Tribes Veangence beta testing program

[barstein]

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=6634

Vivendi Universal Games announced today that it is currently taking applications for the Tribes®: Vengeance beta testing program, which will begin June 14th and run for several months. The closed beta program will begin with a very limited group but expand weekly until later this Summer when the public will be invited to partake in the testing. Tribes: Vengeance will ship to retail stores worldwide in October 2004.

Gamers interested in beta testing Tribes: Vengeance can visit the official website at http://www.tribesvengeance.com/ for more information and a link to the application page. Beta testers will be chosen based on system specifications and previous testing experience.


Is anyone else here going to sign up?

[Poops McGee]

I did, despite the slim chances of getting in. Tribes has a special place in my gaming heart...

[Dave Long]

I threw my name in the hat. I rarely ever sign up for betas anymore but I'd really love to help Irrational with my feedback. I absolutely loved Terra Nova and I'm hoping Tribes captures a little of that since it's a lot of ex-LG people making this.

Help me get in the beta Ken Levine... you're my only hope!

--Dave

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Hell yeah. Tribes is the best game of all time, I'd love to get in on the third.

[Jakub]

Odds are like 1 in 1000 to get in apparently. But if you pre-order and go to the Tribal Wars LAN event with your receipt, you'll get the beta. Of course, that's only good for people in the DC and SoCal areas, and in July at that.

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=49406

[Creole Ned]

Chris Mahnken (Vengeance producer) made a post on the official T:V forum (http://community.vugames.com/WebX?14@@.f024d83) explaining the odds of getting into the initial phase of the closed beta. The odds are...slim. :)

The open public beta test will be much wider, though, and that's tentatively set to begin sometime after late July.

[chumpface]

I wish I could help, Dave, but Mssrs Mahnken & Kahn are the masters of all things Beta

[Dave Long]

Help me get in the beta Adam Ka... oh, guess I shouldn't use that one twice. :)

--Dave

[Lokust]

I was in first phase of beta for Tribes 2, when there were only about 250 of us, and it was pretty painful. I would have barely called the game an alpha at that point. I'm afraid to try to get into the Vengeance beta :P

[Creole Ned]

I was there, too, Lokust. It's hard to imagine any public beta being as bad as Tribes 2 was. The fact that they suspended the beta test to basically code more of the game into a playable state was rather telling. :)

Had they held off on the first phase a few more months, it would have gone much better for all involved.

Vengeance already seems a lot more polished at the same point in its development, thanks to a talented dev team and a much tighter design focus.

[Lokust]

Maybe I will sign up for it then, just in case I might be lucky enough for lightning to strike twice. My biggest issues with tribes in general though is that I hate the scripting that became such a big part of the game. I really don't know either way if Vengeance is doing anything about that.

[Menzo]

Maybe I will sign up for it then, just in case I might be lucky enough for lightning to strike twice. My biggest issues with tribes in general though is that I hate the scripting that became such a big part of the game. I really don't know either way if Vengeance is doing anything about that.

By the nature of starting with the Unreal engine the scripting is greatly reduced. There will be some MOD-ability - HUDs, etc., but most major changes to gameplay will be through mutators.

[Lokust]

Thanks for the info. I definitely consider that a good sign.

[Jakub]

Maybe I will sign up for it then, just in case I might be lucky enough for lightning to strike twice. My biggest issues with tribes in general though is that I hate the scripting that became such a big part of the game. I really don't know either way if Vengeance is doing anything about that.
By the nature of starting with the Unreal engine the scripting is greatly reduced. There will be some MOD-ability - HUDs, etc., but most major changes to gameplay will be through mutators.
That's one thing that bugged me about T2 - so many servers would run "T2 base", but with a minor script or two that would increase the speed of the disc or tighten up the chaingun. I hope the new version and the new server browser can identify whether or not the admin/server op has futzed around with base settings.

[Derek Meister]

I thought he meant client-side scripts. Things like being able to scripts that would automatically change you to the repair gun and fix any damaged objects nearby while also sending out a scripted message to your teammates that you were doing so.

That was the worst part about coming back to the first game after a few years when I reinstalled it, the fact that some of these people had so many scripts that were so advanced I sometimes wondered if the scripts played the game for them.

Of course, I'm one of those freaks who actually loved Tribes 2 when it first came out before they changed the feel of the game completely by ruining gameplay in the name of balance with slowed down vehicles, weapon changes, etc. Give me the early days when you could sneak up on an enemy camp where a troop transport had spawned and several heavies were already inside calling out for a pilot, stealing it and flying straight off into a mountain before they realized you weren't on their team.

[Jakub]

I loved Tribes 2 as well. I can't believe subsequent patches made it worse and less stable... it was seriously a "what the FUCK are they thinking" moment when it became apparent that I had more crashes.

As for client-side scripts, I actually didn't mind them so much. There were a few that were really too much, but I was always good enough to hold my own against the script kiddies. No, what bugged me were chainguns that had a 1m spread at 1000m, discs that flew ten times faster than they should and invisible sniper rifle beams.

[Jon R.]

That's something that more or less killed both Tribes games. For some unfathomable reason, the Renegade mod or something like it where you now had approximately 50 new weapon choices, including mini-nukes and vulcan cannon chainguns, became standard. Oddly enough, it's modability that put the final nail in Tribes' coffin.

[Lokust]

One other thing, if you have an ELF gun in the game, please use new code for it. The ELF would always crash my computer in both Tribes 1 AND 2, which sucked because it was one of my favorites.

[saebriel]

I miss T1 and my old clan; never stuck with T2 once I bought EQ. I was known for killing people with a mag gun which coined the phrase ("getting biffed", based on my old moniker). I prefered the Mortar in Heavy, and Disc in Light though. Don't ever ask me how I did with a Chain Gun.

[Menzo]

One other thing, if you have an ELF gun in the game, please use new code for it. The ELF would always crash my computer in both Tribes 1 AND 2, which sucked because it was one of my favorites.
This is an entirely new game. There isn't a single line of code used from Tribes 1 or Tribes 2 in Tribes: Vengeance.

Hm, except maybe something about our CD key checking or patching or install or something like that.

[Robert Sharp]

I have to say the trailers look great. Too bad I won't be able to play it because I have a stupid satellite connection, with latency and all that.

[Creole Ned]

The single player game may be worth it. This time it's not just a half dozen training missions, it's a full-fledged campaign that involves, well, vengeance and stuff. :)

There are currently no plans for multiplayer bots, though, so that portion of the game will be strictly online-only, much like the original game.

[Joel]

I couldn't be more excited about it -- despite being burnt by Sierra for the first six months of T2, I've probably played both iterations of Tribes more than any other FPS combined.

I'm going to the Tribal Wars event in Chantilly, VA. If any of you happen to make it, let me know and we'll get a drink.

[Mike O'Malley]

Eh? When is this?

[McBain]

Wow, finally, other people who want to play vanilla Tribes. Where were you guys back when I was logging into 1/16 base servers? :)

Mods: Good for the Quake Series. Bad for the Tribes series.

[LogRoller]

I'm heading to TW East. Actually, I am acting as MC for portions of the event. Already got my pre-order.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this beta. I think that the team has learned their lessons from the T2 disaster, and so they are not going to let anything out that is not already mechanically polished. This beta is hopefully all going to be about gametype, physics, look, and feel.