Tribes : Ascend
- Thread starter Got Haggis?
- Start date
- Status
I remember 2 distinct versions of "Tribes 1". The first version I instantly fell in love with and addictively wanted to play it as much as possible. The second version I learned to enjoy just as much, but it had to grow on me as it changed the game I was already getting a tremendous amount of enjoyment from.
Tribes 1 appeared in November 1998, and I first played it December of that year after acquiring it through an impulsive buy while bored with a little too much escape dollar left in my wallet.
All I had to go by, in making my impulsive decision, was what was on the box and printed inside the folding panel. At that point, I had been playing a lot shooter games like Dark Forces II, but they were all prominently "deathmatch" like shooters and I was getting bored, I wanted something more... more team based and curiously, here on this box of Starsiege: Tribes, is a sales pitch for just such a game.
So I bought it.
I installed it and immediately fell in love with it. Here was just the kind of game I was looking for at just the right moment when I was looking for it. A truly fortuitous find of chance.
Now, many here go on and on about how Skiing made the game of Tribes and how Skiing is the base upon which any game of Tribes is to be judged. Well, I would dissent from that exclusive point of view by pointing out that Starsiege: Tribes did not have Skiing in Nov/Dec 1998, nor Jan/Feb 1999 and yet, had no trouble at all in endearing itself to a large number of people who would become steadfast and ardent fans of the game and the franchise to come. In fact... I would be willing to bet that all of those "shiny" mainstream media accolades seen in the Tribes: Ascend promo video were won by a version of the game that had no skiing at all.
Think about that for a moment. Some of you can't, because some of you never knew this version of Tribes. The first version I fell in love with.
Eventually, Skiing would become mainstream and when it did, it was a good thing. However, this second version of the game, a version I would come to enjoy just as much, came decisively, came involuntarily and fundamentally changed a game that a large number of players were already having fun playing as it was without skiing.
Therein lye's the caveat that would likely spawn all the debate and all the tiresome drama that dogs the issue of every new Tribes game since.
Not Skiing, but that skiing was ordained without the willing and democratic consent of all of it's players and without the means to go on playing the version that won them as fans for 2+ months prior.
Skiing had always been there, in that first version... but was hidden well beneath the obvious and intuitive face value that most everyone first took (played) the game for. Yet, people played the game and loved the game. So when that little nuance called "skiing" surfaced and began growing until it came to dominate the game as mainstream... it did so as a usurper... and many players were caught off guard by it and offended. They viewed it with hostility and a great deal of reservation.
It forced the game to change from a version they already enjoyed, to a new version they would have to learn to enjoy. Some did, many of us who did are still here... but many didn't, and they're the ones who speak fondly of the game in the mainstream communities and press... but do not (did not) continue playing for all the years after.
To this day, I do not consider myself a "Tribes 2" fan, nor a Tribes: Vengeance" fan or any version of Tribes aside from the original, Starsiege: Tribes. I am of the old guard player-base, one of the many small stones which set the foundation of both, a community and a game for which a flicker of passion will always be cared for.
As much as I enjoy what skiing brings to the game, the intensity and the thrill, I will always remember that it was not skiing that made the game for me. It is not skiing by which I unwittingly find myself weighing every modern game I play today against... and find most still wanting. I don't say things like "the physics were better in Tribes", or "weapon x" or "vehicle y" was done better.
I wonder why things like; the server browser, the admin functions, the game types, the variety of content, the voice-binds, the customizations, the network code, the tournament support, the team play tools and a dozen other basic elements that were all present in the first version of a game I played 11 years ago, yet are not the things being carried forward by AAA titles today. At least not to the caliber present in Starsiege: Tribes
All of which, if serving as the foundation for any game, would make for a solid product, regardless of what actual facade was placed around it... Tribes, Battlefield, Call of Duty or otherwise.
There is a piece me that was left behind in the end of 99/00, when I stopped playing Tribes, that is still waiting for a sequel that honors all those values that made Tribes standout as better then it's peers. Yet, there is a cynical side, equally trapped, that says people will be forever hung up on the superficial things like "skiing" and "mine-disking" and "one man flying tanks" and "target lasers" (ect ect) as the focus of any effort to time-travel back to the year 1998.
Tribes 1 appeared in November 1998, and I first played it December of that year after acquiring it through an impulsive buy while bored with a little too much escape dollar left in my wallet.
All I had to go by, in making my impulsive decision, was what was on the box and printed inside the folding panel. At that point, I had been playing a lot shooter games like Dark Forces II, but they were all prominently "deathmatch" like shooters and I was getting bored, I wanted something more... more team based and curiously, here on this box of Starsiege: Tribes, is a sales pitch for just such a game.
So I bought it.
I installed it and immediately fell in love with it. Here was just the kind of game I was looking for at just the right moment when I was looking for it. A truly fortuitous find of chance.
Now, many here go on and on about how Skiing made the game of Tribes and how Skiing is the base upon which any game of Tribes is to be judged. Well, I would dissent from that exclusive point of view by pointing out that Starsiege: Tribes did not have Skiing in Nov/Dec 1998, nor Jan/Feb 1999 and yet, had no trouble at all in endearing itself to a large number of people who would become steadfast and ardent fans of the game and the franchise to come. In fact... I would be willing to bet that all of those "shiny" mainstream media accolades seen in the Tribes: Ascend promo video were won by a version of the game that had no skiing at all.
Think about that for a moment. Some of you can't, because some of you never knew this version of Tribes. The first version I fell in love with.
