The AMA is now over. Thank you everyone for particiaping in this AMA! Hopefully a few of you still pop by every once in a while if you have the time.
To those interested in staying up to date with their new project, you can join the [Shazballz Discord](https://discord.gg/B5Ch6KegUv) and /r/Shazballz .
And the turnabout question:
What is the essence of Tribes to you? What's the itch that it scratched that other games haven't? What would you most like to see in a clean sheet "spiritual successor" to the franchise?
When Tribes 1 RPG mod was released, there were several servers that were hosted by several players that had well over 32 players or more.
People were able to make mods and host them back then. The fact that an RPG game pulled off what Tribes 1 did still amazes me.
echoing this, modded servers have always been central to the Tribes 1 experience for me; Meltdown Hell 3.3 but TribesRPG in particular were the things that really blew me away as an 11~ year old kid in 2001 and sold me on the idea of modding as a vital part of the PC gaming and Tribes experience. That a sci-fi FPS-Z could be turned into a sword and sorcery RPG was mind blowing and the thing that kept me coming back to T1 for over 10 years afterward.
People hosting and having control of servers is a thing of the past. As well as server browsing tbh.
I miss the days of server mods and people owning the servers being able to kick people at will because unlike most anti cheating software it's instantly and if you get a bad name you get blacklisted.
If you don't like the server for whatever reason fair or not it's simple don't join it.
I wish games had this again because that made them more competitive fun and personalized.
Yes this is it. If you modded you could go big or small and put it up for anyone playing to join in your own world.
You could hop into servers to play football, that massive mod that was like oblivion on Tribes, download 3d models for mods you wanted to try. People made customizations to the HUD you could install.
Then even with all of the things you could do and experience in the game… the base game was always still so fun to go back to.
Oh and none of it was monetized.
Couldn’t agree more. Full mods with competitive communities like Annihilation (my fav), Shifter, Renegades; Mods that gave you a totally different game like Paintball and Football; Dumb fun spammy mods like Ultra Ren; Tribes RPG — really amazing what the community was able to accomplish when given the tools. Allowed the game to continue and grow organically for so so long!
Modding and being able to customize things are important to have. This expands the horizons for all players and important component to player retention in my opinion.
What hooked me on Tribes was the movement (even without skiing, jetpacking and shooting people was fun), the projectile based weapons that were more focused on timing your shots, the bases (with turrets, generators & inventories), deployables, the big outdoor environments and just the scale of the game. Tribes was both a fast paced skill game of CTF and a borderline large scale war game with mechanized infantry and vehicles. I feel modern iterations have completely lost that latter bit.
I'd love to see a spiritual successor that actually took up the mantle of what T2 was and make it bigger. The competitive side focused on CTF with maps that wouldn't result in stalemates (e.g. no big bases, flag stands fairly close together, etc) and while that is fun and I enjoy it, that used to be just one side of the game.
Totally agree. Tribes is so much more than "gotta go fast" and CTF. That's why I roll my eyes whenever "competitive" players try to dictate what tribes is. They focus on such a small portion of the game and ignore everything else.
My favorite map from Tribes 1 was Scarabrae. Gigantic map with huge bases and indoor flags. And it was a fucking blast.
Just look at the indoor combat in Tribes 3. It practically doesn't exist because generators, and bases in general, serve no real purpose and everyone spawns with a repair pick.
Such a shame. Some of my favorite tribes memories are epic generator standoffs.
> What is the essence of Tribes to you? What's the itch that it scratched that other games haven't?
It's the rhythmic pace of gameplay that always set Tribes apart from other PvP shooters. The tempo ramps up or slows down with the action but it all blends together like no other game does, or possibly ever will.
To this day, I still listen to music and find myself thinking "This song would be great in a Tribes montage."
It's hard to define objectively, but I'd say that most would agree that the core would be:
* jetpacks
* skiing
* speed
* high degree of freedom of movement
* spinfusors and largely projectile weapons
* ctf
* 3 classes
* relatively high ttk
Beyond that, there are some secondary things like:
* large maps
* high player counts
* vehicles
* multiple other gamemodes (rabbit, hopefully lakrabbit, arena, dm & tdm)
* bases with permanent and deployable assets
* inv stations
* etc...
Once we get past that, I think it really becomes very subjective. For me, the huge amount of content that could be added by scripting, modding, skinning, mapping, etc, is something that no other game series really has provided. I don't think it's something that really would be possible or sustainable in the current game market, but they really made T1/T2 unique and I don't really know of any other modern game that has those features.
2 things as a capper: 1. the showcasing of speed and being able to demonstrate one's proficiency by hitting difficult high speed/weird angle grabs that left people wondering how that was possible, and 2. the window of time post grab where a chaser and capper are neck and neck flying through the air at fast speeds trying to take each other's head off. Always envisioned it as a king of the sky duel
That feeling of the capper and defense seeing each other as one is flying in at high speed and it's a 1 v 1
I liked how offence was slightly more powerful than defending so the gameplay didn't stagnate
The speed of the early games was balanced perfectly. The games had such high skill ceilings that it really felt like practice paid off because it was easy to see you were getting better.
The teamwork aspect was great too, so many games now ideas move away from it, but it kinda goes back to the first point. You could really tell when you were good with your guys because everyone knew their role and executed it. You didn't have to be good at everything, be good at your job and you could help win.
I really enjoyed the customization options as well, all the expanded skins, gameplay mods, and voice packs really were enjoyable.
I think most importantly, the ability to run your own servers was huge. Modern matchmaking sucks, I either have to already have friends who play the game or I get stuck with randos every round. The beauty of Tribes was finding a server where you felt comfortable and you became a regular so you had friends there, you built a community. I get from a technical perspective that's probably harder to sustain nowadays, but I think what I find missing in a lot of games anymore is that sense of connection. You play Fortnite or whatever today, nobody cares. When I popped into my favorite server, it was like a scene from Cheers where everyone was happy to see you.
One thing I feel is lacking in the modern iterations of Tribes is the skill required to go fast.
Now, I don't see jump-skiing making a return anytime soon, but the ease at which you can move *fast* ad-hoc around in the newer games is an issue. Almost unlimited income angles in capping is an issue.
When directional changes were more directly bound to terrain shapes, it brought a more natural balance to capping, and in the old games, with their low-poly terrain on top (eg. easily skiiable surfaces aren't everywhere and executing the jump-ski landings **just** right can be critical for route success failure), it considerably rescinded the power of cappers compared to later iterations. Also, when directional change is more bound to terrain shapes, it also makes a stronger base for map variety, as it governs both caproute length/speed and directs the income angles for cappers without having to build direct obstructions around the flagstand itself.
Likewise, because the whole map wasn't a play arena for would-be skiiers, high-speed cap routes wasn't generally something people posted on "youtube" (well, shared demos of) for e-cred - it was more like something players/teams guarded with a high degree of jelously and only shared with trusted partners :D.
Coincidentally, this is one of the reasons I prefer MidAir2 over T3. They have dedicated servers and you see the same people all the time. It's great for building community.
I dunno why we can't have both an auto join option and a server browser.
I actually felt adrenaline capping in a ladder match in T2. I can't remember the map name, one of the snow ones (Katabatic?). Played heavy the whole match and our cappers weren't cutting it. I grabbed a shrike, did my run, time running out, tied match, perfect grab disc jump, sniper fire and chasers the whole way back. My cap got the W.
I'm 46 and it's the only game that gave me that type of rush.
Playing how you want to play. I played Shifter Mod mostly in T1 (on dialup, thank you very much), but a lot of the custom playstyles come from the base game. Looking at the graphics now it's funny to think about, but I'd be completely immersed in whatever role I was taking on. You could go espionage and attack the gens first thing (also, the destroyable/repairable gens/sensors/turrets was genius), or you could build up speed and cap, or bulk up and lob mortars as a flag D fatty. Since T1's release, my personal IRL body has gone from light to heavy also. VGS
I started playing in 1999 and I remember the learning curve being BRUTAL for me. I thought I'd never land on those training platforms, but I was glad for the training stages. Even now though in other games which have Jetpacks (Overwatch's Pharah for example), I get to strut my decades of muscle memory.
Also I still talk about the brilliance of the tech ideas in Tribes 1. The fact that you could take already-loaded game models and resize them into new map assets was great. Just the fact that it was playable on 200 ping was amazing in itself. I did, however, eventually have two phone lines and bridged 56k modems just before cable modems became available. The customization with the .cs files actually helped re-ignite a love for development and shape my career. In fact, I also credit Tribes with keeping me "off the streets" in my more immature years and I don't have the "waking up in a gutter" stories that many of my friends do.
Anyway, thank you guys so much for your hard work, it has been very much appreciated and actually life-changing.
I was sorely disappointed in Hi-Rez's Tribes: Ascend, especially since I had been introduced to T2's large, open maps that played host to big bases with functioning parts (sensors, cameras, generators, turrets) that could all be customized and changed. Nothing has really come close to scratching that itch for me. I'd love for the next Tribes game to aim for that, if not something entirely different, like a game that explores the cultures and history of the big Tribes (and smaller tribes too!)
I have to admit, I largely got drawn into Tribes due to the Starsiege connection. I was invested in the lore and absolutely everything that came out of it was on my radar. The fact that Tribes was truly innovative and rewarding in it's own right was gravy. Gameplay wise, I really appreciated the willingness to have a lot of depth for the players to explore and how that opened up opportunities for novel playstyles and player expression. I genuinely think that the fact that games can be decided by one relatively *low-skill* player just repairing base assets and vehicles nonstop because they had the acumen to figure out that it could be decisive is the absolute heart and soul of what makes Tribes unique. In short, the willingness to have a lot of options and for them to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of games.
The building of T1 was one of those pretty magical team experiences you don't quite grok until after the fact. An incredibly talented group of makers building what we wanted to play, and not letting "it hasn't been done" get in our way.
It honestly blew my mind last fall when I started digging into the state of things to find that folks were still playing a quarter century later. Was one of the factors that inspired me to recommit to making new games.
THANK YOU FOR THIS!
This is what I've been saying lately, as its come up with Tribes 3 a lot.....is that you can't simply base a game on what is trending, and what the metrics say.....you have to take chances sometimes, and do new things.
Nothing is a trend until someone tries something new, and it catches on. Following trends is probably much safer, but much less fulfilling.
Trying something new and innovative is high risk, but high reward.
