Thrax: Where's the masses?

crouton · Feb 28, 2005

Pachacutec said:
cpl picks dumbass flagship games.

They get paid to pick dumbass flagship games.

I am also compelled to say:

This message is hidden because BitRaiser is on your ignore list.

Finally:

Tribes:Vengeance is not a Tribes game. There, it's been said. The 'Tribes' in the name is there to garner interest, not imply what we all have remembered. Once I get my new computer parts in (today! woo) I'll try T:V again, there's no doubt. The community has produced some excellent addons (CompMod, maps, etc.) that everyone should be willing to try at least once.

If you're still thinking it's part of the same series, fuhgedaboudit. It's a game that uses Tribes concepts and the Tribes name, that's it. If you can get past the roadblock that makes you compare it to the previous Tribes, then it might be enjoyable.

bdm · Feb 28, 2005

Cinderkarst said:
So, I can sum up the last four months on these boards...

T:V Fanboy: T:V is good!
T1/2 Fanboy: It sucks. Fuck you.
T:V Fanboy: No, fuck YOU.
T1/2 Fanboy: lol! VUG knob polisher.
T:V Fanboy: lol! Whiny asshat.
T1/2 Fanboy: You're a n00b.
T:V Fanboy: OMG STFU cum guzzler.
(Slapping ensues.)
(Repeat.)

at least its something to do thats more fun then T:V

Magus? said:
T:V is tribes. It's just rolled in a big pile of crap that noone wants to wash off ...,

so very true.

its not far off from being a fun game... but its gonna take a lil work

Falhawk · Feb 28, 2005

I don't think thrax will ever post in this thread (as himself at least)

Marketing killed T:V IMO.

The marketing team for T:V is quite simply pathetic. They've completely abandoned us now (patch?) and seem content in forgetting that the game ever existed?

I don't blame thrax for that. I think there are other things to blame him for (like his asstastic attitude etc)

mc-fine · Feb 28, 2005

The Pumpkin King said:
How many did it have before the CPL sponsered it?

Its been a dud numbers wise from the get go. There was a little movement of ppl trying to push for the game as the rebirth of Quake/QW. Never caught on though. By the time CPL picked it up it was at the level it is now.

Erok · Feb 28, 2005

PJ

Very impressive responses. Always well informed, to the point, accurate, honest.

{RiP}Zarious · Feb 28, 2005

I play this game. ALOT. But do I like it...... not really. I'm only playing it, because it's really all I have to play. I'm not going to bash the game, or talk about player numbers, cause I really don't know about all that. But what I do know, and how I can really guage the success or falure of this game, is to simply look at my team.

In T2, Apotheosis had a fairly large team consisting of about 25 players. about 12-15 of those were the hard core, play every night, show up for every match. Out of those 25 players, 4 are left and still playing T:V. Here is a list of the casulties

Dark Haven (WoW)
Spy Expert (WoW)
Helpless Bunny (CS:S)
Sheeptuar (CS:S)
Kusinangi (WoW)
Uphoria (NWN)
Godlike (T2)
Death's Jester (WoW & NWN)
Under Wear (?)
Road Dog (?)
Grey (WoW)
System E (T2)
Pharcyded (?)
JTM (WoW)
Xtreme Fate (CS:S & WoW)
Weirdo (T2)
Prowler (CS:S)
Ice Blade (NwN)
Savier (CS:S)
Lil Mynx (?)

So after losing all those players, how may are left? Just these 4.

Zarious
BLJim
Devo_N
Blight

Every one else is new. Don't get me wrong. I love our new guys, and I'm glad to have them. I look forward to forming new memories and cliches (hard to top DH's mom tho

) with the team that we've built. But when I measure the success of this game, I just look at that list, and it tells me all I need to know.....

JackLuminous · Feb 28, 2005

Falhawk said:
I don't think thrax will ever post in this thread (as himself at least)

Marketing killed T:V IMO.

The marketing team for T:V is quite simply pathetic. They've completely abandoned us now (patch?) and seem content in forgetting that the game ever existed?

I don't blame thrax for that. I think there are other things to blame him for (like his asstastic attitude etc)

...and his own personal vision of Tribes what tribes should be that, frankly, tanked :-/.

Got Haggis? · Feb 28, 2005

i think only one or two from The Mighty Oxen still play t:v....everyone else plays wow (including myself)

i fire up t:v every now and then....i was waiting for the patch....now i've just about completely given up on it.

t:v was not thrax's sole vision of what tribes should be....T:V had something like 3 different producers.

Vir · Feb 28, 2005

The only problem with the marketing arguement is that any popular demo these days can easily get 4-6k online every night. When the game was put up on fileplanet for a free download, the sheer number of people who saw it on the site would have been enough to form the community for the second most popular fps in the world. However the demo numbers were not good. The gameplay just failed to inspire.