Eventually, Skiing would become mainstream and when it did, it was a good thing. However, this second version of the game, a version I would come to enjoy just as much, came decisively, came involuntarily and fundamentally changed a game that a large number of players were already having fun playing as it was without skiing.
Therein lye's the caveat that would likely spawn all the debate and all the tiresome drama that dogs the issue of every new Tribes game since.
Not Skiing, but that skiing was ordained without the willing and democratic consent of all of it's players and without the means to go on playing the version that won them as fans for 2+ months prior.
Skiing had always been there, in that first version... but was hidden well beneath the obvious and intuitive face value that most everyone first took (played) the game for. Yet, people played the game and loved the game. So when that little nuance called "skiing" surfaced and began growing until it came to dominate the game as mainstream... it did so as a usurper... and many players were caught off guard by it and offended. They viewed it with hostility and a great deal of reservation.
It forced the game to change from a version they already enjoyed, to a new version they would have to learn to enjoy. Some did, many of us who did are still here... but many didn't, and they're the ones who speak fondly of the game in the mainstream communities and press... but do not (did not) continue playing for all the years after.
To this day, I do not consider myself a "Tribes 2" fan, nor a Tribes: Vengeance" fan or any version of Tribes aside from the original, Starsiege: Tribes. I am of the old guard player-base, one of the many small stones which set the foundation of both, a community and a game for which a flicker of passion will always be cared for.
As much as I enjoy what skiing brings to the game, the intensity and the thrill, I will always remember that it was not skiing that made the game for me. It is not skiing by which I unwittingly find myself weighing every modern game I play today against... and find most still wanting. I don't say things like "the physics were better in Tribes", or "weapon x" or "vehicle y" was done better.
I wonder why things like; the server browser, the admin functions, the game types, the variety of content, the voice-binds, the customizations, the network code, the tournament support, the team play tools and a dozen other basic elements that were all present in the first version of a game I played 11 years ago, yet are not the things being carried forward by AAA titles today. At least not to the caliber present in Starsiege: Tribes
All of which, if serving as the foundation for any game, would make for a solid product, regardless of what actual facade was placed around it... Tribes, Battlefield, Call of Duty or otherwise.
There is a piece me that was left behind in the end of 99/00, when I stopped playing Tribes, that is still waiting for a sequel that honors all those values that made Tribes standout as better then it's peers. Yet, there is a cynical side, equally trapped, that says people will be forever hung up on the superficial things like "skiing" and "mine-disking" and "one man flying tanks" and "target lasers" (ect ect) as the focus of any effort to time-travel back to the year 1998.
Last edited:
Very well written, Hellsfury.
For me the magic of Tribes was the journey from the initial release to what it became. I didn't hate Tribes 2, but some of the magic that Tribes 1 had was gone. Looking back on it I realize that the slow change in how Tribes was played was what I found so fascinating. Part of me thinks that no Tribes game will ever recapture that magic for me because the road has already been taken. Tribes was a living game, most every other game is just a static one that doesn't change.
For me the magic of Tribes was the journey from the initial release to what it became. I didn't hate Tribes 2, but some of the magic that Tribes 1 had was gone. Looking back on it I realize that the slow change in how Tribes was played was what I found so fascinating. Part of me thinks that no Tribes game will ever recapture that magic for me because the road has already been taken. Tribes was a living game, most every other game is just a static one that doesn't change.
Yes.
Yes, I agree and would like to point out that just because I acknowledge that I first came to love Tribes through a version without skiing... it was by no means a perfect version. Tribes would have to have evolved differently.
In someways, I think that had Tribes not ordained Skiing... Starsiege; Tribes might have evolved into a better Battlefield: 2142 in many ways.
Which isn't a bad thing, but it would certainly have been different. Better? maybe, but certainly different in many ways to what some of us have come to appreciate a Tribes game to be (and yet not at all, for certain others).
FOV is accessible in clientprefs, but what this all comes down to is that the developers made a conscious decision to expose certain variables and functionality to scripters so that these scripts could be written. If that's cheating, then the game was designed for cheaters by cheaters and anyone that plays is consciously playing a cheater game.
I beg to differ. We patched several maps for spots that had the insta stop bug due to collision problems with the terrain just as T1 had. The only thing T2 didn't have was that fucking scout flag bug.
not that i recall. the cap once and turtle with the flag in a scout iirc was the snapping turtle? or was that the ice ridge turtle? i forget.
i dont remember. now that i think about it the snapping turtle is what we would do sometimes on iceridge if we got up a cap. rilke or our other farmer whos name i'm forgeting now would hold flag in the bowels while everyone else went heavy o.
i think the scout keep away thing had a different name.
i dont recall anything apart from various 4 letter words being used for flag ramming.
doesnt matter everyone knows desert of death was the best fucking map ever.
i think the scout keep away thing had a different name.
i dont recall anything apart from various 4 letter words being used for flag ramming.
doesnt matter everyone knows desert of death was the best fucking map ever.
I don't know about anyone else, but in my circle we referred to a scout ramming the flag as an "asshole".
Desert of Death was terrible. Canyon Crusade was the best vgebullshit! DoD was so much fun. it didnt make for a good competition map but that shit was fun for pugs. especially when tribes first came out and nobody knew wtf the energy pack was or the nade launcher or any of that shit.
was so fun punishing people on DoD
. canyon was the best of the non standard maps ill give it that much. i didn't mind one way or the other my favorite was always ice ridge. o snipin at the rocks 4lyfe.
was so fun punishing people on DoD
. canyon was the best of the non standard maps ill give it that much. i didn't mind one way or the other my favorite was always ice ridge. o snipin at the rocks 4lyfe.- Status