Tribes Franchise Quietly Strangled 105
Gavin Manley writes "Back in October last year, the third game in the Tribes series of first person shooters was released, published by Vivendi Universal Games (VUG). After many years of waiting and frustration, VU once again disappoints, not only by missing their market for the game again but by simply cancelling support for the game." From the article: "Now not only does this have consequences for Tribes fans, but fans of other franchises need to be worried. SWAT 4 in particular. The next SWAT game is also being produced by Irrational Games (no doubt on an equally dismal budget) and published by our good friends at VUG."
It's all been downhill.. (Score:2)
You make a crappy game, no one's going to buy it, and no one's going to care when support is pulled.
Just my two cents..
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:1)
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:1)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-1
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:2)
but I can't see why would you NEED support with tribes 3, I had zero issues with it(I don't think network play is dependandt on them either so...).
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:2)
Anyone else I saw driving it, it moved normally.
T3 just seemed really slow paced compared to T2.
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:2)
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:1)
--learning to ski is much simpler and more refined.
--the single player game gives noobs a chance to practice their skills before they get
Re:It's all been downhill.. (Score:1)
I didn't buy Tribes 2 until after they released the patch. A buddy of mine had it and I tried it, thought it was poop so I never bought it. After the Classic Patch, another friend showed me and it was like the magic was back.
LK
It was fun till... (Score:2)
If there still are servers on Tribes 1 that maintain original game play, or even use just a few of the cool addons (not nuclear chain gun ones) let me know.
Re:It was fun till... (Score:2)
This is a shame. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here, it seems worse because they'd actually made at least one big gesture to the community before. Releasing Tribes and Tribes 2 for free may have been for publicity more than anything else, but it was a great decision regardless, and one that bought them some respect from me.
Shame they've just lost that.
Re:This is a shame. (Score:2)
Re:This is a shame. (Score:2)
Tribes 2, however, was fairly unique, IMO
In Response To This News... (Score:5, Funny)
* Presses 'G' *
* Presses 'S' *
jmole: Shazbot!
Re:In Response To This News... (Score:1)
They never listened to their base (Score:1, Insightful)
It was
Re:They never listened to their base (Score:1)
Yeah, especially you, Nintendo! Zelda and Mario could have been so popular but no, you had to make Super Mario Bros. 2 and Link's Adventure!
Re:They never listened to their base (Score:1)
Well documented.
Re:They never listened to their base (Score:2)
An interesting choice of examples. However, are you saying Quake III: Arena was "almost the same" as Quake? The three Quake games couldn't be more unalike. The first one was a mishmash FPS with no plot, the second had the Strogg plot, and the third was multiplayer only with no plot. Hell, all people did with Quake II was bitch that it wasn't enough like Quake.
Not the first time... (Score:4, Interesting)
aah (Score:5, Insightful)
Dynamix: Tribes 2 isn't ready, we need to delay it.
Vivendi: Release the game now.
Dynamix: It's not ready.
Vivendi: We don't care, release the game now.
Dynamix: Okay.
Vivendi: This game sucks. No ones buying it, and those who did are returning it.
Dynamix: We told you the game wasn't ready.
Vivendi: You're fired.
Aah, what a brilliant and refreshing management strategy. Is anyone really surprised that tribes 3 was a dismal failure?
Re:aah (Score:2)
Here's a good example that people still talk about today: Bungie, Microsoft, and Halo 2:
Bungie: Halo 2 is really starting to pick up on progress, and we're starting to implement things that we didn't even have on the drawing board last year. Give us some more time, and we'll deliver one hell of a game.
Microsoft: Release the game now.
Bungie: But its not even ready.
Microsoft: We need something
Re:aah (Score:4, Insightful)
Dynamix: Tribes 2 isn't ready, we need to delay it.
Vivendi: Release the game now.
Dynamix: It's not ready.
Vivendi: When will it be ready?
Dynamix: Six months from now.