Rooster128 · Feb 28, 2005

{RiP}Zarious said:
I play this game. ALOT. But do I like it...... not really. I'm only playing it, because it's really all I have to play. I'm not going to bash the game, or talk about player numbers, cause I really don't know about all that. But what I do know, and how I can really guage the success or falure of this game, is to simply look at my team.

In T2, Apotheosis had a fairly large team consisting of about 25 players. about 12-15 of those were the hard core, play every night, show up for every match. Out of those 25 players, 4 are left and still playing T:V. Here is a list of the casulties

Dark Haven (WoW)
Spy Expert (WoW)
Helpless Bunny (CS:S)
Sheeptuar (CS:S)
Kusinangi (WoW)
Uphoria (NWN)
Godlike (T2)
Death's Jester (WoW & NWN)
Under Wear (?)
Road Dog (?)
Grey (WoW)
System E (T2)
Pharcyded (?)
JTM (WoW)
Xtreme Fate (CS:S & WoW)
Weirdo (T2)
Prowler (CS:S)
Ice Blade (NwN)
Savier (CS:S)
Lil Mynx (?)

So after losing all those players, how may are left? Just these 4.

Zarious
BLJim
Devo_N
Blight

Every one else is new. Don't get me wrong. I love our new guys, and I'm glad to have them. I look forward to forming new memories and cliches (hard to top DH's mom tho ) with the team that we've built. But when I measure the success of this game, I just look at that list, and it tells me all I need to know.....

NWN kicks ass. After my primary RP server went into 'sleeping' mode I gave up and started playing more FPS games.

Gandalf · Feb 28, 2005

It's interesting that there are two sides to this argument:

#1 - The game was too slanted to the competitive community (PJ's favorite rant).

#2 - The game was too noobified to cater to the general public (the T1/T2 vets).

Soooo...which is it?

I think it was more a combination of the two. It was simplified way too much - three weapon slots, easy skiing, stupid vehicles, no mine disking or other "skill" tactics during duels, etc. Another aspect that helped kill it off was lack of scripting support. While it's understandable that in order to prevent cheating, a lot of scripting hooks weren't included - but guess what - cheating is still very much alive and well. It also attempted to foster more "fun" by reducing map sizes - and face it, the biggest complaint most people had with T2 was the size of the maps. Base++ and Classic went a long ways to fix that problem with faster speeds which reduced the map travel times - but the stigma was still there.

When they held that "tribes council" that PJ whines endlessly about, a lot of the older T1 vets who hated T2's base gameplay were right - the better game was T1's faster gameplay. Anyone that thought T2 base was more of a "strategic" game were morons (like PJ) - T2 was sooooo heavily slanted towards the defense it was ridiculous. You spent endless amounts of time loading up a transport to drive over to the enemy base, only to get blown up within seconds of arriving from the massed turrets and LD - if you arrived at all. That's strategic? Base++ (and classic) as well as better designed maps that featured skiing friendly terrain was what made T2 so much better.

In some respects, T:V did make better decisions towards gameplay, although a lot of it's failures were more technical than gameplay. The simple fact that the netcode sucks so bad and is broken for anything above 24 players hurts. The maps for the most part sucked - imbalanced and poorly designed. Those two aspects hurt more than anything.

But, beyond those two things, there is a really good game buried underneath all of the hyperbole that the two extremes seem to keep spouting. If some people would shake their preconceived prejudices and actually play T:V they might (big might) actually enjoy themselves.

I like playing T:V. I think it's challenging, and can feature some very fun and intense pub play. This past weekend - for example - was some of the best pub gaming I've experienced yet. Some of it was bad - there was a stretch where nothing but noobs were on one side over and over resulting in very lopsided maps - but when things were working, it was a blast. Spidirian, which used to be nothing but rape fests, was awesome - it was so back and forth that the final score was 11-10 when the map finally ended. And this was the retail version, not the various atempts to reduce the raping. Once people quit bitching about the raping, and learned to get their ass out of the base and FIGHT instead of standing around waiting for a inventory station, the map actually is GOOD.

Is it T1? No. Is it T2? No. Is it "Tribes"? Most definitely - or it can be if people give it a chance.

[AKA]PanamaJack · Feb 28, 2005

Wulfen said:
You've previously said that all 'Average Joe Gamer' wants to do is jump on a server and kill stuff. So which is it?

Huh? That didn't make much sense.

Wulfen said:
Like games that are designed from the ground up to be competitive(notice I did not say the SOLELY for competitive gamers, you guys are the ones saying that) can't be about jumping in a server and killing stuff?

Sure, but half the time what the competative people think is fun for THEMSELVES is annoying to the "Average Joe Gamer". The problem here is people like you want absolutely nothing in the game that you think is bad but the "Average Joe Gammer" would find fun. Just look at your comments about the things that most of those people found fun that you hate. You put down anyone who does like them no matter what. That is where you would fail in designing a game that appeals to the vast majority of players.

