Is T:V worth it?

[Aldaron]

It's cool if you like it. People want to defend what they love. That's cool for you to do too. I'd do the same for Starsiege, Tribes, and the Darkstar engine from a story and technical standpoint still now more than a decade later.

But facts are facts. They canceled support of the game so quickly for a reason. The job Irrational did on T:V just really destroyed the entire marketing strategy VU came up with (easily moddable, Tribes 3, etc.) and no patch would have fixed it. They delivered on none of those points and made something people like to think, Irrational Games included, just didn't happen.

Still great if you love it, but they gave many strong reasons for everyone else not to.

[Malox]

Story line ??? , mind explaining your thoughts around that ...... isn't the Tribes series around Tribal groups fighting for dominance over the each other.

Isn't that what happens in T:V , stick the single player game as multi is what it's about ...... you won't see me in game pondering the events of Julia and her exploits around the arena.

I won't be losing sleep if victoria can't use the grapple well enough to escape ....... I mean really who gives a toss.

If you ( WeatherLight ) are going to shoot down every comment I post then this will be fun , I personally think you dwell to much on the detail that no one cares about and don't see the game for what it is ....... a fun package.

Did you actually play the game , I'm assuming yes ...... so how long did you play it ???

The 1 point you are totally correct on is the huge amount of ego inflated arseholes this game attracts , I mean I've seen it over and over ..... a new player comes in and is willing to sit back and listen , as soon as they get skill they turn into arsewipes and treat every other new player like shit.

That alone has scared away the numbers that may have stayed around and continue to play , I'm sure I can remember a weatherlight when I started ....... it's just a shame I can't remember what you were like.

Reagrding modding , mapping and skins ...... what issues are you talking about ....... I have no problems at all , only issue I have was the learning curve I can make some fairly good work.

Do you think the hang up here is the consistancy T:V didn't follow regarding the previous game , I mean the biggest complaint I hear from so called T1 and 2 vets who port over is the grappler.

The influence to change T:V was so strong when I started playing the grappler was almost fazed out with introductions like vanilla and what not ..... yet the grappler itself is probably 1 of the bigger showcase weapons in the game.

I'm still struggling as to why T:V is such a hated game , forget the support , forget the engine , just focus on the game and tell me why it's dogshit.

I slip into T1 and 2 from time to time and I gotta say , they look like dogshit to me when you compare them to T:V.

Your turn sonny jim.

Mal-

[Aldaron]

Story line ??? , mind explaining your thoughts around that ...... isn't the Tribes series around Tribal groups fighting for dominance over the each other.

It is, and that's the problem. That's the basic idea, but there's a lot more than just fighting amongst the tribes going on. IG saw the basic idea and ran with it. They completely ignored the unique personalities each tribe had at that point in human history, how the human empire (devastated many times over by Prometheus and his Cybrids) would have been structured or acted, and just completely ignored the entire culture and structure of every group represented in the game.

If you know anything about the history behind the franchise (which starts right before the 21st century, goes for nearly 2,000 years and was written years before Irrational was putting out concept art) you'd realize the points Weatherlight brought up in his post further up this page are completely valid and answer your question. And that's just the start story-wise.

Reagrding modding , mapping and skins ...... what issues are you talking about ....... I have no problems at all , only issue I have was the learning curve I can make some fairly good work.

It was more the fact that Irrational hacked the engine together to do what they wanted. Sure, if you want to make skins and maps for T:V it's not that difficult. If you have any other ideas you might as well forget it. If memory serves the largest obstacle was the physics because Irrational injected some of their own code into the engine and didn't bother to do anything with the code that comes with the engine by default.

A big thing was Starsiege: 2845. It was to be a total conversion mod of T:V and marketed off as the posterchild of how easy modding T:V was (think "HEY GUYS, LOOK HOW GREAT THIS MOD LOOKS FOR THIS GAME! DID WE MENTION THE GAME'S NOT OUT YET AND PEOPLE ARE ALREADY MODDING IT!?"). It wasn't, the team never got the source code to fix what Irrational broke, and it produced the quote Weatherlight brought up "The engine is shit". For example, it took weeks for a team of 30-50 people (many of them professionals in the industry) working in their spare time to implement a vehicle that operated very much like the Scorpion in the Unreal Tournament series and they only got halfway done. By contrast it took a day to do the same in the Torque Game Engine.

Many felt that was a very good indication of how the game handled mods and custom content. Vivendi must have thought it was too because they were very open to allowing the team to move to a different engine and T:V was axed very shortly after.

Do you think the hang up here is the consistancy T:V didn't follow regarding the previous game , I mean the biggest complaint I hear from so called T1 and 2 vets who port over is the grappler.

