I started playing online games with Tribes back in 98. For about 9 years I was sheltered as fuck to all other games because I really didn't give a shit about anything but Tribes. Only since I've started shoutcasting and promoting eSports in the last 2 years have I realized the folly of my Tribes-centric ways.

Now, looking back, its painfully obvious that Tribes never made in to the grand stage of eSports. However, if I remember correctly, we had over a hundred 10v10 teams on OGL and TWL ladders in our heyday, but there were little to no leagues, tournaments, or LAN events with any significant clout or prize money.

What were the biggest events in Tribes competition? Were there ever any big cash prizes? Did UVA ever have any strong tournaments? I remember Tribes Gala having some prizes, but how substantial were they, and who won them? Essentially, how do Tribes and its players compare in the larger eSports scene?

As I move forward covering eSports I've tried to convince others of the sheer epicness of Tribes comp, but as it stands I have nothing concrete to refer to. I'd love to get a list of the most important Tribes matches through Tribes 1/2/Vengeace history. I'd also love to revisit any shoutcast recordings / demos from the matches, potentially even compiling a video or two of Tribes at its best.

Does anyone have any archives of this stuff? Does anyone care?

PLEASE AND THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

wasn't tribes on the cyberathletes league or some shit for a while?

and besides, I would say tribes is more pre-eSports, and by the time that movement came around Tribes was already dying out

Originally Posted by XTasy

wasn't tribes on the cyberathletes league or some shit for a while?

and besides, I would say tribes is more pre-eSports, and by the time that movement came around Tribes was already dying out

Quake 2.

im pretty sure there are some demos with the shoutcasting overlayed on it.

I'm talking about Tribes as a series, not just T1. Obviously it was one of the first, but there was Quake II before Tribes. CounterStrike and Quake 3 came out a year or so after Tribes, when T1 Comp was in its height.

So did we pave the way? VGD

Originally Posted by SniperOmega

im pretty sure there are some demos with the shoutcasting overlayed on it.

iwant. i'd really like to get as many Tribes shoutcast recs as possible. Video + shoutcast is even better. Why don't these exist anywhere? Can't even find Catch 22 vs. 5150 (best T:V match of all time)

@XTasy: competitive gaming has been around since the 80's. True, it was high scores instead of man vs man, but that doesn't mean eSports didn't exist before Tribes.

twl had a monthly cash prize of $2000 for the #1 team for a few months, the #1 team was always 5150 and thereddread always put up the money so w/e

I know someone who has over 30gigs of t1 shoutcasts and you're not getting them neener neener

go 5150

I had no idea TWL had cash prizes for the main ladder. Interesting!

*I was 11 in 99

IGN: Tribes Council

just did a google search and found this

Tribes with 10 vs 10 was to many people.

[IE] and |5150| won everything worth winning in Tribes-related tourneys, but the tourneys were never huge.

Originally Posted by consultant

Tribes with 10 vs 10 was to many people.

it was kinda fun

but we played 8v8 in the urop

the biggest game in eSports has been Counterstrike, essentially since its inception. The most influential, IMO, are Quake and Wolfenstein (RtCW and W:ET). Each iteration of CoD gets a ton of comp play, obviously TF2 is pretty big right now as well. The healthiest communities ATM are QaukeLive (ESL and Intel host tourneys constantly) and CS 1.6 I believe.

So do we owe it all to id Software? Maybe.

Frag Documentary (pretty good watch IMO): LiveLeak.com - (documentary) "Frag" - the world of professional gaming (part 1/4)

RTCW History : ESR - RtCW Competitive History Movie Year 2k2

Quake 3 / Live history : ESR - Memorial - Quake 3 Movie by dKsL

tribes was too obscure and/or had too high a learning curve to be super popular

Originally Posted by FishStix

the biggest game in eSports has been Counterstrike, essentially since its inception. The most influential, IMO, are Quake and Wolfenstein (RtCW and W:ET). Each iteration of CoD gets a ton of comp play, obviously TF2 is pretty big right now as well. The healthiest communities ATM are QaukeLive (ESL and Intel host tourneys constantly) and CS 1.6 I believe.

So do we owe it all to id Software? Maybe.