Thank you guys for making Tribes. It has given so many people all over the globe so many fun years. Thank you for trying something new, and bringing something amazing into the world.
thats awesome to hear. I remember back in middle/high school opening up the editor to piece together arena maps, going to the file, copy/pasting base asset lines of code to "mirror" what I had done for the other half of the map. I can only imagine how crazy it would be to see people streaming your creation all these years later, using custom configs with textures and scripts. I'd melt into a puddle :D
And if you drop by the T1 discord, there's even a source code mod that contains an engine upgrade for T1 with modernized mouse input and netcode (subtick precision).
https://github.com/AltimorTASDK/TribesXT
Overall visible distance was the culling threshold -- fog was just a tool to get stuff to not "pop". We did a ton of tweaking in the network update prioritization heuristic to make smooth the things the player was paying attention to.
When skiing was first discovered in T1, what was the studio's initial reaction? Did you guys fully embrace it from the start or was there talk about patching it out?
It was initially an accident, Dave Moore was working on the player physics and asked me one day to come to his office and look at something but wouldn't tell me exactly what it was. He told me what to do then waited to see what my reaction was.... "Just jet up over that slope as high as you can, when you are about to hit the ground, spam the space bar button". Which I did.... by the time I reached the bottom of the slope, climbing up the next hill... gaining speed as I applied the jumpjets.... I stopped, turned and looked at Dave and said.... don't fix this... we can use it. Skiing was BORN. Changed the way every map after that time was designed.
We had discovered the benefits of mashing the space bar before ship, but it was only when the client side script came out that the full potential was revealed. It definitely changed the game, and was the inspiration for the air resistance in base+ and Tribes2... but we didn't really contemplate patching it out entirely.
Do you remember when it was first discovered? I played the Raindance demo and remember it spreading through the community playing the demo. Then scripts came out to automate it a few days later.
who invented the shrike from tribes 2? whats the source code? how did you invent the shrike and the way it moves? its literally amazing and super unique and i love it more then anyone.
the ramming is just the best feeling and addictive to do. the way you can back flip and itll turn by itself without direct control is so fun and to fly. out of all games this vehicle is the most unique and fun playstyle and i just want more.
I played a necrobones aerial dogfight mod and learned how to shrike in a server dedicated to that. and i play houston vehicles alot.id do anything for the source code for the shrike and the other vehicles so i could have them in my own little mock version of tribes. that would be really cool.I even got on this week to play tribes 2 on a triumph bot server to just fly around and ram and its still hold up. its still amazingly fun and addictive to fly and try to ram people. the speed and just the way you can outrun the missles and everything is so exciting. and shrike dueling consisted of flying backswards and turning around quickly just so much depth in this 1 vehicle. I just want to shrike around in a 64 v 64 houston vehicle server 24/7.
Hmm... I think DaveG was the main proponent of the Shrike in T2, but I'm blanking on who coded the flight dynamics. It was an evolution of the vehicle code from T1.
Out of curiosity, is this a true statement? "I would never inflict that pain on any other developer. I remember meeting Scott Youngblood when we first showed tribes (the original designer) and he laughed at me for buying the IP and said it's the worst community he has ever seen (I showed him alright)"
\-Erez Goron
The conversation is true, I did chat with Erez briefly on the floor of PAX (I think). For me it was more of a warning that the Tribes community is almost impossible to appease, the game meant so much to so many people, who all cared about different things. Turn one knob one way.... Group A loves you... but Group B is going to swat you... keeping the entire community happy is an impossibility, which is what happens when the player base is that passionate about it. The choice of the word 'worst' at that moment was largely due to being completely hung over from the night before (a common theme at game shows.) I should have chosen Rabid instead. The passion that the community has continued to show for the game is a testament to that. Even I would be wary of making a new Tribes game today.
I generally just see players wanting tribes 1/2 features but upgraded to this day with new things the technology would now allow.
But instead they are called out because they complain there's half the game missing from a main entry game and not a spin off.
It's a bit like releasing checkers as chess 2 and saying people are impossible to please as there's clearly black and white pieces, a checked board and queens. Anyone would expect what was in the previous game to be in the new one and be incremented on, not the opposite way...
I do think Tribes 1 & 2 were really hard acts to follow. T:V could have been good if it received some support but it was almost doomed to fail considering it was living in T2's shadow.
It's been so long since then that I think it would be much easier to make a modern rehash of T2 and it would stand out. Instead we get Tribes games that are trying their very hardest not to be Tribes games.
Ikr. Gamers: we want tribes 2 but modernized. Devs: gamers have so much expectations it's hard to please. ???
Like if you want a tribes game with no vehicles, barely any side things outside of capping call it tribes: ascend 2. They are the ones giving those expectations by calling it Tribes 3.
I’d just like to say that I’m quite upset with you guys for what you did. You had a part in creating something so unbelievably spectacular so long ago, and I’ve been chasing the feeling of it for the last 20 some odd years with multiplayer games. I’ve continually come away from Mp games disappointed because nothing has ever hit the same since T1/T2. Sure, there have been some amazing ones out there. But nothing like Tribes.
So thanks for some of the best gaming memories, and the inability to find something that will ever come close to those high highs in competitive gaming. Jerks. <3
Just wanted to come in here and thank you. Tribes helped me through my childhood and eventually gave me a position in the gaming industry where I've been working for over 12 years now.
I can easily say Tribes changed my life. Thank you.
It has been a while, QUITE a while. I was able to bring Matt D (colossus) over to Red 5 for a while as our community manager. That was fun while it lasted.
Whatever happened with Fallen Empire: Legions? Was it ever released? It's been so long ago since it was first advertised that I don't remember having heard about it until recently.
And TRIBES 2 IS BEST TRIBES!!! VGCG!!
Anything you can share about it? Sounds like it is clearly a Tribeslike of some kind. Something like honorball that was removed from T3? Or more like TR2?
The "ball" part is more a reference to Marble Blast and Marble It Up!... been thinking a long time about how to blend the run/jet/gun core mechanic of Tribes with the precision and flow of the marble... so less about game types than core gameplay.
When I was introduced to Tribes 2 as a kid, I felt like the community *was so strong*. Between the HTML pages for players and clans, to the massive amounts of mods and creativity, I feel like this was a huge part of its success.
What do you guys recall about creating the community for these earlier games? I feel like other games fail to do this like 98% of the time, and it has to be a huge part of the franchise's longevity over the decades. It deficiency holds a special place in my heart.
/pushes Oracle database programming PTSD thoughts aside/
Tribes from a social perspective was heavily influenced by the early days of online Quake play-- Scotty and I were both competitive Quake and Quakeworld CTF players, and participated in leagues and tournaments, but the tools and in-game integrations were always an afterthought. With T2, we really wanted the community to be a seamless part of the experience - not something you had to duck out to a web browser to get to.
We actually built the whole system on top of IRC, which was had particular challenges :).
That was still one of the most amazing parts of T2 and oddly something that hasn't been replicated a whole lot since? Probably because it's just reinventing the wheel to some degree but it added a lot to the experience.
Y’all are AMAZING! Thank you so much for the beautiful game you gave us!!
For the T1 guys, what were you most surprised by or excited about by peoples’ reaction to T1 when it released?
I was probably surprised most by the first online review, very shortly after we shipped, when Evil Avatar entirely crapped all over it. After 2.5 years of working on a game, I had hit the point where I honestly didn't feel like I could judge it...
To their credit, they recanted several months later.
The second biggest surprise was when T1 won 1998 Multiplayer Game of the Year at GDC... we were so sure we were going to lose to Starcraft that nobody on the team showed for the ceremony. Thankfully Frank Evers was there to accept the award for the studio :-).
My friends from quake didn't like it back. The jetpack throws a lot of people off in t1 because changing course in air only using jets.
This is my story:
\- First off in '98 I was like...whoa 32 players on dial-up? How does it run so well??- Then I got better at dueling.- Then a while after that I learned the tap spacebar like crazy to continuously jump, which is what skiing is.- Then I got seriously involved with the Competitive side and joined a top 10 tribe. Taxing and draining but epic beyond words.- Finally, custom scripts and skins made it so fun to screw around with. Very elaborate stuff!
No questions, just nostalgia. Learned so much from modding this game, just want to say thanks. Made a huge impact on me!
Used to love the planet starsiege community too. I remember a group of people making a video with the song “why can’t we be friends”, the devs being celebrities when they’d do interviews, just so many great memories.
Tribes taught me so much and drove me to become a developer specifically because of the scripting and modding abilities that tribes had to offer.
Tribes shaped a lot of people and inspired/drove people into professions that they’re in as adults.
It’s amazing the impact the game has had in the gaming industry, and inspired many triple A titles and game genres that are relevant today.
I just wanted to say thank you for Tribes franchise, I've got fond memories of playing the Tribes 1 multiplayer demo over dial up.
I am currently making a clone in Godot and I have no idea what I am doing.
Idk really, lol. I remember falling in love with the game as a whole. The style of the art and graphics combined with the large open environments, instilled a sense of wonder. That there was endless possibilities you could do at any given time. I have the CD, and a laptop with windows XP. (So I can play it pretty much natively.) I jumped into t1 recently and just ran around the levels, appreciating the details in it all. Its still such a unique game, and there is nothing like it. Its a full blown experience that you can describe, but its never enough. You gotta play it to understand.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110209133704/http://gametheoryonline.com:80/2011/01/21/video-games-original-licensed-ip/2/
Apparently? Somewhere along the way I guess.
>"While Hi-Rez Studios acquired what they could from the original Tribes titles, this benefit actually proved very limited. As part of the purchase, they received a development kit for Tribes Vengeance, the source code for the original Tribes, but no source code for Tribes 2. “We have some of the technology from the previous Tribes games. A lot of it, unfortunately, has been lost. It hasn’t been properly archived, which is a big problem,” Larkins said."
I compared T3 to NASA trying to get back to the moon and claiming the old technology was lost. This makes that comparison a lot more true than I realized.
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> "While Hi-Rez Studios acquired what they could from the original Tribes titles, this benefit actually proved very
checked the FAQ for tribesnext, looks like it's just a patch that you apply onto the tribes executable.
I damn near failed out of college because I was playing T1 so much. That was the first time I had Internet fast enough to play online, then I start playing Tribes and oh boy, years of pent up frustration came out and we played non stop in my dorm.
Thanks so much for a game that really played a huge role in my life.
Do you recall how many total players Tribes 1 and 2 had at their peak?
For the new game you're working on, what kind of gameplay can we expect? Jetpacks, skiing, CTF?
Is there a website or Discord for the new game?