The influence to change T:V was so strong when I started playing the grappler was almost fazed out with introductions like vanilla and what not ..... yet the grappler itself is probably 1 of the bigger showcase weapons in the game.

The hang up is the game was nothing like the previous Tribes titles in the series and the quote I posted earlier answers your question well enough. Here it is again:

"Tribes: Vengeance, I think, was our worst game," Levine states frankly. "I don't think we loved or understood the franchise. It's one of those cases where you take a job - because you're a business and you need to take a job - and I don't think we did a great service to the Tribes community."

Irrational was hired to create a single-player, story based Tribes game. As any fan of the Tribes will tell you, this core concept is incompatible with the spirit of Tribes and what made the games popular. Regardless, that was what publisher Vivendi wanted, and that was what Irrational delivered with Tribes: Vengeance. It wasn't actually a bad game - it was just at odds with the community's expectations.

"You never know how something is going to be recieved," Wells observes. "Sometimes its easy to misjudge a small but extremely vocal group of superfans."

Levine adds: "In terms of our portfolio, I look at all the other titles and I see where they fit, and I still don't understand really where Tribes fits in."

In short they had no idea what made a Tribes game a Tribes game. They took a look at the history behind it, saw some screenshots, and went to work with their idea and listened to community feedback at TribalWar. That was their mistake from a design standpoint. I myself was a giddy school girl over screenshots they were releasing but at the end of the day the game is just far more different from Starsiege: Tribes/Tribes 2 than Tribes 2 was originally from Starsiege: Tribes.

That is not a bad thing. But when the market they were catering to (those of us sitting at the-Junkyard, Starsiege2845.com, Sun and Shadows, TribalWar, etc.) expects something it will be hated if it is not what is expected. People completely new to the franchise might like T:V. In fact I bet they will because it looks prettier and, in an age where graphics are everything to people who came into the gaming world with an Xbox, T:V will be picked up first. But to those of us who have been with the franchise for years before T:V it felt dumbed down compared to what we were used to, even if it did have better graphics.

I'm still struggling as to why T:V is such a hated game , forget the support , forget the engine , just focus on the game and tell me why it's dogshit.

It's hated because everything about it is not what it was promised to be and it failed in the eyes of everyone who played Starsiege, Tribes, or Tribes 2 before. It's no stretch to imagine that the people still playing it have not had any experience with the Tribes series before it was released. The reasons why have been discussed to death since the game came out years ago.

I slip into T1 and 2 from time to time and I gotta say , they look like dogshit to me when you compare them to T:V.

"Look". Anyone who plays any game in the Tribes series, Tribes: Vengeance included, should know any Tribes game is a game that doesn't need to look good to play. It's about the movement, weapons, armor classes, vehicles, and deployables.

[[-Trogan-]]

It is, and that's the problem. That's the basic idea, but there's a lot more than just fighting amongst the tribes going on. IG saw the basic idea and ran with it. They completely ignored the unique personalities each tribe had at that point in human history, how the human empire (devastated many times over by Prometheus and his Cybrids) would have been structured or acted, and just completely ignored the entire culture and structure of every group represented in the game.

If you know anything about the history behind the franchise (which starts right before the 21st century, goes for nearly 2,000 years and was written years before Irrational was putting out concept art) you'd realize the points Weatherlight brought up in his post further up this page are completely valid and answer your question. And that's just the start story-wise.


It was more the fact that Irrational hacked the engine together to do what they wanted. Sure, if you want to make skins and maps for T:V it's not that difficult. If you have any other ideas you might as well forget it. If memory serves the largest obstacle was the physics because Irrational injected some of their own code into the engine and didn't bother to do anything with the code that comes with the engine by default.

A big thing was Starsiege: 2845. It was to be a total conversion mod of T:V and marketed off as the posterchild of how easy modding T:V was (think "HEY GUYS, LOOK HOW GREAT THIS MOD LOOKS FOR THIS GAME! DID WE MENTION THE GAME'S NOT OUT YET AND PEOPLE ARE ALREADY MODDING IT!?"). It wasn't, the team never got the source code to fix what Irrational broke, and it produced the quote Weatherlight brought up "The engine is shit". For example, it took weeks for a team of 30-50 people (many of them professionals in the industry) working in their spare time to implement a vehicle that operated very much like the Scorpion in the Unreal Tournament series and they only got halfway done. By contrast it took a day to do the same in the Torque Game Engine.

Many felt that was a very good indication of how the game handled mods and custom content. Vivendi must have thought it was too because they were very open to allowing the team to move to a different engine and T:V was axed very shortly after.


