N v2.0... it's finally out!

[raigan]

hi everyone,
At long, long last, we have released N v2.0: http://www.metanetsoftware.com/blog/2013/n-v2-0-is-here

(you'll probably want to play the downloadable version since it runs a lot smoother)

Thanks to everyone for helping us beta-test, and for helping us with user-made expert maps.

We're sorry this took so long -- it was supposed to be finished 18 months ago!

There are some new features in the level editor which might be useful/interesting; be warned, there is a bit of a learning curve. It's a bit more user-friendly than the original Ned, but that's not saying much ;)

Anyway, thanks again for all of your encouragement and support.

Raigan

[sidke]

huzzah!

[yahoozy]

So excited! Thanks for pulling through, guys!

[Pheidippides]

Love it, especially the new userlevels. One minor problem I've encountered, though: the game is not recording my highscores as I play through the episodes. Seems like it's stuck in practice mode. Is the game itself separate from highscoring? Seems odd to have to play all the levels twice.

[aids]

Yahoozy's map will still be broken. And many other things.

[otters~1]

global

*cough*

[Losttortuga]

Right click in flash player and play with redraw regions on!

[zoasBE]

I do not like anything, ANYTHING having to play mandatorily an 'underclocked' mode running the downloadable version at XP, also neither mandatorily having to map or get the editor with an internet conection or when the server it is not down like now, also neither can't highscoring levels without server. Sorry, but I'll stay forever at NReality_v6g2.

EDIT: Also I'm a N mapping coding lover and I don't like anything this new 'hermetic' idea by Metanet for the userlevels and the code.

[999_Springs]

Do I win?

edit: Yay! It's my 700th post!

[ska]

From my email

I'm still (like a few others, it seems) am getting lag issues, where it will run smoothly, then randomly start slowing down, making it very frustrating to play... what's worse is the same bug was reported during the last beta yet is still present it seems on both my web version and downloaded version. I've already emailed you my specs and my version of flash is recent. I am also a bit jaded about the new highscores board... I honestly felt like the original one was far simpler and more intuitive.

At any rate, congratulations on the release, I just wish things went a bit smoother (so to speak).

- ska.

I feel like this should have gone through at least one more beta iteration. Currently, I have lost all motivation to play this again as it stands which is hard for me to say since I was one of the biggest proponents of the first beta.

[Nexx]

So far, it's great! Works fine on my machine and there's plenty of new content to feast on!

The integrated map sharing is interesting; it gets the job done, but I think I like NUMA better.

I don't mind the changes to the editor. They make things clearer and better organized, imo. It's worth a readjustment period.

Couple bugs:
- When playtesting map in editor, keys revert to default (jump is 'z' in this situation even though I have it set to 'shift' in the settings page)
- On settings page, typing in the text fields can trigger other commands, namely 'quit'. I figure that why you made it 'escape', but I think this behavior is unexpected from a user standpoint.
- Would really really love to SEE the score I get at the end of the level!

Thanks, M&R! Much love!

[Vyacheslav]

Can anyone explain why some high scores won't submit? It says N was running too slow.

What gives? Windows 7 64, latest Flash, 32GB RAM i7 3.6GHz...

[Leonidas]

I'm glad it's finally here, although I am noticing tons of glitches :/

[xaelar]

I'm totally into highscoring this! Already started on a few levels :D
It runs fine for me, I haven't experienced lags so far.

[EddyMataGallos]

Damn it, I did beat the 500 Metanet levels like 5 hours before that zaps (2am in UK time, 3am here), but I went on to user made columns, got stuck at b7-4 a couple hours later and went to bed. Though obviously I have no proof ;_;
Anyway its been 18 hours since that and I was expecting someone to have beaten the whole game, but I don't see anyone. Heres my pic, just finsished the 3 episdes I had left:


EDIT: Oh wait, I do have a proof! I just remembered I took a picture right after beating 99-4:

So by the date you can see I wasn't lying, that was 2:40 in UK time (here's an hour later I believe, although I really don't know how is DST going on now).
The other 2 pictures are the ones I took right now after finishing the last column.