Frag Documentary (pretty good watch IMO): LiveLeak.com - (documentary) "Frag" - the world of professional gaming (part 1/4)

RTCW History : ESR - RtCW Competitive History Movie Year 2k2

Quake 3 / Live history : ESR - Memorial - Quake 3 Movie by dKsL

dont be silly

we owe it all to esports poster boy hunks like john 'I'm a faggot called fatal1ty' wendel

tribes gala was basically the pinnacle of T1 competition. it was an online tourney with the finals being played lanned in san francisco i believe. iirc, the west coast online final was 5150 vs. S3, which 5150 won. the east coast online final was IE vs. sticks, which IE won. so IE and 5150 both got flown out to san fran to play a lanned final, which IE ended up winning in some epic matches. i cant remember whether or not there was a cash prize for the winning team, hopefully Special or someone else can give more detail.

that tourney was played 8v8 (for funding reasons, i think) when the standard T1 comp at the time was 10v10, that was its only shortcoming.

outside of TG2K there wasn't much in the way of prizes for t1. the yearly UVALANs gave out some decent prizes for a few years to the winning tournament teams, and i think the TWC had some nominal prizes as well, like mp3 players or something.

to give some idea of the relative paucity and value of t1 prizes, i won an SB live platinum and a 5.1 surround setup at UVALAN2 for two separate events (something like $400 in value at the time) which is more than most comp players ever even got a chance to play for. and winning shit at LANs was mostly about luck anyway and ending up on a good team for the tournament. prizes for actual ladder competition were basically nonexistent.

Originally Posted by arcadus

tribes was too obscure and/or had too high a learning curve to be super popular

Quake takes more aim and reflexes than Tribes. Movement is probably harder to get decent at too. Tribes OWNS Quake when it comes to strategies and team coordination though.

See, that's what I've learned, each and every FPS (EVEN CS) has its own aspects of difficulty that are hard to compare or even understand if you don't play them at the high levels of comp.

Quake takes reflexes, aim, and movement ability (strafe jumping correctly is a BITCH)

Wolfenstein/RTCW takes strategy, coordination, and aim (strafe jumping easier here, but still hard to master).

CS takes aim and team coordination (crossfire = win).

Tribes takes team coordination, strategy (this is where tribes differentiates itsself IMO), and movement ability (map knowledge routes etc)

TF2 takes no skill at all (JK?!?!)

Originally Posted by Dynamo

tribes gala was basically the pinnacle of T1 competition. it was an online tourney with the finals being played lanned in san francisco i believe. iirc, the west coast online final was 5150 vs. S3, which 5150 won. the east coast online final was IE vs. sticks, which IE won. so IE and 5150 both got flown out to san fran to play a lanned final, which IE ended up winning in some epic matches. i cant remember whether or not there was a cash prize for the winning team, hopefully Special or someone else can give more detail.

that tourney was played 8v8 (for funding reasons, i think) when the standard T1 comp at the time was 10v10, that was its only shortcoming.

outside of TG2K there wasn't much in the way of prizes for t1. the yearly UVALANs gave out some decent prizes for a few years to the winning tournament teams, and i think the TWC had some nominal prizes as well, like mp3 players or something.

to give some idea of the relative paucity and value of t1 prizes, i won an SB live platinum and a 5.1 surround setup at UVALAN2 for two separate events (something like $400 in value at the time) which is more than most comp players ever even got a chance to play for. and winning shit at LANs was mostly about luck anyway and ending up on a good team for the tournament. prizes for actual ladder competition were basically nonexistent.

yeah, seems to me that 95% of Tribes comp happened online. There were only a handful of events that teams actually flew their players to. Even at UVA it was random draft teams, iirc?

If Tribes GALA was the only LAN tourney with 5150 and IE facing in person, than Tribes really had nothing. Today, there is no real money in online tourneys, its all at the lan events.

I have a tonne of old shoutcasts recorded on an old computer somewhere, and even the first tribesTV match (I got to shoutcast that!). I'll take a look around and see if I can find it. There has to be guys like Breaker who have gigs upon gigs of stuff saved up (if he's around anymore).

OGL had 250+ teams at one point I believe, but it was pure shite until at least top 40 or so, and breaking top 20 was a decent achievement. Top 10 didn't move much and top 5 barely changed at all (other than those 5 teams rotating around a bit).

Boomerman and I shoutcasted a WCG and when we put T1 on the big screens people were openly upset. They'd rather watch my winamp than T1. (This is back like... 7 years ago though, so the tourny was basically Q3, CS and Starcraft).