The hang up is the game was nothing like the previous Tribes titles in the series and the quote I posted earlier answers your question well enough. Here it is again:


In short they had no idea what made a Tribes game a Tribes game. They took a look at the history behind it, saw some screenshots, and went to work with their idea and listened to community feedback at TribalWar. That was their mistake from a design standpoint. I myself was a giddy school girl over screenshots they were releasing but at the end of the day the game is just far more different from Starsiege: Tribes/Tribes 2 than Tribes 2 was originally from Starsiege: Tribes.

That is not a bad thing. But when the market they were catering to (those of us sitting at the-Junkyard, Starsiege2845.com, Sun and Shadows, TribalWar, etc.) expects something it will be hated if it is not what is expected. People completely new to the franchise might like T:V. In fact I bet they will because it looks prettier and, in an age where graphics are everything to people who came into the gaming world with an Xbox, T:V will be picked up first. But to those of us who have been with the franchise for years before T:V it felt dumbed down compared to what we were used to, even if it did have better graphics.


It's hated because everything about it is not what it was promised to be and it failed in the eyes of everyone who played Starsiege, Tribes, or Tribes 2 before. It's no stretch to imagine that the people still playing it have not had any experience with the Tribes series before it was released. The reasons why have been discussed to death since the game came out years ago.


"Look". Anyone who plays any game in the Tribes series, Tribes: Vengeance included, should know any Tribes game is a game that doesn't need to look good to play. It's about the movement, weapons, armor classes, vehicles, and deployables.

ooooo I personaly can't wait to see what he sais next. . That should've dont the trick.

[Malox]

If you know anything about the history behind the franchise (which starts right before the 21st century, goes for nearly 2,000 years and was written years before Irrational was putting out concept art) you'd realize the points Weatherlight brought up in his post further up this page are completely valid and answer your question. And that's just the start story-wise.

I understand with any hobby , past time or even a mild addiction for some .... those of us that are serious about it like to understand the entire story from start to finish but don't you think your being a touch dramatic.

We are talking about a game here mate , yeah it's background helps draw a bigger picture and helps emmerse the player into the story line but being 39 years of age I simply play the game for enjoyment.

Tell me , am I talking to teenagers here or adults ....... a serious question fellas ?

It was more the fact that Irrational hacked the engine together to do what they wanted. Sure, if you want to make skins and maps for T:V it's not that difficult. If you have any other ideas you might as well forget it. If memory serves the largest obstacle was the physics because Irrational injected some of their own code into the engine and didn't bother to do anything with the code that comes with the engine by default.

Help me understand what the other ideas were , I mean mods have been made for T:V by T:V players ........ I'm struggling to understand what your concern is here.

Regarding the physics ..... now this conversation may get ugly but T:V is the most fluid game I've played.

General movement feels and looks real , flying ability seems smooth and over time you work out how to push the boundaries of it , skiing function is simply awesome ...... only area that sticks in my mind that could have been better are some events when interacting with water volumes.

Well known issue is sticking to the ground so to speak when you hit the water at speed and go under , you may experience the event while skiing where you can't get any upwards direction but the ski function does force the model down ....... so seems logical to me ?

A big thing was Starsiege: 2845. It was to be a total conversion mod of T:V and marketed off as the posterchild of how easy modding T:V was (think "HEY GUYS, LOOK HOW GREAT THIS MOD LOOKS FOR THIS GAME! DID WE MENTION THE GAME'S NOT OUT YET AND PEOPLE ARE ALREADY MODDING IT!?"). It wasn't, the team never got the source code to fix what Irrational broke, and it produced the quote Weatherlight brought up "The engine is shit". For example, it took weeks for a team of 30-50 people (many of them professionals in the industry) working in their spare time to implement a vehicle that operated very much like the Scorpion in the Unreal Tournament series and they only got halfway done. By contrast it took a day to do the same in the Torque Game Engine.

These are the noted issues regarding the game can trip you up , and I'm talking from a general run of the mill PC player that say , has just bought the game ,

1. After a long period of online game play ( if you are running a custom HUD which contains a Flag HUD ) , you may get a Flag HUD error requiring you to restart the game

2. Server redirects can be a pain to set up and work well ...... most sites for T:V resources and communicated well enough anyway so not a real big issue

3. Server downloads clear after 30 days , this has been fixed by a community member with a cache manager ..... but regardless of that it's not a big deal to auto download server files anyway if it's once every 30 days ( I'm talking 10 to 15 seconds worth of custom files ).

And that's it .....