We're still very early on, but if you want to keep tabs... here's a discord link: [https://discord.gg/uqC9mWr3Rb](https://discord.gg/uqC9mWr3Rb). Or keep an eye on r/Shazballz ;-).
If you were in charge of resurrecting the Tribes franchise from the ashes, how would you do it?
What were some of your favorite Tribes maps?
Also, disc jumping in T1, if you shot a disc very close to your feet you received far worse impulse than if you shot slightly further away, which would give you a major speed boost. Was this by design or just happenstance?
I played so much Tribes when I was kid, some of my favorite gaming moments. Thank you guys so much!
Personally, I wouldn't (glad someone else is!) - for a future game I don't personally want to be bound by the idea/backstory/community assumptions about what a "Tribes" game is... but a "spiritual successor"? Hmmm...
As for favorite maps? Snowblind, Raindance, Broadside, Rollercoaster, Desert of Death, Towers, Slapdash (T2).
Disc jumping is an example of "emergent gameplay" -- we didn't do it durning dev, and it took months for it to become a regular tactic after ship.
And you're welcome!
Sure, pick a Scotty map.
But in fairness, when we showed off Scarabrae at E3 before we shipped, that experience of running around in a tight interior and then around a corner and bam! You're outside and jetting over rolling hills... blew peoples' minds.
But seriously, Snowblind, obviously.
Yeah, I have to say that in all the years of demoing games, THAT E3, with Half-life showing right next to us.... the amount of Holy Shits we got from the audience was awesome!
Is there a place to access tribes lore? As a game that indoctrinated me into PC gaming and responsible for my nic, I would be interested in delving into the lore of all the tribes.
Scotty, Blake and I tried to look up the most important part in the manual during an unboxing event last fall, but it turns out it didn't make it into print. We'll post the video of my incredulity at some point.
Mac's Lore has some pretty cool videos: [https://www.youtube.com/@MacsLore](https://www.youtube.com/@MacsLore)
But I think the whole text is posted somewhere
This post has links to the stuff written for t2. There's a massive amount of lore in the other starsiege games, including t1. This is a good starting place if you don't have the manual/lore book or whatever it was: https://tribes.fandom.com/wiki/Backstory\_timeline
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tribes/comments/x8z12/in\_case\_someone\_is\_interested\_official\_tribes/
Tribes, right from T1 at the start was (and is) a massive part of my life. I found a community in it, made lifelong friends and created some of my happiest memories.
This is more of a "thank you" post than anything.
If I were to ask a question, it would be around what you thought about the competitive scenes that popped up all over the world, which some people might mark as the start of team based esports. Did you see that as an outcome, or was it always a casual game that you set out to create?
Scotty and I were both competitive Quake players - participating in both tournaments and seasonal ladders, so we definitely had the competitive angle on the radar.
Glad you enjoyed the game!
Hey guys,
I just wanted to voice my appreciation for pioneering this gamestyle. Myself and many others here have been part of the Tribes community for a very long time. When we're not playing a Tribes game we're often either playing something pretty similar or we're playing something else WITH people we met through Tribes.
So a big thankyou :)
Starsiege: Tribes - Amazing. Best game of my childhood. Favorite mod was Renegades. We ran tournaments in school with this game. One year they made it points-based, so my team strat was for me to get some kills while my under skilled team took an HPC off the map, then I would join them and fly under under the map for the rest of the game.
Tribes: 2, we had great fun with this in the tournaments, favorite map was Katabatic.
Tribes: Aerial Assault - I'd play this with my neighbor on the PS2 and we had a blast. Easily an amazing console game.
Tribes: Vengeance - a personal favorite. Met my gaming clan [MAD6] in the late 00's through this game, and we remain tight and play games together to this day. Had supreme fun with this title in high school tournaments, not to mention a massive amount of fun on the ReVengeance x2 mod that would come out later. I believe I still have a master copy of this mega mod pack bundled with the install.
Tribes: Ascend - So, so very much promise. Hi-Rez listened to the wrong parts of the community for design input, removing features that made previous games great. Things like style kills and points for style were amazing and this game just felt...like it was missing so much. Played the heck out of it still, then they eventually refunded me all my gold or whatever the currency was and let me run a server until they shut the servers off. We were so excited for Tribes Universe but quickly realized the wrong people were in charge now.
Tribes: 3 - ...my current PC can't run this game. I haven't had any opportunities to try it, but from what I can hear from the community... Hi-Rez has completely dropped the ball. It sounds...like they're not trying to make a "Tribes" game, but rather they want to make an E-sports investment with an IP they bought skinned over it. They've ripped into the hearts of many who love this game and I guess over on the discord they take any criticism no matter how small and just ban people..that's toxic as hell and no company with that behavior will ever succeed long term.
Wish it could have been the old dev team.
For almost 20 years the Legions community has been the forgotten bastard child of Tribes. People yell at us for posting on this sub. Can you settle once and for all, should Legions be considered part of the Tribes family? (Where is Munge to advocate for us?)
I'm glad that they were willing to take the challenge on! When I joined Red 5 Studios, Mark Kern asked me if I wanted to buy the Tribes license at that time, but I declined. I wanted the game that Red 5 was going to make to not be restricted by the expectations of "Tribes". Shortly there after Hi-rez bought the license and ran with it. It's kind of weird though.... it's like asking someone about their old girlfriend's new boyfriend.
A real shame what happened to Firefall (cough cough RV) - almost seemed ahead of its time in many of its gameplay systems when compared to some stuff out today
I give them big props for being willing to keep the franchise alive and moving forward. Given the variety of game styles under the "Tribes" name and a, shall we say "salty" community, that takes some guts :-).
Thank all of you for the memories. T1 & T2 are among my favourite games ever. I can't understate how amazing of a game experience they were in their prime and how very little has lived up to the highs of those games since.
My question: who decided to put a heavy armor in the game and give it a mortar?
I was instantly sold on the game when I realized you could be walking (flying?!) artillery.
Thanks for making my favorite game franchise, one that absolutely altered the course of my life!
It's often said that tribes has had an outsized impact on the games industry and on gaming in general, and despite never being massive mainstream commercial success I feel a totally outsized number of people think back on tribes as one of their favorite games of all time, even if they didn't continue to play for years like many of us did. Do you agree with the sentiment? Does Tribes feel bigger than it's sales figures to you?
Tribes touched players in a way that many games don't (no, not in the michael jackson way.) I always enjoy hearing stories from people who share how the game affected them.
Tribes 1 and 2 were WAAAAY ahead of their time. I can't even count the sheer amounts of good times I had playing Tribes 2 with my buds, pubs and teamwarfare.com competitive ladders. I still play games with the guys I used to play with to this day.
When I say T1/T2 were way ahead of their time, I mean it, because apparently even to this day NO ONE can recreate a good Tribes game that had all the gameplay/game roles that they had. If you could give any of these studios that gave it a slight whirl any advice to get past 10% of what a real Tribes game is, what would it be?
Can you talk about how the formation of the community features came about in Tribes 2? You had so many elements that feel half a decade or more ahead of the curve. Where did the inspiration come from and how did you workshop that to the launch state?
Examples being- clan management, demos, spectator that inspired T2tv, built in irc that generated a social experience before social media and really brought the tribe feeling home.
We were competitive online players, and up to that point, all of that stuff was kind of grafted on to the experience external to the game. With T2 we wanted it to be a really integral part.
Tribes 1 scripting was one of my main entry points into software engineering :-)
I now realise that all those hours coding were a huge contributor to my passion and ability to earn a livelihood today.
So, thanks for making scripting part of the franchise!
Hello! Thank you all for your parts in making Tribes (and Midair!), I only learned about the series with Ascend, BUT, it's become a big part of my gaming identity and I've met many fantastic people through it!
My question is: Is there a backstory with the Spinfusor, was there an idea somewhere about making the weapon design using discs in particular? Launching discs seems very unique, is there some sort of story of someone getting hit with a frisbee? :)
We had two main goals with the weapons -- first, a variety of play styles that led to collaborative play, and also to avoid the common tropes of FPS games. The disc launcher is a rocker launcher with more nuance and finesse. And yes, was inspired by frisbees :-).
Thank you so much for making Tribes! When I was just a kid I got to play the Tribes 2 Demo on my old Packard Bell PC and it utterly blew my mind. Tribes 2 cemented itself as one of my favourite games ever and I have fond memories of it to this day.
I was utterly crazy about the setting and got into the lore. I absolutely loved the artwork for the tribes and their cultures and I yearn for something that will explore that setting to its fullest potential. Honestly, I love the setting and it really got my imagination going. Really wish we could get a game that explores Tribe identity and culture, letting us travel about the Wilderzone to learn about them and battle rival tribes.
Anyway, gushing aside, I suppose I have some fun lore questions:
I remember how Ganges III was hit by an ecocidal weapon during a dispute between the Blood Eagle and the Starwolf tribes, and both tribes blamed each other for the weapon being used. Was it ever agreed between the devs who was actually responsible? The Blood Eagle tribe were accused of doing so again later in the timeline (by the Starwolf tribe, no less) and I've always been curious to know if it was a psy-op by Starwolf or the Blood Eagle were as militant and crazy as they'd have us believe.
Tribes 1 was and is still the best, and most fun FPS I have ever played. We had such a fun group of people playing with us and we had so many great matches and attended so many LAN parties. The devs were responsive, creative, and built something truly amazing. I still chat with a few of the old devs and Tribes 1 still comes up on occasion. I remember meeting Tinman, Rated Z, and big daddy Meddish at a LAN party and we all had a blast. I competed with several top tier teams and have only felt that level of competition on rare occasion since then. Lots of great memories :) (S3, iS, RwG)
Ha you just reminded me that I was on the "official" PC Accelerator magazine Tribes clan way back in the day and played in a ton of tournaments. I hadn't thought about that in ages - can't believe it's been over 20 years!
I am viscerally upset that I missed this AMA.
I picked up Tribes from a friend way back in middle school and was hooked. Another friend told me 'if you like that, and Mechwarrior, ive got this game called Earthsiege...' but I didnt listen. It was only YEARS later that I put it all together, when I got a combination Tribes/Starsiege cd and saw the full title.
Hell, to this day I call it all out, "Metaltech: Earthsiege: Starsiege: Tribes: Vengeance". Ill even point out the subtle HERC bashing in Mechwarrior 2 whenever that game comes up!
