f13.net

Starting in 2011. (http://www.massively.com/2010/10/23/hi-rez-studios-announces-development-of-tribes-universe-mmo/)

I can't see how this doesn't eat straight into their Global Agenda playerbase, but perhaps that's the longer-term plan.

So Global Agenda 2 becomes Tribes 3. I'm cautiously positive, as long as they include a competent physics engine in the game. Preferably with destructible terrain.

I'd wager both of those, a competent physics engine and destructible terrain, aren't going to be in MMOs for at least 10 years.  I think the technical problems, at least for the USA, of implementing that sort of thing for many players together are gunna make that impractical until the broadband infrastructure in the USA is updated.

Oh god, they're going to ruin it.

We shall see. Hate to put my opinion since I could (hopefully) be pleasantly surprised.

Sweet!

From the forums, incase you cant see it:

Tribes IP? Who cares about the IP? It's all about the gameplay, and even that has a lot of wiggle room. There was no Tribes IP or skiing in Planetside and it was basically Tribes mmo.

I'd be amazed if they can pull off the gameplay on a true mmo scale.

Also, "original online multiplayer shooter"  :awesome_for_real:

Pretty much this. I loved me some Tribes back in the late 90s, early aughts and I played the absolute SHIT out of Planetside too. The two were almost interchangeable for me. Do Planetside over again right, with or without the Tribes IP and I'm so fucking there.

Tribes IP would seem to lend itself to EVE-style player-owned corporations versus 3-sided (there were 5 tribes factions, the four human and one bio-derm).

Question: I never played Planetside but it seems like the major thing that wasn't done "right" was the subscription.  If someone re-did Planetside as F2P with cosmetic and convenience items cash shop, how close to "right" would that be without any other modification?

IMO the big flop for Planetside was the first expansion. Core Combat. That kind of set the tone for every expansion or content patch for the game.  A lack of understanding what the players want, and what made the game fun.
I liked the original subscription model. I stopped playing because the content additions were crap.

Re: Tribes IP. Meh. Tribes was fun, and I loved it, but it's time to move forward. There are good things to learn from Tribes and Planetside, but just slapping the name on a game doesn't mean shit.

Glad they were honest about it. 

"We were making a game and realized we were doing a Tribes MMO, so we figured we'd buy the IP."

Tentatively hopeful.

Planetside issues were the subscription pitched to FPS players, And that they made the game as if it was a one off title. It had little room, or tools to expand anything, not to mention its use of front loading assets, lastly, client side hit detection.

Anyway I have some faith Hi-rez can do a shooter MMO justice, no matter the IP. Funny thing is, there is some cross pollination here with Firefall.

I think Planetside has exactly the right *idea* for a FPS MMO though.  Huge amount of space, objectives littering the world to fight over, and then basically leave it up to the players beyond that. 

The more they add to this, the less i'm interested actually.  please no gear, no levels, no noting, no crafting just give a massive world to fight over, let me customize my kit tribes 2 style (with no unlocks, just being able to use everything from the beginning), and I'll play this for years.  I just think that Global Agenda is basically the exact opposite of how to do an FPS MMO, so hopefully they don't go in that direction

Not buying a Hi-rez game till 6 months after launch, global agenda left a $50 bad taste in my mouth. How you manage to make shooting someone in the face feel wrong is completely beyond me. In a sense global agenda is the perfect fps mmo, its a pve game like DDO.

I can imagine, the client is only about 30$.  :oh_i_see:

Yeah nearly a year later. I bought it at launch. And $30 is overpriced at that.

I played Planetside at launch, and it was decent enough for the 30 days. My main problem was the lag, being a FPS played across the pacific - more trouble than in something like EQ. But it was still playable and fun most of the time. It just wasn't enough fun to justify the sub fee, and by the time they went limited F2P or whatever it was, I wasn't interested enough in going through it all again with the large download and recovering the account and so forth. This has potential.

U mad?

hell yes i'm mad.

This is rich. :awesome_for_real:

The first Tribes is my favorite fps of all time. I hope they don't fuck it up like the last two attempts did.

Massively Exclusive: Hi-Rez talks Tribes Universe (http://www.massively.com/2010/10/26/massively-exclusive-hi-rez-talks-tribes-universe/)

Oh shit, he said Planetside.

oh shit he said hardcore fps and planetside in the same sentence. :awesome_for_real:

A few times even.

And he said it'll be primarily first-person. All these things make me much more interested.

You know you are just going to end up sitting on the floor, bottle of whiskey in hand and crying over a broken heart, right?  :grin:

He also said Unreal, which there are already a shit-ton of hacks for.

I believe the current Global Agenda game is built on the Unreal engine. I haven't heard of any hacks for it, but I haven't looked either.

They are usually pretty obvious when they are there in global agenda. Their stats will be so crazy high, like 20 kills in one mission as a smg using recon... (Which they all are)...

http://globalagendahack.com/global-agenda-aimbot (http://globalagendahack.com/global-agenda-aimbot)

And that's why I can't get into online shooters.  :uhrr:

The existence does not mean that they are heavily used however.

I have been playing GA since launch, and have not felt really any situation I thought was suspect. Lets hope they don't trust the client to much in the search for giant battles.


Also:  http://www.tribesuniverse.com/

Signed up.

In GA case it doesn't matter. Hitting 9/10 of your shots doesn't even insure a kill 90% of the time. Most people take off running if you hit 5 consecutive shots, and given a 1:1 ratio between shot fired and shot hit doesn't get someone to even below 15% before you hit 0% energy. And that is assuming there are differences in levels. Its been an epic flaw with the game that they won't be fixed because it works fine for pve.   

I happen to like that style. I'm not a huge fan of the counterstrike/Medal of Honer/Battlefield style of shooters I prefer them more arcadey and lacking head-shots. What you speak of is not a flaw, its a design decision. It has little to do with PvE, but it does make for some fun PvE encounters. Planetside played about the same way.

I think your energy issues are a bit overblown however. Your %'s are off.

Signed up, but sadly, my characters in GA are only in the mid-30s. However, I have been logging in more. Hope they slacken the rope for beta on GA level requirements.

I believe they fully intended the system to work for PvP. It didn't and to stop the bleeding they re-focused on PVE where the system is actually fun. It takes too long to kill a player even when their standing still. TF2 is arcady, this is mmo combat distilled through guns and lazer swords. Its a flaw because even the GA devs admit their game is pve as oppose to the "hardcore" tribes game their designing.

There isn't a reason to be higher than mid 30s in GA. That's where my characters are and I'm fine with it.

There isn't any thing wrong with the PvP.

If you say so.

I only see you bring up this huge obvious flaw.  :oh_i_see:

Who plays this game for the pvp  :oh_i_see:

All the people asking for the player made PvP/Challange system? All the people that asked for 4v4 arenas? All the ones hosting the numerous, gaming site sponsored, PvP events? All the agencies playing the AvA game? People like me who enjoy both?

WoW's an esport  :awesome_for_real:

What the hell.  :uhrr:


www.agendastats.com

what?

I had no idea how to respond to "Wow is an Esport" because I have no idea what it has to do with anything so, yeah, I don't know. So I linked the largest PvP tracking site for the title, because clearly, no one plays the PvP.

Dear Sir/Madame,

You are attempting engaging in a conversation with a forum bot that is still in beta.  If you are feeling frustrated with this conversation, please wait until Spastic_PvP_Forum_Bot_DLRiley has been upgraded.  That isn't scheduled to happen for some time.  We'll notify you as updates occur.

Happy posting!

Sorry, I missed the context the first time around.  In any event, my problem with global agenda isn't really the PvP per se, its just the mix of PvE and PvP being so apparently interdependent.   Hopefully this new Tribes title will cut the fat, so to speak.

Actually, I still think if they had marketed GA has a team based shooter with some persistent gear and level elements, I'd dislike it less.  Its the fact that they trumped up this territory domination AvA stuff that made it sound pseudo Planetside ish that really left a bad taste in my mouth when I learned the game was basically just team death match with a few twists.

Two words: APB

The choise of engine does not in any way shape or form predict the ability for hacks to be used, the use of the engine, net and strictness checks built into your game does.  If by the mere fact of using unreal tech meant that your game is now 100% hackable all the time by the same hacks for a decade then no one would ever use it, and it would not be one of the premier engines for AAA development.

Lets not be silly. Don't blame the middle ware for individual development shortsightedness. Hack prevention is on the individual developer, not the engine maker.

Cheats and hacks keep things interesting.

Like an abusive partner keeps a marriage interesting?

http://www.tribesascend.com/


Do want.

Tribes had one of the most amazing network engines for its times.  I can see how they could have bought it just for that.

Need to see more.

By more I assume you mean anything?

SHAZBOT!

I already know they make good shooters, but yes, I would like to see more.

Tribes: Ascend - Gameplay Teaser Trailer  (http://youtu.be/oevWde_F-yU?hd=1)

Has game play.

Oh snap. If they just keep the RMT out of it... ( :oh_i_see:)

Looks fun.

They say they are going the league of legends model, more than the current GA model.

I'm sort of under the impression that they are working on two Tribes games - Tribes Ascend which is a normal Tribes game, and Tribes Universe which is the MMO.  But it may be that the name has just changed some and I'm confused.

Tribes: Ascend -- Taking the League of Legends Approach (http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1178865p1.html?_cmpid=ign1391)

Sooo, not the MMO?  It still seems unclear to me.  The price model isn't my preference, but I like Tribes enough that I'm willing to bide my time and see where this goes (MMO or not).

What was that horse shit?


Check out our new Tribes game where we run on the ground!

... did you miss the part where the article said there would be jetpacks and jumpskiing? Or maybe the video that showed everyone jumping around with their jetpacks?

Hell, the guy who got a laser snipe on the jumper gave me such a nostalgasm.

It looks like T:Vengeance 2.0. Maybe they won't fuck it up and I'll get to lose my Saturdays to retrieving again. Doubt it.


The actual Tribes successor was going to be that Instant Action game, from GarageGames, but IA imploded or some shit, no idea what happened to Legions.

The Global Agenda guys who couldn't get jetpack physics to not be balls in their own game are going to shit on some really quality IP? Awesome.  :oh_i_see:

Yea I'm skeptical.   Tribes IP is all about getting the jetpacks and massive maps just right.   Not to mention all the engines designed for consoles with shitty memory probably need massive rewriting to work for a proper Tribes game.   At least the video didn't show any health bars.

What's wrong with health bars? The previous ones had them.

Ahh I meant the ones over the enemy head.   I was really just referring to global agenda's crappy combat.

UE3 is a fine engine for this game in my opinion.  I understand the skepticism, especially given what they have to try and live up to, but I think Hi-Rez can actually pull off something that works as a Tribes game.

Did you guys watch the video? Combat system is nothing like Global agenda. Just pack use is also nothing like Global agenda, not that there was anything wrong with the jet-packs in global agenda, especially when you get to combat packs. They are two completely different titles with different goals.

Yea the combat looked fine.   Problem is you can't really get a feel for the maps in that sort of video.   The jetpack physics looked fine but the flight time looked a bit short.   Tribes really let you go crazy on flight time since the maps were so huge.

They had those too in Tribes. They were just little  :why_so_serious:

Just the first image I could find in google images that shows it.

What I meant to say all along is that Global Agenda ruined health bars for all FPS ever from here on out  :why_so_serious:.

Tribes:Ascend from Quakecon 2011  (http://youtu.be/0B_K4CAMEdU) 20 min, screen grab.

 :heart:

I like pretty much everything... I love everything about that.

Edit: Its also probably worth putting this in the normal games section, Ascend isn't an MMO.

Yes, there are two games.

I saw some people who apparently never heard of tribes saying this looked like Halo and all I could think of was this:

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215543608_oPsC3-L-2.jpg)

Either the people playing it were horrible, or there is something very wrong about that footage.

Little of both. I suspect.  This feels like a realistic/reliable assessment.

http://kotaku.com/5829694/a-hardcore-triber-tells-you-why-tribes-ascend-is-so-so-close-to-being-transcendent

From the Article:



I saw that in the video and went  :oh_i_see:  :oh_i_see:  :oh_i_see:  :uhrr:



-edit- It has three parts  :drill:

For comparison.
Tribes 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3IlLAK0B6g&hd=1
Tribes 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOAaixGw27o&hd=1
Tribes 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFWeGnONPu0&hd=1

I find it funny that most of the things he complains about, were bugs or happy accidents in the originals. If high-rez has been able to properly recreate the bugs as stable features, I think thats an achievement in itself. Clearly, the guys and gals at HR know their tribes games. I do think he may have had some fog in his memories about the original games though, and at best, his comments are nitpicks as he stated.

Truly if thats ALL he has to complain about, they are on the right track. Hell, not even Garage games got it right.

When the only reason your game was fun was because of the "bugs" then you need to recreate the fucking bugs in future versions. And stop calling them bugs.

Well, they weren't the only reason the game was fun, but they were certainly the reason the game became iconic.

That being said, its not uncommon at all.  Quake 3  implemented most of the high skill level mobility "bugs" from Quake 2 as features, for example.

They definitely need to get the speed and feel right above all else, and it looks to me like they are close based on that video, and that guy's article.  Keep in mind, for all his criticisms he says it is VERY VERY close to striking gold.  I'm hoping they can make it happen.

I do believe thats what they have done. Other tribes titles tried to recreate them in a stable way and didn't come close. Like I said, if HR even comes close, its better then most attempts. I'm personally fine with his criticisms, most of it is likely design decisions. A tribes 2 pro was untouchable, if they remove this for the sake of balance, I'm all for it. There is a difference between fun because I am untouchable, and fun because its balanced.


Same event, different Map. (http://youtu.be/4zudE8oeOAw?hd=1)

Has less to do with fun because untouchable and more to do with fun because high skill ceiling means I can always be learning something new.   Also, I'm not exactly sure what you mean here by balanced, you seem to be implying that lower skill ceiling = more balanced? 

I simply mean the less of a divide the more accessible it will be.  

I guess that is true, but I guess Tribes was never *good* because it was accessible.  It was good because of its ridiculous depth.

Also, just reinstalled Tribes: Next, good times.

A F2P game comes fully loaded with a business model that requires the game to be more accessible for the game to break even.  HiRez will be doing no one any favors if they don't skew their design decisions based upon accessibility.

Well, maybe we need to split this thread or start a new one, or move it, but the non MMO version, Tribes: Ascend is offering pre-orders now.   Its a free to play with a $30 pre-order, figure that out, but in any event here is the offer.  Not sure how I feel yet.  http://www.tribesascend.com/buypage.html

Includes:
VIP status (no idea what this is, sounds like a one time 20 dollar fee)
800 Tribes Gold (Currency for micro trans store)
30 Day Booster (no idea what this is, bonus experience points?)
Beta Access when it begins in ~23 days.

I love Tribes so much that I may buy this just to get into that beta.

If it is like GA, it is bonus ingame cash/credits + experience points + increased drops per event/match.  It basically increases your odds at getting good items faster.  Even if you don't, you can sell the extra items for ingame cash or trade for something if they have a player auction house thingy.  GA sells it for $15/30 days.

I didn't think items were going to have stats in this game if I understood properly.  I thought it was more an unlocking kits sort of thing.  In any event, its safe to say it'll probably be double X where X = whatever the thing to have is in this game.

"Unlocking... good items"?!  :ye_gods: WTF have they done to my Tribes.

Free to Played it. 

Bah. If you played the first one for 3000+ hours it was practically free to play, in an amortized sort of way.

Yeah, I'd pay 50 bucks for a new tribes no problem, but if you are going to make it a game where I need to worry about levels and experience points and tokens and a cash shop, I'm feeling pretty iffy about it now.   I was ok with just the cash shop because it sounded like they just wanted to charge for load outs (which I think they are still doing).  But other than that it sounded basically like Tribes.  Now its starting to sound like a totally different game.  I read everyone going to carry a melee weapon - that pretty much indicates the game is going to be way too slow paced to be a Tribes game.