Wulfen said:
IAs to your "Competition has never been a big factor in how popular an online game happens to be and probably never will," statement, you couldn't be more wrong. If you're going to pull 'facts' out of your ass, please back them up.

Then prove me wrong. You can't find a popular game where the driving force behind the popularity of the game was MAINLY competition. Alot of the FPS and Strategy games out there DO have competition ladders but none of them have ever been the force behind what made the game popular with the masses.

[AKA]PanamaJack · Feb 28, 2005

Got Haggis? said:
But really, I still think the single player is what hurt T:V multiplayer the most. While being quite good, I think that T:V actually did alright in sales - its just that many people who picked it up only played the single player....

You are probably right. You can definately tell that most of the time and effort went into the design of the single player game. The MP aspect almost seemed like an afterthought.

Got Haggis? said:
had t:v been multiplayer only , we would see many more people on the servers. Of course it would have been a better game as well since they wouldn't have spent resources on developing the single player. tribes should never have been made into a single player game, it was never about that. if they wanted a single player game, they should have just stuck to starseige.

Well, if T:V would have been MP only with the current gameplay aspects, small maps, easy skiing/jetting, small bases, crappy weapons/packs and stupid vehicle designs, it would still have failed as a MP game and made even LESS money that it currently has with the Single Player included.

[AKA]PanamaJack · Feb 28, 2005

Gandalf said:
It's interesting that there are two sides to this argument:

#1 - The game was too slanted to the competitive community (PJ's favorite rant).

#2 - The game was too noobified to cater to the general public (the T1/T2 vets).

Hell I never said that about T:V.

I have said T:V was too damned BORING!!!!

It was too easy to do some things.

The maps were too small and spammy.

Playing the game feels like you are a robot doing the same thing over and over again.

Hell, hundreds of thousands of downloads of the free demo and almost no one is playing the free demo anymore.

T:V is about as exciting as watching dog shit dry in the sun.

Hell watching a dog turd dry IS[/u more exciting most of the time.

Vir · Feb 28, 2005

I think it's safe to say that there should never be another single player Tribes heh. You don't need it for a successful online game. Who knows, if they hadn't spent resources on that maybe we could of got a real engine that could do Tribes or heck even a working observer mode.

NoFiX · Feb 28, 2005

[AKA]PanamaJack said:
Hell, hundreds of thousands of downloads of the free demo and almost no one is playing the free demo anymore.

Fabricate numbers much?

pocketgamer · Feb 28, 2005

Vir said:
I think it's safe to say that there should never be another single player Tribes heh. You don't need it for a successful online game. Who knows, if they hadn't spent resources on that maybe we could of got a real engine that could do Tribes or heck even a working observer mode.

The Pumpkin King · Feb 28, 2005

I'm still waiting for that list of gaming criteria PJ. Here's your chance to show off your superior knowledge in game development. What are you waiting for?

[AKA]PanamaJack · Feb 28, 2005

The Pumpkin King said:
I'm still waiting for that list of gaming criteria PJ. Here's your chance to show off your superior knowledge in game development. What are you waiting for?

I am not going to continue repeating myself on that because you are too damned dense to understand what was said the first time in many different threads. Use the search and have fun.

And while you are at it answer the question I asked you in one of the many threads you ignored.

?B-MAN · Feb 28, 2005

[AKA]PanamaJack said:
Do you know WHY you were able to do that in T1?

It was not because you were skiing. Actually you were not really skiing per say but jumping fast and all the time. You were making contact with the ground each time you jumped and that allowed you to change direction.

You can basically do the same thing with T:V using a script that will rapidly turn the ski button on and off. It would similute the ski scripts from T1.

PJ is right about this. The skiing in T1 and even in T2 wasnt actually literally skiing. It was really about gaining momentum downhill etc and using quick jumps to sort of bounce your way around. Sort of like a pogo stick. Thats actually why I dont like TV. Although they took skiing to literally mean skiing, its not the same type of movement that folks used in T1 and T2. Its fast going down, but damn there is very little directional control. (and Ive tried the quick jump etc along with other scripts to emulate ski jump in TV etc. It s not the same.) Classic example of something being intepreted by folks who didnt play Tribes very much. No offense to IG I could understand this mistake, but I'm suprised KP wouldnt have brought this up during development. I can only think they did this to achieve there lets make it easy for new players to pickup philosophy.

Skiing was never intended, it was just a technique and mistake that came along as more folks became entenched and skilled in Tribes 1. Its a nuance of the movment and in TV, instead of duplicating that movment they took the concept to literally mean skiing and thus its all fast downhill, and very little directional control. Quick starts of the ground forget about it.

Thrax: Where's the masses?

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