PS. Yeah I deativated XP's visual theme to see if it worked just like in Vista/Win7 to make it more flowy, not sure it quite works though.

[Fnord]

I seem to miss the ability to watch my own replays for highscores (unless I'm in the top list for the level, of course).

Is there a way to save those? And maybe even share despite not being a top score (for instance, to demonstrate slower, but easier routes)?

[Nexx]

Despite all the (fair) claims of glitches, N v2 actually fixes almost all the old gameplay glitches that we're used to (one-ways, doors, floorguards, thwumps, bounceblocks, jumppads, etc.). In fact, I'm now realizing I kinda miss all those old bugs. Yes, they are bugs, BUT they extend the utility of the limited number of objects in the game. In N v2, a one-way is a one-way, and that's that. In N v1.4, a one-way is a one-way that can be passed through in certain scenarios. There's a flexibility there that allows for more things to happen. Probably the best example is that floorguards don't go over doors in N v2, which means Lucidium's "Valves" and other such classic floorguard puzzle maps never could've happened! I can understand M&R's desire to have the floorguard stick to tiles only, but again, letting it pass over locked & normal doors gave a flexibility that allowed for some amazing things.

I'm not saying they shouldn't've fixed these bugs, but I wish the overall set of N v2 objects had more flexibility. The sequel should have MORE possibilities than the original, not LESS!

In another vein, published maps show a URL, but the URL doesn't work in a browser. I'm very curious to see what M&R's N v2 NUMA is like!

[EddyMataGallos]

I seem to miss the ability to watch my own replays for highscores (unless I'm in the top list for the level, of course).

Is there a way to save those? And maybe even share despite not being a top score (for instance, to demonstrate slower, but easier routes)?

Sorry but I'd say thats not quite possible. I've checked the savefile and it almost didn't change in size from when I started to when I finished all 600 levels, from which infer replays aren't saved. There's no button neither.

As for Nexx comment above, I totally +1, though I had already exposed my point of view in this long ago. Same as van and pretty much all highscorers.

Also I think we should create another bug topic. Im aware there are several ones. As for what it refers to highscoring, which are the ones I notice the most, a couple ones are:
* Tied scores aren't sorted chronologically! This is so bad considering just how many tied 0ths will be on this version. Im already out of a maxed board which I myself maxed in 2nd place.
* You can't see you score if you don't improve, and therefore can't gauge what would have your time been when you innov/miss gold/etc.

Oh, and I like the idea of every single level having its URL, it still doesn't work but I believe it will make things much easier for a NHigh-like software, to dinf and download the scores, so we can start making rankings asap.

[Fnord]

I seem to miss the ability to watch my own replays for highscores (unless I'm in the top list for the level, of course).

Is there a way to save those? And maybe even share despite not being a top score (for instance, to demonstrate slower, but easier routes)?

Sorry but I'd say thats not quite possible. I've checked the savefile and it almost didn't change in size from when I started to when I finished all 600 levels, from which infer replays aren't saved. There's no button neither.

This seems fairly silly. Obviously, code to record, playback and even transmit replays has been implemented. Dumping that into a file stream seems like a no-brainer to me?

And while I'm criticizing, I do want to make clear: Thanks for making this, it totally rocks, it will make my employer cry, and I love you to bits for making it. While I've donated in the past, I might just as well donate again.

With that out of the way, other things I miss:

* Episode top lists, and with arcade mode, a timer and top list for playing entire columns.
* Replays for those, too! I understand data costs to host and distribute, but I'd wager I'm not the only one willing to pay for that, plus, even just allowing for it through file transfer would be a start!
* I don't get why I only can make a highscore when playing a level individually - I might just as well make that marvelous jump marking my personal best while I'm playing another mode.
* Seeing the screens in the level list is cool, but why can't I select an episode and instead have to click through all of the column?
* Speaking of the level menu: Ewww, mouse! Keyboard controls don't appear to work.
* Why don't I see my score when I finish a level, whether it's a new best or not? In fact, show me the difference to my personal best AND to the overall highscore!