The hang up is the game was nothing like the previous Tribes titles in the series and the quote I posted earlier answers your question well enough. Here it is again:


In short they had no idea what made a Tribes game a Tribes game. They took a look at the history behind it, saw some screenshots, and went to work with their idea and listened to community feedback at TribalWar. That was their mistake from a design standpoint. I myself was a giddy school girl over screenshots they were releasing but at the end of the day the game is just far more different from Starsiege: Tribes/Tribes 2 than Tribes 2 was originally from Starsiege: Tribes.

Once again I'm struggling to understand the issue here , Ok it wasn't consistant with T1 / 2 as you may have wanted and I'll take you word for it ...... for me it was an advancement.

If I was a person who played T1 and loved it as much as obviously you guys did then maybe I might understand a bit more but on the other hand , being a person that adapts well to change and likes to see an improvement T:V is that.

Yeah it's different but that's the point isn't it , I mean I loved my Chrysler Centura as my first car when I was a teenager but do I want to drive that car now .... well yes maybe from a nostalga perspective but I certainly enjoying driving my Nissan 350Z alot more.

[QOUTE]That is not a bad thing. But when the market they were catering to (those of us sitting at the-Junkyard, Starsiege2845.com, Sun and Shadows, TribalWar, etc.) expects something it will be hated if it is not what is expected. People completely new to the franchise might like T:V. In fact I bet they will because it looks prettier and, in an age where graphics are everything to people who came into the gaming world with an Xbox, T:V will be picked up first. But to those of us who have been with the franchise for years before T:V it felt dumbed down compared to what we were used to, even if it did have better graphics.[/QUOTE]

I'll take you word for that 1 but I wouldn't mind reading some examples of how it was dumbed down .... what could you do it T1 or 2 that can't be done in T:V from a gameplay perspective.

Once again , using a real life comparison ....... I'm going to stare at a hot little 20 year old walking down the street in a bikini longer than some blue hair lady heading to the pokies.

It's a natural thing ??

It's hated because everything about it is not what it was promised to be and it failed in the eyes of everyone who played Starsiege, Tribes, or Tribes 2 before. It's no stretch to imagine that the people still playing it have not had any experience with the Tribes series before it was released. The reasons why have been discussed to death since the game came out years ago.

OK this statement for me is the main issue here for T1 / 2 players , it's not what you expected or were promised.

All I can say regarding that is , they obviously wanted to try and capture new gamers into an already popular series ....... with the hope also that T1 / 2 players may also port over to the newer game as well.

Once again not coming from T1 / 2 I can't really relate but I find certainly with this game genre the community are so stuck in the mud with what worked and supposably what doesn't work.

Also reading between the lines , alot of the arguements seem to be singing the same tune ..... for me alot of people simply jumped on the band wagon and that's that.

But , I'm probably the same as you ..... I love playing T:V and once games like Ascension and Rise come out I'll probably give them a go but I know I'll still come back and play T:V as well.

Natural selection , you do what you enjoy.

"Look". Anyone who plays any game in the Tribes series, Tribes: Vengeance included, should know any Tribes game is a game that doesn't need to look good to play. It's about the movement, weapons, armor classes, vehicles, and deployables.

Once again a personal choice influenced the masses here as well ...... but in turn if you enjoy something then why change.

The movement in T1 I find restrictive , I don't find T2 much better ........ every weapon in T:V has a counter weapon , yeah vehicles could be better maing the rover the only usefull vehicle out of the 4.

Once again , you like what you play and you stick with ....... just shows how difficult it is though to change the habits of some people though.

ooooo I personaly can't wait to see what he sais next. . That should've dont the trick.

Why is this trait so consistant with Tribes players , everyone has to out talk some else ....... no it didn't do the trick Trogan as I'm really into understanding peoples thought processes and hopefully having a decent conversation to boot.

Why don't you add to the conversation instead of baiting it and waiting for fallout.

I'm not here to start shit , I'm simply here to be part of the community guys ....... and I certainly work on the logic that there are no stupid questions.

Mal-

[Weatherlight]

Story line ??? , mind explaining your thoughts around that ...... isn't the Tribes series around Tribal groups fighting for dominance over the each other.

Tribes isn't just one game. Its part of a legacy that stretches back all the way to 1996. The Tribes story-arc just so happens to be sandwiched between two others. This is why the story is important. Anything that does not relate to what is already published invalidates quite a bit of what people loved for so long.

Isn't that what happens in T:V , stick the single player game as multi is what it's about ...... you won't see me in game pondering the events of Julia and her exploits around the arena.

I won't be losing sleep if victoria can't use the grapple well enough to escape ....... I mean really who gives a toss.

