Marweas still hasnt told us about getting fired

This thread is one of the best things to happen to TW.

A sort of "Steam Release" to let everyone vent everything they've ever needed. And I cannot believe Mr. G even posted in it. Epic.

For the record, T2 is still a fun game to play and even though it had its bugs and the 'floaty' feel, it was -still- fun to play when I was able to get it to run. ;P

:wave:

:wave:

Wow.

i am pretty amazed by how relatively civil this has remained.

QIX: thank you for coming, and I hope you stick around anyway. What are you doing professionally now?

I think getting some of the GG guys in here might not be a bad idea, as well - they would have some great input on the earlier t1 days as well.

as someone who came into the series with T2, i have to just say, on a serious note. thanks. thank you, and the rest of the dev team for what you did. T2 was the first game i really just got into, and the only game i can say that i've been attached to for five years straight, even if the game fades away and i don't play it anymore, i have so many memories and just awesome things, and friends and everything else attached to my experience with it. thank you for that.

group hug, everyone

I don't have any real contacts with GG anymore. If someone who does wouldn't mind passing the goings on to them it'd be great.

T2 is on my deskktop and I still play occasionaly, it feels "right" now.


T2 imo is still one of the best looking games as far as visual style, even though it doesn't have the polycount and nifty effects HL2 and Doom3 have. The art direction in that game was top notch work.

Best Reggs thread ever, one worthy of TWHOF.

I was always amazed at how nice the art was in T2. The whole art crew was excellent. And for examples of what the art team could *really* do, there was the ill-fated expansion pack with the new maps that got released after we were laid off. Dang...I still can't get over how nice some of those new maps were...

The defining moment that directed T:V to be a success or failure was when the decision was made to make the spinfusor launch vertical disks instead of horizontal... we all know vertical just won't do.

I was always amazed at how nice the art was in T2. The whole art crew was excellent. And for examples of what the art team could *really* do, there was the ill-fated expansion pack with the new maps that got released after we were laid off. Dang...I still can't get over how nice some of those new maps were...

would that be fast attack or...?

T2 Classic was almost perfect game. Great visuals, great gameplay. Vehicles that were not overpowered, or useless. Fun both in matches and pubs.

I played T2 base few years (until Classic was released) in competition and I just did not like to what T2 Base competition evolved, some matches were just downright boring, but I never played a boring T2 Classic game.

T:V = great singleplayer, fun but limited multiplayer. Should have been only a multiplayer game.

I can't believe that someone actually did consider Source engine for a Tribes game, last engine you should use.

Battlefield series and most of the games people play today suck.

Tribes 2 was and is still my favorite video game of all time.....i have some of my best gaming memories because of it and the community kept it up for along time.

Physics aside it was a masterpiece.

dave, i'd just like to thank you for the opportunity to belatedly let you know that I blame you and your final creation at dynamix for my gross failings at an academic level.

had I not spent many a night I should have been studying huddled in front of my pc playing t2, I would probably by now be a budding software engineer earning 2-3 times my current salary.

but i'm still tempted to say it was worth every minute. ;)

I was always amazed at how nice the art was in T2. The whole art crew was excellent. And for examples of what the art team could *really* do, there was the ill-fated expansion pack with the new maps that got released after we were laid off. Dang...I still can't get over how nice some of those new maps were...

Go check the maps that community did later if you want to see some nice T2 maps (like the maps that were released with Classic).

Dave, we obviously appreciate your candor. Good to know you've learned a few things since the experience of T2.

In your post, you said that you didn't make the changes to the T2 physics, and that the same programmer (I'm guessing Mark F) who did the physics for T1 did them. This seems reasonable.

However, you were the director of the game, and therefore bear responsibility for all the design decisions with the game. Which if you look at it on a larger scale is why many folks here at TW (and many T1 addicts) vilified you for the state in which the game was published.

