has told us what they have planned, mind you these are big things but it appears to be a slow progression process so fans get restless at the little progress being made for what ever reasons, and rebellious due to well the game which still has its share of flaws. supporting this mod is just about the same way you play the mod, slow and patiently. the numbers as i said arent stable, cos well people grow tired of the mod, move on to other games or games which have just come out (ins mod survived arma2 and operation flashpoint 2 and americas army 3, but has suffered since mw2 came out) also mod flaws, or just give up on the mod.

the community is strong in a sense, alot complain but they still stay cos they enjoy the mod and theres nothing else out that simulates the experience better. also alot of the community have been playing it since it was first released and the community itself is made up of older blood (new blood being people who have just introduced themselves to the mod), i myself have not always been active on these forums but have been playing the mod since it was released. i must also say the real fun is not only on a pub server but in clan matches.

– byzantine90

DO NOT Punish the Player

Often players since the patch have found a negative score on their scoreboard. This, if being a factor on the affect of the total score of the player, should not be displayed. Otherwise, what’s the point? Incentive? Do not punish them for having a “-10″ kill:death ratio, or at least don’t tell them about it.

2.5 Review

Now that the patch came and the mod is more functional (many users experienced crash issues, as every major patch has), a proper look can taken at the latest iteration of Insurgency.

First impressions:

Yes, finally tracers are working. They weren’t in the original release because of a bug that you could see them through surfaces (i.e. behind walls, etc). Now that it took more than two years to solve, you begin to realize how important tracers are to the game, especially a game about war.

The M203 sight is more broken than it was before. Except now it defies logic. I don’t know how to fix that sight, since I have never used that particular one (the sight I used on the M203 with C7A1 is different), and apparently nor does anyone else.

Sounds take a bit of getting used to. I like the phrase, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but I understand the reason that it was an opportunity to get engineer’s work in the game, and I respect that. However, I do feel that some of the sounds before were better. M203 reload and pistol firing come first to mind. The shotgun I am getting used to, but preferred the previous one.

I like all of the new insurgent skins, but why replace the previous ones and not just add the new ones? It would see more variety in the player appearance. However, I do strongly advocate the replacement of the previous default skin (the light camo top) to the current dark camo with Iraqi flag smock. Nice work by Splinter on these, but spine’s originals are still very strong to use together.

I have been experiencing more Marine victories it seems. I’m not sure of the competence of the other team, but I also believe the Marine weapons have less recoil and stronger accuracy. Damage seems to be reduced on many as well.

Grenade physics are worse. They don’t bounce, and I don’t like the sound… it matches the dropping a weapon sound, but you should be able to hear a distinctive sound from a grenade bouncing or someone throwing their weapon near you.

I don’t recall the reason behind no weapon in first-person spectate, but it was a bug that was just waiting to be addressed. It makes spectating way better, and better shows the game to other users (who can learn from it by watching).

I do not like the VGUI in the spectate. I like the function (as we originally designed a death vgui that wasn’t completed for release because it caused crashing) and information. It is just not very clearly displayed. There is an overuse of Dity Headline font. I love that font (having picked it out myself), and we were one of the first media to use it (I have seen it since used on CNN). But it is not legible at the smaller sizes. I can barely read the stats on the VGUI. Plus it should be transparent so that you can see more of what is behind.

Also on the VGUI, I tried minimizing it, but it just locked up any ability to move around in spectate after. Nor could I enable the VGUI again. Not sure if this has been addressed by the patch, as I am too scared to use it.

The weapon retextures are nice.

Patch

Good job Louti on getting a patch out so quickly to fix some immediate issues.

Hey Pablo, do you feel what releasing often feels like? Feels good eh? Keep doing it.

2.5

They never wanted to do a 2.5 on Source as I suggested, only work on Beta 3 they said. Well, they took my advice, yet again, and released the ’summer patch’ in late October (where winter has begun in some parts of Canada) a ‘two point five’ patch.

Don’t bother updating, there is no improvement.

Rest in Peace Lt. Justin Boyes, the second fallen soldier I have served with in the North Saskatchewan Regiment.