..."open" if you have a Fileplanet subscription that is:
http://www.fileplanet.com/betacenter/tribesvengeance/
Observations:
- movement will be the fiirst thing you notice. It seems faster and you have much tighter control than in past Tribes games. "Ski" now has its own button separate from "jump" that you use in conjunction with your jet-pack button and its a snap to do. Overall the movement is newbie friendly without being overly simplistic....there will still be a learning curve for those who never played Tribes before though.
Weapons: spinfusor is the same thing we all know and love (as long as your on the giving end. Chaingun seems a tad slower but now has a rich basso sound effect making it "feel" more powerful (perhaps more than it really is). The new rocket pod is quite difficult to use, lotta practice before you'll get proficient with that one. The "Burner" shoots a ball of flame that will continue burning once it hits whatever you shoot it at, pretty useful secondary wep. Grappling hook is fun but, again, needs lotsa practice. Shottie type weapon i dont like at all. Theres a delay from the time you pull the trigger until it fires. probably a balancing thing but it makes the gun not fun to use. Theres a few others that I havent tried yet.
Visuals: looks very nice. Nothing to get wet about but its nice, colorful, cheery. Performance is spotty at the moment.
Misc:
Interface: love it. very basic and easy to navigate. nothing at all like Tribes 2 nightmare of options, panes, etc. or Tribes 1 bizzarro setup.
Sounds: great!
Network performance: iffy/undecided. As with all new betas johnny teenager must host 16 player games on his mom and Dads cable connection on their circa 1999 Compaq PC. The game has no way to tell if its dedicated or not (unless I missed something). anyhow, until more well known hosting services are up it'll be difficult to gauge.
All in all I found it very enjoyable and fun. of course it could still use plenty of polishing but its not hard to see that this will be a decent successor to the first two games.
This kind of thing really pisses me off. It seems absolutely sleazy when they can't even hold the beta signup on their own and have to pass the ball to a network that is so shameless as to actually charge for fucking betas and hold them as exclusive content. Whatever interest i had left in Tribes just left me. It's a shame too, because i was really hoping for the best with this one.
Tried it briefly last night. Seemed more like UT with jetpacks than Tribes, but admittedly I only gave it about ten minutes. Gonna have to try again.
After playing Planetside, I just can't get excited over sci-fi shooters anymore. UT2004 was "meh" next to PS and I imagine TV will be much the same...."meh".
Yeah, because weeding out the kids without credit cards is a bad idea for a company that wants productive feedback in their beta.Originally Posted by Jon R.
Well, firstly they won't be weeding out poor feedback simply due to someone possessing a credit card.
Secondly, the "open" beta will suppossedly be an exclusive to fileplanet for only a week, then go fully open after that.
Still, it's an annoying way to make a few extra bucks on what's essentially a PR tool.
As for the "UT with jetpacks" thing, I think you'll find as you play it a bit more that feeling goes away, and it starts to feel like good ol' Tribes. It takes a few hours, though.
Just to keep a lid on the conspiracy theories, there is no payment for the T:V beta itself. You can buy a FilePlanet subscription of whatever length and get access to the beta but you don't specifically purchase it alone.
In other words, for the next week, the T:V beta is just one of the exclusive downloads any FP subscriber can get. I don't especially like exclusives but since they're calling it a beta, it's no biggie to me.
And yes, the game does have a very UT-ish look to it. I think it's the lighting and vibrant colors. But in terms of actual gameplay, it doesn't feel UT-ish at all. It feels like Tribes, right down to the annoying floaty hop of characters when they walk over a bump.
The full-on non-subscriber "open" beta is now available from FilePlanet here.
I don't know, I thought it looked and felt a LOT like UT2k4. A LOT. Add a jet pack to UT2k4 and you've got the same game, for the most part.
That being said, that's a great thing. I love it. A big part of what bothered me about Tribes 1 and 2 was that it felt REALLY hard to actually hit people (think machine gunning up close in the first BF). And the vehicles pretty much blew. Both of those problems have been solved with the vehicles being extra great. All them are cool and useful and not as easily destroyed as they were in UT2k4.
It seems a bit too fast for my tastes, though I loved the original Tribes, so maybe it just takes a bit of getting used to.
Definitely as fast as UT as opposed to the Tribes feel, agreed.
My initial impressions of the game are that the land vehicles are less than useless, and in fact only point out just how silly the physics of the game world can be when they bounce around like they're giant inflatible beach balls. The land vehicles in Tribes 2 were far more effective, either in being faster than the mobile infantry like the speeder bike, or more powerful than the heavy armors like the tank. The near complete lack of nice flat ground to drive along helps not one bit either.