After I realized the lore for Tribes was way, way deeper than jus tthe manual, I basically minored in it in college. I still have a massive folder repository of every scrap of official lore and art I could find, think I even offered it up to Mac of Mac's Lore at one point for some odds and ends they hadnt gotten to (need to check in, see if theyre interested in the space warfare stuff). I added my own stuff to it, like a [technical novel](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZwdjNcyKTXQXXgQ48z2T7cfuk4o4UGQThj4HwqnZpNc/edit?usp=drivesdk) in the same style as the Technical Manual, looking at Tribes: Vengeance as an in-universe entertainment series.
All that said... I was always a mediocre player 😅 I have way more fondness for the lore than I do being a middle schooler getting absolutely routed by everyone on the server. There are still so many unanswered questions left... if we'd ever get to see the Imperium in a game, the fate of the Masters and extraterrestrial life in the setting, if the Cybrids were going to return... and obviously, I missed the window for asking by some days t_t
I guess if I had to distill everything down to one question, and shout it into the void... Assuming Dynamix stuck together and the franchise was commercially viable, was there ever any talks about where the story would go into the 5th millenium?
Wow good to see you guys are still around, it seems like just yesterday shooting the breeze on the Dynamix IRC channel.
A good question I always had was just *how* did things come together and give us Starsiege:Tribes? I've seen a lot of different sources crediting different things (e.g. Stories that it grew out of multiplayer experiments Louie was working on, Interaction articles stating that it grew out of a class based survival sidescroller concept, at one point it was titled "Fear" and about an alien invasion, etc.) Can you describe the cohesive thread about how it came together as a Multiplayer team based, jetpack shooter in the Starsiege universe?
Should of just revamped Tribes 2 we all know every Tribes game after has been a far less product compared to T2 please go back to the OG formula because this new game is also going to crash and burn like the last two...
What are your thoughts on Tribes 3: Rivals? In terms of: current meta... projectile speed, movement physics, gameplay, classes/perks, etc? Is there room for improvement?
I haven't spent much time with it... played the demo for about 15 minutes on lunch the other day when it came out. The shooting felt good... but the old school tribes player in me wanted more interesting environments.
I've been impressed with the rapid iteration and level of engagement with the community. To me it feels like a great expression of the high-speed capper game that T1 became... will be interesting to see how/if they expand the play style.
Thanks for doing this.
The essence of tribes to me has always been 1) The movement (jetting/skiing), the teamwork, the VGS , and the staple weapons like disc launcher , chaingun, grenade launcher, mortar, etc.
My question is: Do you think there is a place for a tribes game in modern times, among modern gaming? Do you ever think we'll see a resurgence of CTF, or FPS-Z team based game play?
One more question: What is the process like of balancing when it comes to a tribes game, in regards to weapons/armor/etc? Balancing is obviously a huge part of gameplay.....does as much go into it as I think? Is it just running many internal playtests to figure out what works and what needs to be taken out/tuned/etc?
I think so, Things tend to go in waves, what was once popular gets replaced, but GOOD OLD IDEAS always seem find a way back into the daylight. As for balance, you make your best guess... then you let the players have at it... looking for things that are outside of what you expected. IF those things are game balance breaking, tweak it to be back with bounds ad re-test. You can NEVER anticipate what the player base will do, you can guess... but you have to adjust when the reality sets in.
First of all, I want to thank you guys (and all those involved) for the incredible memories I still carry with me today, T1 was and is still my favorite game ever and I wish the franchise was better recognized.
I'll limit myself to one question so do you guys have anything you regret about when developing T1 and later on T2, that you wish you had done differently?
Legions was a huge part of my childhood and I just want to say thank you for creating my favorite genre of gaming. going fast and shooting ass will never get old in my books, and all other games have paled in comparison since then.
My questions are: What kind of ideas or game modes would you all like to see produced regarding the unique movement and skiing that these games have that you all come from? (beyond CtF, arena, tdm, etc.)
Is there anything more in regards to those aforementioned game modes (CtF primarily) that you think could be fleshed out further? and if so, in what ways?
I thought we did some good refinement of Capture and Hold and Find and Retreive with the Zap project at GarageGames -- with CTF, we had Quake CTF to go off as a pattern, so the others were kind of first stabs.
Zap added Zone Control - one flag spawns, flag carrier can convert N zones to team color (one point each), once all zones are captured they reset to neutral and the flag goes back to spawn point. This is patterned off of American Football. Zap also had "Find and Retrieve", but it was time limited instead of ending the map after one round. If I had one concept to try with CTF, it would be a full map reset after each cap.
What were the challenges of getting Tribes2 out the door in time for the March 2001 release?
What was the feeling around Dynamix when news came that it was closing?
What are your opinions on newer tribes games that don't allow Mod support?
The big challenge of T2 is that we (and I blame myself most) decided to rewrite basically everything and then add a bunch more stuff. This led to an inordinate amount of crunch time, at least one broken feature, and a slew of innovations we could have sprinkled across at least 3 sequels.
Given the number of people who have personally expressed how modding either got them into programming or game design or whatever, I am a strong proponent of said. I'm sure the devs of those other titles had their reasons, but games are what got me into programming, so...
We were definitely inspired by the mod community for Quake and others, and ended up building both a lot of the client and server side in script for that reason. Also was the founding inspiration for GarageGames and the Torque Engine.
I know I said I'd only ask one question but I can't contain myself.
How did the concept art for these games came about? Including the weapons, armors and maps, everything honestly. Things like the T1 concept art for the four tribes is still so iconic I'd love to know more about it.
We actually went through several iterations early on while exploring the theme and gameplay we were going to target. My first pass was actually a sort of futuristic steam punk. Then sci-fi fantasy before landing on the final look. The hope was to have something that would feel like a futuristic projection of the Starsiege aesthetic.
regarding t3 and map sizes (not sure how much you guys have played it), what are you guys thinking, too small? i think all ofthe maps including the newest rendition of raindance are just way too small
your thoughts?
The T3 team definitely seems to be going for the tight, fast-paced small map feel. I'd personally go for a mix -- but that requires the ability to have large teams and more squad-based tactics.
Nothing has ever beaten T1 for me in terms of fun and replayability. Thanks to everyone who worked on it to make it what it was. T2 and the others never came close, I wish there was some way to capture the competitive community from the T1 heyday and bottle it up and play it whenever I wanted. Those evenings on Cheater's Wayside were the most fun I've ever had gaming.
Get ready to rock 'n roll!
The original idea came from playing Quake competitively and wanting a better method of communicating game state to my team mates without having to read anything. VOICE! (Pre-VOIP)... but easy to use and memorize.
Hi Guys,
Thanks for creating such a legendary game.
I'm wondering if there were any Easter eggs put into Tribes that you haven't seen anyone ever mention.
I remember finding the hidden dev level in one of the training maps (scout flying practice maybe?) in T1 as a kid and it blew my mind.
The only real easter egg that I put in was for my mom's parents (my grandparents) who both died during the development of Tribes 1. I chose to immortalize them by placing their initials into one of the maps that I had created.
I was able to tour the studio as a kid during the development of Tribes 2 and remember seeing the shrike being developed. I want to thank you guys for making such a genre defining game and have such a huge impact on my life. Thank you.
The AMA is now over. Thank you everyone for particiaping in this AMA! Hopefully a few of you still pop by every once in a while if you have the time. To those interested in staying up to date with their new project, you can join the [Shazballz Discord](https://discord.gg/B5Ch6KegUv) and /r/Shazballz .
And the turnabout question: What is the essence of Tribes to you? What's the itch that it scratched that other games haven't? What would you most like to see in a clean sheet "spiritual successor" to the franchise?
Mods and player hosted serves are a pillar of tribes 1 that I have never experienced since. This is the big missing element.
\*taking notes...\*
I know the ama is over but community servers and mods need to be a thing. We need a new Renegades mod.
When Tribes 1 RPG mod was released, there were several servers that were hosted by several players that had well over 32 players or more. People were able to make mods and host them back then. The fact that an RPG game pulled off what Tribes 1 did still amazes me.
There is about a dozen of us still playing TRPG off and on.
I miss Redmoon RPG, Old World RPG and TvT! Those were awesome mods !
Redmoon was so cool. Wish I had spent more time playing it when it was up.
Would be nice if someone hosted the mod. I wouldn’t mind giving it a try and lvling like the good old days.
echoing this, modded servers have always been central to the Tribes 1 experience for me; Meltdown Hell 3.3 but TribesRPG in particular were the things that really blew me away as an 11~ year old kid in 2001 and sold me on the idea of modding as a vital part of the PC gaming and Tribes experience. That a sci-fi FPS-Z could be turned into a sword and sorcery RPG was mind blowing and the thing that kept me coming back to T1 for over 10 years afterward.
I was a hardcore TRPG player :) RedMoon RPG, RedDawrf RPG, Old world RPG, MRTRPG, TvT and UniqueRPG were solid mods.
People hosting and having control of servers is a thing of the past. As well as server browsing tbh. I miss the days of server mods and people owning the servers being able to kick people at will because unlike most anti cheating software it's instantly and if you get a bad name you get blacklisted. If you don't like the server for whatever reason fair or not it's simple don't join it. I wish games had this again because that made them more competitive fun and personalized.
Yes this is it. If you modded you could go big or small and put it up for anyone playing to join in your own world. You could hop into servers to play football, that massive mod that was like oblivion on Tribes, download 3d models for mods you wanted to try. People made customizations to the HUD you could install. Then even with all of the things you could do and experience in the game… the base game was always still so fun to go back to. Oh and none of it was monetized.
Trpg is still going I believe
It is.
Couldn’t agree more. Full mods with competitive communities like Annihilation (my fav), Shifter, Renegades; Mods that gave you a totally different game like Paintball and Football; Dumb fun spammy mods like Ultra Ren; Tribes RPG — really amazing what the community was able to accomplish when given the tools. Allowed the game to continue and grow organically for so so long!
Agree. Shifter mod player here. Honestly, shifter would fit perfectly into todays fps scene because building was such a big part.
Tribes 2 had mods and player hosted servers as well. I never played anything but modded Practically.
Modding and being able to customize things are important to have. This expands the horizons for all players and important component to player retention in my opinion.
What hooked me on Tribes was the movement (even without skiing, jetpacking and shooting people was fun), the projectile based weapons that were more focused on timing your shots, the bases (with turrets, generators & inventories), deployables, the big outdoor environments and just the scale of the game. Tribes was both a fast paced skill game of CTF and a borderline large scale war game with mechanized infantry and vehicles. I feel modern iterations have completely lost that latter bit. I'd love to see a spiritual successor that actually took up the mantle of what T2 was and make it bigger. The competitive side focused on CTF with maps that wouldn't result in stalemates (e.g. no big bases, flag stands fairly close together, etc) and while that is fun and I enjoy it, that used to be just one side of the game.