There were some great ideas in T2, which is why I campaigned for the product right up until its release. I am proud to have served on both the beta and "meta" teams, and to have my name in the credits of the game. It's good to look back at it now that it doesn't really matter and look at exactly what went wrong and what went right.

Damn. Thanks for the explanation Qix. You and the others that have posted didn't owe us a single thing. It shows good character to come in here and post on the subject. Thanks again.

doesn't VU still own the Tribes IP.....why? If they have no intention of putting money and effort into another tribes game, why don't they release it or sell it?

Dave, I'd feel like I was selling out somehow if I didn't ask you at least one tough question, but I seriously got everything I was looking for from I did learn the lesson of "when making a sequel, make it pretty, but don't change the original".
so the best punch I can throw is

What is your biggest regret about your time working on the Tribes franchise?

Also, I just want to clarify one thing, did you or did you not discuss the possibility of removing skiing from tribes? It always seemd like you were trying to trim back the speed of skiing.


Hmm I guess I did have a few good punches left :shock: No offense intended.

Howdy all.

I don't mind answering questions about T2 or the Sierra/Dynamix relationship. It's been long enough now that I don't think I'll be jeopardizing any careers (including my own) with honest answers.

I won't muckrake and I won't respond to tirades or abuse. Why? I don't feel like painting anyone else black, and I don't work for the company that's trying to sell you a game now, so I can say what I want to say (within reason). But I also don't want/have to endure the heaping spoonfuls of vitriol that I once consumed on these forums, so I'll hang out until it's not a conversation anymore and then I'll just go be a stranger again.

Did I make mistakes with T2? Yup. I did learn the lesson of "when making a sequel, make it pretty, but don't change the original". Unfortunately, I learned that the hard way. However, I agree with you now. (NOTE: I still would have improved the vehicles and some of the user interfaces, and some of the maps would have had to still be larger to accomodate the vehicles. Oh yeah...and I really liked the "Siege" game mode that we added, even if it was always a minority-share game. So, okay...I would have changed it in some ways...but leaving the core gameplay & physics strictly alone.)

Regarding the physics of the game...I didn't change any of that (except the vehicles, of course, which used Havok physics). The same programmer that did the physics in T1 did the physics in T2 and he was reponsible for any differences in feel you may have hated/loved.

It sucked that T2 got released while Sierra was being purchased by V-U so that management had little or no focus on the game and the bean counters ruled the school, insisting on ship dates rather than quality. It was obvious to everyone in Sierra and Dynamix that T2 wasn't ready to ship, but when the company says "ship it", dev teams can either quit in a huff, or ship it and try to fix it after ship. The latter is what we tried to do. We had to put a good company face on it, and try to spin it positive, but only because we were employees...not because we thought it was a good idea.

Do you think that's uncommon in this industry? It ain't.

I know that I offended some folks at Sierra when I started arguing strongly with execs there about quality, release schedules, and shooting ourselves in the foot...but everyone at Sierra was far more interested in looking good to the new V-U management than they were in helping to release a quality game. They (nameless folks at Sierra that I don't have specific names for because I don't know all of them and what does it matter now anyway?) started waving their pointy fingers at Dynamix as the source of all troubles (not just with Tribes) and managed to get all 96 of us canned so that fewer folks at Sierra headquarters would get laid off.

And "Tribes 2" was the *only* game that made money for Sierra that year...so go figure. Why would you cut the only team that makes you money? Because if you don't...your own job is in jeopardy. So yeah...fear and the V-U buyout had a lot to do with why T2 was released in the shape that it was in. (It also didn't help that some folks internal to Sierra thought they could do a better job designing a T3 game...and those folks were a lot closer to the political machine that made decisions than us folks down in Oregon at Dynamix and their voices were louder because of proximity and frequency.)

Okay...that's enough for a first post. If I've been offensive to anyone, well...it wasn't intended that way.

For what it's worth...

-- Dave.

Can you come back and save Tribes please?