Tribes: Ascend 'initial focus' is PC
Tribes: Ascend's "first initial focus is the PC," developer Hi-Rez has revealed. The free-to-play revival of the beloved shooter series is also hitting XBLA, but Hi-Rez says consoles lag in supporting F2P games.
While some Tribes diehards are wary of Hi-Rez studios' revival of the classic multiplayer shooter series as a free-to-play game, the developer, also responsible for Global Agenda, is selling it well. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, studio co-founder and COO Todd Harris has explained that Tribes: Ascend is focusing on the birthplace of the franchise: the PC.
"I will say that our first initial focus is the PC as far as what we're developing on, testing on, and as far as availability we're focused first on the PC," he said. "One; because that's where people associate the franchise, that was its home, and two; because we do want to be able to deliver updates for it, and as we were saying we think that's the strongest platform for it right now."
Console certification processes add a speed-bump to game updates, which are doubly important to keep flowing when players don't feel tethered to a game by a subscription fee. In general, Harris said, consoles are poorer hosts for games with free-to-play and other alternate business models. However, he said "it feels like there's no reason" the home consoles couldn't catch up. The PlayStation 3 already has a few free-to-play MMOs, such as Free Realms and PlayStation Home, and the Xbox 360 is rumoured to be entering the field.
Tribes: Ascend is slated to launch this fall. If PC praise has piqued your interest, here's the recent beta gameplay trailer again:
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Tribes: Ascend 'initial focus' is PC.
Tribes: Ascend's "first initial focus is the PC," developer Hi-Rez has revealed. The free-to-play revival of the beloved shooter series is also hitting XBLA, but Hi-Rez says consoles lag in supporting F2P games.-
I still feel like the success of this game depends on the controls working EXACTLY like Tribes 1 & 2.
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As long as I can say Shazbot, ski up a hill, and get a disc in the face from MercFox1, I'll be happy
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Translation: "We don't want to pay for platform certification and have our updates delayed."
I know, cynical, but remember: the developer of Global Agenda bought the Tribes IP.-
I get where you're going with that, but in their defense the situation on xbla is atrocious for games with an actual patch cycle. I think each game gets something like 20mb of free space and anything after that is considered a paid update. It's the reason TF2 on consoles is vanilla compared to the pc version.
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There is no free to play infrastructure on Xbox right now.
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Right now. Allegedly, there will be in the future. http://www.develop-online.net/news/38108/Xbox-begins-dev-support-for-free-to-play
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Oh, but it can be! http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=607313
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Yes, because the giant eyesore UI they used and massive weapons says so. The new 'focused on PC' BS that game companies are putting out now is just damage control. They do it so we wont get our panties in the bunch when we see how consolized it is pre-launch and then buy the game under false hope that it's actually somewhat reminiscent of PC games that were made just for the PC then ported to consoles.
I am a diehard Tribes fan and this is totally another Tribes: Vengeance. Of course when they were making Tribes: Vengeance they told us how much it was going to be like the original two Tribes games only to find out it was absolutely nothing like it.
Don't hold your breath. If you've played Global Agenda, that's probably what you can expect from this game.-
They can't really "trick" you into buying the game if its free-to-play. At least this way you can check it out first - pc games don't even get demos nowadays.
Tribes 2 was my first online FPS, and I still miss it. That trailer looks legit to me. I don't care if the weapons are big or the FOV is narrow - I see hyperpaced jetpack/vehicle combat with spinfusors and shrikes. If that doesn't get you wet you are too goddamn cynical to enjoy life.-
...perhaps maybe some of us still have expectations rather then being beaten to death with low quality knock offs till we finally accept the fact that we'll never play a really good game anymore and lower our expectations.
If having two things in a game which can be easily modeled and yet act absolutely nothing like what they were like can get you 'wet' then perhaps you need to get laid.
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Uhm, in Tribes 2 you held down a key. And in Tribes a lot of people used scripts to just spam jump (which was what the T2 system was modeled after as I remember).
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You held down jump in Tribes 2. In Tribes 1 you tapped jump. Skiing was originally a physics bug in Tribes 1, but eventually became part of the game and the developers didn't fix it.
In Tribes: Vengeance you had a jump key and then a key that removed all friction from your feet, so it felt like you were standing on ice. You could push the key and then you'd just start sliding around even if you were on flat surface. Skiing is completely different then standing on ice.
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Why the FUCK does the gun take up 1/3 of the screen? Looks like a UT mod.
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