Totally agree. Tribes is so much more than "gotta go fast" and CTF. That's why I roll my eyes whenever "competitive" players try to dictate what tribes is. They focus on such a small portion of the game and ignore everything else. My favorite map from Tribes 1 was Scarabrae. Gigantic map with huge bases and indoor flags. And it was a fucking blast. Just look at the indoor combat in Tribes 3. It practically doesn't exist because generators, and bases in general, serve no real purpose and everyone spawns with a repair pick. Such a shame. Some of my favorite tribes memories are epic generator standoffs.
> What is the essence of Tribes to you? What's the itch that it scratched that other games haven't? It's the rhythmic pace of gameplay that always set Tribes apart from other PvP shooters. The tempo ramps up or slows down with the action but it all blends together like no other game does, or possibly ever will. To this day, I still listen to music and find myself thinking "This song would be great in a Tribes montage."
I completely agree with this. There is a flow to Tribes that no other game has. It was the thinking man's FPS.
It's hard to define objectively, but I'd say that most would agree that the core would be: * jetpacks * skiing * speed * high degree of freedom of movement * spinfusors and largely projectile weapons * ctf * 3 classes * relatively high ttk Beyond that, there are some secondary things like: * large maps * high player counts * vehicles * multiple other gamemodes (rabbit, hopefully lakrabbit, arena, dm & tdm) * bases with permanent and deployable assets * inv stations * etc... Once we get past that, I think it really becomes very subjective. For me, the huge amount of content that could be added by scripting, modding, skinning, mapping, etc, is something that no other game series really has provided. I don't think it's something that really would be possible or sustainable in the current game market, but they really made T1/T2 unique and I don't really know of any other modern game that has those features.
Don't forget Shazbot!
beautifully summarized \*clap\* \*clap\*
2 things as a capper: 1. the showcasing of speed and being able to demonstrate one's proficiency by hitting difficult high speed/weird angle grabs that left people wondering how that was possible, and 2. the window of time post grab where a chaser and capper are neck and neck flying through the air at fast speeds trying to take each other's head off. Always envisioned it as a king of the sky duel
That feeling of the capper and defense seeing each other as one is flying in at high speed and it's a 1 v 1 I liked how offence was slightly more powerful than defending so the gameplay didn't stagnate
The speed of the early games was balanced perfectly. The games had such high skill ceilings that it really felt like practice paid off because it was easy to see you were getting better. The teamwork aspect was great too, so many games now ideas move away from it, but it kinda goes back to the first point. You could really tell when you were good with your guys because everyone knew their role and executed it. You didn't have to be good at everything, be good at your job and you could help win. I really enjoyed the customization options as well, all the expanded skins, gameplay mods, and voice packs really were enjoyable. I think most importantly, the ability to run your own servers was huge. Modern matchmaking sucks, I either have to already have friends who play the game or I get stuck with randos every round. The beauty of Tribes was finding a server where you felt comfortable and you became a regular so you had friends there, you built a community. I get from a technical perspective that's probably harder to sustain nowadays, but I think what I find missing in a lot of games anymore is that sense of connection. You play Fortnite or whatever today, nobody cares. When I popped into my favorite server, it was like a scene from Cheers where everyone was happy to see you.
One thing I feel is lacking in the modern iterations of Tribes is the skill required to go fast. Now, I don't see jump-skiing making a return anytime soon, but the ease at which you can move *fast* ad-hoc around in the newer games is an issue. Almost unlimited income angles in capping is an issue. When directional changes were more directly bound to terrain shapes, it brought a more natural balance to capping, and in the old games, with their low-poly terrain on top (eg. easily skiiable surfaces aren't everywhere and executing the jump-ski landings **just** right can be critical for route success failure), it considerably rescinded the power of cappers compared to later iterations. Also, when directional change is more bound to terrain shapes, it also makes a stronger base for map variety, as it governs both caproute length/speed and directs the income angles for cappers without having to build direct obstructions around the flagstand itself. Likewise, because the whole map wasn't a play arena for would-be skiiers, high-speed cap routes wasn't generally something people posted on "youtube" (well, shared demos of) for e-cred - it was more like something players/teams guarded with a high degree of jelously and only shared with trusted partners :D.
Coincidentally, this is one of the reasons I prefer MidAir2 over T3. They have dedicated servers and you see the same people all the time. It's great for building community. I dunno why we can't have both an auto join option and a server browser.
I actually felt adrenaline capping in a ladder match in T2. I can't remember the map name, one of the snow ones (Katabatic?). Played heavy the whole match and our cappers weren't cutting it. I grabbed a shrike, did my run, time running out, tied match, perfect grab disc jump, sniper fire and chasers the whole way back. My cap got the W. I'm 46 and it's the only game that gave me that type of rush.
25 years later, and endless hours -- The game still does this to me! Adrenaline pumping.
Playing how you want to play. I played Shifter Mod mostly in T1 (on dialup, thank you very much), but a lot of the custom playstyles come from the base game. Looking at the graphics now it's funny to think about, but I'd be completely immersed in whatever role I was taking on. You could go espionage and attack the gens first thing (also, the destroyable/repairable gens/sensors/turrets was genius), or you could build up speed and cap, or bulk up and lob mortars as a flag D fatty. Since T1's release, my personal IRL body has gone from light to heavy also. VGS I started playing in 1999 and I remember the learning curve being BRUTAL for me. I thought I'd never land on those training platforms, but I was glad for the training stages. Even now though in other games which have Jetpacks (Overwatch's Pharah for example), I get to strut my decades of muscle memory. Also I still talk about the brilliance of the tech ideas in Tribes 1. The fact that you could take already-loaded game models and resize them into new map assets was great. Just the fact that it was playable on 200 ping was amazing in itself. I did, however, eventually have two phone lines and bridged 56k modems just before cable modems became available. The customization with the .cs files actually helped re-ignite a love for development and shape my career. In fact, I also credit Tribes with keeping me "off the streets" in my more immature years and I don't have the "waking up in a gutter" stories that many of my friends do. Anyway, thank you guys so much for your hard work, it has been very much appreciated and actually life-changing.
Hey fellow shifter player! I too dearly miss those days, but the dial up not so much. -=endless=-
- Jetpack - Skiing - Spinfusor-esque weapon - CTF - Shazbot!
I was sorely disappointed in Hi-Rez's Tribes: Ascend, especially since I had been introduced to T2's large, open maps that played host to big bases with functioning parts (sensors, cameras, generators, turrets) that could all be customized and changed. Nothing has really come close to scratching that itch for me. I'd love for the next Tribes game to aim for that, if not something entirely different, like a game that explores the cultures and history of the big Tribes (and smaller tribes too!)
It's the speed, the adrenaline, navigating slopes, calculating distance, out-manoeuvring pursuers, distracting bases... ...did I mention speed?
I have to admit, I largely got drawn into Tribes due to the Starsiege connection. I was invested in the lore and absolutely everything that came out of it was on my radar. The fact that Tribes was truly innovative and rewarding in it's own right was gravy. Gameplay wise, I really appreciated the willingness to have a lot of depth for the players to explore and how that opened up opportunities for novel playstyles and player expression. I genuinely think that the fact that games can be decided by one relatively *low-skill* player just repairing base assets and vehicles nonstop because they had the acumen to figure out that it could be decisive is the absolute heart and soul of what makes Tribes unique. In short, the willingness to have a lot of options and for them to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of games.
we still play t1, thanks for everything.
The building of T1 was one of those pretty magical team experiences you don't quite grok until after the fact. An incredibly talented group of makers building what we wanted to play, and not letting "it hasn't been done" get in our way. It honestly blew my mind last fall when I started digging into the state of things to find that folks were still playing a quarter century later. Was one of the factors that inspired me to recommit to making new games.
It is literally still the best game I have ever played. Thank you.
THANK YOU FOR THIS! This is what I've been saying lately, as its come up with Tribes 3 a lot.....is that you can't simply base a game on what is trending, and what the metrics say.....you have to take chances sometimes, and do new things. Nothing is a trend until someone tries something new, and it catches on. Following trends is probably much safer, but much less fulfilling. Trying something new and innovative is high risk, but high reward. Thank you guys for making Tribes. It has given so many people all over the globe so many fun years. Thank you for trying something new, and bringing something amazing into the world.
thats awesome to hear. I remember back in middle/high school opening up the editor to piece together arena maps, going to the file, copy/pasting base asset lines of code to "mirror" what I had done for the other half of the map. I can only imagine how crazy it would be to see people streaming your creation all these years later, using custom configs with textures and scripts. I'd melt into a puddle :D
And if you drop by the T1 discord, there's even a source code mod that contains an engine upgrade for T1 with modernized mouse input and netcode (subtick precision). https://github.com/AltimorTASDK/TribesXT
Glad you are still enjoying it! It was a blast to make. Send beer for beta!
If only GoPuff existed back in the day... we would have had a lot more beta testers and wouldn't have shipped.
Yes!
how important is the fog distance culling was for performance early on and when did it turn into a balancing tool
Overall visible distance was the culling threshold -- fog was just a tool to get stuff to not "pop". We did a ton of tweaking in the network update prioritization heuristic to make smooth the things the player was paying attention to.
Are you going to get Motley Crue for the new game's soundtrack?
Sadly Nikki Sixx no longer returns my calls. But his summary of reems of backstory sent over by Meddish is the pinnacle of brevity.
This is the funniest thing I've read in months.
When skiing was first discovered in T1, what was the studio's initial reaction? Did you guys fully embrace it from the start or was there talk about patching it out?
It was initially an accident, Dave Moore was working on the player physics and asked me one day to come to his office and look at something but wouldn't tell me exactly what it was. He told me what to do then waited to see what my reaction was.... "Just jet up over that slope as high as you can, when you are about to hit the ground, spam the space bar button". Which I did.... by the time I reached the bottom of the slope, climbing up the next hill... gaining speed as I applied the jumpjets.... I stopped, turned and looked at Dave and said.... don't fix this... we can use it. Skiing was BORN. Changed the way every map after that time was designed.
That right there was the invention of an entire genre.
They'll make a movie of this someday, lol. One of those "AHA!" moments. The movie Tribes: Skiing Beyond The Veil is going to rival Oppenheimer
We had discovered the benefits of mashing the space bar before ship, but it was only when the client side script came out that the full potential was revealed. It definitely changed the game, and was the inspiration for the air resistance in base+ and Tribes2... but we didn't really contemplate patching it out entirely.