Yeah well, I couldn't even stand playing Tribes 2, so I don't hold out much hope. Bug-implemented skiing > coder-implemented skiing, as far as I can tell, and that's pretty sad. Then again, hitting somebody with a melee weapon as they disc-jump through the flag at 500 kph would be pretty sweet.

The original Tribes is the ultimate demonstration of why owning an IP is meaningless.

From what I understand, they were working on a Starsiege mech game (which eventually came out later and tanked). The developers had a "wouldn't it be cool if..." moment which led to Tribes, and as a result it was called Starsiege: Tribes. Nobody remembers it was part of the Starsiege IP!

I was working for Australia's biggest PC magazine at the time. After a hard day's writing about CPUs or internets or something, I decided to take home a game to review, so I just took an unclaimed one off the pile. It happened to be Starsiege: Tribes and I remember the last six words of my review: Buy this! Buy this! Buy this!

People did. Its reputation spread by word of mouth. We played it so much and kept coming back to it. Because it was great in its own right.

VIP seems like the same thing as Elite in GA.  From the T:A FAQ:


And yes, Boosters (in GA at least) are just double (-ish) X, Y, and Z.

Found a bunch of information about loadouts here: http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=234&t=42058

 :oh_i_see:

I really do not think this is the case.

It just seems like you'll be unlocking loadouts, not weapons a with stats or anything like GA.  But still, this switch to a loadout style (class based almost), seems iffy to me.  Two gun limit is sketchy enough as it is without Hi-Rez limiting me to whichever 2 per loadout they feel is good.

Its 4 weapons/devices per loadout. I dunno, I don't really share your concern. It would be nice to mix and match as you will, but, eh, this isn't so bad.

Don't take what I wrote as the way the game will be.  I just stated how GA does it and guessed they would be offering 2x whatever is important in the game (as somebody already stated.)  I did find it odd that they would provide boosters in a game like this though.  It didn't make sense to me either.  The VIP system works fine and basically replaces the "buy a box" scenario.  You just get to buy the box after you decide you like the game.  The rest I imagined would be like TF2.  Buy silly stuff you think is cool, but won't impact gameplay.  I dunno.

You will buy loadouts from what they've said.  I'm not sure what will be free and which you will have to buy.  It looks like you don't edit them at all, you just buy it and then you can use it.  A few posts up I linked the loadouts.   Maybe its better to think of them kind of as classes of a sort.

I can buy that, but I wouldn't want loadouts to be time dependent.  Once I buy them, I want to keep them.  I don't think "booster" is being used in Tribes anywhere even close to how it is used in GA.

You never do.  :-P

My understanding is that if you buy a loadout you'll always have access to it but that they're offering rotating sets of free loadouts on a weekly basis.

Bleh, those loadouts look way too specialized -- but of course that makes sense, if they want people to buy/'unlock' them. Somehow I am guessing there will not be energy packs lying around on the map, either.

On the other hand, the blink pack sounds pretty awesome.

There's more info on the loadouts and how you unlock them at that same forum: http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=234&t=37698 (http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=234&t=37698).

So something along the lines of exp (and pay-for-double-exp boosters like GA) for loadout unlocks and then tokens and in-game money for... what?

Customization?

Fuck it... I'll say it: Hats!

There are a few forum posts in the set that have already been posted that expand on the thinking at the studio.

Why make the game free-to-play? (http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=234&t=37499)

Why Loadouts? (http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=234&t=37698)

Why Loadouts? Because we think the general free to play audience is too stupid to understand customizing their kits.  :oh_i_see:

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16746524#post16746524

Eek.

It's TW. They always were the meatheads of Tribes players.

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=629607&page=424
fun times.

The one point that really makes me go "WTF?" is the way that each loadout is *extremely* specialized (2 weapons?  Really?), and you're going to have to pay if you want to open most of them.  Forget how much that annoys me as a former hardcore Tribes player: It's fucking stupid design.  It's superficially in accordance with F2P, because newbies will find that they are getting *raped* by people that are not only far more experienced than them, but are using the loadouts that are the best at countering the freebies.

And it's fucking stupid design because it will make the game *extremely* hostile to newbies, from day one rather than after the population has been concentrating towards the skilled as is normal in an FPS.  "Don't bother even trying T:A without buying the full class pack first" will quickly become "Don't even bother."

I could live with different skiing dynamics, just to have a new game where I could really *fly*.  But fuck this noise. T:A just dropped off my list.

--Dave

I also noticed regenerating health, that is going to be brutal for newbies as well.  That skilled player is now going to kill new people and instead of getting widdled down take his ammo that he drops, and regen his health.

Edit to add, someone put up a video of some skiing, looks a little better than anticipated based on previous reporting, still a tad slow, but pretty smooth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBAYt3N2tI

See, that video makes me nostalgic for the old days of skiing, before it became all about the extreme acceleration maneuvers from discjumping.  I can live with that change, even with the way that you can apparently now change direction mid-air without using energy (used to be a delicate tradeoff between wasting potential energy to change direction or losing your line, possibly even pancaking).  But the load-out thing really annoys me.

--Dave

You can still gain a boost by discjumping from what I understand, but it is capped and you lose the acceleration from it quickly, so its definitely been intentionally toned way down.

The load out thing is sketchy, no doubt.  I really hate how every shooter these days does things like this.   It seems like a business choice more than anything.  I can't imagine they would've possibly come to this design decision if this was just a 50 bucks out of the box title.

Regenerating health tends to favour newbies.

Well if you respawn with your loadout then full health is just a ctrl+k away.

That's not a counter-argument inasmuch as it is a description of a situationally useful basic feature.

Does it really though?  It does in singe player campaigns where the AI won't finish you off.  But in multiplayer, a good player is going to finish you and end up back and full HP.  Not to mention in a movement oriented game like Tribes trying to run from someone better than you is just giving them a free kill.

The alternatives, if you have healing in the game at all; is to make the player a medic in some fashion, health pickups, or permanent healing stations.  Medics favour coordination and teamwork.  Health pickups and healing stations favour people who have memorized the map layout.  Regeneration favours the person who knows how to duck behind a big rock.

I think it should be pretty clear which method punishes the new guy the least, based on which one uses the the most basic shooter skill to employ effectively.

One use health kits as part of a loadout seemed ok in Tribes previously.  Healthkits were pretty rare on those maps, if they existed at all.  Repair kits existed so you weren't hosed when all of your stations when down, but you basically just didn't heal all that much, and I think that was fine.  This seems like one of those things that made a lot of sense of pacing single player campaigns that has been adopted by multiplayer games without enough thought.  Then again, this is why I play hardcore mode in all the games that have it, its just a shit mechanic for mutliplayer shooters and screws with pacing way too much.

Yeah, they should add some sort of... pack... that repairs... stuff.

(Edit: whoops, crosspost.)

Good news: http://www.reddit.com/r/Tribes/comments/lfr0t/hirez_responds_to_speedcap_oob_and_loadout/

Looks like some of the things we've been worried about (speed cap, health regen) will have server settings which can be changed.  My guess is there will be a bunch of "classic" servers which run settings to bring the game closer to the originals.

Most info right now has been based on clients that are not connected to servers, people have been using console commands to enter the game client and load maps. Most rants I have read are based on this, and for that reason I haven't paid attention to. Running around on a map is not the same as playing a server connected game, as most game logic is server side.

Beta starts Friday, invites are out.  I am in (which I am allowed to say per the NDA), but I can't say much more than that.  Will certainly report as soon as allowed.

Tribes doesn't use item spawns like most FPS games. You don't go down the third hallway on the 2nd level to grab the rocket launcher.

Tribes has Permanent, Mobile and Temporary loadout stations, every player spawns with a health pack and you can take a loadout that has a repair pack which heals people and fixes broken stuff. The maintenance and control of your bases loadout stations and the disabling of enemy stations is a key part of most Tribe matches.


Staying alive in general isn't really a huge concern though, as something like 98% of Tribes Matches are objective driven (with the overwhelming majority being CTF games in my experience). Like if your a runner or a retriever, after a successful cap or return, you just suicide to get back to base for a fresh loadout.

On T1 Base to Base/Broadside (a map with two floating bases within grenade launcher and mortar range of each other) my go-to opening strategy was to launch myself from the top of one base to the "porch" of the other spitting grenades and mines from my default load as fast as possible, in order to drive the enemy heavies off the porch so they couldn't grenade and mortar our base.  Even if I survived the drop, my own grenades and mines would kill me, and I'd just respawn with new grenades and mines and do it again.  Only when I spawned right next to an inventory station would I get any equipment that wasn't default.

Tribes *should* be all about fast, furious action, where your own life is valued in proportion to how long it will take you to go from your spawn point to somewhere useful (and since skiing reduces that time, not very much).  Slow it down and introduce "valuable" equipment and you are fucking with the magic.

--Dave

That's what I figured.  It's still more or less the same thing though, it's one less metagame concept that newbies need to learn.

From what they have said, they aren't really introducing valuable equipment in any meaningful sense.  The gameplay videos we've seen from conventions and stuff are definitely slower than Tribes 1 skiing, but its still faster paced than anything else current by a wide margin from what it looks like.  I'll get to try my hand at it tomorrow, and hopefully they will lift the NDA before too long.  I'll report as soon as I'm able and will answer whatever questions people have when I am allowed.

Yea, the NDA will drop once the Closed Beta starts later today, so people will spill the beans in a bit.

Can you confirm this?  The beta is up and running but I haven't seen anything indicating the drop of the NDA.

Edit found this:

http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/268/~/tribes%3A-ascend-closed-beta-faq

So it looks like I'm in the clear, I'll write something up later.

Alright, here are some random musings about the game.  I don't feel like doing a huge write up about every mechanic or anything, so I'll just give some impressions and let people ask questions if they care about things more specific.

1) Skiiing is simple and intuitive when compared to other versions of Tribes.  This may just be that I more or less know what it is and how to do it going into this one, but I was out of practice going in and was then zooming around the map within a matter of minutes.  They have a little graphical how to as part of the controls page and give you a speed indicator when you are skiing to give you some feed back.  Its not as fast as Tribes 1, but we knew that already from videos. Still, it feels smooth and more or less good to me.  I think it hits a reasonable middle ground between classic tribesyness and accessibility.

2) I dislike the idea of hitscan weapons in the game.   One of the two default/free classes gets a hitscan assault rifle as their primary weapon.  It strikes me as more newbie friendly (a recurrent theme), but less powerful than a spin fuser in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing with one.   In practice, its not game breaking, but it does feel a little bit iffy to me.

3) Spawning vehicles costs points.  You earn them through kills, flag touches, whathaveyou. Then you can spend them at the vehicle pad.  I guess on the plus side this means if you have the points and what a vehicle you get it, on the down side, it means that vehicles ever spawned early in a game, and it means the frequency with which you can spawn a vehicle is tied more or less to how good you are, which feels kind of counter intuitive to what they are trying to do.  Granted, its not that hard to earn enough points to spawn something in.    Same with supply pads and mortar strikes, both of which can be called down to the battlefield with a special item that you get, at the cost of the same points.  

4) The loadouts can be purchased with in game currency, 15000-18000 points or tokens or whatever.  Playing one match seems to net around 150 tokens.  They also can be purchased for a 520 "gold" I don't know what the Dollars -> Gold conversion is because the store isn't actually in working condition for beta.    I imagine its the same as Global Agenda, if anyone knows that off hand.

5) ** GENERAL IMPRESSION ** The long and short of it is, despite the old school tribes player in me having some nagging issues with a few things, the game is fun to play and its true enough to the series that I think Tribes fans should enjoy it if they can look past a few of the things that might feel "wrong."  Especially with the huge amount of grungy "realistic" military shooters out there, this definitely feels good with its vibrant maps and fast paced gameplay.

My primary question is whether skiing feels like it is interacting with the physics of the game and the environment in a natural, complex way, or whether it feels like a special 'mode' of travel you enter where you zoom along easily enough but there are fewer opportunities to do interesting things, accelerate more or less depending on how well you do it, etc. The last Tribes game I played (which was some in-browser FTP thing) had very artificial-feeling skiing.

Basically I want skiing with a high skill cap and full quirky physics interaction. In T1 a good skiier was significantly faster than a mediocre one on the same terrain -- and would take less damage from high-speed ski-fail impacts as well, which often made dramatic low-health flag caps pretty awesome, skill-demonstration-wise.

But besides the skills I just want the feeling that skiing is an organic way to move, that it gels well with energy pack usage, spinfusor knockback, etc.

Does the game include destructible bases that impact your ability to spawn with better equipment, or have they basically eliminated that? And if so, what is the purpose of heavies, assuming they still exist in the game.

Also: what is a hitscan weapon?

Hitscan means there is no projectile, basically, the bullet hits instantly at the crosshair.

Yes, bases are destructable, but it doesn't hinder your ability to spawn as a desired class.  It does however prevent you from switching loadouts mid-life, shuts down things that require power like base turrets, and so forth.  

Skiing isn't as quirky as it used to be, energy pack usage is still important, but there is a side of it that is kind of a "special mode"   Spin fuser jumping/knockback is still there and useful, but it isn't as dramatic.  I can't really speak to the depth of it because it is so new, its hard to say whether or not there are going to be lots of advaned modes of skiing that haven't been figured out yet.    THere is definitely a skill element to it, but its very easy to do basic skiing.  I was certainly able to "out ski" some people that seemed newer at it, and there are opportunities to use that skill, but I'm thinking the ceiling is probably lower than you are talking about.    Again though, it may be a time will tell type thing.

Adding:   Basically, holding down spacebar makes friction very low, possibly gone altogether. 

Not necessarily.

Also, the vehicle system sounds like Section 8, and I liked that.

I feel obligated to mention that there is Battlefield style gloabl leveling/leveling of particular loadouts that unlock shit.  I'm not in love with it, but I don't see a shooter being released without this shit anymore and I've basically ignored it with no ill effects so far.


Edit: After doing a bit more research is looks like 1000 "gold" is about 10 bucks, which means the average loadout costs about 5-6 dollars.  With 10 loadouts to buy, unlocking all of them would be something like the cost of a full game, but I suspect more loadouts will come later.

Edit: Crashing a lot today inbetween maps.  The menus/store is a bit buggy to begin with.  Speaking of which, it seems like you can already start spending money at the store if you are in beta, which is borderline if you ask me, but whatever.

You still do need to spawn them at the vehicle station, IIRC, in section 8 you can just pop them in anywhere?  It seems like vehicle use has been pretty sparse so far anyway.    They just don't seem all that great to me, but it might just be that the game hasn't really matured at all yet and people are still figuring out how to play.  I'd really like to see the bomber brought back, but I guess with the ability to call in air strikes for credits, its less useful.  Still it was always an iconic vehicle for me - Need a Bombardier!

At the end of the day, despite what criticisms I have,  I keep logging in for another round and that pretty much says it all.

Yeah, in section 8 you have them delivered on the spot. But it takes a bit.

For reference:
Section 8 : Prejudice Swarm and Multiplayer Gameplay (http://youtu.be/4AB51xrqp9s?hd=1)

Section 8 : Prejudice, I feel is a really underrated game ( Empty servers make me sad ). The "Halo clone" Comparisons are also, completely false.

EDIT: I just realized I don't have the two new map packs, maybe thats why I see low pop servers.

Yeah, I've heard rumblings of "this is like Halo" from people in the Tribes Beta as well, even from long time Tribes vets, or self described vets at least.  I guess if you've only been gaming in the last decade, any shooter probably feels either like a Halo clone or a call of duty clone, I dunno, but the game has nothing in common with Halo that I can tell.  I think the problem is that it really just isn't the original Tribes, and its going to bother vets a bit (including myself).   I worry that newer gamers aren't going to appreciate it AND older games are going to feel its too dumbed down to those very same people, which could hurt the population.  Its actually quite fun to play so far, but its doing something that hasn't bene done in a while, and I wonder how people that have no idea what Tribes is will respond to it.  Like I said earlier, I keep logging in for another round anyway, and thats what really matters.  There have been games I profess love for that I quickly find myself not wanting to log in to.  I've been pretty critical of this game, but I keep signing in when I have time for a match or two.