That thought would be accurate if the single player wasn't the game's whole point. Tribes is Counterstrike in space before there was a Counterstrike. That was the basis of the whole franchise, but VUGames/Irrational decided the game needed a single-player and that's what Tribes: Vengeance's whole goal was. Multi-player was tacked on for obvious reasons: you can't take a purely multi-player franchise and turn it into a single-player only game and expect the thing to sell.

If you ( WeatherLight ) are going to shoot down every comment I post then this will be fun , I personally think you dwell to much on the detail that no one cares about and don't see the game for what it is ....... a fun package.

A fun package is a matter of opinion. I wanted the epic, I was given the lite. You probably never got to play the one-hundred and twenty-eight man games that were hosted in Tribes2. Back in the days when cable internet was rare and stupidly expensive and T1 was the god of all creation. Without the frame of reference that the older fans of the franchise have you can't expect you to understand. We had been playing since the dawn of time with one of the first games massively-multiplayer games ever. You don't just walk away from that for a cheap thrill and a let-down.

Did you actually play the game , I'm assuming yes ...... so how long did you play it ???

I'll answer that with a picture and "as long as the game's population stayed above a hundred players."

The 1 point you are totally correct on is the huge amount of ego inflated arseholes this game attracts , I mean I've seen it over and over ..... a new player comes in and is willing to sit back and listen , as soon as they get skill they turn into arsewipes and treat every other new player like shit.

That alone has scared away the numbers that may have stayed around and continue to play , I'm sure I can remember a weatherlight when I started ....... it's just a shame I can't remember what you were like.

Halo 2/3 is very much similar. I was the guy in the gerbil-ball sniping people outside of their sight range because the weapons had a longer projectile range than the map's horizon limit.

Reagrding modding , mapping and skins ...... what issues are you talking about ....... I have no problems at all , only issue I have was the learning curve I can make some fairly good work.

Custom vehicle classes, object vectoring, other stuff. I remember hearing complaints about how it handled shaders but that might just be faulty memory. Texture sizes were a big one as I recall.

Do you think the hang up here is the consistancy T:V didn't follow regarding the previous game , I mean the biggest complaint I hear from so called T1 and 2 vets who port over is the grappler.

Tribes1 was very similar to Counterstrike, but with jetpacks and more options. It was quick, dirty fighting warfare. The pace at which the game was played set a very, very steep learning curve. It was exhilarating and fun. Back in '98-'99 there wasn't anything else like Tribes until Half-Life/Counterstrike came along.

Tribes2 was set on the scale of truly epic. The base game allowed 64 players at a time. 64 players. That's a ridiculous number, even today. Twelve vehicles to a side, you have twenty-four vehicles in play at a given time. That's insane and awesome. The story got a little stupid with the Bioderm -> SpaceOrk transition but the game was still fun enough that people just pulled a StarTrek and looked the other way while blaming the art department for the mix-up.

The influence to change T:V was so strong when I started playing the grappler was almost fazed out with introductions like vanilla and what not ..... yet the grappler itself is probably 1 of the bigger showcase weapons in the game.

I'm still struggling as to why T:V is such a hated game , forget the support , forget the engine , just focus on the game and tell me why it's dogshit.

Tribes: Vengeance's play style is much slower than Tribes1 (and if you think base is bad, you should go find some of the old RENEGADE mods that cranked up the speed to stupid) and much, much smaller in scale than Tribes2. The single-player's story didn't appeal to the people who loved the universe's setting. The multi-player didn't appeal to the twitch gamers who came from T1 or the OMGHUEGBATTLEFIELD players who had been inducted through Tribes2. Jetpacks were minimized, a whole new game mechanic was added (the grappler) which even before the game was finished caught fire as many people didn't want it added and the whole thing was kinda just bungled.

Irrational managed to alienate almost every single community that it was making a game for without anything to draw them in. That's why there's a mountain of hate for the game.

I slip into T1 and 2 from time to time and I gotta say , they look like dogshit to me when you compare them to T:V.

And the original Legend of Zelda looks like ass in comparison to Borderlands. That's weak. Those games were released in times when technology was advancing by leaps and bounds. They're whole technological generations older than Tribes: Vengeance.

[[-Trogan-]]

Why is this trait so consistant with Tribes players , everyone has to out talk some else ....... no it didn't do the trick Trogan as I'm really into understanding peoples thought processes and hopefully having a decent conversation to boot.

Why don't you add to the conversation instead of baiting it and waiting for fallout.

I'm not here to start shit , I'm simply here to be part of the community guys ....... and I certainly work on the logic that there are no stupid questions.

Mal-

look.