Vivendi: You said that six months ago. And six months before that. And six months before that. We've missed two Christmas seasons now and sunk umpteen million dollars into this game. You told us it would be our next Half-Life. We told you that was great since those fuckers from Valve won't even return our phone calls. Now would you please finish the function you're working on and give us the fucking thing? You can keep working, we'll call it a patch. Oh, and please for your sake hope that you get that patch right the first time.
(later)
Vivendi: This game sucks. No ones buying it, and those who did are returning it.
Dynamix: We told you the game wasn't ready.
Vivendi: And WE told YOU that the game was supposed to be ready over a year and a half ago when you said it would be. No one's buying the game since you guys can't even patch, let alone code. Oh, and great idea taking a game which people were seriously hardcore about and changing or removing everything they liked. Did any of you ever even test this thing on XP? And don't give me the excuse of "the lead programmers left". Now we're going to be lucky to break even on this, we didn't sell any copies of Half-Life: Titanium Edition and the stockholders want someone's heads. You're fired.
Re:aah (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:aah (Score:2)
SWAT 4 demo (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:SWAT 4 demo (Score:1, Insightful)
- being able to move while leaning. This makes it extremely frustrating to throw a grenade or mirror for threats.
- Suspects or hostages who have surrendered will remain in that state forever. This bad ass who killed two cops surrenders, and lays a MAC-10 down right by his knee? He'll never get up, even once your entire element leaves the room.
- hostages are incredibly resistant. Yo
Re:Emminent Domain for IP (Score:4, Insightful)
jesus spin-fuck christ
Hey, I don't think you're making the best use of your house. I think I'll take it from you.
Re:Emminent Domain for IP (Score:2)
Re:Emminent Domain for IP (Score:2)
Re:Emminent Domain for IP (Score:1)
Re:Emminent Domain for IP (Score:1, Interesting)
No, its NOBODY's property, the government just lets someone pretend like it's theirs for a limited time.
How would you like it if you and I signed a contract to sell you my house, then I bulldozed it? When you copyright something (which is everything you create now), you're entering into a social contract with the country: This is yours for over a hundred years, then it becomes everyone's. By destroying your work after you enjoy your protection and before it enters the
The concept already exists (Score:2)
Oh, but that's right, it won't release to the public domain for approximately another 150 years. Fuck WIPO!
A Lament (Score:5, Insightful)
Tribes, on balance, was made measurably worse by the community.
I'm not just talking about griefers, lamers and TKers; that's universal and understandable. I'm also talking about server admins and modders. There were some fantastic mods floating about out there--well thought-out, balanced mods that made the game substantially different, better and/or cooler. There were also some decent but decidedly less-thought out mods out there, mods which nerfed heavies/snipers/pilots/etc, mods which made weapons entirely too deadly, mods which presented poorly planned, poorly executed maps, mods that futzed with physics in a way that was amusing for five minutes then tedious--you've played 'em. What's more, there were junior modders who'd take a good mod and add their own little melange of spices, spawning 'renegades' variants and the like.
All well and good, but once this got underway, it became a serious challenge to find a decent game to join. The vast majority of servers would be running some mod or other--and if you didn't know the mod, you'd get your ass handed to you on a silver platter for several hours until you learned all the various idiosyncrasies therein. Other servers required client-side downloads--a real annoyance when all you want to do is hop on a game and play. It was not uncommon to find only two or three servers running a "standard" game--and these servers would generally either be packed to capacity or dead empty.
I know it's not cool to rail on the community, but I honestly think that it played a real role in making the game less playable overall. Yes, there are tons of other factors in play--for example, Dynamix/VU could have shelled out for a couple dozen dedicated base servers. Yes, I could have S'ed the FU and run my own server (which I did for some time back in the day, by the way--admittedly with my own half-baked mod...) Yes, a number of clans did original, stunning, amazing work worthy of mountains of praise. But when it comes right down to it, I really think that Tribes as a game was hurt more than it was helped by the community at large.
Re:A Lament (Score:2)
Anyway, my hopes for Tribes 3 was that it would place more emphasis on team play and maybe even hav
Re:You could always run your own server. (Score:1)
When Counter-Strike came out I was pissy because there weren't enough good servers out there and I was pissed off that one map was taken out of official rotation.