Edit:  Tribes: Ascend way way way faster paced than Section 8, after referencing that video.

Bunch of new changes coming in, definitely look good all around

Wait, what? 'More' than... all of it? Am I missing something?

Hmm, the more I think about it the less sure I am that T1 just implemented this in a straightforward-physics way. But still, that seems like a really weird value to be tweaking during beta.

Edit: Incidentally, if disc jumping is now less effective, is that because they have dramatically reduced the amount of knockback done by the disc explosion? Or is it due to some other factor, or some arbitrary 'we don't want disc jumping to be crucial' implementation? Because less spinfusor knockback would be really depressing, given how crucial that was to the awesome freeform-duel feeling of T1 fights.

The projectiles inherit only something like 20% player velocity at the moment, making them damn slow when chasing someone. Then again, you got the hitscan stuff for that anyway... They have a lot of the physics stuff wired with tweakable % variables, that's one of the selling points for their whole "competitive scene" servers. Feel like something's amiss, you can tweak the value on your own server (once they get all that stuff like private servers in the game).

As for disc-jumping, it's in and if anything, the disc knockback actually feels too much, at least indoors. I keep getting killed a lot by getting knocked in a corner or stuck on a wall from the first disc and then being unable to do anything to dodge the second.

I'm liking it so far. Like Malakili, I find there's some stuff that annoys me, like flag grabs seeming way too easy (defending in general seems to require more manpower than T2 since you don't really have a proper farmer/turret monkey class) but I'm still spending a lot of time playing this.

As noted, it currently doesn't inhereit 100% of it, which makes shooting while skiing feel a little awkward.  I think this fix will really make high speed fights "feel" a lot better.

I also really like that inventory stations are going to start you regenerating HP in them.  Their usefulness felt a bit questionable with the current system, and this will give defenders especially a reason to care more about them.

Well that's how it's supposed to work, so that's good!

And yeah, what, 20%?  :uhrr: Seriously, 92% of all enjoyment in Tribes is hitting a flag carrier with a mid-air disc while both of you are travelling at insane velocities. If the disc can't even catch up with them...

It definitely sounds like if I play this I will be spending most of my time on the "Tribes Classic" configured servers. Assuming the community agrees on what that actually is, that should be pretty cool.

It grows on you the more you play too, not to mention that I think with the changes in today's patch things are going to feel better.   Oh also, discs can still catch up with people even with the "old" physics, but it was a bit awkward.   In any event, I like the game enough that I went ahead and got that pre-order and picked up some new loadouts.  Pathfinder is solid (basically, hes a capper/chaser).  Technician is ok, very solid defensive class.  Doombringer is fun - he gets a deployable forcefield that absorbs incoming damage, but more interestingly deals damage to those who crash through it at high speeds, making it part of any good flag defense.    I still have enough points for two more loadouts, but i haven't decided what I want yet.

I'll talk more about individual loadouts later.

EDIT:
Oh incidentally, does anyone care enough about this franchise to have a separate thread in the other forum for the non MMO (which is what we've been talking about) here.  No one really knows anything about the MMO yet besides that it is planned/in the works.

Previews are starting to pop up.

A Trip Through Tribes: Ascend (http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1212093p1.html)


Tribes: Ascend closed beta hands-on preview (http://www.examiner.com/pc-game-in-national/tribes-ascend-preview-hands-on-with-the-closed-beta)

Those feel pretty accurate based on my experience.  Particularly should note that if you are going to play this, you aren't going to want to play it free.  Maybe as a sort of free trial, but thats it.  The Soldier and Ranger loadouts aren't bad, but its not going to be satisfying to fans of the series.  Yes, you can unlock loadouts for free, but were looking at 100+ matches per unlock.

It's sounding a bit like Renegades, which was the most popular of the T1 mods (deployable forcefields and turrets that were actually dangerous were a keystone of that mod).  Building a defensive structure (and trying to pick it apart so that caps were possible) was a big part of that game.

--Dave

Ah. The purists hated renegades.

I never played that mod, but that sounds a lot slower paced than this is.

Nah. Renegades was to vanilla Tribes as MW3 is to BF3.

Oh wow. I remember the Renegades vs. vanilla arguments. Good times.

Me too. I kinda liked renegades from time to time, but I played with a lot of people that flat out hated it.

So, decided I'd do a run down of all the loadouts for people who are interested.


Solidier -
Cost: Free to Play
Loadout:
Medium Armor, Spinfuster, Eagle Pistol, Energy Pack, Grenade XL.   
Basically this is your standard class.  A pretty solid choice, but not great ay anything.  The spin fuser is obviously your bread and butter here.  The Pistol is ok if someone is real low on HP to finish them off.   Grenade is pretty powerful as well.   This is the class I played most before pre-ordering and therefore getting gold to unlock some more classes.

Ranger
Cost: Free to Play
Loadout:
Medium Armor, Assault Rifle, Thumper, Energy Pack, Anti-Personal Grenade.   
This guy is kind of interesting.  I imagine the Assault Rifle primary weapon is to make newbies to the franchise feel at home.  Its an ok gun, but not very good as a primary.  Instead, when I play ranger I use the Thumper (which is a grenade launcher) as my primary, and finish people off with the rifle.   This combo is actually really really solid at piling up kills.  His grenades do shit against anything armored though.

Pathfinder
Cost: 520 Gold or 15000 Tokens
Loadout:
Light Armor, Light Spinfuser, Shotgun, Recharge Pack, Impact Nitron
This is your capper/chaser loadout.   Very fast.  The shotgun is of dubious quality as far as I'm concerned but every once in a while I finish someone off with it.  The spinfuser is used 99% of the time.   The Impact Nitron is very interesitng though - if you hit an enemy flag carrier with it, they drop the flag.  Widely popular class right now, seems to be the most liked among Tribes veterans that I've talked with in game.  I'd tend to agree, it is my favorite so far.

Technician
Cost: 520 Gold or 15000 Tokens
Loadout:
Medium Armor, SMG, Improved Repair Tool, Light Turret, TCNG.
Your basic defensive class.  The turrets kind of suck by themselves, but 3 or so of them in a group are pretty scary.  Any team is going to want to have some Technicians around because they can repair things faster than everyone else and obviously have the repair tool on them at all times (otherwise you have to go switch out one of your weapons for a standard repair tool from a dispenser in your base).  The SMG is actually fairly decent and shouldn't be underestimated.   The grenade I think is sort of an EMP thing, but I'm not 100% on this.

Doombringer
Cost: 520 or 15000 Tokens
Loadout:
Heavy Armor, Chain Gun, Saber Launcher, Forcefield, Light Sticky Grenade
This is your defensive heavy armor class.  The forcefield is pretty good at playing in front of your flag to make the opponent take damage crashing through it to grab your flag.  The Chain Gun is pretty solid damage, and the saber launcher is your basic heat-based lock on rawket lawnchair.   Its worth having one of these on every team as far as I am concerned, very solid defensive loadout.

**BELOW THIS I HAVE NOT PLAYED PERSONALLY, COMMENTARY IS FROM SEEING OTHERS**

Jumper
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Bolt Launcher, Sawed off Shotgun, Thrustpack, S.T Grenade
The thrustpack is the key to this class.  I've seen some people using it to flag run because the thrustpack gives him a free speed burst when the cooldown is up.  However, he lacks the energy pack which helps the pathfinder.   His weapons are pretty bad at range, so if you want to fight, you should thrustpack to get in close, then let loose.   I've not played any Rabbit mode yet, but I hear this loadout is pretty great there. 

Infiltrator:
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Rhino SMG, SN7 Silenced Pistol, Stealth Pack, Stick grenades
Stealth loadout.  Pretty decent for screwing with bases and picking off people on defense.  Not great at flag running or doing outright damage to things like generators though, so actually best used in tandem with someone else, even though it "feels" like it should be a solo behind enemy lines playstyle to me.  I haven't seen these around too much, as they are pretty darn squishy, but their SMG does some very high damage.

Sentinel
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
BXT1 Rifle, Nova Colt, Drop Jammer, Claymore Mine.
This loadout feels schizo to me.   Its your Sniper loadout.   But it gets a radar Jammer (which is ok, radar is interesting in this game, thats for another post), and a Claymore Mine which is the only mine in the game as near as I can tell.  Having a sniper plant his mine on the flag is useful to defense, but doesn't feel as effective as mines in previous Tribes.   The Sniper part strikes me as similar to Tribes 2, but as I said, I haven't played him myself yet.  Not really a priority to get this for me, but if you like sniping in the game, this is your loadout.

Raider
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Medium Armor, Grenade Launcher, SMG, Shield Pack, EMP grenade. 
This guy is a scary skirmisher.  The Grenade Launcher is really powerful and shooters rounds of 3 nades at a time before requiring a reload, the SMG is a solid weapon to finish off low people.  I've heard complaints he is OP, but I don't think it goes quite that far.  The real difference is that from what I am hearing the grenade launcher is comparatively easy to used when compared to the spinfuser, making it seem OP at this early stage of the game where people are still figuring out the spin fuser physics and such.  I don't see a ton of them around, but when I do I try to stay at relatively long range to fight them since the spin fuser is better at range than any of their weapons.

Scrambler
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Medium Armor, ARX Buster, Sparrow, Jammer Pack, Whiteout Grenade
Haven't seen many of these at all.  The loadout is designed to kill base defenses like turrets and generators, also good against tanks, if anyone ever buys one (vehicles have been very rare so far I think).  Not much to say about it since I've seen it so little.

Brute
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Heavy Armor, Heavy Spinfuser, Automatic Shotgun, Minor Energy Pack, Spike Grenade.
This guy is basically the heavy armor version of the Soldier.   Good in direct combat, but not particularly essential.  I've seen a few of these guys do well, but not many people seem to be playing it right now, likely because it feels like the soldier, and you don't have to pay money to play the soldier.

Juggernaut
Cost: 520 or 15000
Loadout:
Heavy Armor, Fusion Mortar, Spinfuser MKD, Regen Pack, Super AP grenade
This is the iconic heavy armor loadout to my mind.  I will buy it at some point, the only question is when.  The Fusion mortar seems a bit less powerful than previous versions of the game, but is still very solid for cleaning out entrenched positions, and the spin fuser keeps him viable in normal combat.  Lack of energy is a potential problem.   The grenade is great against infantry.   One of these in your base ruins your day as the fusion mortar is still very scary indoors when you can't jet away from the blast radius.

I have 2 beta keys to give out, first two PMs to me get them.  

EDIT: And just like that, there they go.  I'll let you know if I get any others to give out.

Gota say, really run. Really tribes like.

Whats your name in game?  I'll friends you.  Mine is the same as my forum name here.

I added you already, its Trucegore. I believe you shot me in the face.

I'm Arashikaze.

That said, I had to re-install the game as the first time I fired it up, I got nothing but a black screen and some details.

Now, however, all is awesome. The controls take some getting used to, but it is indeed quite tribes like.

Hmm, having trouble adding you, only thing I can think of is that maybe friends list doesn't go across server, are you on something other than NA? I can't remember where you are from.

Definitely NA. I'll try adding you and see what happens.

Ok.

Also, two more keys to give out.
One more left.

All out.

I would love one if you still have it!  Love me some tribes. 

I have tried adding everyone, can't add: Arashikaze


My one suggestion to Highrez at this point is to mark friends differently than the rest of the team. Really hard to pick your friend out of the crowded.

Yeah, the friends system seems really tacked on right now to begin with, just seems like you can join their server and see if they are online and that is about it.

The more I play the more I am not sure how I feel about the fact that you spawn with your loadout.  It feels like if I play pretty much anything other than "defend the flag" or "attack the flag" I'm really useless to my team.  I used to really like taking out base defense and generators, etc, but that seeems a lot less viable way to play because even if you kill eveyrone and their generator, they are going to come back with their full loadout 10 seconds later.  It makes playing offensive heavy armor feel questionable.

Yeah, definitely cresting that hill where the shiny has worn off and things are getting a little iffy as I start to see where the imbalances are.   Hopefully they can sort this stuff out during beta.  As near as I can tell doing anything but flag running is wasting time.

Tribes Beta - Week One Highlights  (http://youtu.be/2aiOwA2ID7k?hd=1)

Neat video.

New patch out.  Bella Nova is a really neat map, it feels the "tribesiest" of the maps so far to me.    Also, I got the Sentinel loadout (sniper), and its actually a lot of fun to play and insanely good on defense.

The key to enjoying this game is trying to play Tribes: Ascend instead of Tribes 2.  When I try to play like I played T2, I've been getting annoyed, but when I put away my expectation and take advantage of what is there for me, its quite good.  I think I made that observation before, but it has become more apparent to me after sort of getting real annoyed at the ranger loadout for a while for its rifle.   It just means you have to play differently, and now that I'm leaning to account for those weapons, I'm having more fun.   Its REALLY easy to get caught in the mindset of "fucking stupid skillless hit scan bullshit" etc, but its in the game and just accepting the fact that its a thing you need to learn to beat is the only sane thing to do.

I like the new changes. Feels good. Only issue I am having is now I have some stuttering during matches, likely caused by an over abundance of mipping, gridding and lod swapping. I personally don't think the old tribes players are providing any useful feedback. 

I do think there are some real problems with chasing being way too easy.  It seems like they traded the ability to set up good defense for the ability to chase cappers much easier, and I think the game loses a lot of depth because of it.   If I could make two changes it would be 1) reduce effective range on hit scan weapons (maybe minus the sniper rifle), and make it so you need to go to an inventory station to get your loadout.  I think these 2 changes would solve pretty much every problem I have with the game.   The meta game is still really young, so maybe we will see more solid defenses as things go, but as the game stands the game feels much more shallow than previous versions.  It plays well, it feels good, as you say, but I don't know if this is a game I will play for years on end like I did with previous versions.   Like I said in my previous post, its good if you take it as it is, but I can't shake the feeling that it could be REALLY GREAT with just a few tweaks.

I agree mostly. But there is so much missing right now. It feels more like an alpha. Many vehicles, game modes, overview map, base systems, and weapon balance is not there. Seems they are focusing on maps and movement. So I'm really taking it for what it is.

If that is true, I'm fine with it.  I'm unable to login to their forums for whatever reason (support seems unable to help me, but I digress), so if they are saying "this is really early, there are more modes, vehicles, etc coming" then I'll back off on some of my criticisms, but I've been getting the vibe that it wasn't *that* early a build.

Damnit, I stop following this thread somehow and all the beta keys go poof!

Anyways, wtf is a 'light spinfusor'? In general these loadouts seem way too specialized/walled-off. Like 'we need this guy for the shield, then this other guy for the mine, then this other guy because he has the good gun...' I dunno, I feel the pernicious influence of pay-to-win at work.

Holy shit, playing this game is like freebasing nostalgia. I swear my eyes teared up when I hit my first flag carrier with a mid-air disc.

The only problem is that I used to play with my mouse inverted, but no longer do; so all my modern instincts in terms of basic movement require that I use an uninverted mouse to avoid total disorientation, but then whenever I try to perform a Tribes-specific, muscle-memory-hard-coded action (most notably, a disc jump), I do so expecting an inverted mouse.

So my disc jump actually mostly looks like me shooting a disc straight up for no reason.

Some fun stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-qosmKJqk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aHHp1oDXUM

Annnnd cheats are already happening.  Was just in a game where some guy was speedhacking, managed to get the flag through the out of bounds grid with it :-/  Hope they have a plan for this kind of shit.

They just added another great patch. Seems like they are doing small weekly patches.