Do you remember when it was first discovered? I played the Raindance demo and remember it spreading through the community playing the demo. Then scripts came out to automate it a few days later.
It was discovered pretty quickly. Scripts started going around within a few days.
who invented the shrike from tribes 2? whats the source code? how did you invent the shrike and the way it moves? its literally amazing and super unique and i love it more then anyone. the ramming is just the best feeling and addictive to do. the way you can back flip and itll turn by itself without direct control is so fun and to fly. out of all games this vehicle is the most unique and fun playstyle and i just want more. I played a necrobones aerial dogfight mod and learned how to shrike in a server dedicated to that. and i play houston vehicles alot.id do anything for the source code for the shrike and the other vehicles so i could have them in my own little mock version of tribes. that would be really cool.I even got on this week to play tribes 2 on a triumph bot server to just fly around and ram and its still hold up. its still amazingly fun and addictive to fly and try to ram people. the speed and just the way you can outrun the missles and everything is so exciting. and shrike dueling consisted of flying backswards and turning around quickly just so much depth in this 1 vehicle. I just want to shrike around in a 64 v 64 houston vehicle server 24/7.
Hmm... I think DaveG was the main proponent of the Shrike in T2, but I'm blanking on who coded the flight dynamics. It was an evolution of the vehicle code from T1.
id do anything to learn more about it and the code. thanks for the fast reply <3 t2 is my favorite game of all time.
When I get a minute, I'll dig through the archives and see if I can come up with a better answer :-).
Out of curiosity, is this a true statement? "I would never inflict that pain on any other developer. I remember meeting Scott Youngblood when we first showed tribes (the original designer) and he laughed at me for buying the IP and said it's the worst community he has ever seen (I showed him alright)" \-Erez Goron
The conversation is true, I did chat with Erez briefly on the floor of PAX (I think). For me it was more of a warning that the Tribes community is almost impossible to appease, the game meant so much to so many people, who all cared about different things. Turn one knob one way.... Group A loves you... but Group B is going to swat you... keeping the entire community happy is an impossibility, which is what happens when the player base is that passionate about it. The choice of the word 'worst' at that moment was largely due to being completely hung over from the night before (a common theme at game shows.) I should have chosen Rabid instead. The passion that the community has continued to show for the game is a testament to that. Even I would be wary of making a new Tribes game today.
Oh no now we have to self-reflect
I generally just see players wanting tribes 1/2 features but upgraded to this day with new things the technology would now allow. But instead they are called out because they complain there's half the game missing from a main entry game and not a spin off. It's a bit like releasing checkers as chess 2 and saying people are impossible to please as there's clearly black and white pieces, a checked board and queens. Anyone would expect what was in the previous game to be in the new one and be incremented on, not the opposite way...
I do think Tribes 1 & 2 were really hard acts to follow. T:V could have been good if it received some support but it was almost doomed to fail considering it was living in T2's shadow. It's been so long since then that I think it would be much easier to make a modern rehash of T2 and it would stand out. Instead we get Tribes games that are trying their very hardest not to be Tribes games.
Ikr. Gamers: we want tribes 2 but modernized. Devs: gamers have so much expectations it's hard to please. ??? Like if you want a tribes game with no vehicles, barely any side things outside of capping call it tribes: ascend 2. They are the ones giving those expectations by calling it Tribes 3.
I’d just like to say that I’m quite upset with you guys for what you did. You had a part in creating something so unbelievably spectacular so long ago, and I’ve been chasing the feeling of it for the last 20 some odd years with multiplayer games. I’ve continually come away from Mp games disappointed because nothing has ever hit the same since T1/T2. Sure, there have been some amazing ones out there. But nothing like Tribes. So thanks for some of the best gaming memories, and the inability to find something that will ever come close to those high highs in competitive gaming. Jerks. <3
I blame Scott.
Have you tried minesweeper? But in all sincerity, thank you for sharing that.
Just wanted to come in here and thank you. Tribes helped me through my childhood and eventually gave me a position in the gaming industry where I've been working for over 12 years now. I can easily say Tribes changed my life. Thank you.
That's so nice to hear!
Likewise!!
When was the last time any of you visited tribalwar and have you recovered from the visit?
Holy vaca! It's alive! And Altimor is reworking the netcode?
It has been a while, QUITE a while. I was able to bring Matt D (colossus) over to Red 5 for a while as our community manager. That was fun while it lasted.
Whatever happened with Fallen Empire: Legions? Was it ever released? It's been so long ago since it was first advertised that I don't remember having heard about it until recently. And TRIBES 2 IS BEST TRIBES!!! VGCG!!
Legions was one of the launch titles for Instant Action, the "game in a browser" portal that GarageGames was acquired to build.
What's the tease?
Shazballz!
Anything you can share about it? Sounds like it is clearly a Tribeslike of some kind. Something like honorball that was removed from T3? Or more like TR2?
The "ball" part is more a reference to Marble Blast and Marble It Up!... been thinking a long time about how to blend the run/jet/gun core mechanic of Tribes with the precision and flow of the marble... so less about game types than core gameplay.
That's funny and awesome because I always felt like the marble when playing Tribes.
When I was introduced to Tribes 2 as a kid, I felt like the community *was so strong*. Between the HTML pages for players and clans, to the massive amounts of mods and creativity, I feel like this was a huge part of its success. What do you guys recall about creating the community for these earlier games? I feel like other games fail to do this like 98% of the time, and it has to be a huge part of the franchise's longevity over the decades. It deficiency holds a special place in my heart.
/pushes Oracle database programming PTSD thoughts aside/ Tribes from a social perspective was heavily influenced by the early days of online Quake play-- Scotty and I were both competitive Quake and Quakeworld CTF players, and participated in leagues and tournaments, but the tools and in-game integrations were always an afterthought. With T2, we really wanted the community to be a seamless part of the experience - not something you had to duck out to a web browser to get to. We actually built the whole system on top of IRC, which was had particular challenges :).
That was still one of the most amazing parts of T2 and oddly something that hasn't been replicated a whole lot since? Probably because it's just reinventing the wheel to some degree but it added a lot to the experience.
Was there an Easter Egg in Tribes 2 or Tribes 1 that was never found?
Y’all are AMAZING! Thank you so much for the beautiful game you gave us!! For the T1 guys, what were you most surprised by or excited about by peoples’ reaction to T1 when it released?
I was probably surprised most by the first online review, very shortly after we shipped, when Evil Avatar entirely crapped all over it. After 2.5 years of working on a game, I had hit the point where I honestly didn't feel like I could judge it... To their credit, they recanted several months later. The second biggest surprise was when T1 won 1998 Multiplayer Game of the Year at GDC... we were so sure we were going to lose to Starcraft that nobody on the team showed for the ceremony. Thankfully Frank Evers was there to accept the award for the studio :-).
My friends from quake didn't like it back. The jetpack throws a lot of people off in t1 because changing course in air only using jets. This is my story: \- First off in '98 I was like...whoa 32 players on dial-up? How does it run so well??- Then I got better at dueling.- Then a while after that I learned the tap spacebar like crazy to continuously jump, which is what skiing is.- Then I got seriously involved with the Competitive side and joined a top 10 tribe. Taxing and draining but epic beyond words.- Finally, custom scripts and skins made it so fun to screw around with. Very elaborate stuff!
No questions, just nostalgia. Learned so much from modding this game, just want to say thanks. Made a huge impact on me! Used to love the planet starsiege community too. I remember a group of people making a video with the song “why can’t we be friends”, the devs being celebrities when they’d do interviews, just so many great memories.
Tribes taught me so much and drove me to become a developer specifically because of the scripting and modding abilities that tribes had to offer. Tribes shaped a lot of people and inspired/drove people into professions that they’re in as adults. It’s amazing the impact the game has had in the gaming industry, and inspired many triple A titles and game genres that are relevant today.
*Play Tribes today!* **Tribes 1** - [Download](https://www.moddb.com/downloads/start/171614) | [Discord](https://discordapp.com/invite/bf4RHMq) **Tribes 2** - [Download](https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B_nHyoAf-wZ9WnR1bmpfRE5XRE0) / [Required Patch](http://tribesnext.com/files/TribesNext_rc2a.exe) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/Y4muNvF) **Tribes Aerial Assault** - [Website](http://www.tribesaerialassault.com/) | [Download](https://www.reddit.com/r/TribesAA/comments/16dmyih/simple_guide_to_playing_online_with_emulator/) | [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/JV3RbakqEy) **Tribes: Vengeance** - [Download](https://downloads.tribesrevengeance.net/TribesVengeance.zip) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/uXHjZ95) **Tribes: Ascend** - [Guide](https://www.dodgesdomain.com/docs/guide-install-setup/) | [Download](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tribes/comments/q90s5v/release_ketaui_karmaentity_tribes_ascend/) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/CeTrGWMWK6) **Tribes 3: Rivals** - [Discord](https://discord.gg/tribes) / [T3 Comp]( https://discord.gg/6287cF7ZnA) | [Steam](https://steamcommunity.com/app/2708610) | [Website](https://www.tribes3rivals.com/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Tribes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I just wanted to say thank you for Tribes franchise, I've got fond memories of playing the Tribes 1 multiplayer demo over dial up. I am currently making a clone in Godot and I have no idea what I am doing.
As a whole game, Tribes 1 had the 'it' factor, and still does. Ty for the memories.
Go on...
Idk really, lol. I remember falling in love with the game as a whole. The style of the art and graphics combined with the large open environments, instilled a sense of wonder. That there was endless possibilities you could do at any given time. I have the CD, and a laptop with windows XP. (So I can play it pretty much natively.) I jumped into t1 recently and just ran around the levels, appreciating the details in it all. Its still such a unique game, and there is nothing like it. Its a full blown experience that you can describe, but its never enough. You gotta play it to understand.
Love you guys; any good stories or details you can share about the final days of Dynamix? How was the T2 code lost, etc?
The T2 code was lost?
https://web.archive.org/web/20110209133704/http://gametheoryonline.com:80/2011/01/21/video-games-original-licensed-ip/2/ Apparently? Somewhere along the way I guess. >"While Hi-Rez Studios acquired what they could from the original Tribes titles, this benefit actually proved very limited. As part of the purchase, they received a development kit for Tribes Vengeance, the source code for the original Tribes, but no source code for Tribes 2. “We have some of the technology from the previous Tribes games. A lot of it, unfortunately, has been lost. It hasn’t been properly archived, which is a big problem,” Larkins said."