I'll spare everyone from adding extra NReality features (ghost mode for a replay of my choice would rock!) and call that my initial "this could be better"-list.

[EddyMataGallos]

I seem to miss the ability to watch my own replays for highscores (unless I'm in the top list for the level, of course).

Is there a way to save those? And maybe even share despite not being a top score (for instance, to demonstrate slower, but easier routes)?

Sorry but I'd say thats not quite possible. I've checked the savefile and it almost didn't change in size from when I started to when I finished all 600 levels, from which infer replays aren't saved. There's no button neither.

This seems fairly silly. Obviously, code to record, playback and even transmit replays has been implemented. Dumping that into a file stream seems like a no-brainer to me?

I don't get you bro, you have obviously played the original version right? You know, the one that has been here since 2004, and which saves all replays in a plain-text format into both your savefile and the servers database. I myself have been playing it since 2006-7, and my own savefile probably includes about 10000 runs and is 10MB big (from the original 255kb clear savefile). This is pretty useful because N was my main hobby when I had no internet. I think you should have been a bit more respectful instead of just turning up from nowhere with that kind of comment, which is pretty nonsense (calling "no-brainer" to what has been being done for 9 years, gosh)

Now Im absolutely NOT saying you can't see replays in this new version (which is something I would consider quite weird, though considering the amount of things that have been supressed...), because it may just be that I haven't seen it on a first sight, I haven't even looked for it, what Im doing is just defending my point. Now that I read that you "donated in the past", makes me think about how much you actually played N and yet didn't know that.

[sidke]

In another vein, published maps show a URL, but the URL doesn't work in a browser. I'm very curious to see what M&R's N v2 NUMA is like!

until i find out more about getting metadata from the server without taxing it too much, here is a way to get the map data for the map

http://droni.es/getdata.php?l= after i am able to get more data, i'll work that into the page

[乳头的早餐谷物]

stray thoughts

The whole inbuilt user levels thing is pretty clunky and you miss out on a lot of the functionality offered by NUMA but it is cool seeing the latest maps right there in the official game and having everyone's highscores instantly appearing (don't really understand what the highscore scores actually represent though). The downside is that it's much more of an online game which feels crippled if you're not connected. New editor is a big change and as someone who doesn't make maps I'll never get used to it but I think if you did you'd end up preferring it to the original. I want to try out the arcade mode so it is understandable but a little lame that is an unlockable. Same goes for the extra columns. Maybe someone could hook a brother up.

[ska]

So I went to my parents' house tonight, and got a chance to play N for an hour or so, playing various levels. Oddly, despite the fact it's only a dual core (albeit a recent model), it plays N 2.0 flawlessy, better than 1.4, in fact.. The laptop I had is quad core and also has the same OS (Windows 7) so I'm not sure why a higher spec machine would struggle (like other people have reported..)

[乳头的早餐谷物]

So I went to my parents' house tonight, and got a chance to play N for an hour or so, playing various levels. Oddly, despite the fact it's only a dual core (albeit a recent model), it plays N 2.0 flawlessy, better than 1.4, in fact.. The laptop I had is quad core and also has the same OS (Windows 7) so I'm not sure why a higher spec machine would struggle (like other people have reported..)

Oh, yeah, whatever the problem is, it's not to do with processing power. My 2005 revision AMD (editor's note: holy shit my processor is that old?) plays it beautifully.

[Fnord]

This seems fairly silly. Obviously, code to record, playback and even transmit replays has been implemented. Dumping that into a file stream seems like a no-brainer to me?

I don't get you bro,

I see, so let me clarify: I'm talking about the apparent lack of ability to deliberately record, store, share and playback replays in 2.0 other than through reaching the top list.

If this is actually possible, hooray, but it seems that if it is, nobody knows how.

And as for being silly, I think it's rather clear that a lot of work (in the new codebase, so it doesn't matter what happened in N before) went intomaking recording and playback working in the first place, while then just making that available/storable/sharabale seems like a much simpler task that would make that feature much more useful. So investing the time to do the former and then not the little bit of extra time for the latter, that's what I meant with the "silly" bit.

If you think that's disrepectful, sorry; it's just what I think.