The competitive community has always been a big focus and motivator for us. Many of us spend a lot of time watching videos of high-level play like HDStarcraft, Day 9, and League of Legends on SoloMid.net.

Back when we were developing NS1 v2.0 (the first client patch after the original release of NS1), we enlisted the help of hundreds of competitive NS players (called "Veterans") to scrimmage, tune balance and give us feedback to help bring the game to a new level.

It turned out to be a massive amount of work to organize that many players, servers and matches, so this time around we're letting the community organize itself in this way. It turns out that even at this early stage of the beta, this has already begun.

NaturalSelection2HD has posted the very first recorded competitive matches of NS2. The balance is off. There are bugs. Big chunks of the tech tree are missing. But I'd be lying if I said these matches weren't exciting! Hugh even added a cool spectator overlay which of course gives us ideas for incorporating it into the game.

HBZ vs. Frelge Game 1 - beta 179

HBZ vs. Frelge Game 2 - beta 179

Because Hugh is such an awesome guy, he's also offered to record your competitive matches and rebroadcast on NS2HD:

Make it Your NS2HD

He will join your server, record your game from multiple perspectives and release the video. To see when he's available and book at time, check out his custom calendar. He's also now on Twitter.

I hope you enjoy watching these videos as much as we did! Great stuff.