well, it's one month and one day before i graduate college. luckily i managed to graduate in the four year time frame that most people hope for but few achieve. in that time, i've gone through probably a pound of weed, a few hundred (or maybe thousand) gallons of booze, two serious girlfriends and about to marry the current one, multiple more random hookups, pledging a frat, almost being arrested for credit card debt, and the list goes on of my college achievements. 
but the real point comes down to the games that i've played, and you've all played. i know there are probably dozens of people well out of school that still play tribes, and i very much salute that. but the thing is, and we've all heard it hashed over before, most of the tribes players are coming to be older, like me. the general gaming age group is going up, and therefore losing the time to put into the games. i've had tribes in my blood since 9th grade, 8 years ago. playing t1 for three and a half years, i was a complete noob the whole time. never understood it much, didnt have the time to dedicate to it, nor the appropriate computer + connection. so i pissed around every so often on a ren server, or havoc, or wtf ever mod i felt like seeing. and then came may 01, right before i graduate highschool, and t2 came out.
t2 was much more intersting right off the bat for me. still on dialup, i had at least gotten a new computer for graduation, so the game played decently smooth, minus its inherent bugs. i got together with some guys from {FRAG} because they lived down the street from me, some of them, and started to learn how to play. i remember my very first map, katabatic... i shudder to think of it now, but it was fun back then. i was trying to learn how to use a grav cycle. heh. over the course of the next ... oh, 3 or 4 years, i got rid of my dell for an amd2600 that i built, and got broadband around the same time. tribes completely felt different, and i personally got better. i thank the DSL for that. joined Riven for t2 feb last year, stayed with them til they crashed, which was a few months i believe. started origins, and got even better, and had the most fun i ever had in tribes with those guys (so if any of them, auza, cindergirl, naptown, GBM, cant remember the rest of you) are still around much <3 for the time we spent together. yes, i'll come right out and say i made a debauchle of the "summer bash" tournament that i started, but we all knew that. left tribes for a few months as my DSL got turned off over the summer because i was poor and lazy and didnt pay my bill.
and finally, last october, right around my 21st birthday, T:V came out. decided to get back into the games with that. enjoyed it, and caught the learning curve pretty quickly again. once a triber, always a triber i suppose. picked up mapping, made some more screw ups with that, riven floundered, picked up, and then completely died again. and here we stand today, 4-20, and i'm honestly looking back at everything that has happened with my gaming career.
my real point to that whole rambling was that we tribes guys, whether we were t1 dedicates or t2 dedicates or t:v dedicates, are unique. there is nothing else like this game, obviously. but its more than just the look, the feel, the jet packs and spinfusors that makes us different. i've got all three tribes games. WoW. Lineage 2. AOE2. Age of Mythology. CS. Red Faction. the list of games that i have and have played goes on and on, as it probably does with everyone. none of them could hold me like tribes used to. and i didnt mind it, up until today.
i've started to realize that tribes has somewhat lost its luster. T2 isnt as grand as it was even a year ago. there are so few people playing. T:V is obviously dead in the water in terms of corporate support, and we're praying on a communtiy led revolution to at least give it some life. and personally, T1 was never my thing, so i could care less about it (no h8 to the t1'ers). now that i'm this close to graduating, and i'm looking for jobs, looking to make sure i dont botch my last semester's classes, i'm starting to lose alot of interest in my games. i havent even used up my free month of WoW and i'm sick of playing it. same old grind as lineage 2 if you look into it. and all those other games, CS, red faction, ut2k4 ... they cant hold a candle to tribes. never even close.
so whats gonna be left for me in a few months? tribes will be there. i'll still play it every so often. is there EVER gonna be anything to take its place? that's my worry, and that's what i want to hear from you guys. do you think tribes is truly a dying breed? and answer that question truthfully. none of us can play T:V for 6 hours like we could T2 or T1. is there ever going to be a game that truly brings back the enjoyment and skill level and uniqueness that tribes had? are these things worries to anyone else, or is it just me and 4-20 speaking here? it seems like there's no future for interesting gaming.
but the real point comes down to the games that i've played, and you've all played. i know there are probably dozens of people well out of school that still play tribes, and i very much salute that. but the thing is, and we've all heard it hashed over before, most of the tribes players are coming to be older, like me. the general gaming age group is going up, and therefore losing the time to put into the games. i've had tribes in my blood since 9th grade, 8 years ago. playing t1 for three and a half years, i was a complete noob the whole time. never understood it much, didnt have the time to dedicate to it, nor the appropriate computer + connection. so i pissed around every so often on a ren server, or havoc, or wtf ever mod i felt like seeing. and then came may 01, right before i graduate highschool, and t2 came out.
t2 was much more intersting right off the bat for me. still on dialup, i had at least gotten a new computer for graduation, so the game played decently smooth, minus its inherent bugs. i got together with some guys from {FRAG} because they lived down the street from me, some of them, and started to learn how to play. i remember my very first map, katabatic... i shudder to think of it now, but it was fun back then. i was trying to learn how to use a grav cycle. heh. over the course of the next ... oh, 3 or 4 years, i got rid of my dell for an amd2600 that i built, and got broadband around the same time. tribes completely felt different, and i personally got better. i thank the DSL for that
. joined Riven for t2 feb last year, stayed with them til they crashed, which was a few months i believe. started origins, and got even better, and had the most fun i ever had in tribes with those guys (so if any of them, auza, cindergirl, naptown, GBM, cant remember the rest of you) are still around much <3 for the time we spent together. yes, i'll come right out and say i made a debauchle of the "summer bash" tournament that i started, but we all knew that. left tribes for a few months as my DSL got turned off over the summer because i was poor and lazy and didnt pay my bill. and finally, last october, right around my 21st birthday, T:V came out. decided to get back into the games with that. enjoyed it, and caught the learning curve pretty quickly again. once a triber, always a triber i suppose. picked up mapping, made some more screw ups with that, riven floundered, picked up, and then completely died again. and here we stand today, 4-20, and i'm honestly looking back at everything that has happened with my gaming career.
my real point to that whole rambling was that we tribes guys, whether we were t1 dedicates or t2 dedicates or t:v dedicates, are unique. there is nothing else like this game, obviously. but its more than just the look, the feel, the jet packs and spinfusors that makes us different. i've got all three tribes games. WoW. Lineage 2. AOE2. Age of Mythology. CS. Red Faction. the list of games that i have and have played goes on and on, as it probably does with everyone. none of them could hold me like tribes used to. and i didnt mind it, up until today.
i've started to realize that tribes has somewhat lost its luster. T2 isnt as grand as it was even a year ago. there are so few people playing. T:V is obviously dead in the water in terms of corporate support, and we're praying on a communtiy led revolution to at least give it some life. and personally, T1 was never my thing, so i could care less about it
(no h8 to the t1'ers). now that i'm this close to graduating, and i'm looking for jobs, looking to make sure i dont botch my last semester's classes, i'm starting to lose alot of interest in my games. i havent even used up my free month of WoW and i'm sick of playing it. same old grind as lineage 2 if you look into it. and all those other games, CS, red faction, ut2k4 ... they cant hold a candle to tribes. never even close. so whats gonna be left for me in a few months? tribes will be there. i'll still play it every so often. is there EVER gonna be anything to take its place? that's my worry, and that's what i want to hear from you guys. do you think tribes is truly a dying breed? and answer that question truthfully. none of us can play T:V for 6 hours like we could T2 or T1. is there ever going to be a game that truly brings back the enjoyment and skill level and uniqueness that tribes had? are these things worries to anyone else, or is it just me and 4-20 speaking here? it seems like there's no future for interesting gaming.