You should not have gotten me involved. I just stated the fact of YOUR DENSE and that i'm not a big tribes player. (i read the arguements for fun and i agreed with Aldaron)

I'm also more of a Starsiege ORIGINAL player. Tribes never suited well with me since they got rid of the thing that made starsiege what it was. THE HERCS.

anyway. You will be proven wrong like many others before you. This site has experts on what you would call "things such as this."

one last fact.

Me and Angel-A are the only Teens on here (that i'm aware of) the rest are adults who know alot more about "things" then me or (you i'm assuming).


And you did Start Shit, but being part of the community is alright as long as you are open minded.

[Malox]

Thanks WeatherLight , you have answered alot and I appriceate the time and effort.

But regarding Trojan ,

You should not have gotten me involved

ROFL , and why is that ......

I just stated the fact of YOUR DENSE

No you didn't you only just stated that now ...... so here's a tip , don't go emo on a new forum member when they come in and do ask open questions simply with the aim to understand from a forum community he has just met.

I have basically played T:V for 5 years , whereas you state you haven't or " Not a big Tribes player " ...... so really , if you wanna get technical your comments mean nothing.

You will be proven wrong like many others before you.

WTF is your problem , I simply asked some questions ....... do you reacte like this when ever someone posts back and doesn't agree with you/

If the answer is YES then you better get ready for some tears , I will converse with who ever I like in a fashion that shows respect ......

ooooo I personaly can't wait to see what he sais next. . That should've dont the trick.

That's not adding to anything , you have just posted to act the tard ....... if anyone here should be shitty it should be me.

So calm down and add to the conversation ..... don't bait.

Me and Angel-A are the only Teens on here (that i'm aware of) the rest are adults who know alot more about "things" then me or (you i'm assuming).

Once again , childish remarks that weren't warrented , you also pick on my intelligence with no background evidence on me what so ever ..... using " things " as you vocal point.

" things " cover pretty much everything don't you agree , I'm pretty sure I have alot of things to contribute simply based on my age and life experience.

Congrats on drawing a bad picture of yourself buddy , nice knee jerk reaction.

Mal-

[rEDkILLER]

Me and Angel-A are the only Teens on here (that i'm aware of).

You forgot me xD

He's Trogan, not Trojan (dude you got a difficult name xD that's ok)

He can't add to the discussion and feeled free to show how he thinks of Aldaron's answer,
We don't all of us post here to add something, that's the spirit of an "entrenched" forum here and until that changes with more new members (like you hehe) we need both camps to understand that


Trogan wanted no harm , he made me personally laugh to tears but he replied with visible , errrr, "agression"...

anyway. You will be proven wrong like many others before you.

It's not about who is wrong and who is right, it is personnal appreciation of the game


I'm not considering myself a Tribes player (yet) even if I played the 1 a few times
Malox, imagine T:V got a succession, how you will react the graphics engine got hashed/bashed, dramaticel changes made to the scale/weapons the way that you can no more edit maps (since you're a mapper) the way you used to in T:V?

Hopefully you get an answer xD

I liked that

Irrational managed to alienate almost every single community that it was making a game for without anything to draw them in

and the desktop of Weatherlight xD

[Weatherlight]

What you can't see is right above those computer parts on the left is my TV and I have my old PS2 (and soon Dreamcast) set up on the woofer on the right. My second monitor is just out of range too. But you can see the lights from my computer and awesome space heater... the only thing keeping me from freezing to death in this goddamned cold.

[Aldaron]

I understand with any hobby , past time or even a mild addiction for some .... those of us that are serious about it like to understand the entire story from start to finish but don't you think your being a touch dramatic.

We are talking about a game here mate , yeah it's background helps draw a bigger picture and helps emmerse the player into the story line but being 39 years of age I simply play the game for enjoyment.

You asked, I delivered.

I personally have played in the Earthsiege universe for almost ten years now. Reading what equates to the Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series in size in the span of a decade is far from dramatic.

What would be dramatic is if I keep going to every forum related to Earthsiege, Starsiege, or Tribes and posting information on how to download one of the games while telling people that it can be revived.

Tell me , am I talking to teenagers here or adults ....... a serious question fellas ?

As answered, there are very few teenagers here. Some of us came to these websites as a teenager and have since become adults.

Help me understand what the other ideas were , I mean mods have been made for T:V by T:V players ........ I'm struggling to understand what your concern is here.

It's been years since I've actually looked under the hood of T:V, but I recall anything other than mapping or skinning being an absolute bitch. Try creating a new vehicle from complete scratch with more than just a traction circle and see how far that goes. You can thank Irrational for any frustration you encounter while attempting it.

