Hi-Rez buys Tribes IP; plans MMO

[Malakili]

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

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.

[Brennik]

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

[Malakili]

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:

Will the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) be removed once Beta Testing begins?

Yes.  The NDA is in place only until the start of Closed Beta.  Once we begin Closed Beta it will be invitation only but there is no longer an NDA.

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

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?

[Malakili]

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. 

[Mrbloodworth]

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

Not necessarily.

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

[Malakili]

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.

[Malakili]

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

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

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

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Malakili]

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

Increase speed at which experience points are gained (This was actually hot-fixed into the game through a server restart on Nov 6).
Remove speed cap. Implement various falling, skiing, and jetpack physics changes.
Projectiles inherit more velocity from the shooting player.
Adjusted flag throwing physics to improve throwing in specific directions.
New tooltips for Skills and redesigned layout for the Skills popup window.
Added two-step process for selecting both class perks at the same time.
Different colored chat for same team vs enemy team.
Fix for zoom breaking if zoom was enabled while a player died (this only happened when the
Toggle Zoom feature was enabled).
Fix a number of issues with Settings menu and saving settings.
Help text ignores are now properly saved.
Fixed post process effects persisting to the main menu when disconnected from a match
Fixed hit indicator being on the opposite side for the back side hits.
Fixed mipping issues on many hand models as well as the spinfusor and sniper rifle
Separated input release time and animation time from inventory stations.
Fixed bug with call-in cooldown not behaving properly.
Added the synching of PID-loop state between client/server for Shrike. This should lower server correction and possibly eliminate the “death blossom.”
Allow re-selections of Perks that player has already assigned to a character.
Fixed bugs with wrong popup windows, lost button events and wrong buttons visible in different states.
Store redirects to purchase gold from store when not enough gold on player to purchase classes.
Fixed an issue where context help messages would not disappear if the player died near an object showing help text.
Improved projectile behavior for Raider’s NJ4SMG, Infiltrator’s Nova Colt, and Doombringer’s Chaingun.
Fixed an issue where the health regen effect would cancel the jammer pack effect.
When a player enters an inventory station, they begin health regen immediately.
Support for “Borderless Window” option. Removes border from window (best use is to run at monitor’s full-screen resolution -- allows for faster Alt-Tabbing in aand out of the game).
Brand New Rabbit Map
Several server-side fixes for stability, etc.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Projectiles inherit more velocity from the shooting player.

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.

[Brennik]

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.

[Malakili]

Projectiles inherit more velocity from the shooting player.

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

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.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

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.

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

And yeah, what, 20%?  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.

[Malakili]

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.

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

And yeah, what, 20%?   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.

[Mrbloodworth]

Previews are starting to pop up.

A Trip Through Tribes: Ascend

Right now, although it's very enjoyable, Tribes: Ascend is also incredibly unstable. It's also tough to see what loadout other players are using, as some of weapons are shared between loadouts. It would be nice to have loadouts displayed next to a player's name on the score screen and kill screens, because it can help when choosing your own play style for the session.

As Tribes: Ascend enters open beta, which is typically a free-to-play game's soft launch, I'm sure we'll see a lot of improvements. But even as is, Ascend provides something that you can't really get from PC games anymore, and it provides it for free. It's not even out yet and I'm already a pretty big fan.

Tribes: Ascend closed beta hands-on preview

Hi-Rez Studios' Tribes: Ascend captures the game play of the original Starsiege: Tribes flawlessly while introducing many new elements and mechanics. Based upon my time in the closed beta, I’m confident that Tribes: Ascend is the Tribes game that fans of the original have been waiting for.

...

Everything old is new again
Although some games have tried to capture the Tribes model—Section 8: Prejudice being a noteworthy (and very good) one, no game has yet captured the magic of the original gameplay. After a fair amount of time in the closed beta, I’m confident that Tribes Ascend recaptures that magic.

Free-to-play or otherwise, Tribes: Ascend is a game that will probably have fans reaching for their wallets. Hopefully it will also result in a long-awaited, long-deserved revival for an innovative franchise that has struggled for nearly a decade to re-take a place among modern FPS greats.

[Malakili]

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.

[MahrinSkel]

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

[Surlyboi]

Ah. The purists hated renegades.

[Malakili]

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

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

[Surlyboi]

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

[Ratman_tf]

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

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

[Surlyboi]

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

[Malakili]

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

Gota say, really run. Really tribes like.

[Malakili]

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

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

[Surlyboi]

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Surlyboi]

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

[Malakili]

Ok.

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

All out.

[Valmorian]

Ok.

Also, two more keys to give out.

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