Well VU effed the Tribes franchise soo damn bad, a complete idiotic missed opportunity. Maybe someone like Epic, Ubisoft whoever may get smart and aquire the franchise from those idiots. (although I wish we could get garage Games to do it on their TSE). These companies have no fucking clue how many dormant Tribes players have been waiting for the ulitmate sequel. TV was a piece of shit and an emabarrasing portrayal of a tribes game to the public.

Maybe the Unreal 3 engine will provide all those things Torque can do easily in terms of netcode and handling large terrain and large numbers of players, but I doubt it. Its going to be a lot of eye candy in a box. A slightly bigger box. And it will cringe and lag to hell with more than 15 players.

If someone put together a community of Tribes 1 players, I would sign up and leave all this eye candy CRAP that's out now behind.

Problem is we need a new game to bring back the masses of dormant Tribes players and VU has the franchise locked up. Maybe UT3 will be capable enough to handle a Tribes MOD...it hurts to say that. Hell Id take MS owning the franchise over VU. Valve was smart to seperate themselves from VU.
This comment was edited on May 14, 05:06.

If someone put together a community of Tribes 1 players, I would sign up and leave all this eye candy CRAP that's out now behind.

I have to say, I probably would, too. Of course, it would be somewhat of a waste of the $300 videocard I just bought. Oh well, at least I'd finally have decent frame rates!

" if your doing a movie, you pick a big actor who may get paid 100 times more than an unknown actor that may be just as talented and better for the role"

And with that, I think Rob perfectly summed up why 90% of Hollywood movies are crap.

As to the buy out: it's quite simple. Think up all the good things of the buyout you can, add 'em up, and /that/ is the reason(s) Epic bought Reality. Not one singly, but all of 'em combined, of course. They get good talent, they eliminate competitors, they buy done R&D, all in one sweet package.

Is it a good thing? Yes and no, IMO. Good in that UE3 gets better tech...we get games which have been dev'd with a better engine, so we get (potentially) nicer looking games.
Downside is we do get more look-alike games. An engine makes for a certain lockin, unless you re-write the renderer, re-do stock shaders, faff about with the animation engine, spend lots of time on the particle effects etc etc etc...and that all takes lots of time which is also expensive.
Another downside: we'll see less games. Reality engine was cheaper than UE, which meant more studios could afford it. Now it's gone and that means more expensive engines (except Torque and maybe OGRE, but I dunno if that's suitable for AAA titles yet) are all that's left...so less startup studios can afford to buy a good/pretty engine, which means we get less games. Which is a shame.

God... remember when you played light armor and you could blast up into the clouds and just come down hard on some unsuspecting enemy while raining disks down in front of you?

This may sound silly, but I think at some point, unless games get better gameplay, people are going to start going retro. Shit I would. If someone put together a community of Tribes 1 players, I would sign up and leave all this eye candy CRAP that's out now behind. Same goes with Quake 2. I'm just fed up. Sure I would still buy the new games and play them, but I would love a good solid game to call my home online. Right now I jump from game to game because none of them keep my attention for any length of time.

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...i am still inside here. a little bit comes bleeding through... -nin

I agree prez. Besides the early days when I was playing Quake 1/2 Threewave CTF WAY WAY TOO MUCH, Tribes was the best time I ever had gaming. I was in a Tribe named Western Alliance where we all used our City and State as our names. We were a top Tribe for a long while. When T2 came out we sorta faded. T2 was a cool game, very well done, but they kinda hosed the start up of it with all the problems it had right out of the box. Killed the momentum for a lot of people.

When I heard about Tribes:V i was really hoping for something special. When I heard it was going on the Unreal engine, I knew I wouldn't like it. Still, I gave it a chance and it felt like an arcade game, sort like what id did to Quake with Quake 3. I don't feel like im actually out doors in that game. Feels like a big fake ass arena.

I don't care what anyone says. To this day I believe that Tribes required skill beyond anything else that has been put out in the FPS genre. By the time you were doing mid-air disks regularly, you were a mad man. The whole dynamic of tribes with the jetpack battle was just awesome. It took me back to Quake 1/2 grappling hook days where I use to own countless people while grappling through the air. It took a while to master the timing, but you could be untouchable once you worked it out.

These days I have found that I can walk into ANY and I do mean ANY FPS game, and own it after a full day's session. Once I learn the weapons, timing and maps, I put the spank on. To me it's kind of sad. I mean in a game like tribes you could get really good, but with all the wide open areas there were always new routes, and ways to sneak the flag back home. Now it's all predictable.

Someone should either mod this new crapper Tribes:V that's out now, or just make a Tribes knock off. Use the jetpack, and just have a ball shooter instead of the disk so you don't get busted for stealing IP. The rest of the weapons were pretty standard anyway.

Like I said before, this has nothing to do with me being stuck in the past. It has everything to do with how freaking FUN the gameplay was.

Some other game company needs to explore the jetpack idea. When it comes down to it, this added dimension in battle was one of the things that made Tribes great (as did the grappling hook in early Quake CTF). Shit all these guys steal each other's ideas on a regular basis, I don't know why they should ignore the jetpack.

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...i am still inside here. a little bit comes bleeding through... -nin

God I miss tribes. Just good old, no bullshit tribes. It was the first and only game that I ever played where the gameplay was so fun, I didn't give a shit that it had horrible graphics.