Seems like a good patch all around, I especially like the ui changes.

I have three more beta keys to hand out if anyone wants them, just reply here if you want one.

I'll gladly take one.

Add me when you get settled.  :grin:

Honestly I just don't understand why there are classes without a spinfusor. This whole 'only two weapons per loadout' thing just makes no sense if it means that you could be playing Tribes... and not shooting people with exploding discs. Obviously somebody in there understands what makes the game great because they reduced the cost on the two most iconic classes -- which, uncoincidentally, both have spinfusors -- but they need to take it a few steps further if they want new players to actually understand how fun the game can be.

Every time I look at Ranger or whatever and I'm like 'maybe I should try out these other classes' this is immediately followed by 'oh wait, no spinfusor' and I don't bother. I am sure some of these new weapons are cool and useful, but I will never, ever find out. It's like asking me to play without a jetpack.

No particular disagreement.  You do get used to the other loadouts if you play them and they aren't too bad, but I agree in principle with what you are saying.  They are trying to make it accessible to a wider audience from what I understand, and I think the spin fuser isn't "mainstream" or something stupid.   


In other news, I really think they need to do something about where the meta game is headed.  They've got the skiing/flag running part of the game down, but that was always the main objective but not ONLY objective in Tribes.  I don't know if they need to change some mechanics (like spawning with a stripped down loadout), or if they need map redesign, but I think they need to do something to encourage the strategic side of Tribes.   

Yes, right now the game feels more like the LT maps that eventually came out for T1, where there were no inventory stations or turrets and everyone spawned with the basic loadout plus an energy pack. Except I guess some people can spawn with heavy armour and a mortar, which boggles.

That said, in competitive T1 there were several maps were basically: start, everyone get a loadout, generators go down 15 seconds later, nobody ever repairs them. But it definitely would be nice to see more of that heavy armour bombardment and turret stuff come into it.

The true test of any Tribes map, is if Medium Armor users have an actual use or not.

They all do right now because Raider is an OP loadout.  :why_so_serious:

Ok, forgive my derp, but what is going to make this game MM? All I've seen so far is some rather pretty, but rather standard, multiplayer tribes maps.

Well, except that some of the best competitive maps in T1 were basically played 85% naked. Generally speaking smaller, faster-paced maps made for greater emphasis on naked play -- and also tended to produce extremely exciting matches.

Its not MM, there is a separate Tribes MMO in development, but when this thread got made it wasn't clear there would be two separate games.  Tribes: Ascend is just a normal Tribes game.

Ah. Thankee.

Pfft, Katabatic from tribes 2, best map!

Definitely a great map.  The new Katabatic is a shadow of its former self :(. 

Katabatic was probably the best PUG map in Tribes 2. Whatever your playstyle or skill level was, you had a place on Katabatic.

What is this 'tribes 2' you speak of? Some heresy, no doubt, all I remember from the demo I played at Tribes Gala was no skiing, way too many vehicles, and super steep hills.

I think I was still playing Tribes 1 after Tribes 2 had already crashed and burned, now that I think about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTOGQnI_edU

Context: Long ass hit-scan weapons thread on the beta forums.

Um wow!  Love the revival of Tribes, but the instant hit guns?  Tribes 1 had only the laser rifle for light I thought and wasn't that powerful...

Not sure I would like the instant hit stuff they were showing in video.

Its pretty universally decried, I have to imagine they are going to nerf at least the Raider.   

One of the problems in T1 was that a good capper was in and *gone* before you could even get a disc to the flag, and chasing him was pretty poor odds.  The only times I ever got taken down after a flag grab that got me out of the immediate vicinity was when there was a flag standoff (I have theirs, somebody from their team has ours) and I got surrounded without realizing it.  Flag defense was hopeless in vanilla and midfield defense was only about blocking enemy heavies.  That was a big part of why I switched to Renegades (and went from Cowboy Capper to Base Monkey).

That being said, that the recommended response to being turned into swiss cheese on a cap run is to whip out your own assault rifle and do unto the chasers before they do unto you shows that the weapon is unbalanced.  Shorter range or a miss radius closer to that of the T1 chaingun would seem to be called for.  They've already clamped down on the Ludicrous Speed hi-jinks of T1, with speeds no longer measured in Mach numbers, bullets streams can be dialed down a bit.

--Dave

I'm not an old Tribes player, I used to play the Quakes in my youth instead. So you can imagine I wouldn't have coughed up money for VIP status if Tribes Ascend didn't have instant hit guns, because at least those suckered me into believing I was good at this game because I could frag a couple of dudes to form a killstreak as Ranger. After trying some of the other classes I found out how wrong I was. Seeing more experiences players grab the flag and cap within half a minute baffled me at first, but I can't say there is anything I could gripe with. Vehicles seem iffy, maybe, but at least I don't feel bad about unlocking the Juggernaut when once in a while an enemy vehicle comes too close.

But yeah, when everyone else is skiing across the map like deadly angel ballerinas I'm falling against hillsides into near fullstops and breaking my legs. Forever on generator repair duty, I guess. Oh god another Infiltrator VDG VDG!

I'm sure this is exactly their reasoning for being in the game, ubt the other side of the coin in that people are can ski with the best of them AND have quake-like hit scan accuracy are just godly right now.  There is no reason not to play Ranger or Raider right now with exception of pathfinders running the flag.  Everything else is just that shitty by comparison.

You could chase most runs with the exception of a few extreme back-cap routes, and this is also what the laser rifle was for if your inventory stations happened to be up and your ping happened to be low. But generally a disc-jump and decent skiing of your own would allow you to chase the flag off most routes. It was definitely much easier to kill the capper by throwing a mine and exploding his face directly on the flag, but it was not the only way.

Also people eventually got good enough with the chaingun to take out cappers pretty efficiently while chasing, despite it being horrible innaccurate in general. Apparently the assault rifle is not quite so innaccurate.

Personally I miss the existence of proper insane back-cap routes, but oh well.

Today, after making my last reply, I played a bit and discovered the obvious reason instant hit guns turn into a boon in first person shooters. Aimbots. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQSqOeliyls)

Which turns me off because I played Tribes because it wasn't a Quake-like game.

Though I did used to get a kick out of the guy who would be circle strafing in the middle of a map in total irrelevance because JumpJets, how do they work!  :why_so_serious:

And now HiRez finds out why T1 had only one hit-scan weapon, and that one had major drawbacks.  Counter-Strike and Quake aimbots were legion at the time, and they made everything but the laser rifle a projectile as a way of immunizing Tribes against them (it was a subject of some discussion, as many people disliked T1 for this feature).

I had assumed they had done something clever, maybe involving the protected memory features of the newer versions of Windows.  Apparently not.

--Dave

To be fair, aimbots can be made for projectile weapons, hell, thats how the base turrets currently work  :why_so_serious:

Seriously though, fuck that shit.  I've seen aimbots and speed hacks now, my reaction is just to quit, hopefully there is some plan in place for dealing with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUhv_3n0_tI (Skiing 101)

The turrets have the advantage of running on the server.  Tribes also short-circuited the hacking urge by allowing extensive scripting, but locking out the information you'd need for an aimbot from the client-side scripts.  I think it's underestimated how much that kept the kind of player that can't help but fiddle harmlessly occupied (usually harmless, there were some script-based game-breakers but they never got too out of hand).  The only part of my T1 client that was stock was the main render window.

--Dave

I played my Tribes stock, well I did have a custom clan skin I suppose  :why_so_serious:

I had all kinds of stuff.  I used a Saitek Cyborg joystick in my left hand as a keyboard replacement (this was before the Speedpad, which I got one of the original Belkin N50's of), and wrote a bunch of scripts that were linked to it.  XY axis control was the replacement for the WASD, with 96 discrete zones (32 directions and 3 speeds of movement).  Hat switch controlled my grenades (down) mines (left) sniper zoom (up, also custom, opened inside the regular window with a 90X extreme widescreen) and quick-reverse (down, spun me 180 degrees in 1/50th of a second).  I had a loadout manager script that I selected my active loadout from the keyboard and I could just walk into the inventory station, it would never even open the screen, just spin me around in my new kit and I'd walk right back out.  Trigger was ski-mode (jump every 1/10th of a second).

I had scripts for waypointing the location of the flags every time anyone on my team saw them (and marking the last 10 seconds of tracked movement on the tactical map).  Another that would record my path for the last 60 seconds with 1/50th of a second accuracy, when I found a particularly clever ski route I'd save it, then practice it on empty servers until I could do it blindfolded.  I had scripts for mortaring particular points from particular other points starting from a known aiming point, I had custom reticles for every weapon and a script to change them automatically.  My health and energy bars were 1 pixel wide and 20 high, placed just below and to each side of the center, and my ammo number was directly below.  When I equipped the laser rifle and brought up my zoom window, the tactical map opened in the upper right corner zoomed to my location and everything within 300 meters would be visible (nobody was going to sneak up on me),

Some of those I wrote from scratch, the others were extensively modified.  Yes, I was hard-core (ranked 144th at one point, and I'm pretty sure most of the people ahead of me were using compromised servers because around number 80 the stats became literally impossible in vanilla, number 1 supposedly had 3000 kills  and 80 flag caps in 30 seconds).

--Dave

Pfft. Casual.

Wait, what -- what ranking was this, that was based on... individual kills?

But yeah, one of the major selling points of Tribes 1 in competitive play was that it was nearly impregnable* in terms of hacking, but extremely moddable. It's hard to imagine how many keyboards would have been been broken worldwide if not for the creation of ski-scripts, for example -- I still remember hammering away nonstop on my spacebar, no doubt planting the seeds for carpal tunnel syndromes of the future. And of course the Prestopack inventory management and flag-targetting stuff was crucial as well. I never went in for the crazy UI-reskins and reticle-mods and the like, but a lot of them were definitely awesome.

And I still remember the day Presto released his april fool's 'aimbot' script, and you could go around on the public servers and see random dudes standing in open fields swinging their spinfusors around like they were having a seizure.


* Some notable (and memorable) exceptions, of course, like the flag-finding hack that replaced the client-side textures for the flag with a new version like a thousand miles tall, and similar mods for deployable inventory stations, etc. I still remember the shitstorm when that hit the competitive scene. T:A at least has that one covered by just letting everyone see the flag location at seemingly all times.

I forget the name of the site that did the rankings, it polled the servers and used that data to rank players on kills and caps.  After I went to Renegades it was useless because there were three different versions it couldn't tell from each other (Renegades, UltraRenegades, and TribesRPG).

Yeah, the PrestoPack was a lot of it, I added in the history-tracking for his flag auto-waypointer, then realized the same thing could give me ski-routes.  Somebody else made the base sniping window script, I refined it and combined it with a modified version of someone else's tactical window script (ate framerate like crazy, but I had good hardware and only used it for sniping or quick looks to check out the flag history to see which way they were heading when they disappeared), making it a narrow strip let me see most of the standard window while still easily scanning for targets.  The auto-mortar script was someone else's, I just tweaked it a little.  I wrote my own joystick support script because I didn't like the standard one (only 8 directions, and only full-speed).

Other than that, I found or made UI replacements that took up minimal space and put the most critical information (health/energy/ammo) where I didn't need to look for it.  Unobstructed view was the key, if something stirred in the distance fog I didn't want to even have to *think* before I knew what it was and sent a disc or a grenade that direction (I was *nasty* with a grenade launcher).

Never got into clan play, just didn't have the patience for the politics and after disc-jumping heavies started to dominate vanilla, I switched to Renegades.

--Dave

I tried this the past weekend and I can say I was not impressed. It's pretty but I am super shitty at the game and not really sure I care to get better. I was never very good with the spinfusor anyway (I KNOW HERESY RIGHT?!), but having to get like 18000 tokens to unlock a class that doesn't use the fusor AND doesn't suck it like the Ranger when I'm getting 30-50 tokens a game because of how hard I suck? No thanks. I don't think this is something I can dedicate myself to enough to enjoy the game.

Just buy 5 dollars worth of tribes gold and buy the Raider, all your problems will be solved...until they nerf him at least.  That being said, I think your point is actually right on - this game is probably not worth playing for free for a lot of people simply because of how long it takes to unlock things.   I did buy the pre-order and I'm quite happy about that. Otherwise I would only have one new class after playing daily for nearly an entire month, and it would be one either Pathfinder or Juggernaut since they are now reduced in price.  The exp/token gain without a booster is absurdly slow, and if you are going to spend money on a booster you might as well just buy tribes gold and unlock the loadouts you want in the first place. 

Also, just as an FYI token gain isn't related to performance, just game length, so thats just how fast you get them, for anyone.   There has been some discussion on relating it to performance on the beta forums, but there has to my knowledge been no developer statement on the matter.  Frankly, I think the rate needs to be increased across the board, or they just sell the game in a box and be done with it.  It irks me a little that I bought Tribes 2 for 50 bucks when it was brand new, and got the ability to customize my loadouts any way I wanted, AND didn't have to level up my "loadouts" in order to make them better - they were just as powerful as they were out of the box.   Now, if I were to seriously want to own all the loadouts in the long run I'll end up having to pay MORE money than I did then, and get a lot less in return for it.

I don't regret the 30 bucks I spent on the pre-order, but there is a good chance I'm never going to spend another cent on the game.

Unlock time is my major complaint too. They did just lower the price of two classes in the last patch however. But the time between getting new stuff is long, and everyone likes new stuff. I do have faith in Highrez however, they have shown that they can try things out and change direction. GA went threw at least 2-3 monetization and high level game play changes and is a rather successful product ( Funding 2 other projects and has paid for itself. 20mil$ Dev investment ). They have already done it a few times in the short time I have been in beta, big fans of iteration and testing. I bet they can do it again.

However, a great deal of beta testers on the forums seem to think every patch is the final one, and instantly create some nasty posts. Even though there is a nice huge post about the process they are using. I'm not sure the various tribes community's are doing them any favors, the noise level is way to high, thankfully, other than some things, they don't seem to be paying to much attention to them, and are going by data, Pro-playtests, and match info on the servers.

I think part of the issue is that there really are some fairly major things that seem to need changes, and when they decide to tweak something by a few percentage points but leave everything else intact, it doesn't feel very impressive.    It leads people to believe they are more or less happy with the state of the meta game, for example.  Its almost impossible to defend the flag on the flag stand, and its quite common to see both teams just camping each other's base, hoping to get a timely return so their capper can cap before the flag is taken again.   Its just very messy.   Maybe they are counting on private servers to "fix" the game for people that want something different.   

So, while I really dont' have much objection to any of the specific changes they've made with patches, it feels like there are fundamental issues which they just don't seem interested in addressing at all. 

That is... unwise. That would make more sense in a subscription game than in a game where you want to incentivize many micro-transactions. The rate needs to be increased a great deal (like 5x or more) AND add bonuses for performance. If you're worried about winners becoming bigger winners, make the guy with the most deaths get the same bonus too. I think they missed the draw of the COD/BF2 type of unlock system. Lots of early dings makes you work harder for the later dings. If I haven't even gotten close to some kind of unlock ding within the first 2 hour playsession, it's too slow. After I've gotten an unlock or two, then you hit me with the hard long grind. As it was, I had no desire to spend money to improve, I just went back to LoL.

I unlocked the Juggernaut already with tokens and I haven't played much. Saving my booster for the holiday season. Then again I have been through the World of Tanks tier 10 grind so my perception might be skewed.

Yes, it is.  :grin:

New Patch incoming today:


I'm fairly shocked the Raider SMG didn't get a nerf but the Grenade Launcher did.   Everything else seems fine.  Most notably a general decrease in tokens required to unlock things. 

See, they do care.  :grin:

Good stuff in that patch.

EDIT: As predicted forums are going apeshit like its the end of the world.

