Why is Natural Selection 2 so Expensive?

[stickz]

Are you guys running Natural Selection 2 on your more expensive E3 processors? The cost for purchasing one of these as a standalone seems artificially high, given the fact improvements have been made to the game since release.

A game developer mentions here how 12-14 slots can be run on a single processor core. This load could very easily be parallelized within an E5 environment for more optimal results in-term of cost. At-least 15% of the load is multi-threaded. http://steamcommunity.com/app/4920/disc ... 8682386023

[kraze]

Back in the day when NS2 first released and throughout a majority of its life it was extremely CPU intensive, which made it expensive to run. It's likely the resource requirements have dropped and that the price needs to be reevaluated. I will mention this to the correct people so we can investigate further.

[stickz]

If the cost does happen to get "reevaluated", would an option to upgrade the move-rate be something worth adding? Some users may want to intentionally run a more CPU intensive environment to improve hit registration; much like the classic fps boosters.

[kraze]

Due to NS2's age and limited player base I wouldn't expect that any performance levels would be added, but if resources requirements have dropped enough to the point where it's not using an entire core I don't see any reason why players cannot set that setting to what they desire. Overall, it appears that the move-rate is a standard variable that anyone can change.

[stickz]

Adjusting that setting would require a higher performance level in-order to function properly. Part of the reason why it was dropped in a previous game update, was to allow game-servers to be hosted in more cost-effective environments.

This is more than just a "standard variable" on the spark engine. It has a direct impact on hit registration. The average person most likely wouldn't want to change this; but if a competitive player-base came along, they'd want better.

[kraze]

At another provider it's possible, but here everything is broken out by resource usage. Smaller servers aren't necessarily being put on slower or higher loaded machines, so generally no extra steps are needed on our end. Also, it appears that the value can be changed by anyone, meaning it doesn't need command line access, which would make it pretty difficult to enforce. Customers are welcome to edit the value, but will need to be on the lookout for undesired results.

[stickz]

It would be an upgrade for most people just getting these servers off their home connections and out of warehouses. They wouldn't need to take it one step further, if they could host it on NFO, at a reasonable price-point.

I just thought this variable could influence your decision about whether or not to add performance levels to the game. It's not so much the enforcing part, as it is distributing CPU load to it's fullest potential when it comes to performance.

This is just a rough estimate, but at the current moverate, it could potentially take in-excess 50ms to process your movements. There is a potential to better meet the goals of a customer, in-terms of cost over performance. If all game-servers were optimized for competitive, they would be completely unfordable.