So I went down to a local ISP and started my own game server. This was back in the days when you had thousands mom and pop local ISP's around the nation. They has decent connection and the server was always pack
Tribes 2 playerbase balkanized (Score:1)
Sucks too - there's nothing like being part of a bomber crew, or jumping out of a havoc with 4 other heavies and pwning the enemy gens / ff gens. Or lobbing tank mortars onto the vpad from a mile away with the help of a scout with a targetting laser.
Tribes 2 had more opportunities for more kinds of teamwork than any other game to date, but with a billion flavors of the game and no official servers, the player base just got too fragmented to find games or tribes to join.
Re:A Lament (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't agre
Still confused (Score:4, Interesting)
Because retail is still king. (Score:2)
The majority of purchases are at retail stores. The online distribution market isn't mature enough as there are few issues that have to be overcome.
1. Not all customers for a game have broadband access.
2. Some games are still too large to download in a timely manner even with broadband.
3. Too many people expect a discount when using a downloaded version while completely ignoring the
Re:Because retail is still king. (Score:1)
Developers wouldn't use publishers if it didn't cost so much to make a game. A typical AAA title coming out in the next couple years will have a budget of anywhere from $5million to as much as $20million or more. No small independent developer has that kind of cash sitting around. Typically, all the money a developer gets from their previous titles is
Re:Because retail is still king. (Score:2)
I don't even think this is the biggest issue. You want to know what happens when a developer is given free reign to develop a game at their own pace with no strings attached?
Duke Nukem Forever. That's what happens.
Developers are never satisfied with their games. They very often are not even in a position to impose the structure and project management req
Re:Because retail is still king. (Score:1)
Re:Because retail is still king. (Score:2)
However, a competent project manager employed by the developer should be able to define milestones for his project regardless of whether they have a separate publisher to satisfy or not. With those milestones in the hands of the developer, rather than the publisher, they can be dependent upon meeting goals instead of ship dates.
Re:Still confused (Score:2)
Rags-to-riches Internet stories like Counter-Strike do exist, but it's simply bad business to assume that the same will happen to your game. If you're anything more than a hobbyist, odds are you'll gain more than you'll lose by getting a publisher.
Re:Still confused (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still confused (Score:1)
What the industry needs is some nonstandard (read: non-publisher) sources of capital
Just like the music industry (Score:1)
To see a relevant exampl
This is news? (Score:2)
well (Score:1)
It's a shame to see such a potentially great franchise go down in such a bad way
The Warcraft effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the reason VU is pushing WoW so hard, both in the US and internationally, while cutting funds to other games, is that the execs have realized that VUs most successful games will continue to cannibalize other game sales, so it's better to just push on with a guaranteed cash cow.
Re:The Warcraft effect (Score:2)
in europe it's still pretty damn hard to find a copy of WoW. what you can't buy can't hurt sales of other games.
vivendi unversal has seriously fucked up the supply of the game around here - and it will hurt them too(I would have bought the game if I could 4 weeks ago. now I'm starting to feel like not buying it even if it was for sale.. unless they come up with some SERIOUS content additions. and no, just promising them doesn't count).
Re:The Warcraft effect (Score:1)
Re:The Warcraft effect (Score:2)
Re:The Warcraft effect (Score:4, Interesting)
I despise diablo, i find and found starcraft outdated and unoriginal, i found half life quite dull, action wise since i didnt bite the xfile story, BUT i would buy any game of those 2 compagnies without thinking twice BECAUSE I KNOW THERE WILL BE A PATCH for any issue, even 4 YEARS LATER. Same for ID, same for Epics.
And I don't want to ear anything about support costing too much or anything.
Tribes2 linux port was rock stable under linux years before vivendy coughed a little cash to have another patch for windows users. They did it because they had the intend to keep the franchise alive, but they already had lost their customers in the interval.
So doing things right rom the beginning to the end is what is really missing with those publishers. Now that internet is here, ea, vu, atari and the rest are outdated and useless.
BTW, if I'm not mistaking, the author of the tribes2 linux port is now working at blizzard and is the sdl author. There is no coincidence.
