Do you actually believe it will be much different on public servers?
Yup. Having played both T1 and T2 for years, I know for a fact that pubs get better over time. Logic supports this. As time goes on, players get better, not only in terms of skill, but also in terms of organization. They understand the importance of sticking to roles and balancing out a team. If you have a pub consisting entirely of veteran players, you can have a good game. If you play on a pub consisting primarily of nubs (as in the current pubs of T:V), you won't have a good game.
And if someone writes that there is so much flaming and bashing going on I doubt it very seriously that any T1 vets are involved since we all know T1 vets are pretty mature now (they didnt even start flaming or bashing in a game at any time back when I played it, compared to half-life or so which almost everytime had at least someone who started to insult because he got owned all the time).
Err, you seriously should visit Tribalwar. You'd be hard-pressed to find any T1 vet that disliked T:V. On the other hand, you'd find lots of T2 players that hate it.
The game as it is is extremely simple (or dumbed down).
On what basis are you making this claim? Really, look at the fundamentals:
1) In T1, nobody used sensor jammers, jammer packs, etc. Vehicles were entirely useless. The core gameplay remains the same in T:V.
2) In T2, there were a lot of gadgets. If you base your argument solely on quantity alone, then yes, T:V is dumbed down. If you base it on quality, then no, T:V isn't dumbed down. The Det Pack, Cloak Pack, etc of T2 were all cheap and gimmicky. They did nothing to improve the core gameplay (which is why T2 flopped and the vast majority of vets stopped playing it). Sure, you could switch turrets, but lets look at those for a moment: You have the mortar turret, which kills your teammates more than your enemies. You have the AA turret, which was put in to counter the overpowered vehicles. You have the plasma turret, which is overpowered. You have the rocket turret, which forces players to carry flares all the time. And you have the ELF turret, which is just annoying.
Now, let's look at T2 grenades: Sure, there were a lot of them. You had your flashbangs, your concussions, your flares, and your standard hand grenades. Unfortunately, the only ones that people carried were the flares, since every medium and heavy carried the missile launcher (not to mention the abundance of rocket turrets).
Now, let's look at T2 vehicles. To say that they dumbed down the game is an understatement. In T1, players had to discover and master cap routes. In T2, they just had to hop in a Shrike and use its momentum to cap. The Bomber was possibly the most annoying vehicle in the game, as enemies could hover thousands of meters above your base (beyond the range of your sensors) and spam it with bombs. The only way to take them out was to get in a Shrike and fly up to them. The Tank was no better. Aside from being a spam machine, the Tank could also just sit on the flag, chaining/running over cappers. This = dumbing down flag defense. Oh, and an MPB was almost always parked next to the flag, meaning that cappers and HO were given yet another reason to carry flares.
Bottom line, T2 was almost entirely defense-oriented. From the overpowered turrets to the maze-like bases and nerfed physics, T2 forced offensive players to use teamwork. In T:V, it's the opposite. It is much, much harder to defend in T:V due to the grappler, open bases, manually-controlled turrets, etc. As a result of all of this, I find that the people who complain the most about T:V are the offensive players who are accustomed to the overpowered defenses of T2.
Now do you see why T1 vets tend to like T:V and T2 vets don't? T:V does away with all the cheap and gimmicky aspects of T2. Instead, it focuses on the core fundamentals of T1. Speed, combat and teamwork. The only way you could say T:V is dumbed down is if you liked T2.
This comment was edited on Sep 17, 19:41.