Is T:V worth it?

[Malox]

The game is fine , I don't understand the haters here and quite honestly WeatherLight makes me laugh.

It's a great game , easy to mod , map and skin for ......... it offers a gameplay many others don't.

Who gives a shit if it doesn't follow T1 and 2 as you wished it did , it's still a shit load of fun.

Mal-

[Weatherlight]

It's a great game , easy to mod , map and skin for ......... it offers a gameplay many others don't.

Certain people worked for years on the T:V engine only to throw up their hands in disgust and abandon it because it was so easy to mod (the direct quote is, "The engine is dogshit"). Its so easy to mod, it doesn't support any of the Havok tools even though the engine is almost a carbon-copy of the Unreal2 engine. The game's so great that it managed to kill an entire franchise. So great it sold a pitiful, pitiful 49,000 units and then was whole-heartedly abandoned. It took a storyline that had so much potential and sheer raw awesome and butchered it into some mundane love story on par with Titanic. I'm not even going to mention the limitations of the game or how poorly the maps were laid out.


If I weren't completely sure of the fact that you are somehow mentally incompetent I'd have to assume you were a troll and ban you.

[Steel Fire]

I have to totally side with James on the story issue. Never played T:V myself, simply because I was well aware ahead of time, from their own marketing, that they screwed the storyline.

Starsiege and T1 built the massive, powerful communities they did because of story and gameplay. For that idiot in Aldaron's quote above to say that a story based Tribes game was incompatible with the spirit of the community is utter crap. I would venture to say that had they not borked the storyline so totally they would have drawn back a lot of the old community that they pushed away when they began dismantling everything good in T2, and I dare say would have even drawn in some old SS players who would want to see that gap between games bridged. Combine the play style of T1 with an awesome single-player story and top it with a great multi-player experience and they would have been raking in the dough.

It's a well known fact that good games with a strong, compelling storyline will succeed. Make that game great and you've struck gold. They failed on both counts with T:V, doubly so.

[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.