Regarding the physics ..... now this conversation may get ugly but T:V is the most fluid game I've played.

General movement feels and looks real , flying ability seems smooth and over time you work out how to push the boundaries of it , skiing function is simply awesome ...... only area that sticks in my mind that could have been better are some events when interacting with water volumes.

It's Tribes. Its goal is not to feel real but to continue the concepts from previous Tribes games, otherwise they wouldn't have advertised it as such.

Well known issue is sticking to the ground so to speak when you hit the water at speed and go under , you may experience the event while skiing where you can't get any upwards direction but the ski function does force the model down ....... so seems logical to me ?



These are the noted issues regarding the game can trip you up , and I'm talking from a general run of the mill PC player that say , has just bought the game ,

1. After a long period of online game play ( if you are running a custom HUD which contains a Flag HUD ) , you may get a Flag HUD error requiring you to restart the game

2. Server redirects can be a pain to set up and work well ...... most sites for T:V resources and communicated well enough anyway so not a real big issue

3. Server downloads clear after 30 days , this has been fixed by a community member with a cache manager ..... but regardless of that it's not a big deal to auto download server files anyway if it's once every 30 days ( I'm talking 10 to 15 seconds worth of custom files ).

And that's it .....

That's not it. Maybe for someone just picking up the game as you said, but T:V was supposed to be much more than that. There's plenty still wrong with the game bug-wise. Otherwise the patch Irrational Games prepared, but never got to release, wouldn't have been a couple hundred megabytes as they reported and with most being bug-fixes. You can probably still find the patch notes on some old Tribes websites with the Wayback Machine

Once again I'm struggling to understand the issue here , Ok it wasn't consistant with T1 / 2 as you may have wanted and I'll take you word for it ...... for me it was an advancement.

If I was a person who played T1 and loved it as much as obviously you guys did then maybe I might understand a bit more but on the other hand , being a person that adapts well to change and likes to see an improvement T:V is that.

T:V is an advancement, but to the thousands Vivendi was marketing to it was only an advancement in graphics and not gameplay. To those thousands the game felt very slow and very small. Both previous Tribes games were VERY fast paced FPS games on a massive scale. T:V was neither.

To those who did not experience the speed and thrill of a Tribes game before T:V it was great. And that's good. Great they found a game they liked, but clearly it wasn't enough to keep it going.

Yeah it's different but that's the point isn't it , I mean I loved my Chrysler Centura as my first car when I was a teenager but do I want to drive that car now .... well yes maybe from a nostalga perspective but I certainly enjoying driving my Nissan 350Z alot more.

The fact is they advertised the game as a Tribes game and marketed it as such to appeal to a very select audience. People expected certain things and those things were not met with satisfaction.

When Starsiege: 2845 was in development they said it was NOT a Starsiege game or a Tribes game. People didn't expect it to be once that point was ingested so we weren't disappointed when there were elements showcased a Starsiege game would never have.

Irrational and Vivendi, in their attempt to market to the already existing communities, made it very clear T:V was going to be a Tribes game, just a few centuries before any of the others. That was one of their strategies to pull players in. And they fell flat on their faces when the finished product was not considered a Tribes game by the very same people they expected to pay the bill. People still to this day will deny the existence of it.

I'll take you word for that 1 but I wouldn't mind reading some examples of how it was dumbed down .... what could you do it T1 or 2 that can't be done in T:V from a gameplay perspective.

Nothing. "Dumbed down" does not always imply missing mechanics. The game was significantly slower and overly simplified than any previous Tribes game. That by itself will make it hated by Tribes fans as Tribes 2 found out very well when it was released. Skiing in T:V is a perfect example.

In Starsiege: Tribes skiing was a complete accident and a bug. The developers at Dynamix didn't want players to suddenly come to complete stops the moment they touched the ground so they allowed some negative acceleration to occur that moment. It wasn't until after the game shipped that people discovered tapping the space bar quickly allowed acceleration on downward slopes and it drastically increased the speed of the game even on such large battlefields Tribes offered. It was no surprise when the game was called the fastest FPS game of all time with how it worked.

In Tribes 2 skiing was integrated into the game but the game was slower by default than the previous Tribes game, making larger maps an absolute bitch to cross during a 64+ player match. This caused a lot of hatred for the game and people modded it to go faster like before.

T:V came out with significantly smaller maps and was a lot slower with smaller servers. It was neither fast nor massive and skiiing in particular was far too easy and "dumbed down". I recall my character trying to ski on a flat surface the moment I held my space bar down with even the smallest bit of acceleration. You can imagine those points would turn people off after, once again, Vivendi told them to expect a Tribes game.