Sad end to a long theater play of Tragedy (Score:1)
Sorrowfully, the promise that it w
RE:Tribes Franchise Quietly Strangled (Score:1)
This isn't all that much of a surprise, VUG has done a variety of nasty things to the Tribes Community before. For example, recently they locked out all T2 users by flagging that there was an upgrade, but not actually posting a file for the updater to download. That caused the T2 client to go into an infinite loop. Fortunately, the community provided a command line work around. There have been about half a dozen BS stunts l
Any alternative servers? (Score:2)
SWAT question... (Score:2)
Where's Irrational in all of this? (Score:2)
But it seemed that all of the sudden, they went from doing Freedom Force to juggling two more games that seemed little more than outsourcing. Judging by reviews and demos, it seems that neither Swat or Tribes are horrible, merely above average.
So I wonder if Irrational didn't just need some extra cash infusion to be able to self-publish Freedom Force: 3rd Reich, or hire more people for the upcomi
They Got What They Deserved (Score:1)
As for T:V, well personally I think the community got what it deserved. When Irrational and such was trying to get feed back, it always boiled down to Tribes 1 fans wanting this and Trib
Late Post (Score:3, Informative)
If you follow the forums for most game support you will see the developers are kept in the dark, until they are let go. This is a common trend with them. This is nothing new, they have been doing it for years. Its extremely cheap to hire 2 developers to write patches for a year, but of course, patching isnt included in the budget, so its chopped at first VP's sight.
Its sad, as Tribes was my favorite game, I watched the server count for "Base" the normal game dwindle to a couple that was always full of extremely die hard players. I even collected every sound pack I could and merged them into 1 sound pack, over 800 megs of
Tribescon was my first gamecon I went too, came in 2nd and 1st at the first 2 tribes cons. Even keep 2 signed boxes of tribes on my desk, for the 5 years I played tribes, I played almost daily. (And yes, went to work, school, and had family time..)
Simple, fun, and for a long time, no aimbots. It was on par with counterstrike in pure enjoyment and simple gameplay. Tactical operations, not sci-fi mega weapons. Smooth gameplay, and great maps.
Glad its free, I have both the freely released versions sitting on my HD, think I'll play this weekend. I urge you guys to download and play it, while the graphics of T1 isnt the greatest, it is a pure enjoyable game. T2 was the early engine that Garage games used to launch its business. And wow, how that engine has progressed. I was reading the changelog on the Developers build, the vegetation, and rendering is simple awesome.
BTW, heres whats on my desk at work, -minus the empty cups of coffee.
Tribes Still Lives... Sort of (Score:2, Informative)
I thought that I would point out that most of the Tribes developers have moved onto GarageGames [garagegames.com] and the independent game development scene with the Torque Game Engine.
If you haven't checked out GarageGames or the indie games tha they develop and publish then I highly recommend that you do. There are a variety of great games available to suit anyone's needs (from your puzzle games, to your more traditional FPS ones) and they run a bunch of different OSes such as Windows, OSX and Linux. I think you would be
Tribes is not dead yet (Score:1)
http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends/ [tribalwar.com]
Then there is Renwerx, which will virtually redo Legends in the near future. They are looking for help.
http://renwerx.com/ [renwerx.com]
T:V is my favorite MP FPS ever (Score:1)
Re:T:V is my favorite MP FPS ever (Score:1)
Tribes is what Tribes fanboys 'aint (Score:1)
Tribes is a great online game because it blends action with strategy.
Tribes was also one of the first online FPS games with useful vehicles.
Tribes also had classes and deployables before these things were fashionable.
Unfortunately, the all-too-common Tribes fan variant, otherwise known as the TribalWhore, went half-cocked kicking and screaming for everything but these fundamentals.
Perhaps you've heard the calls for jetpacks and skiing ? This 'aint Duke Nuke'em Forever set in the Rockies. Folks who
I have to reply (Score:2)
I guess I somehow thought that the Tribes series would always be there, however this latest incarnation has proven the opposite: Take a look at the amount of serv