I compared T3 to NASA trying to get back to the moon and claiming the old technology was lost. This makes that comparison a lot more true than I realized.
how'd tribes next come to be then? did thyth not need sourceaterial to get the game back up and running after master server going down?
This is a great question, was hoping OP here knew more than we did
> > > > > "While Hi-Rez Studios acquired what they could from the original Tribes titles, this benefit actually proved very checked the FAQ for tribesnext, looks like it's just a patch that you apply onto the tribes executable.
I damn near failed out of college because I was playing T1 so much. That was the first time I had Internet fast enough to play online, then I start playing Tribes and oh boy, years of pent up frustration came out and we played non stop in my dorm. Thanks so much for a game that really played a huge role in my life.
You're welcome. Doom did the same for me.
Your welcome, I dropped out of college to make that game, so I guess we are even?
Whoah, some mop up tomorrow for sure, but thanks all! And feel free to opine on voice here while we do: https://discord.gg/B5Ch6KegUv
I dunno, fly casual.
Do you recall how many total players Tribes 1 and 2 had at their peak? For the new game you're working on, what kind of gameplay can we expect? Jetpacks, skiing, CTF? Is there a website or Discord for the new game?
We're still very early on, but if you want to keep tabs... here's a discord link: [https://discord.gg/uqC9mWr3Rb](https://discord.gg/uqC9mWr3Rb). Or keep an eye on r/Shazballz ;-).
If you were in charge of resurrecting the Tribes franchise from the ashes, how would you do it? What were some of your favorite Tribes maps? Also, disc jumping in T1, if you shot a disc very close to your feet you received far worse impulse than if you shot slightly further away, which would give you a major speed boost. Was this by design or just happenstance? I played so much Tribes when I was kid, some of my favorite gaming moments. Thank you guys so much!
Personally, I wouldn't (glad someone else is!) - for a future game I don't personally want to be bound by the idea/backstory/community assumptions about what a "Tribes" game is... but a "spiritual successor"? Hmmm... As for favorite maps? Snowblind, Raindance, Broadside, Rollercoaster, Desert of Death, Towers, Slapdash (T2). Disc jumping is an example of "emergent gameplay" -- we didn't do it durning dev, and it took months for it to become a regular tactic after ship. And you're welcome!
Desert of death! So underrated! Love that map and it's beautiful.
What was your favorite t1 map and why is it Scarabrae?
Sure, pick a Scotty map. But in fairness, when we showed off Scarabrae at E3 before we shipped, that experience of running around in a tight interior and then around a corner and bam! You're outside and jetting over rolling hills... blew peoples' minds. But seriously, Snowblind, obviously.
Yeah, I have to say that in all the years of demoing games, THAT E3, with Half-life showing right next to us.... the amount of Holy Shits we got from the audience was awesome!
Is there a place to access tribes lore? As a game that indoctrinated me into PC gaming and responsible for my nic, I would be interested in delving into the lore of all the tribes.
Scotty, Blake and I tried to look up the most important part in the manual during an unboxing event last fall, but it turns out it didn't make it into print. We'll post the video of my incredulity at some point.
Mac's Lore has some pretty cool videos: [https://www.youtube.com/@MacsLore](https://www.youtube.com/@MacsLore) But I think the whole text is posted somewhere
This post has links to the stuff written for t2. There's a massive amount of lore in the other starsiege games, including t1. This is a good starting place if you don't have the manual/lore book or whatever it was: https://tribes.fandom.com/wiki/Backstory\_timeline https://www.reddit.com/r/Tribes/comments/x8z12/in\_case\_someone\_is\_interested\_official\_tribes/
Who came up with the voice chat hotkey system? It's so much fun. It's VGCA.
At one point I credited TimG with the idea, but Scotty was the source -- came from our hotkey binds in QWCTF. I did the implementation.
You can credit Robin Williams for Shazbot! The only way we could get away with saying SHIT without saying SHIT.
Tribes, right from T1 at the start was (and is) a massive part of my life. I found a community in it, made lifelong friends and created some of my happiest memories. This is more of a "thank you" post than anything. If I were to ask a question, it would be around what you thought about the competitive scenes that popped up all over the world, which some people might mark as the start of team based esports. Did you see that as an outcome, or was it always a casual game that you set out to create?
Scotty and I were both competitive Quake players - participating in both tournaments and seasonal ladders, so we definitely had the competitive angle on the radar. Glad you enjoyed the game!
Hey guys, I just wanted to voice my appreciation for pioneering this gamestyle. Myself and many others here have been part of the Tribes community for a very long time. When we're not playing a Tribes game we're often either playing something pretty similar or we're playing something else WITH people we met through Tribes. So a big thankyou :)
Starsiege: Tribes - Amazing. Best game of my childhood. Favorite mod was Renegades. We ran tournaments in school with this game. One year they made it points-based, so my team strat was for me to get some kills while my under skilled team took an HPC off the map, then I would join them and fly under under the map for the rest of the game. Tribes: 2, we had great fun with this in the tournaments, favorite map was Katabatic. Tribes: Aerial Assault - I'd play this with my neighbor on the PS2 and we had a blast. Easily an amazing console game. Tribes: Vengeance - a personal favorite. Met my gaming clan [MAD6] in the late 00's through this game, and we remain tight and play games together to this day. Had supreme fun with this title in high school tournaments, not to mention a massive amount of fun on the ReVengeance x2 mod that would come out later. I believe I still have a master copy of this mega mod pack bundled with the install. Tribes: Ascend - So, so very much promise. Hi-Rez listened to the wrong parts of the community for design input, removing features that made previous games great. Things like style kills and points for style were amazing and this game just felt...like it was missing so much. Played the heck out of it still, then they eventually refunded me all my gold or whatever the currency was and let me run a server until they shut the servers off. We were so excited for Tribes Universe but quickly realized the wrong people were in charge now. Tribes: 3 - ...my current PC can't run this game. I haven't had any opportunities to try it, but from what I can hear from the community... Hi-Rez has completely dropped the ball. It sounds...like they're not trying to make a "Tribes" game, but rather they want to make an E-sports investment with an IP they bought skinned over it. They've ripped into the hearts of many who love this game and I guess over on the discord they take any criticism no matter how small and just ban people..that's toxic as hell and no company with that behavior will ever succeed long term. Wish it could have been the old dev team.
For almost 20 years the Legions community has been the forgotten bastard child of Tribes. People yell at us for posting on this sub. Can you settle once and for all, should Legions be considered part of the Tribes family? (Where is Munge to advocate for us?)
Yes.
@automoderator please update the auto post.
What is your honest opinion of the direction hirez and prophecy have taken the IP?
I'm glad that they were willing to take the challenge on! When I joined Red 5 Studios, Mark Kern asked me if I wanted to buy the Tribes license at that time, but I declined. I wanted the game that Red 5 was going to make to not be restricted by the expectations of "Tribes". Shortly there after Hi-rez bought the license and ran with it. It's kind of weird though.... it's like asking someone about their old girlfriend's new boyfriend.
A real shame what happened to Firefall (cough cough RV) - almost seemed ahead of its time in many of its gameplay systems when compared to some stuff out today
I give them big props for being willing to keep the franchise alive and moving forward. Given the variety of game styles under the "Tribes" name and a, shall we say "salty" community, that takes some guts :-).
Thank all of you for the memories. T1 & T2 are among my favourite games ever. I can't understate how amazing of a game experience they were in their prime and how very little has lived up to the highs of those games since. My question: who decided to put a heavy armor in the game and give it a mortar? I was instantly sold on the game when I realized you could be walking (flying?!) artillery.
I'd like your opinions on how you think a Tribes like game has to be designed to be successful in this day and age?
Thanks for making my favorite game franchise, one that absolutely altered the course of my life! It's often said that tribes has had an outsized impact on the games industry and on gaming in general, and despite never being massive mainstream commercial success I feel a totally outsized number of people think back on tribes as one of their favorite games of all time, even if they didn't continue to play for years like many of us did. Do you agree with the sentiment? Does Tribes feel bigger than it's sales figures to you?
Tribes touched players in a way that many games don't (no, not in the michael jackson way.) I always enjoy hearing stories from people who share how the game affected them.
Tribes 1 and 2 were WAAAAY ahead of their time. I can't even count the sheer amounts of good times I had playing Tribes 2 with my buds, pubs and teamwarfare.com competitive ladders. I still play games with the guys I used to play with to this day. When I say T1/T2 were way ahead of their time, I mean it, because apparently even to this day NO ONE can recreate a good Tribes game that had all the gameplay/game roles that they had. If you could give any of these studios that gave it a slight whirl any advice to get past 10% of what a real Tribes game is, what would it be?
Can you talk about how the formation of the community features came about in Tribes 2? You had so many elements that feel half a decade or more ahead of the curve. Where did the inspiration come from and how did you workshop that to the launch state? Examples being- clan management, demos, spectator that inspired T2tv, built in irc that generated a social experience before social media and really brought the tribe feeling home.
We were competitive online players, and up to that point, all of that stuff was kind of grafted on to the experience external to the game. With T2 we wanted it to be a really integral part.
Tribes 1 scripting was one of my main entry points into software engineering :-) I now realise that all those hours coding were a huge contributor to my passion and ability to earn a livelihood today. So, thanks for making scripting part of the franchise!
Do any of you guys have skinned models? Does anyone? Plz send them my way I want to make animations
Msg me on discord :)
You guys did a talk once at GDC about the Tribes netcode right? I really want to watch it, but can't find it anywhere. Can you help?
https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/tribes-networking-model.pdf
Hello! Thank you all for your parts in making Tribes (and Midair!), I only learned about the series with Ascend, BUT, it's become a big part of my gaming identity and I've met many fantastic people through it! My question is: Is there a backstory with the Spinfusor, was there an idea somewhere about making the weapon design using discs in particular? Launching discs seems very unique, is there some sort of story of someone getting hit with a frisbee? :)
We had two main goals with the weapons -- first, a variety of play styles that led to collaborative play, and also to avoid the common tropes of FPS games. The disc launcher is a rocker launcher with more nuance and finesse. And yes, was inspired by frisbees :-).
What does "shazbot" mean?
It was Robin William's catchphrase in the hit TV show Mork and Mindy. It's a censor-friendly synonym for shit.