Yeah, I read the first 3 responses to the thread in which they announced the patch and then just stopped bothering.  I do maintain that I wish they would address a few of the bigger things (although depending on just how much token reduction there is, it may help one of them a lot), which they've been quiet about.  But oh well.

Its sad he has to keep saying that.

Here is the new Orbital Strike in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z8UZo7y0z8

15000 credits seems like a steep cost, that is 6 tactical strikes, for comparison.

I just got an invite to this. Am I reading correctly that silliness like aimbots and speed hack already exist?

Yes, but if it makes you feel better they turned on some anti cheating system last week and I haven't seen a cheater since.

I have more beta keys to hand out. PM me if you would like one.

Never mind, keys gone.

I got to play Tribes Ascend last night, pretty fun. Brings back good memories without the god-awful graphics.

Good deal.

Edit:  Unrelated but it looks like Tribes: Ascend is going to be a part of NASL Season 3's line up.  Not sure when season three is slated to start, but it unless they intend to use the beta for the tournament it looks like the game is coming out before the start of season three.

http://nasl.tv/News/Article/2011-12-04-tribes-ascend-to-make-esports-debut-in-nasl-season-three

http://www.viddler.com/explore/massively/videos/493/

New gameplay trailer.  I think most people who care here are in beta now, but figured it was relevant at any rate.

Most times I would enjoy the beta. At this time, I just don't see myself playing it at all. Between Skyrim, Minecraft and TOR...I'm good. All others can form up a queue that I won't get to for quite a while.

Its a good game to drop into for a little FPS action. It's filled my action-oriented game play need while waiting for SWTOR to come out. And I imagine I'll be playing it whenever the servers are down too!

Or in 60 days, whichever comes first.

HR makes a game where people die in a reasonable fashion? Alright maybe time to use some mouthwash, the bile I had for their company may need to be removed.

 :roll:

Discjumping for fun and profit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGaRyo_DO4&feature=player_embedded

Patch!

FULL:

The new version of Bella Omega is amazing.

There was a competitive exhibition match hosted by Hi-Rez tonight.  This game still needs a lot of work before its ready for competitive play.  Long story short - good snipers are amazing, heavies are useless, and pathfinders and rangers seem to win the day on offense. 

Score one for Team Bitter Vets.  And credit to Hi-Rez for acknowledging reality and making the change.  This leaves the sniper-rifle as the only hit-scan LPB/Aimbot toy, just like T1.

--Dave

Crap.

Honesty, I understand why you don't like the change, but my god the game plays better than it did two days ago.

Fantastic change. Good show Hirez.

Installing now, I just hope I can find a good D&D server instead of just that CTF crap everyone seems to insist on playing.  :popcorn:

Tried this tonight, the jetpack physics are very good, at least as far as I could tell with just medium armor to work with.  The lack of freeform customizing of weapons rather blows, on the other hand.  I don't even care that they made the weapon sets into 'classes' and want to be paid to unlock the classes, fine, whatever.  Just let the player swap weapons at will once they've unlocked them by getting the class that uses them.

In a game that emphasizes speed and scale, hit-scan was just never going to work.  Either you dial down the damage to trivial levels, cut down range to uselessness, or you use projectiles.  Even very fast projectiles are dodge-able.  It means more load on the server, but resolving simple straight-line ballistics is trivial for modern systems (where it was possible to lag out a T1 server if too many people were using chain-guns).

--Dave

Anyone want a beta code I'm not going to use? PM me if interested.

Mother of God....

http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/297

Massive overhaul of the loadout system.  Off the cuff, I approve.

Oh wow.

That's an interesting compromise between classes, and customization everyone was clamoring for. This is why I like Highrez. They are willing to iterate and gut entire systems until its right.


The Firing Line Extra: Tribes' Todd Harris on class customization and base gameplay (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/the-firing-line-extra-tribes-todd-harris-on-class-customizatio/)

(http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2012/02/2tribesascendnewmodifyclasspathfinder.jpg)

So, I booted this up and it is overwhelming.  On the one hand, things have been distilled down into just two currencies , XP and Gold.  But on the other hand, now a lot of things cost gold OR exp that used to only cost exp or tokens.  To make a long story short, a lot of upgrades weapon and loadout wise can now be purchased with gold, but its on a per class basis.  So, your Soldier (the new Ranger/Soldier class from the old patch) somes with a Thumper for free, but the Tech class can also get a thumper, for 140,000 exp OR 780 gold (~$7.80). 

On the one hand, I like the new system, but its crazy overwhelming, there is an insane amount to unlock, and the UPGRADE once you've unlocked it, and lots more to potentially spend real money on.

Also, they've refunded everything, and its insane to just have nothing unlocked (but the free stuff), and a pool off 900k experience points to spend, especially because I don't have a good sense of how much that will get me.  Prior to this I had all 12 loadouts unlocked, and each of their skill trees partially or fully unlocked.  My first impulse was to try to replicate the amount of progression I had before, but it doesn't seem like it translates well enough to do that.

For people who are playing: How well would a 6770 handle it?  I am just about to upgrade, as my 7800GT simply doesn't have the heft for newer games, and I had been holding back from this on that account.  6770 was the best I could manage within my budget that still seemed like a significant improvement.

--Dave

Before I got my new computer, I played an early version of the beta with a Nvidia 9800 GT. I'm sure a 6770 will do just fine.

Finally got everything working, went in and played a couple of rounds of Rabbit: Shazbot!  It's really Tribes.  Felt clunky on the skiing at first in the solo practice area, then realized that you default to Juggernaut.  Switched out for Pathfinder, and felt much better.  Ski skills came back quickly, biggest difference (and probably a good one) is that you can change vector in the air (slightly) without hitting the jet-pack, makes it a little easier to fine-tune your landing.  Hit 221 in Rabbit, I don't know if that's considered fast but it felt fast.

Shotgun is an interesting weapon for a light, I managed to unload into the rabbit on a high deflection cross, didn't get the mid-air flag grab, though.  Need a better mouse and to dig out my old SpeedPad.  I can already tell I'm going to put some money into this, only question is how much real dough I'm ready to drop to speed up my unlocks (I've promised myself it won't be more than the $50 for a retail box).

--Dave

Yea, the new skiing mechanics take some getting used to, but they are easy enough to pick up.  221 is good.  Anything over 200 is generally considered at the very least "fast enough."  Some people claim to regularly get up to 300, but I have to admit I almost never see anyone going that fast in practice, and I have a feeling some people only hit these ludicrous speeds on free roam mode.  Also, I use the term ludicrous speed because if you go fast enough you get an award at the end of the match called "Gone to plaid."

Also, I finally got around to spending all my accrued exp that was refunded last patch.  Another patch game out which lowered the prices of some things and made it feel a lot more reasonable to me.  I like the new loadout system significantly better than the old one.  On top of that, it seems MUCH more exapandable in the future.  You can easily see how new weapons, grenades, deploayables, etc could be added to the new system very easily, and it allows for a lot more customization of your loadout (up from none in the previous version) which is something a lot of people were hoping for.

They really can't decide what the hell they want to do with the Bella Omega map.  Every single patch the base structure gets overhauled.  I think its better than ever at this point, but I don't trust them to leave well enough alone with it.  I think map design is the biggest thing remaining for hi-rez to tackle now that the overhauled the loadout system.  They seem to be getting better at it (ArxNovena is newest one, and arguably the best), but I think the need a solid map pool of 3-5 more new maps before releasing, and hopefully they are able to hit a good balance between possibility of defense (which was utterly lacking from the early maps) and the ability for offensive players to actually touch the flag.

I had a hard time getting used to the new looser movement. That's just a personal issue, I spent a lot of time with the old.

Also, for some reason, I'm getting really bad shuddering now.

Yeah, today I was trying the classic "Skyhook Slingshot" (ski into a nearly vertical hill, grab as much altitude as you can and come down onto the same hill moving like a rocket with your vector reversed) and kept pancaking because of the vector change from trying to move forward while not on the jets (something that didn't matter in T1, you'd keep it mashed if you need to fine-tune your re-entry with a little jab of jet).  I kept overshooting the slope and digging a crater at 200+.  Just means retraining the reflexes, maybe I'll dig out the joystick and go back to "flying" my avatar (for some reason ski-control was always more intuitive to me with a joystick).

--Dave

Well, ran into my first cheater tonight.  Guy named Discord in Infiltrator using whatever pistol it is that armor gets, wasn't absolutely sure he was cheating until I watched him in Spectator for a while: He was always aimed *perfectly* at his target when he was firing, even if that meant an instant reversal in facing as a target went over him.  I don't think the weapon is hit-scan, just very fast projectiles that might as well be in the tight spaces of a base (and since he was Infiltrator, if he wasn't set up, he just didn't shoot).

Of course he was part of an organized pack that was completely dominating the pick-up newbs on my side, I don't know if the rest were cheating or not, just logged out in disgust after I was sure about him.

--Dave

Have a beta key for this if anyone cares to use it (and will actually use it).

I have an invite a friend key as well.

I haven't seen another cheater since that one, and haven't seen him since, so they seem to be doing a good job of holding down the anti-social element.  I've gone ahead and put $50 into it (the $30 beta special that comes with what's effectively a free 30-day booster, and another $20 worth of gold).  And I haven't paid $50 for a game since Fable 2.  I've only spent about 2200 of the gold, I'm still working out which packs/weapons are worth unlocking.  Raider is pretty awesome just stock, putting a triple sticky grenade on someone's face is hilarious (and being able to lay down a pattern pretty effective in any fight).

Skiing is much better than even original T1, you can actually do pretty good with a Medium armor when it comes to just getting around (even been doing Rabbit in Soldier, Thumper + E-Pack + both ultra-capacitors = love).

--Dave

EDIT: BTW, I assumed everyone already knew this, but you can get a T:A beta key by "Liking" HiRez on Facebook.

I actually dumped a large chunk of my initial gold into a XP boost and I've been very happy with it.  I unlocked the main stuff I thought I would want with gold and am now getting double XP in every match to upgrade what I have.

As an old Tribes player I'm really enjoying Ascend after the last few patches a lot.  I had a hard time really getting into it early, but now I put a lot of hours into it the last weekend.  Has some pretty big issues to figure out (generators being almost pointless, vehicles mostly bad, too few maps and too small, health regen, no Defend & Destroy game mode) but as a whole I have no regrets spending some money on it.

Patch notes.



Full patch notes -

Wow, thanks for the heads up.  DL'ing now.

Generators: Depends on the map.  Some of them there are no well-placed turrets and you might as well ignore the generators unless you've got a lot of people to lay deployables.  Other maps it's so hard to grab the flag with the gens up that taking them down is almost a requirement.

--Dave

http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/tribes-ascend/ (http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/tribes-ascend/)

Giving away a free unlock code for the soldier utility pack.

So, even though I couldn't really get this to run properly on my machine, I am still faithfully updating it and then letting it crash and send crash reports.

The only benefit so far is I have a beta key to pass on to someone else.

First PM from someone who wants into the beta gets it.

Beta went open two days ago, don't need keys anymore.  :awesome_for_real:

I didn't even know I had the email until about a half hour ago.

Is your machine just underpowered? Or is it just this game that's the issue?

Last patch cleared up my shuttering.

It might be that my machine is sub-par, but honestly it plays Skyrim ok with medium settings, so I really don't know.

I didn't play the most recent patch, but it wasn't stuttering, it was the game just closing on it's own with a crash dump/send crash notice after I got past the Hi-Command patcher. Was actually patching it as we speak to possibly try again, but that looks like it could take a while.

EDIT: Actually was trying to patch it, but now it's saying I have a connection issue
EDIT2: Dunno, can't get it to do anything, and unable to even load their website. Anyone know if Hi-rez was down, or is this just me?

They're having "network problems".  Either a DOS attack or just too many people jumping into the open beta (which people thought was going to open on Friday, although it actually happened Wednesday).

--Dave

EDIT: Back up, little flaky but it always comes around eventually.  Think they're a little overwhelmed with the response to the open beta

Heheh....  Stupid Noob Trick of the day: I'm playing CTF on Bella Omega, and I decide what we need is some heavy offense.  So I jump in Juggernaut, and hit my ski route to the enemy base.  When I arrive, the generators are down and the flag is gone, so i decide to hold the flag platform for a while.  I'm doing pretty good, ducking and dodging around the supports to avoid the enemy and laying big green eggs at their feet, and I see that the enemy generator is back up.  I turn to slide over to the shaft that runs down to the lower level and get bounced by a grenade, right over the top of the flag platform.  No problem, I just drop into it from the other side.

So now I'm storming the generator, spamming the mortar rounds into the hallways, and playing bounce tag with the guys who are coming down the hallway, the whole time there's another guy in their in Soldier armor voice command spamming "give me the flag, give me the flag!" over and over.  But he's doing pretty good at helping me stand off the enemy, who are just absolutely lemming-charging into the meatgrinder of that hallway.  We must have scored 20-25 kills before they finally whittle me down and I die...

...and the flag flies off of me directly into the Soldier who has been holding the gen room with me, and he jets down the hallway, out the door, across the field and caps the flag.  Apparently the flag got returned *just* as I took my little detour over the flag stand and I hadn't even noticed that I had grabbed it.

--Dave

Been playing the game over the weekend, having never played tribes mind you. In a sea of modern warfare aim down the sights shit fests this is really, really great. I havent had this much fun with an FPS since the Team Fortress 2 Beta.


Nailing some guy in mid air with the starter grenade launcher simultaneusly ending his killing streak feels much better than running around tiny CoD maps taking turns punching one another in the dick.

I downloaded the open beta client, and it installed Global Agenda. The installer says I have Ascend, but I can't find any executables.  :headscratch:

You wouldn't believe how much bitching there is about that, too.  The "100% inheritance thread" is somewhere around 140 pages.  tldr; It's over how much of your vector is inherited by the projectiles.  With 100%, if you're moving forward at 200 kph and you launch a projectiles that moves 400 kph straight ahead, it's moving at 600 kph relative to the ground.  Aim it directly backwards and it will be going 200 kph.  Tribes has traditionally had 50% inheritance, so in the above scenario it would be going 500 and 300 kph respectively.

This means that "where to aim" is a different calculation depending on what weapon you're using, how fast you're moving, and what bearing you're trying to shoot relative to your actual vector.  This drives people used to "realistic" CoD/TF2/BF1942 type shooters absolutely freaking nuts, all their reflexes are wrong.  Old Tribes hands are used to it, and what they bitch about is the number of automatic bullet weapons in the game that are so fast that these constantly changing offsets aren't really needed (especially if you're ground-pounding rather than flying/skiing).

BTW, until you reach level 6, you're in the "kiddie pool", fighting only other newbies and maybe some smurfs.  You'll know when you make level 6 because you will get your ass handed to you, over and over.  Don't get frustrated, and be glad you're part of a big glut of newbies.

--Dave

yeah, I know the guys Im playing are generally bad; but I'm still having fun / learning.

Also, on an unrelated note:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNIwna-D0XU&feature=related

Free gold from liking some Facebook stuff from the Tribes Twitter -

It's an impressively newbie-hostile FPS. With the speed and movement, and the slow weapons, getting a hit on anything moving at decent speed is extremely difficult. And the veterans / hardcore barely do not stop moving. On one map (with the flag in a ship) some veteran basically got 5 captures in a row by shooting through the flag corridor (and thus through the ship) at a speed which would be the speed of a projectile in TF2. I find it interesting, but in terms of "fun" the return is pretty slim and likely to be so for quite a while.

Of course I assume this is why people have such fond memories. The thrill of mastery. But I can't see it being other than a niche game.

That map is Crossfire, and the through the ship route can be shut down with a doombringer forcefield as long as you can keep the generator up.   The more advanced routes which grab the flag while going across the front of the ship are a bit more effective in my experience.  But I digress and your point stands - Tribes is not a newbie friendly game, and it won't be no matter what they do (it is something they are actively concerned about from what I have heard).  But if someone doesn't understand the game very wel and just joins a game, it will be totally overwhelming.  Of course they SHOULD do the skiing tutorial first, but there are going to be a hell of a lot of people who load this game up, join a match, get destroyed, and uninstall.