Performance is very good on my Radeon 9800 Pro + Athlon 2600+, which is perhaps to be expected thanks to the UT2004 engine. I've got all the details turned to "ultra-high" at 1024x768 with not a hint of slowdown, and the game looks extremely good for a Tribes game.
Anyone with a more objective eye know if the maps are really smaller than those from Tribes 1 and 2, or is it just my nostalgia getting in the way of reality? I know some long-time fans are complaining about not being able to have 64 player servers like in T2, but rarely did I see one actually be full online that wasn't laggy as hell. 32 players will suit me just fine for the time being.
The constant use of the right-mouse button is making me re-think the use of my long-time pointing device, a Logitech trackball. Yeah, I know, I'm a freak, but I guess I never quite outgrew my days as the all-time Missile Command champion at the local pizza hut thanks to the mastery of the arcade trackball.
The maps are generally much smaller than those in Tribes 2 but overall not much different than most Tribes 1 maps. One of the maps in the beta test, Winterlake, is an example of a "big" T:V map.
Creating an empty server with the cavern map just to swing around like spider-man using the grapple is strangely compelling.
I'm really happy with the way it plays. It took a while to get back into the Tribes groove, but there's definitely really cool things going on in this game.
My only complaint is with the Lag, but it's no worse than UT2004 demo was. There's a couple of crash bugs on my machine (mostly when going into the Loadout Screen in-game, setting up quickloads solved that), and it bothers me that the weapons on the models don't track while jumping (but I'm a nitpicker by trade, so...), but overall, it's a very positive experience, and I've already put more time into it than I did Doom3.
Personally, I can't wait for the single player. Mr. Levine has never let me down as far as compelling "page-turner" storylines go, and I don't think he'll start now...
At least he better not. :P
For some reason my server list is empty. :p
I disagree, the buggy is very useful as a mobile spawn point plus the rooftop cannon is pretty effective at dropping both infantry and other vehicles. I agree the driving model seems a bit silly but its also quite fun.
On the other side of the coin, the jump tank is incredibly goofy.
I have found that two to three team members with spinfusors could take down a Rover before the Rover could destroy another verhicle.
While the spawn point ability is nice, right now it's really only effective because many players don't know it serves as a spawn point, so they leave the Rover that's sitting behind their base unmolested. However, those of us that do know about it find it pretty easy to notice, being a rather large and tall vehicle, and can usually dispatch it single-handedly within a short amount of time.
With the way the maps are created, it's not hard for anyone doing true base defense to notice the large wheeled beast moving slowly around back, bouncing over the extremely wheel-unfriendly terrain that's there.
Not saying the designers are privy to this, either, but it's far too early to say whether vehicles are useful or not. Historically, in Tribes, they've been good at first, then mostly ignored as the community collectively grows past them.
Firewall?
Makes you wish All-Seeing Eye support would get here slightly faster.
Unfortunately, there are far too many servers hidden behind firewalls, giving them a 0 ping.
As for vehicles in earlier tribes, I used the Tribes 2 Shrike all the way until what was left of the developers completely nerfed it in a patch to the point where it was faster walking than flying.
I think part of the reason vehicles saw less and less use was the fact that other than the continuous nerfing as patches went by, you needed multiple players to use them properly, and this rarely happens in all but the more mature servers. I haven't really seen people using the T:V assualt ship with more than one person yet, either.
Running people over with the T2 tank, on the other hand, never got old.
Nope. I shut down Sygate to be sure. SP2's firewall was shut down ages ago. I already openned all the ports in the readme file. :pFirewall?
Mine does that as well sometimes, usually a "refresh all" will fix it. Make sure none of your filters are checked... Beyond that, couldn't say.
Anyone have the direct file download link? I signed up before leaving work on Friday, but when I try to download the file at home, it keeps sending me back to the registration page.
- Alan
Yeah, I had to re-register when I got home. It sent me the exact same key, and there wasn't any problem... other than having to wait for the fileplanet queue. I don't know that there is a direct link to be had.
This is fun! Except for the lag. And I like the buggy. It's faster and smaller then T2, but the fun is still present. Still can't hit anything with the buckler though...
The best use of the Buckler is to stand near the flag, or other well-travelled routes, and wait for an in-coming flag-capper. Once spotted, jump-jet up into his path and you'll often due some damage as well as completely knocking them off-course and killing their momentum. Being able to throw the Buckler captain-america-style isn't the primary use of the device.
As for direct downloads, there are a few listed in this tribalwar.com thread.
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