Massively reports that Global Agenda developer Hi-Rez Studios has acquired the rights to the
TRIBES franchise, which is still beloved for its innovative first-person jetpack-powered teamplay. They point to an announcement about this on the
Global Agenda Forums revealing development of a project called
Tribes Universe, though registration is required just to view the post. Here's word:
While working through the design we kept coming back to one old and loved game that represented many of the concepts we where incorporating into the new game (Jetpacks, vehicles, large open space, three armor types, futuristic weapons, etc). Many of you will know this game as Tribes, the original on-line multiplayer shooter. As of now, HiRez Studios is the proud new owner of the Tribes franchise.
We now have two groups in the studio, one working on continuing to build Global Agenda and a new group working on the Tribes Universe project. We are also moving to a new larger office space in another month that will help us accommodate our growth.
I’m sure many of you have questions, so here are a few quick highlights for Tribes Universe:
* Three Tribes (factions)
* Full clan (agency) support
* First person view (third person for some vehicles)
* Full vehicle support (ground and air)
* Full persistent world with territory control (no instances)
* PvP focused
* Huge outdoor maps (about 10x the area of sonoran desert)
* Large scale fights (100+ players)
* Jetpacks, skiing, lots of weapons, etc
Alpha testing will begin at the start of the year (about 3 months from now) and Global Agenda players with level 50 characters will have priority in entering Alpha and Beta testing
Thanks for your support
Erez.
P.S. More information on Tribes Universe will be coming in the near future along with an Alpha/Beta registration web site."
Though it should have been obvious, we were not initially aware that yesterday's flood of YouTube clips were from the streaming coverage, so we'll hold off on further such clips until we're sure they are legitimate.
Here's Valve's list of the top 10 bestselling games on
Steam for the past week:
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Medal of Honor
- Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
- Call of Duty: Black Ops
- Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Cities XL 2011
- ArcaniA – Gothic 4
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Counter-Strike: Source
We already considered ourselves lucky to have a very good southeastern-style BBQ a couple of minutes away, especially since our village is so small there are not that many restaurants, and some more common food varieties are not represented at all. But we didn't know just how BBQ-blessed we really are until yesterday when we hit the jackpot in our visit to the
RoundUp Smoked BBQ Restaurant, which is all of 20 minutes away. As they note, this places it about an hour north of Manhattan, but it also seems to be some sort of portal directly into the heart of Texas, with some of the finest wood-smoked BBQ I've ever had, regardless of relationship to the Mason-Dixon Line. We had beef ribs, chicken, and some incredible brisket, as well as smoked chicken wings that were mind-boggling. As for authentic atmosphere, the dining area had picnic tables and beer in an ice chest in the middle of the room, and your food is served in Styrofoam trays from a trailer through a window. We'll nose around for the back story at some future visit, but we presume this all came straight from Texas, as the owner's accent and hospitality were just as authentic as the food. It's not readily apparent what would motivate someone to bring such a bounty to a bunch of Yankees, but I'm not looking a gift steer in the mouth.
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