Unless they just don't like FPS in general I feel pity for someone that can't find the fun in Tribes.  A lot of popular FPS are newbie-hostile, if you were new to the genre and started randomly joining Counter Strike servers you might rage quit after your first game of taking an AWP in the face every round before you get a shot off.

I don't think it will be the next huge FPS, but I definitely disagree it will just be a niche game.

The team that allowed those captures failed.  Forcefields, mines, or just a heavy standing in front of the flag would've ruined that guy's day.

I dont know if we've reached the point where Modern Warfare games have become so normal that a more traditional fast paced fps like this is really HOSTILE. The game does a fairly good job of starting you off with other newbies.

So this Pathfinder was bitching about how I wasn't doing a good enough job of clearing the enemy flagstand on Katabatic (I was in Juggernaut playing heavy offense, skating around the enemy base dropping MIRV rounds).  It wasn't my stand-clearing that was the problem, but the 6 Techs on the enemy team that would replenish the turret farm as fast as I cleared them out and his 300+ capture route that had him at half health when he reached the stand.

So I decide "Fuck it, I'll show him how it's done."  I switch out the MIRV for the mortar, work up a good head of steam (about 180) on a back to front route (so moving towards the friendly flag, through the enemy flagstand).  I fly through the flag, snagging it, and I'm headed right for the mountain that's in between.  I lay a Mortar round right at the base of it, ski over it just as it goes off, and *whoomp*, I'm flying over the mountain, right to our flag...which I miss by about 20 feet, dying on impact.  Jackass Pathfinder swoops in, picks up the flag, and goes to cap it...but flies into a Raider sticky grenade spread and dies.  Enemy Raider takes our flag and recovers theirs.  I ragequit in shame.

The key to being good at Tribes is getting the ski mechanic hardwired into your muscle memory.  You always want to land on downslopes and jet up upslopes, while coasting and building up your energy on flats.  After a while this is so automatic you can do it without thinking, while sliding sideways and shooting a disc at where someone going the other way will be when the disc gets there.  But learning to ski is fundamental, you're just fodder until then.

Try using the free-roam mode to learn the maps, and the moving drones on the target practice map to learn how to lead with the discs.  Bella Omega, Katabatic, and Temple Ruins are probably the best "practice slopes", where Arx Novena and Drydock are more advanced.

--Dave

I finally caved, and quit faffing about in the tutorials, and played a few matches last night.  I've got a loooong way to go before I'm zipping around like Mahrin, but I don't think I'd call it newbie-hostile.

I generally suck at FPS games, and I'm about as big a newb at Tribes as one can be, but I did well enough, and had some fun.

The skiing tutorial really isn't a very good place to learn to ski.  If you already know how, it's not hard, but trying to hit the little hills in the middle from a cold start is just annoying.  If you want to learn to ski, skip it and go straight to free roaming on Temple Ruins (probably the easiest map on which to build up Ludicrous Speed).

--Dave

The skiing is fun, I spent quite a lot of time on the practice map just playing around. Though the main results of that are very widespread maps which can lead to lack of focus in the combat. What is not so satisfying is attempting to land serious hits with the assault rifle, let alone the juggernaut weapon, on targets that are frequently in the distance and jinking around in mid-air. This is a lot different from most shooters where the physics is more controlled, ground bound and the pace slower, and where landing hits is far more reliable (possibly accentuated by the assault rifle which needs accurate tracking, and explains why people dump it for the big hit / AoE weapons).

There is quite a difference from the practice map where targets stand still or move around at a slow jog in a predictable path. A much more useful practice would have significantly faster moving targets on more erratic paths you could practice on.

The mortar is...sad, compared to the terror the Smoking Green Football induced in T1 (although it still dominates generator room fights).  The MIRV, on the other hand, is much more effective at clearing the deployables or spamming into a furball and hoping it melts somebody random.

The practice targets aren't great, although some of them are trickier than others, none really acts like a player.  For me, changing direction when I hear someone firing a spinfusor, thumper, or bolt launcher has become a reflex pretty quickly (in T1/T2, you couldn't hear them fire unless you were close).

Today's stupid newbie trick: I'm jetting over the midfield on Arx Novena when I hear the *pow* rifle report of a sniper.  I take a second to look and see an enemy shooting at our HoF (Heavy On Flag, protecting against cappers by literally body-blocking them).  So I decide he needs a triple-sticky surprise.  I set up just behind and above him, and chunk-chunk-chunk...I don't know if he was on voice comms and someone warned him, or he just happened to pick that moment to vacate his hide, but he jumps up and towards me just as I'm firing.  I still get the triple-stick, but they go off just as he is right next to me.  "AbuseMagnet commits suicide."

--Dave

So today, I was getting my ass kicked by a team that was obviously on Mumble or some other voice comms, no matter what I did, they were always waiting for me with a Blue Plate Special facial (a spinfusor that hits you in midair).  So, it was either ragequit and try to find another server that wasn't so lopsided (these guys were spotting us three caps and then *still* capping out well before the end of the match) or...do something mean.

So I picked out one guy, named Krasgasm, and decided to make him my *bitch*.  No particular reason except that he had killed me twice in row when I got pissed off.  So I hunted the poor bastard, game after game.  Mid airs. triple stickies, blowing him up into the air with grenades and then ripping him apart with bullets before he could come down.  I think he got kind of flustered because he started making really stupid mistakes, like trying to defend the Crossfire generator with a Juggernaut (the gen room in that map is the size of a closet, and the juggernaut has only explosive weapons, he was reduced to trying to hit me with melee while I danced around filling him with bullets).

Finally, on Temple Ruins (the newest and biggest map), he got really pissed after I mortared him to death at the flagstand for the third time and switched to Doombringer, got up on top of the base and kept trying to hit me with missiles.  I kept using his missiles to get the velocity to escape from the rest of his team, then I intercepted one with my spinfusor (this is like trying to hit a frisbee with another frisbee), and just for good measure I mortared him to death on the platform over the flagstand (all this while skating sideways or backwards and evading the rest of his team, like some kind of demented sumo figure skater with a siege cannon).

Now he's *pissed*.  He jumps in a grav bike, with the intent of chasing me down and either making me road kill or just shooting me with the bike's cannon.  Around and around we go, unfortunately for him I'm maintaining 130kph and he can't just run me over, and I can use the terrain to make hard turns he just can't match.  For the coup de grace, I kill his grav cycle with a spinfusor hit...and I'm so busy being smug and laughing about it that I fail to notice I just skied backwards into a crash stop against a pillar of the flag stand.  I have just enough time to go "oh shit", and I am completely *engulfed* in spinfusor discs, mortar rounds, grenades, and heavy turret fire.  I didn't just die, I vaporized.

--Dave

Still very glad I spent my gold on an XP boost.

Just got about 7300 XP from one game.  :rock_hard:

I really like the new map.  They've REALLY improved on each new map they've made, every new one better than the last.

I like the landscape of the new map, I don't care for the bases themselves though.

NASL showmatch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y5RfGUdXAg

Pretty good stuff.

I'm very much a minority on this from what I've read, but I really wish the "esports" matches were larger teams.

The casters were having a hard enough time keeping track with just 7v7, bigger teams might be more fun to play, but it would be a mess to watch I think.  And eSports need to be spectator friendly at least to some degree.

I guess that makes sense, too bad though, I feel like it might really limit any creative strategies you could see.

Downloaded and installed this tonight.  I've had a beta invite sitting in my inbox for awhile now but the new info and videos I've been seeing look good. 

I just need to get this out of my system:

I was just in a come back game, we were down 4-3 but we forced over time by having the flag when time ran out.  This went on for a while with both flags in a stand off.  We FINALLY managed to return our flag, and at the same time our we dropped their flag, but after a tense couple of seconds one of ours managed to pick it back up.  So we are SCREAMING at him to cap the flag, but it quickly became obvious he had no idae he had the flag.  He was literally 10 feet from the flag, then flew off to go do something else.

PAYYYY ATTENTION TO THE GAME IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY PELASE. ARGGG WE WERE THAT TO TIEING THE GAME AND THIS GUY TOTALLY FLAKED OUT.


Ah ok, I;m better now, I just needed to let that out.

Maybe I'm just turning into a crabby old vet going "Back in my day..." but the more I play this the more some of the changes bother me.

Still think health regen is a terrible, terrible thing.
Am wondering why FF is never on, apparently even in the tournament matches?
Still hate people spawning with full loadouts, inventory stations serve almost no purpose.
Hate how little importantance the generators serve

I've been trying to branch out, I have all the classes unlocked and most of the weapons.  Haven't taken all the perks yet, but I have all the ones that seem useful.  Only weapons I haven't unlocked are the Stealth Spinfusor and the Juggernaut rifle.  I have about 830 gold, but I'm trying to save it for the cosmetic stuff that's supposed to come later, and just use XP.  Have 18 days left on my booster, at the current rate I'll have everything unlocked and leveled up by the time it runs out. (I seem to average about 2000-2500 per game, with spikes as high as 7000).

I'd get more XP if I deathmatched, but I generally take Raider and shred the enemy defensive net, only get kills when either the players get in the way of my deep hatred of deployables or they give up on keeping the turrets.  Raider is underpowered now for fights, but it can tear a turret farm right the hell up.  Getting better with the ARX, though, I get a lot of "Assists" because of laying patterns around an enemy who's dueling someone else, or laying them out in front of people that are chasing me to make them lose the line.  I can fly through the ship on Crossfire at 150 and take out a turret on the way (it's a tough shot, requires getting two out of three into a 10 foot circle as you're flying by at nearly 100 miles per hour.  Imagine throwing three rocks at a large roadsign while racing down the highway.

When I join a Generator room assault I usually get a lot of kills, the ARX is good at corridor fights and the grenade launcher is even better.

--Dave

EDIT: Generators run the deployables, and it is possible to make a fairly tight network and keep it up if you work at it  But that takes more experience than you will usually see on the current servers.  You can skip the deployables and run interception instead, but that takes some coordination or the flag will be gone before the capper can get back to it.  It's not uncommon in such matches for the flag to come back, and the lights that were all chasing the flag carrier converge on the flagstand, kill him, recover their own, and it's gone again and back to a standoff before their own carrier can get to it (even if he's holed up in the gen room).

I've settled into a pattern of playing the same roles on the same maps probably four games out of 5.  Not sure if I consider that a good thing or not but I do know I tend to do well and get a lot of XP usually.

Bella Omega - Juggernaut, ski into gen room and spam damage until I die, hold gen room if I get in.
Crossfire - Juggernaut, ski into gen/flag room and spam damage until I die, hold gen room if I get in. (Sometimes Doombringer flag D)
Arx Novena - Doombringer flag defense
Temple Ruins - Doombringer flag defense
Drydock - Pathfinder flag cap, or Infil and live in their gen area
Katabatic - Infil, live in their gen area (also ends up being a perfect example of how terrible health regen is, I can just stealth and run away long enough to regen and own the gen and defenders all game)

The good news is, they've said that once private servers go in a lot of this is going to be set by server variables.  So, communites of older school players will be able to tinker with some of this stuff I believe.

I think spawning with the full loadout is the biggest issue and I think it would solve number 4 on your list as well. 

The new armor setups have grown on me.  I like that Medium armors are a lot more viable than they ever were in T1/T2.  I actually get a fair number of caps in my Raider armor when the enemy flag comes back and none of the Pathfinders are in position to snag it.  They don't expect a Raider to have the kind of flight performance I can eke out of it, and I can shrug off hit or two on the way back (where a Pathfinder that nitro'd his way up to a 250kph route dies if he so much as stubs his toe on the return, and can't run low random patterns to evade the snipers).

Many is the Doombringer who has found that hitting a Raider with his Bolt Launcher as he flies buy is actually doing me a favor (giving me a 30kph boost and turning my 140-150 grab into a 170-180 departure).

--Dave

EDIT: Really, nobody *used* more than two of their weapons in T1 most of the time, anyway.  Disc-launcher for bounce duels, mortar or grenade launcher for bombardment or corridor fights, you only whipped out the chaingun when you were trying to take that last sliver of health off someone who was running away, and the Plasma gun for taking down shielded targets like the Turrets.

I would agree that it has grown on me as well.  I think the change from 12 classes to 10 and giving some options for customization within each went a long way.  Still inferior to Tribes 2, but it is good enough at this point.

Oh also - does anyone else miss the targeting laser?  I loved playing with my friend, me going as a light and getting in position of the enemy and then painting targets so he could lob mortars from a safe position right on target.

Yes, but doesn't the Ascend mortar have less range and AOE than the classic ones?

I don't think it actually does.  I think nostalgia has made people forget how close the fog limit was in those games.  On many of them you could shoot the mortar past anything you could see, what they don't remember is that you could fly to the same distance in 15 seconds.  Remember that it could barely reach from base to base on Broadside (you could *almost* jump that from balcony to balcony in Light without a disc jump or a ski ramp, you could make it from one roof to the other balcony fairly easily).  Scarabrae *seemed* huge, but it was really smaller than Drydock.

--Dave

I know the upped the AoE radius in one of the patches, and it feels a bit more like the old version to me since then.  I don't know about the actual radius, but it feels about right at this point.  Also, there are still plenty of places on the current set of maps where you might want to mortar from a relatively safe position and you can't because you have no good way to judge where the mortars are landing.   The laser targeter also lets you hit accurately right off the bat instead of having to use a couple of practice shots to judge the distance - which is balanced out by the fact that it takes two people to do so.

You're probably right on the fog of war/nostolgia factor then.

Speaking of the targeting laser, don't forget also having homing beacons or whatever they were called.  :oh_i_see:  Place one on the underside of a platform or something, go suit up into heavy and mortar spam away with perfect accuracy!

*edit* Also, haven't confirmed yet, but just read that they increased mortar range in this patch.  Apparently they also unintentionaly doubled the rate of fire of light turrets.  :uhrr:

The problem is that it could easily be botted.  One actual human with a targeting laser could have four bots dropping one mortar/MIRV round every half a second or so, waving it around in a rolling wave of green death.

--Dave

So Infiltrator + Super Heavy (maxed) is the most fun I've had in a while.  :awesome_for_real:  I have this mental picture of an invisible man just clotheslining pathfinders to death as them come in on the flag.

The turret bug is pretty  :awesome_for_real: - every server I've joined has like 5 techs per team now too.

Just FYI: Don't play on the Europe servers right now.  I was checking out various foreign servers, trying to find out how lag-tolerant T:A is (answer: 200 ping is very playable, 300 isn't), and I found that Europe was completely taken over by hackers.  I spent a few hours just watching them, it was...interesting.  Anyone who tells you that you can't aimbot a ballistic weapon is full of crap, not only in theory but in practice.  I saw someone with the Grenade Launcher breeze past a base turret at 150, hitting it dead on with every shot, including two in the middle that had to bounce off the ground to arm.  The Grenade Launcher is the most arcing of the weapons, and notoriously hard to use effectively outside of a corridor fight, where you just flood the target area with explosions.  With nearly perfect accuracy, the only defense was to fly too high for splash damage and too erratically for mid-airs (it has huge DPS to go with the inaccuracy).

Definitely saw that not all aimbots were equal.  A lot of them were just old-school dead-on aimbots, which are godlike with hitscan weapons but easily defeated by keeping a high deflection on anything with a travel time (and nearly useless for arcing weapons).  But there were two varieties of ballistic aimbot, one was so good that it could lay a long-range mortar shot right where the target would wind up if they didn't change any of their directional controls (also seemed to work for leading with bullet weapons), I saw a guy mid-airing lights from midfield with it.  The other wasn't quite as good at moving targets, but could easily compensate for your own vector inheritance and bounce the rounds off of the terrain to reach the target ready to blow.  The guys with the predicting aimbots were completely dominating the ones with the more primitive versions (who had to try to reduce deflection to zero or get very close to get the benefit of their cybernetic assistance).