OK this statement for me is the main issue here for T1 / 2 players , it's not what you expected or were promised.

All I can say regarding that is , they obviously wanted to try and capture new gamers into an already popular series ....... with the hope also that T1 / 2 players may also port over to the newer game as well.

Once again not coming from T1 / 2 I can't really relate but I find certainly with this game genre the community are so stuck in the mud with what worked and supposably what doesn't work.

It's great they tried new things to pull people in. Without innovation there would be no advancements. But the tried and true methods of Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 proved time and again that they worked for the people they were targeting.

T:V went in different directions and it fell flat on its face. It didn't grab the audience it was targeting (those of us who watched its development) but it failed to grab enough new players to even pay for its development bill. Clearly what they attempted wasn't good enough by the standards of all but the very few die hards who still play it.

But , I'm probably the same as you ..... I love playing T:V and once games like Ascension and Rise come out I'll probably give them a go but I know I'll still come back and play T:V as well.

Ascension's been canceled.

Once again a personal choice influenced the masses here as well ...... but in turn if you enjoy something then why change.

Exactly. If Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 were successful (and they were, at least 5 times more than T:V ever was) then why change? Both Starsiege: Tribes (made in 1998) and Tribes 2 (made in 2001) have more players now than Tribes: Vengeance ever had. Clearly Dynamix and Garage Games did something right 10-12 years ago.

The movement in T1 I find restrictive , I don't find T2 much better ........ every weapon in T:V has a counter weapon , yeah vehicles could be better maing the rover the only usefull vehicle out of the 4.

Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 were developed during a time when we didn't have huge advanced in physics engines. Of course they'd feel restrictive. That's like me saying I find Super Mario 64 restrictive compared to Super Mario Galaxy. They're separated by generations of research and development.

Once again , you like what you play and you stick with ....... just shows how difficult it is though to change the habits of some people though.

Preference of a video game is not a habit. It's a preference. I personally enjoy something very fast and on an epic scale. T:V provides me with neither of those. I never could go into a T:V server and join 31 others as we assault the base of the opposite team of 32 players in an attempt to grab their flag while they tried the same with every second meaning a win/loss. Since I can't do that in T:V I don't prefer it.

Why is this trait so consistant with Tribes players , everyone has to out talk some else ....... no it didn't do the trick Trogan as I'm really into understanding peoples thought processes and hopefully having a decent conversation to boot.

It's not a trait of old Tribes players. It's a trait of people who don't face any consequences for what they say. Welcome to the Internet. Trogan and Angel just like to see their post count go up. They'll leave that phase soon as we all did at one point.

I'm not here to start shit , I'm simply here to be part of the community guys ....... and I certainly work on the logic that there are no stupid questions.

Great to have you. Hope you enjoy your stay.

It's great you enjoy T:V. I'm sure Ken Levine of Irrational Games would like to hear someone does. But the sales numbers speak for themselves that the game just wasn't able to support itself. The reasons why are always up for debate, but the fact the game was a massive failure as a commercial product will never go away and it all goes back to the quote from Mr. Levine I posted earlier. They didn't understand what made a Tribes game a Tribes game. They had their idea, ran with it, and failed.

[Malox]

Just quickly , have you not seen these ?



Mal-

[Aldaron]

Just quickly , have you not seen these ?



Mal-

Yeah, I saw that. The RaceMod coupled with X2. Those are far from being the vehicles I described that were a bitch to make when the game came out in 2004. Something completely custom that does something unique. Not merely one that uses only the traction circle (meaning acceleration, negative acceleration, turning, and possible weight transfer) or has a turret mount like all the other T:V vehicles. I haven't looked at what makes those vehicles run, but from the videos I saw of them I'm inclined to think they used bits copied from the rover.

[[-Trogan-]]

ok first of all i would like to appoligize for what i'm about to say.




I DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT MY POST COUNT.



done with the bad part of what i'm saying.


Alright I havn't played T:V because of one thing. It was a newer tribes game. The old T1 was amazing and now is Free. (free is the reason I wanted to play it in the first place.)
If you could get me a link to a free version of the game then I could (even a trial) get a better grasp among things.

Anyway.....

Hope this doesn't escalate.

[Aldaron]

Alright I havn't played T:V because of one thing. It was a newer tribes game. The old T1 was amazing and now is Free. (free is the reason I wanted to play it in the first place.)
If you could get me a link to a free version of the game then I could (even a trial) get a better grasp among things.

Neither Vivendi or Garage Games have released T:V for free so linking to a full, free copy might not go over well. You can get the demos over on FileFront though.