Every time Tribes is mentioned, I cringe. I loved Starsiege: Tribes so much that I continually put up with extreme lag issues and constant disconnections on my 56k modem to keep playing. No amount of aggravation made me want to stop. I wanted to love Tribes 2 but the system specs put the game out of my reach for too long. I really want to love Tribes:Vengeance, but ... well, everone here knows the story. But what if a community mod team went ahead and released an unofficial update making it more like Tribes 1? That would be ...awesome.

I frankly don't care what engine is used anymore... it's time for the GAMEPLAY to improve.

Truer words were never spoken. I salute you, sir!

Is it wrong to eat a whole bag of chocolate covered espresso beans?

If you don't like sleeping much, nah it's fine.

Creston

So Epic contractually committed to develop and support the RealityEngine for existing licensees

Artificial Studios will continue the support obligations, not Epic, hence the wording of the press release.

I am sure that would be more comforting for them if they had it in writing

Again, existing license agreements are contractually safe, as any licensees who read their paperwork will be aware. The licensor, whether Epic or Artificial Studios, cannot terminate the agreements.

We explicitly covered this in the purchase paperwork.

So Epic contractually committed to develop and support the RealityEngine for existing licensees? And, if so, for how long? That press release does not state or even imply that. As a matter of fact it implies the opposite, i.e. "Epic does not intend to continue sales, development, or support of the Reality Engine" and emphasizes migration to Unreal Engine 3.

Epic don't want Reality licensees suing them for breach of contract.

Epic can't breach the contract by changing or terminating it if its terms allowed the licensor to do that.

current licensees are completely covered and they have nothing to worry about.

With business being business, I am sure that would be more comforting for them if they had it in writing, i.e. a new license agreement or contract between them and Epic with an obligation of development and support for a definite amount of time.

This is not the place to discuss business matters

Epic sent out that press release to this website. I'd say It is definitely appropriate to discuss its contents and implications here.

This comment was edited on May 13, 07:11.

Most software license agreements allow the licensor (which is now Epic) to terminate or change the terms of the license at any time

We explicitly covered this in the purchase paperwork. Epic cannot do this, nor do they want to - Epic don't want Reality licensees suing them for breach of contract. This is not the place to discuss business matters, but current licensees are completely covered and they have nothing to worry about.

Epic has purchased the Reality Engine outright, including intellectual property rights, trademarks, and copyrights.

If I were a RealityEngine licensee, I would go back and read the license agreement. Most software license agreements allow the licensor (which is now Epic) to terminate or change the terms of the license at any time.

A verbal assurance or even one posted on a website does not a legal agreement make. I wouldn't build my game upon a piece of licensed software which isn't contractually obligated to be around and supported when my game actually ships.

This comment was edited on May 13, 04:31.

WOW, I had no idea Dynamix became GG. That kicks ass. They must be one of the few groups on the planet that know how to make a FUN game. Too bad they don't own Tribes any more. No hopes for a Tribes:Resurrection

I freaking REFUSE to play the new one. Tried out the demo and damn it was retarded.

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i am still in side here. a little bit comes bleeding through.

Tribes was pretty advanced for its time and really evolved gameplay in MP video games. So many of these friggin games are only now treading in gameplay areas where Tribes existed several years ago. (I godamn hate Vivendi). Keep the faith, Garage Games is Dynamix and their TSE on Torque is going to shock a lot of peeps and bring goodness to the indie developer. Unreal 3 engine will be overpriced that we know, and overhyped

This comment was edited on May 13, 03:26.

God I miss tribes. Just good old, no bullshit tribes. It was the first and only game that I ever played where the gameplay was so fun, I didn't give a shit that it had horrible graphics.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the game should evolve. It didn't evolve though, it was simply killed. The asshats at VU had no idea what made they game fun. They turned it into an arcade abomination using the unreal 2 cartoon engine.

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i am still in side here. a little bit comes bleeding through.

Gee, I wonder if there are any engines like that out there...

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=961

lol you read my mind. Torques the best thing ever, but it doesnt have the big commercial name and VU has killed Tribes.

This comment was edited on May 13, 03:15.

The only good news, i guess, is that some indie developers managed to get it before the buyout. There are actually quite a few of us licensees lurking about, and i know some of the games in progress have some pretty sweet art and ideas behind them. So gamers will get a chance to experience the engine, and applied in several different genres to boot.

Sigh. I guess that's my glass-half-full.

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Pandora Studios programmer
http://www.pandora-studios.com

(deleted because someone else also answered it below)

This comment was edited on May 13, 01:50.

Giving this guy perhaps $1M for the engine and a $100k/year (perhaps more?) is a lot cheaper than losing 5 licensees to him, for instance.

You hit the nail on the head.

For independent developers, it certainly sucks that the RealityEngine is no longer available because the Unreal 3 Engine is simply way out of reach financially.

..from all I'm reading is that one of the better but less expensive engines has been taken out of the market. So who this really hurts is smaller devs, and people who might be willing to take a chance on an innovative title if they don't have to shell out a million bucks for the engine.

Pity.

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Carpe Papilla

Gee, I wonder if there are any engines like that out there...

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=961