One match, on Drydock, 3 Juggernauts were skiing around while launching MIRV's almost straight up into the air, all of the submunitions were landing on the flagstand while they toured all around the map.  I dunno if Hi-Rez just aren't monitoring the foreign servers the way they do the US ones, but these guys were not even trying to be subtle, I was sure more than half of them were cheating, and there was only one guy besides myself I was certain wasn't (he was the Sentinel who kept missing).  Actually, there were nearly no snipers, apparently even cheaters find that too easy and unfun and would swarm and spawn-camp anyone who sniped.

So, there you have it: What T:A would look like if it were just another boxed game.

--Dave

Ive been meaning to mention this: Does anyone else notice any weird mouse acceleration with this game?

I've not noticed that.

Guess Im the only one, high speed flick shots are nearly impossible because I never know where my mouse is going to go. Despite this I can still do ok; but its still nothing you want to deal with.

Check around in your settings, there are a few options for the mouse that might be causing you problems (including an acceleration one I disabled).

--Dave

EDIT: Against my normal practice, I followed someone's advice and reduced my sensitivity by about a third.  I normally set for about a 1/2 inch 360, which serves me fine for flick shots with splash weapons, but the Raider I normally play needs precise placement for effective use of the sticky-grenade shooter, and the bullet weapons (which I had been ignoring except for taking the last sliver off a fleeing opponent or flag carrier) are much more effective with lower sensitivity.  I'm actually getting kills with the bullets alone now, and it's gotten easier to lay down the patterns with the ARX Buster that bounce a target from one into the next or cover *all* the ways he might dodge.

Its amazing really, at first glance certain classes didnt really interest me, but the more I poke around in the games different classes the more Im liking about this game.

http://www.hirezstudios.com/hirezwp/?p=1825

I guess in a free to play release there isn't a huge difference between open beta and release, but there we go.

Meh, the fact that they think the game in its current setup is "release ready" makes me much less interested in it.  Was hoping for at least a few more gameplay changes before they considered it done aside from all the issues that need to be fixed.

C'mon Planetside 2!

Tribes: Ascend’s "Llama Island" Trailer (http://youtu.be/pjyUy5f3VIw?hd=1)

 :grin:

There have been a rash of llama grabbers lately.  I hate coming in to a flag stand screaming vff vff vff and having that totally helpless feeling of watching some guy walk up to the flag, pick it up, and jet off.

I'm pretty sad they removed Bella Omega completely.  Not for more iteration, just nuking it altogether from what I can tell.  It felt very "tribesy" to me, but I guess a lot of people didn't like the importance of the generator and base defense (which is exactly what I DID like).  I understand that they are trying to make this game very flag-centric and I know it is CTF, but it seems to me the older Tribes games weren't all about flag running.  Flag running was important, but you sort of built up to being able to grab the flag through sustained offense rather than just sending cappers over and over and over until one makes it out - which is where Tribes: Ascend is right now.  I'm enjoying T:A don't get me wrong, but I am going to miss some of the more strategic stuff.

This is pretty much why I'm losing interest in the game the more I play it.  Like you said, Hi-Rez seems to be focusing the game on being able to go fast and capture a flag every time you spawn as often as possible.  Except it feels like thats ALL they care about.  They don't seem interested in making other objectives matter, they keep only make maps where you can easily fly through the flag from multiple directions at 300 and aren't adding any other game mode that isn't at it's core just some sort of dueling arena (team deathmatch, arena, rabbit).  I'm guessing this is also why they've made generators mostly not matter and inventory stations pointless, if someone has to worry about fixing a gen or going 30 seconds out of their way it slows down how often they can make a flag run.  Then they even had the terrible idea of throwing in regenerating health to make even more friendly.  :mob:

I just fired up Tribes: Next for a few maps (which is a community run version of Tribes 2, since T2 login servers are no longer supported: http://www.tribesnext.com/ for more info).   It was amazingly epic feeling by comparison to Tribes: Ascend.  I've played Tribes 2 for a long time, and in the last few years I go on Tribes: Next kicks every so often, so it isn't like I haven't played it semi recently, but damned if the differences don't just jump right out at you when you play one next to the other.  The strategic layer to T2 really made the game, and while there was still plenty of high speed flag running and chasing, I really miss being able to set up the Jericho to give yourself an extra turret whereever you want/a forward base, I miss the vehicles being an integral part of the game because you spawn them immediately with a hard team limit on numbers for balance rather than relying on credits.  Hell, I even miss the frantic attempt to get a few heavies spamming mortars out of your gen room so you can repair up and get your desired loadout.

Some of this has to do with core mechanics (like spawning "naked"), but some of it also has to do with map design.  In an hour of Tribes Next I played 2 maps in which the flag stand was a bit more open, 1 map where grabs were much harder and defense was tough, and 1 map where the majority of the level was actually underground.  Its not that Tribes: Ascend does what it does poorly, it is that previous versions of Tribes tended to do all that, plus a lot else.  It seems like a step backward in that regard.  I know Hi Rez is pushing this thing out the door kind of fast, its really only been in development a year and a few months, and what they've done in that time is pretty solid, but I am really hoping they expand on what they ahve in the future.  Maybe the free to play model will work in our favor in this regard, because continued development is pretty assured. 

Also, we haven't seen the private servers yet.  Supposedly a lot of rules tweaking will be allowed in server settings.  If they release the map editor and then combine that with private servers the core is good enough that the community could really put together some good stuff, even if Hi Rez wants to focus on the high speed version only.

Yeah, that does sum it up pretty nicely.  Tribes: Ascend is by no means a terrible game, but 11 year old Tribes: 2 is still more fun.

I think HiRez is used to taking player feedback fairly seriously, "squeaky wheel gets the grease", which worked well enough for Global Agenda where they had a comparatively smaller and more committed community.  They seem to be a little overwhelmed by the tactical bitching of a larger, less attached playerbase that only comes to the forums to complain.  Bella Omega was the map that was most different from the others, with the most important and complex generator defense aspects, so it was the one that attracted the most complaints until they made it literally the simplest generator layout possible (so much that "defending the generator" was parking a pair of Beowulfs next to it) at which point it became everyone else's least favorite map.

I didn't like the new Bella Omega very well, but it was one of only two where "defense disruption" for me wasn't fitting out in Raider (skating Juggernaut instead). 

--Dave

I actually never got a chance to play the newest version.  I thought the third(?) version, with the base layout pretty much like the original, with the full tower, the vehicle station on the low ground and with the 2 entrances to the basement was really quite good. 

Anyway, I realized playing T2 that the small population playing that game at this point actually understands how to play which greatly improves the experience.   So many people playing Tribes: Ascend treat the CTF like team deathmatch and don't really understand what something like Heavy on Flag even means.  You really need to understand more than what skiing is to play Tribes well, and I think there are just still a lot of players (especially noticeable since open beta) that really don't have any idea how to play - and that has caused me a lot of frustration in the last week or so playing the game.

Did they release some kind of weird patch today or something? I jump in the game today to see all of my controls and settings erased, after I finally get back in game there's this random but subtle stuttering that screws over how I do pretty much everything in the game.

The stuttering is probably the server running in debug mode.  They've had some crash bugs they can only isolate by turning up the debug logging to 11 and seeing when the log stops.  Side effect is "frame dragging", the server is running slower so everything feels off and sometimes the action stutters/desyncs.

--Dave

Just for fun since we've been mentioning Tribes 2 in this thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB-mEvbj404

I've been testing out the viability of chasing using a Pathfinder with the following loadout: Bolt Launcher, Light Assault Rifle, Thrust Pack, Impact Nitron, and the Rage and Potential Energy Perks.   You can accelerate VERY quickly from a stand still.  Rage gives you increased energy regen for 10 seconds after an enemy grabs your flag near you, and Potential Energy gives you Energy back as a percentage of AoE damage taken (including from your own impact nitron jumps).   Rage + Thrust pack + impact nitron jump Leaves you at ~200 sanics + a full energy bar in about 1-2 seconds.  Its still hard to catch really good cappers, but I've actually been fairly successful with this setup.  The only exception is on Crossfire, where there is really no room to chase because the map is so small that you can't possibly catch a back to front route if they get away cleanly.

The fun part about Crossfire is that if you have Reach maxed out, you can actually cap over the top of the ship (skid down the angled side over the top of the flag, run like hell).  Do it right and you can miss a forcefield that is actually overlapping the flag.

Straight back-to-front routes are sniper bait on that map, chances you'll make it to the other side are not great.  Not to mention that you have to go through the ship, and it's hard to clear mines and forcefields in there (I normally play Raider, and unless I've run out of things to do, I won't go into the flag bay).

--Dave

Yeah, Crossfire can definitely be defended if you have a competent doombringer and a competent sentinel - which seems to be asking a lot of most players in my experience.  I like to play offense, but find myself frequently having to play defense or else my team has literally none.  I remember always having lots of defenders in Tribes 2, but I really rarely see a good defense by comparison, and VERY VERY rarely see 2 teams which actually both have reasonable defense.  Maybe I'm just unlucky in this regard.   

Have you tried chasing in general? What is your favorite loadout for it if you have?  Disc jumps are pitiful compared to their previous counter parts, so it seems much more difficult.

Chaser: Pathfinder, whether to use Thrust or Energy pack depends on the map and the balance (if it's lots of standoffs with the carriers playing Rabbit then Energy, if it's quick dashes to turtle up or cap then Thrust).  Disc jumps don't work as well as Impact Nitrons (both give about the same impulse, but disc/bolt will do twice the self damage).  The flip side is that nitrons are very useful for knocking the flag away from a carrier who is just too damned fast and agile (EDIT: alternatively too well armored, heavy capping is possible on some maps) to reliably disc/bolt to death, so if you use them all up catching him you've got none to use against him.

What's under-appreciated is firing your shotgun or LAR at him whenever you get the chance, every little bit of damage helps since carriers don't regenerate.

I've seen some good chasers who used Infiltrator or even Sentinel (with the energy regen pack but the BXT rifle).  And a grav bike with a sentinel, doombringer, or juggernaut on the back is a serious pain in the ass to run from (you almost have to turtle against that).  Non-light armors are otherwise pretty useless for chasing (just can't keep up).

--Dave

New CTF map added, it looks really, really terrible.  Haven't been home to try it yet though.

This is basically their try at redoing Bella Omega from scratch rather than trying to modify the other one any further into obliviion.  I'll reserve judgement until tonight when I can give it a go.

Apparently nitron jumping with the flag will make you drop the flag. This is lame.

Ehh....  The fact that nitrons made you drop the flag *except* when you were doing it to yourself was always a bit of a wierd thing, to tell the truth.  It also made it nearly impossible to chase a good Pathfinder, you had until he set off that first nitron jump (which for a good one was before he left the stand) and then you could forget it, he was gone and only the snipers could do anything about it.

It's still going to be possible to nitron yourself right before you grab, if you're good enough to time it and not screw up your line.  But it will restrict a lot of the high-speed routes that had slow exits (because you won't be able to just nitron yourself back up to 250+, you'll have to disc-jump which does more self-damage).  The only drawback to high-speed routes is their predictability, and as more variants have been found that's been fading.  This will bring it back a bit.

--Dave

Yeah, they are slowly trying to dial it back to give chasers a fighting chance, I think overall that is a good thing.

The new map is decent, if a bit small.  I like that there are a bunch of buildings worth actually caring about that aren't immediately at one of the main bases.

Hey look, Hi-Rez is finally waking up to some of the glaring issues with the game, maybe it has hope yet.  A snip from something they posted -


You mean respawns being extremely short and starting you at full load no matter what and at a great ski start space on most maps causes issues?  Shocking!

Well at least they are finally realizing this, they've been getting feedback that it is bad for the game since literally the first day of closed beta (and probably before from their alpha testers if I had to guess). 

Apparently from reading what they posted, the issue that made them realize this is that it's impossible to shut down snipers.  If you find one, kill him, and then make a flag run he's back in place killing you before you even get back to base with the flag.

This could also be safely moved out of the MMO forum.  :oh_i_see:

I mentioned that about 5 pages ago but I don't think anyone cares enough :).  To be fair, there is a supposedly an MMO version following eventually.   We could just let this thread go away and start a new thread in the other forum.

On the topic of snipers - I think that is the most obvious problem, but not the only one.   I'm as, if not more concerned with the fact that it basically discourages caring at all about your base and your strategic assets which is a large part of what makes Tribes more interesting than other shooters.  Sure the jetpacks and skiing are integral, but if that is all that matters I think they've made a very nice Team Death Match mode which captures that kind of gameplay much better the CTF maps manage to anyway.

But whatever, if it is the sniper issue that gets them to rethink it, then all the better.  I'd like to see them go a little farther than just spawning in the free version of whichever armor you are using though.  Maybe spawn without your pack and belt items as well.

I get a kick out of people who argue that the game is slowed down by too much defense but also argue that spawning in full gear is a good thing.

I don't think they realize that on most maps, if I'm squatting on flag as Doombringer and you orbital strike me I'm back on the flag stand dropping new mines and a shield in a matter of seconds.  Sometimes as a Tech it's almost faster to just kill yourself to get a second turret then it is to run to an inventory station if you don't have a mobile one dropped nearby.  Generator down and you're on D?  Just kill yourself for a full new load of items and ammo in the short time it takes to get back to your flag stand.

So it begins....

Hi-Rez released the first patch in which they are including straight up new weapons and skins for a class.  Infiltrator has gotten 3 new weapons, and 2 new skins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqaiUl27MQ

They are including the whole thing in a bundle for 2000 gold (which is maybe ~20 dollars?).  As well as a few other bundles which include various combinations of weapons and skins.  Buying everything separately  will cost... 3640 gold.   So...yeah, that is really expensive.  $20 is 1800 gold. The skins are purchasable only with gold.  The weapons can be unlocked with in game experience points like all other weapons.    The new skins are terrible looking, but I am sure some folks will like them.  I don't think they go very well with the aesthetic of the game.  It also seems to me that both skins are team-neutral - which means you could see either skin on either team.  Although you usually use the HUD to determine team rather than the skin it still irks em a bit.  The aesthetics don't seem to match the rest of the game either, but I digress..

If we see new unlocks of this price level with any kind of frequency it will get out of hand quickly, not to mention the balancing act is going to be increasingly difficult with huge amounts of new unlocks.   This was always the worry with free to play, so I hope they manage to do a good job.  I can't see myself ever buying a skin, and I won't be unlocking any of these weapons.   On the plus side, I've already easily gotten my 30 bucks I put in worth, so if it goes south I can just up and leave.

Same, also I finally saw the new map last night and it actually didn't feel that bad to me.

What bothers me is the fact that they game is still said to be in beta, but they are now releasing skins and crap to try and make $$ instead of fixing some of the many issues?  This game isn't going to last.  Which makes me sad, I was a huge Tribes fan and player when 1/2 were big.

Well, they are only just over a couple weeks from official release at this point, so I don't mind that too much, worth doing one of these during "beta" to work the kinks out, or at least you can make the argument that it is.   This update does make me worry the same as you though, if this is the type of update we can expect, this game is definitely not going to last and F2P will claim another victim.

For me I think it really boils down to the fact that I feel like Tribes:NEXT is still a better game than Ascend.

Kinda wish I hadn't spent almost all of my pre-order gold and stuff on an XP boost now.  :oh_i_see: (Still have like a month left or something)

Yeah, Tribes: Next is better, and I still play it from time to time, but the fact that there is exactly one server worth playing on hurts it a bit.