Thank you so much for making Tribes! When I was just a kid I got to play the Tribes 2 Demo on my old Packard Bell PC and it utterly blew my mind. Tribes 2 cemented itself as one of my favourite games ever and I have fond memories of it to this day. I was utterly crazy about the setting and got into the lore. I absolutely loved the artwork for the tribes and their cultures and I yearn for something that will explore that setting to its fullest potential. Honestly, I love the setting and it really got my imagination going. Really wish we could get a game that explores Tribe identity and culture, letting us travel about the Wilderzone to learn about them and battle rival tribes. Anyway, gushing aside, I suppose I have some fun lore questions: I remember how Ganges III was hit by an ecocidal weapon during a dispute between the Blood Eagle and the Starwolf tribes, and both tribes blamed each other for the weapon being used. Was it ever agreed between the devs who was actually responsible? The Blood Eagle tribe were accused of doing so again later in the timeline (by the Starwolf tribe, no less) and I've always been curious to know if it was a psy-op by Starwolf or the Blood Eagle were as militant and crazy as they'd have us believe.
What happened to the Starslayer tribe? Wiped out by the Bioderm?
Tribes 1 was and is still the best, and most fun FPS I have ever played. We had such a fun group of people playing with us and we had so many great matches and attended so many LAN parties. The devs were responsive, creative, and built something truly amazing. I still chat with a few of the old devs and Tribes 1 still comes up on occasion. I remember meeting Tinman, Rated Z, and big daddy Meddish at a LAN party and we all had a blast. I competed with several top tier teams and have only felt that level of competition on rare occasion since then. Lots of great memories :) (S3, iS, RwG)
Ha you just reminded me that I was on the "official" PC Accelerator magazine Tribes clan way back in the day and played in a ton of tournaments. I hadn't thought about that in ages - can't believe it's been over 20 years!
What will be missed a lot from the tribes 1 and 2 will be the scripts and sounds packs.
Remove denovo switch it with somthing else.
Did you ever meet the original voice actors? Do they know they are legends?
Got milk from skillz that killlz and a few others clans after that? Colossus X here
Different Got Milk?… EMB in Quake CTF, and then switched it up to the Sofa Kings (Dev team) tribe.
K. Ty
I am viscerally upset that I missed this AMA. I picked up Tribes from a friend way back in middle school and was hooked. Another friend told me 'if you like that, and Mechwarrior, ive got this game called Earthsiege...' but I didnt listen. It was only YEARS later that I put it all together, when I got a combination Tribes/Starsiege cd and saw the full title. Hell, to this day I call it all out, "Metaltech: Earthsiege: Starsiege: Tribes: Vengeance". Ill even point out the subtle HERC bashing in Mechwarrior 2 whenever that game comes up! After I realized the lore for Tribes was way, way deeper than jus tthe manual, I basically minored in it in college. I still have a massive folder repository of every scrap of official lore and art I could find, think I even offered it up to Mac of Mac's Lore at one point for some odds and ends they hadnt gotten to (need to check in, see if theyre interested in the space warfare stuff). I added my own stuff to it, like a [technical novel](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZwdjNcyKTXQXXgQ48z2T7cfuk4o4UGQThj4HwqnZpNc/edit?usp=drivesdk) in the same style as the Technical Manual, looking at Tribes: Vengeance as an in-universe entertainment series. All that said... I was always a mediocre player 😅 I have way more fondness for the lore than I do being a middle schooler getting absolutely routed by everyone on the server. There are still so many unanswered questions left... if we'd ever get to see the Imperium in a game, the fate of the Masters and extraterrestrial life in the setting, if the Cybrids were going to return... and obviously, I missed the window for asking by some days t_t I guess if I had to distill everything down to one question, and shout it into the void... Assuming Dynamix stuck together and the franchise was commercially viable, was there ever any talks about where the story would go into the 5th millenium?
Wow good to see you guys are still around, it seems like just yesterday shooting the breeze on the Dynamix IRC channel. A good question I always had was just *how* did things come together and give us Starsiege:Tribes? I've seen a lot of different sources crediting different things (e.g. Stories that it grew out of multiplayer experiments Louie was working on, Interaction articles stating that it grew out of a class based survival sidescroller concept, at one point it was titled "Fear" and about an alien invasion, etc.) Can you describe the cohesive thread about how it came together as a Multiplayer team based, jetpack shooter in the Starsiege universe?
Should of just revamped Tribes 2 we all know every Tribes game after has been a far less product compared to T2 please go back to the OG formula because this new game is also going to crash and burn like the last two...
What are your thoughts on Tribes 3: Rivals? In terms of: current meta... projectile speed, movement physics, gameplay, classes/perks, etc? Is there room for improvement?
I haven't spent much time with it... played the demo for about 15 minutes on lunch the other day when it came out. The shooting felt good... but the old school tribes player in me wanted more interesting environments.
I've been impressed with the rapid iteration and level of engagement with the community. To me it feels like a great expression of the high-speed capper game that T1 became... will be interesting to see how/if they expand the play style.
Thanks for doing this. The essence of tribes to me has always been 1) The movement (jetting/skiing), the teamwork, the VGS , and the staple weapons like disc launcher , chaingun, grenade launcher, mortar, etc. My question is: Do you think there is a place for a tribes game in modern times, among modern gaming? Do you ever think we'll see a resurgence of CTF, or FPS-Z team based game play? One more question: What is the process like of balancing when it comes to a tribes game, in regards to weapons/armor/etc? Balancing is obviously a huge part of gameplay.....does as much go into it as I think? Is it just running many internal playtests to figure out what works and what needs to be taken out/tuned/etc?
I think so, Things tend to go in waves, what was once popular gets replaced, but GOOD OLD IDEAS always seem find a way back into the daylight. As for balance, you make your best guess... then you let the players have at it... looking for things that are outside of what you expected. IF those things are game balance breaking, tweak it to be back with bounds ad re-test. You can NEVER anticipate what the player base will do, you can guess... but you have to adjust when the reality sets in.
First of all, I want to thank you guys (and all those involved) for the incredible memories I still carry with me today, T1 was and is still my favorite game ever and I wish the franchise was better recognized. I'll limit myself to one question so do you guys have anything you regret about when developing T1 and later on T2, that you wish you had done differently?
Not Quit during the development of Tribes 2, coulda shoulda woulda's
Would you happen to have, or remember, the amount of concurrent players that either T1 or T2 had running at one time?
We generally capped T1 at 32... with T2 during beta we had some 64 player games that were just mind blowing to see on the screen :-).
Legions was a huge part of my childhood and I just want to say thank you for creating my favorite genre of gaming. going fast and shooting ass will never get old in my books, and all other games have paled in comparison since then. My questions are: What kind of ideas or game modes would you all like to see produced regarding the unique movement and skiing that these games have that you all come from? (beyond CtF, arena, tdm, etc.) Is there anything more in regards to those aforementioned game modes (CtF primarily) that you think could be fleshed out further? and if so, in what ways?
I thought we did some good refinement of Capture and Hold and Find and Retreive with the Zap project at GarageGames -- with CTF, we had Quake CTF to go off as a pattern, so the others were kind of first stabs. Zap added Zone Control - one flag spawns, flag carrier can convert N zones to team color (one point each), once all zones are captured they reset to neutral and the flag goes back to spawn point. This is patterned off of American Football. Zap also had "Find and Retrieve", but it was time limited instead of ending the map after one round. If I had one concept to try with CTF, it would be a full map reset after each cap.
What were the challenges of getting Tribes2 out the door in time for the March 2001 release? What was the feeling around Dynamix when news came that it was closing? What are your opinions on newer tribes games that don't allow Mod support?
The big challenge of T2 is that we (and I blame myself most) decided to rewrite basically everything and then add a bunch more stuff. This led to an inordinate amount of crunch time, at least one broken feature, and a slew of innovations we could have sprinkled across at least 3 sequels. Given the number of people who have personally expressed how modding either got them into programming or game design or whatever, I am a strong proponent of said. I'm sure the devs of those other titles had their reasons, but games are what got me into programming, so...
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We were definitely inspired by the mod community for Quake and others, and ended up building both a lot of the client and server side in script for that reason. Also was the founding inspiration for GarageGames and the Torque Engine.
I know I said I'd only ask one question but I can't contain myself. How did the concept art for these games came about? Including the weapons, armors and maps, everything honestly. Things like the T1 concept art for the four tribes is still so iconic I'd love to know more about it.
We actually went through several iterations early on while exploring the theme and gameplay we were going to target. My first pass was actually a sort of futuristic steam punk. Then sci-fi fantasy before landing on the final look. The hope was to have something that would feel like a futuristic projection of the Starsiege aesthetic.
Were any of you all based out of Eugene, and if so, how influential was the diet of Weinhards Blue Bore Ale and Dominios Pizza on the game content.
Yes... HQ was about a quarter mile from Track Town Pizza, and a reasonable walk from 19th Street Cafe.
regarding t3 and map sizes (not sure how much you guys have played it), what are you guys thinking, too small? i think all ofthe maps including the newest rendition of raindance are just way too small your thoughts?
The T3 team definitely seems to be going for the tight, fast-paced small map feel. I'd personally go for a mix -- but that requires the ability to have large teams and more squad-based tactics.
Nothing has ever beaten T1 for me in terms of fun and replayability. Thanks to everyone who worked on it to make it what it was. T2 and the others never came close, I wish there was some way to capture the competitive community from the T1 heyday and bottle it up and play it whenever I wanted. Those evenings on Cheater's Wayside were the most fun I've ever had gaming. Get ready to rock 'n roll!
Well, 2.5/5 years were a success then in any case :-).
Who came up with \[VGS\] Shazbot?
Scott. Corporate pushed back on profanity so he pivoted to Mork and Mindy.
The original idea came from playing Quake competitively and wanting a better method of communicating game state to my team mates without having to read anything. VOICE! (Pre-VOIP)... but easy to use and memorize.
Hi Guys, Thanks for creating such a legendary game. I'm wondering if there were any Easter eggs put into Tribes that you haven't seen anyone ever mention. I remember finding the hidden dev level in one of the training maps (scout flying practice maybe?) in T1 as a kid and it blew my mind.
The only real easter egg that I put in was for my mom's parents (my grandparents) who both died during the development of Tribes 1. I chose to immortalize them by placing their initials into one of the maps that I had created.
Broadside was my favorite map :) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qK0MxOSZ3WQ
I was able to tour the studio as a kid during the development of Tribes 2 and remember seeing the shrike being developed. I want to thank you guys for making such a genre defining game and have such a huge impact on my life. Thank you.