The skins are purely cosmetic (and can only be unlocked with gold), I think they're overpriced, but they're "anchoring" them at a high level and probably trying to see how that affects the sales.  The weapons can be unlocked with XP, and I'll probably unlock the Jackal and play with it tonight.  The fact that it can be used as a flak cannon seems gamebreakingly overpowered to me, but we'll see.  The smokes grenades are a bit "meh", especially as to use them you have to give up the sticky grenades (on the other hand, with the ARX-lite Jackal INF's aren't dependent on those to take out generators and such anymore).

Combine the stealth spinfusor (a primary) or the Rhino SMG (alternate primary) and the Jackal (a secondary) with the stealth pack and Ninja Smoke for instantly ending any fight you aren't winning, and we've probably got a new premier duelist class, even without the flak cannon.  As people get better with using it that way, I expect they're going to have to take that out.

It happens that some of the players in the early beta came from a game called Legions, which had a similar weapon (that was removed over being insanely overpowered there), so they already knew how to use it for maximum effect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T8tX4xpl2o).

--Dave

Yea, I just got a chance to play.  The weapon is currently the best death matching weapon in the game by a fairly wide margin from what I can tell. 

So is the problem that this weapon is bad because of its power or that you can buy it with gold? Because if the problem is because it is for sale with gold, then it is not an issue because I already purchased the new weapons with saved up XP.

The problem is that its just too powerful, not that it costs gold.  INF just became the best deathmatch loadout in the game if it has this weapon.

The gold thing is people bitching because a "free to play" game wants to make money, maybe, somehow.  Whiny bullshit.  The "Overpowered" part: Almost certainly.  Infiltrators can now appear out of nowhere and drop 1500 damage on anyone (enough to kill anything but a heavy, and leave them with only about as much health as the Infiltrator), *and* they can trigger mid-air explosions which means they have a sizable advantage over everyone else in an open-field battle (because they can get damage out of near-misses in the air).

Timing the explosion will take skill and practice, but it's still a trick nobody else can match.

EDIT: One way it's not as bad as I thought; It's a replacement Primary, which means you can't combine it with the Rhino or the Spinfusor.  The knives are the only new Secondary, they're pretty much the same overall as the pistol they replace (twice the damage, half the ROF), except they get a small amount of splash on a near miss.  Yeah, laser knives that apparently explode on impact, but what the hell.

I think the worry is that because they are charging real money for them they will intentionally release things OP to get people to buy them.  That is where the two arguments converge, and I think its a potentially legitimate concern.  Its too hard to say with a sample size of one.   Also, they have been pretty terrible with balance across the board on their first pass of things, so I wouldn't jump out and call this intentional.

As long as i can buy new weapons and perks and junk with XP instead of gold I will stay happy. Don't get me wrong, I buy gold and buy stuff like boosters, but I am not about to spend more than 20 bucks every couple of months.

Regarding the Jackal, today's patch:
I usually play Doomie so hoorah.

http://www.spinfusor.org/2012/02/27/perpetual-newbdom-the-llamagrabber/

Source: http://forum.hirezstudios.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=816458#p816458

Well, I know on which servers I will be playing.  I'd like to be able to tweak it further to allow for destructable vehicle stations and inv. stations, but I'll take it where I can get it at this point.

The idea of NOT playing in that "competition mode" seems crazy to me.  I even think friendly fire 50% is a good balance since the game is so heavy with explosive/splash damage but a direct friendly mortar is still likely to wreck your day.

Friendly Fire isn't an option on public servers of a game that gets a lot of newbies.  It wasn't until a year or so after release of T1 and T2 that anyone would play a public server with FF on, you just got too many griefers.  Only once the games started to die (stopped getting newbies) did FF-on become the default.

Ranked servers seem much more interesting (it's going to use an ELO-derived algorithm to balance the teams).  I don't much enjoy being on either side of a 5-0 match that caps out in 5 minutes, which is entirely too common.  All it takes is one group of three or four on Mumble, or 3-4 "Gold" level players.  Generally I always switch teams after winning a 5-0 match, but nobody can carry a team all by themselves.  There are about 4 roles that *have* to be covered for a team to have a chance, and if any two of those aren't, then nothing any one person joining can do will fix it (I can do defense disruption, chaser, or capper, I'm pretty crappy as HoF or any other kind of Flag D).

--Dave

EDIT: BTW, now that they've tuned down the "Flak Cannon" part of the Jackal to 300 max damage (needing 3-4 of them to kill a light now) it's a lot easier to deal with, while still useful in ways the Rhino or Stealth Spinfusor aren't.  It's still better than the ARX Buster on the Raider (100 less damage per round, but it's a lot easier to catch someone with a triple-hit when the rounds all blow at once) for open-field work, and even better for demolition (it actually gets the 20% bonus against Armored, Buster doesn't).

Ranked servers might solve some of the problem with the default ruleset, but I think the competitive ruleset sounds much more appealing to me.  If ranked servers used it I'd be all over it though.  Nonethelesss, huge team imbalance is a big part of the problem, you are right.  There is just a huge differential in overall ability right now and it means that new players not only have less physical skill (ski worse, aim worse, etc) but also understand WAY LESS about what decisions they should be making which means they just get run over.  The best players win the game for their team, and then on the next map the good players from the other team switch to play with a competent team or just quit the game.  I guess they should force shuffle the teams every map.

So my gameplay gets punished because your average gamer is an idiot.  That doesn't seem very fair to me.  :cry2:

Let's just pool some money together and run an f13 server and ban idiots arbitrarily.

I might start playing again for that.

Is it really that hard to design an algorithm that kicks or otherwise punishes douchebags?

That can't be gamed by the douchebags to punish innocent people?  Yes.

--Dave

From Hi-Rez servers the point is moot - they want money from the douchebags the same as everyone else.  Not to mention there are tons of people who play really badly and aren't douchebags, they are just bad at the game and don't understand good ways to play.

This is why I reiterate the need for an f13 server!  Seriously though, I'm going to see what they are charging when that info is released.

http://forum.hirezstudios.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=815247#p815247 (http://forum.hirezstudios.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=815247#p815247)

Just what I needed, another thing to hate about how Hi-Rez is handling this game.  I don't know how I didn't notice it before but it does explain why I ended up hating playing Jug because I could never aim mortars from long range worth a damn.

A few posts down someone posts a video showing that the raider arx has a longer range than the mortar cannon.

Hmm, this explains why long shots are hard to aim, its totally unintuitive.

On the plus side, the classic Tribes map Raindance is going to be coming soon.   And so my love hate relationship continues.

Agreed, love what it could be, hate where it seems to be going.

Well, I actually enjoy playing what it is most of the time.  But the one thing I really REALLY hate is how few people understand how to play defense.  If I'm not defending the flag stand my team almost never has anyone competent doing it.  I understand that Tribes is kind of specific and people might not understand how to play, but god damn if it isn't frustrating to get these games where both flags are off the stand 90% of the time and you just have to pray that you happen to get luck everyone in a while and sync up the flag return when your capper gets home.

On the one hand, this is why I've been playing more defense lately, on the other hand, most teams don't have good capper either.

The thing is, if they just made base defense matter more people would actually do it.  As it is, a lot of people treat CTF like team death match because they can respawn with a full loadout and go.  Team death match is FINE, but I don't know why people who like it don't just play that mode.

I think the competitive rule set is going to solve most of my problems - probably also because idiots won't pay on a private server with that rule set anyway.

Ok /rant.

My honest guess is because people that just play TDM get good at it.  If you just join CTF you get more new players and can pick off and kill random snipers and defenders and such and convince yourself that your some super amazing player because you went 10-0 while your flag got capped 5 times before 10 minutes.

Hi-Rez keeps pushing that it's "team-based gameplay" but so many game play choices seem to go against that.

Free to play design means they don't want to scare away new players, I think a LOT of the default ruleset is based around this simple fact. 

Interesting discussion of Tribes: Ascend maps. He talks mainly from a competitive standpoint, but I particularly liked how he cut the maps up into different parts based around what kind of action happens there.

http://www.spinfusor.org/2012/04/03/the-map-review/

Subscription games don't intentionally try to scare off new players either... unless they are happy to be niche titles. Which to be honest this one might as well accept with either revenue approach.

Fair enough.  I was really talking about in comparison to just selling a 60 dollar box, but your point stands.  I would, however, say that free to play games probably want to be extra accessible because they are going to get a lot of people trying the game SIMPLY because it has no barrier to entry.  Obviously that is the point, but if you are requiring people to pay up front, you're already selecting for a population that at least cares a LITTLE about your game. 

Its neither here nor there because the cat is out of the bag at this point, but I think a number of the problems this game is facing come from the fact that they are designing it around F2P.   Loadouts being the obvious one when compared to Tribes 2 where you could mix and match any item/pack/weapon in the game (so long as it was available to the armor type you chose).   But even things like spawning with your full loadout they have flat out stated are because they think people should have access to their things they paid real money for without having to go to the inventory station.  This is a TERRIBLE way to think if you are trying to design a game.

Well "Release" is tomorrow, for whatever that means for a game in open beta that is already taking your money.  Regardless, it is coming with a pretty major looking patch:

https://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/312


I'm looking forward to trying out the competitive mode, and the new map (which is a remake of a Tribes 1 and 2 map). 

Alright, I'm happy to report back that this patch is freaking amazing.

Got to try it last night, you won't ever find me playing anywhere but a server with naked spawn, FF on, no oribital/tactical strikes.  Now I just need one with no health regen and I'll be mostly happy.  :oh_i_see:

Yea, no regen is the last thing needed to make that ruleset about perfect.  It actually is kind of needed with naked spawn, else its kind of easy to get a JUG in your base with infinite health and only light spinfusers to stop him.  If you could chip away at him, it would be ok.

A pretty awesome fan trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TOtuw4qq4gA

BTW, Rabbit is back as a private server option, some of the maps are buggy (got trapped in a tunnel and found some invisible walls) but it's still a pretty good way to practice skiing.

--Dave

...

How do I get out of a vehicle?

G

Tired of people giving me shit for playing the "EZ MODE thumper tech" I started playing grenade launcher raider. At first I loathed this class, the grenade launcher is criminally hard to hit people with outdoors, the damage shield sucks for mobility and there are no extra options for secondary weapons. I was ready to dismiss the class but then I started getting used to aiming the grenade launcher outdoors, and knowing when to use his ridiculously powerful SMG. Also I switched to the stealth pack. Fanastically fun class, you know you're doing something right when you get a PM from someone that says "Skill-less cunt" after airmailing a passerby in the field.

Gawd, thank you!

I've been using the stealth-pack raider for quite a while.  It's *amazing* how much people depend on the little pointer over your head, and how many you can walk right up to and drop a triple-sticky on without them having any idea of what just happened.  Stopped using the grenade launcher, it was just too easy once I realized it would always go off when it hit dead-on.

--Dave

Can I just note how much I love the thrown discs for the Juggernaut.  Not only are they just awesome in concept, they make the JUG a pretty formidable death matching class.

Another new patch on the way, with new weapons for the Raider:
http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/317/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzNTIzMjAwNC9zaWQvanE0MjdwV2s%3D


Perhaps most notably they are adding in the ability to buy and run custom servers as well. 

I'm glad to see the Plasma gun back, but I don't know if I will actually buy any of this, I only rarely play raider to begin with.  The cluster grenades sound good for clearing flag stands though.

Video of said update.

Tribes: Ascend Preview - Raid And Pillage Update  (http://youtu.be/nmCjcwESC70)

I installed this today and played a few games. It's fun, but it's not perfect.

Cons:
The matchmaking dropped me into games that were 85-99% done more times than I got fresh games, and I don't see a way to queue for new games. The xp rewards are pretty underwhelming, and unlike LoL where you can be opening up new and interesting things after even just a couple of matches, here you're look at a lot of games to open up even a single class. Banking all your XP to get a class you (might) want to play is no fun because the grind is slow, and the basic entry-level classes are hardly powerhouses in their own regards. Without a way to actually test out the classes it makes me even more reluctant to sink XP into unlocking one (if I ever get enough xp to get there). As a result of this there seems to be an abundance of the free classes on most servers, and a shortage of other classes, which doesn't really help when the game seems to be balanced around having a good mix of all nine classes present. The slow progress, coupled with the depressing dullness of most of the unlocks (+1 grenades, woo....) makes me shy away from this game. I get that it is a freemium title, but the balance seems to have been tipped a little too strongly towards purchases made with Gold rather than XP. At the minimum it would be better if all classes were available to play, or they did something like LoL where 2/6 of the unlockable classes were available to try every day or so.

Pros:
The game is quite fun, and it has all the qualities that make an FPS satisfying. The maps are great, the weapons feel satisfying to use, and when skiing goes well it's really fun.

Overall though, the somewhat miserly xp rewards, and the steep learning curve make this game less fun than I think it should be.

If the games were almost done that means you were a couple minutes away from a brand new game.

Also you can use classes in the training section that you don't already own.

Yeah, if the game throws you into a match that's almost done, just play it out.  You'll automatically be joined with the rest of those players in the match that begins immediately afterward.

These are all useful bits of information that the game did not make obvious to me, thanks.

The Plasma gun is absurdly good, even after they released the hit box size by 40%.   I got 15 mid airs in one game with it last night and I didn't even play the entire match as Raider.  :ye_gods:

Just watched this, the way he doesn't look at the camera is oddly unsettling.

If anyone has a utility pack code for the soldier, I missed out on it and would appreciate one!  I have a spinfusor code to offer in exchange.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8Wi1BSBNxAg

New map!

Keep in mind. This is the same group that brought us this: http://youtu.be/Sk-phCfH5ro

So after having an email from them in my inbox for a week promising me a 3-day XP boost, and my friends telling me they enjoyed it, I tried this out again for the hell of it. I didn't like the class system in beta, but that was before they scrapped it and rebuilt it from scratch. I can say that what they created was an absolute success. The grind that was inherent in the other system is non-existent in this. With the extra XP some gold I got for liking them on Facebook, I was able to unlock the sniper and infiltrator class, upgrade some stuff on a few classes and had a blast with it. I liked it enough that I'm considering dropping some real money on it.

HaemishM is the name, of course, if you see me on.

Anybody know why their Account Management part of the site/game is down and has been for the last 24 hours? Did they get hacked or something?

No idea. Could be doing some upgrades, or adding the other game they are working on.

Tribes Ascend - Staying Alive Update  (http://youtu.be/0VdSXYn1bXc?hd=1)

Interesting update.  The most interesting thing to me, by far, is the addition of the ability to watch streams from in the client.  I absolutely expect this sort of thing to become standard in competitive games.

Tribes: Ascend Update #5 - Accelerate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfsmv8qizzE)



Announcement Trailer - Tribes PK  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9I7xPcftqo?hd=1)

The updates have effectively killed my interest in the game at this point.  Same thing happened to me with TF2 after they really opened the flood gates.  I really hate this trend.

Tribes Ascend Starter Pack on Steam is on sale today for $4.99 (75% off).

*Necro*

Received a survey from Hi-Rez today even though I quit playing shortly after beta ended -


Actually asks about some of the issues I liked to bitch about (health regen, poor maps), but strikes me as too late to band aid issues that big.

I wonder how well this game is doing, and whether it'll get neglected once Global Agenda 2 is released (like GA did once Tribes got released)...

Some quick forum browsing makes me think not great.  LOTS of complaints about the physics, no content updates for two months, poor maps, no map editor, and on and on.

I think they came close to making a great game but just ended up dropping the ball at the end.  Too bad, Tribes is the franchise along with Warcraft that got me into PC gaming pretty much.

I liked the base gameplay, I think they had something good going there.  But the free to play model really cheesed me off.  It just doesn't work for me in a game which focuses on competition. 

nvm!

Was destined to be a niche game dominated a small number of vets so I am entirely unsurprised.

Except they dumbed down a bunch of features that makes Tribes what it is and made it partially pay to win alienating even those niche vets.  I'd probably happily be one of them if they had fixed a few things.  Still no map making tools in an FPS traditionally known in part for it's maps.  :uhrr: