[Zacam]

http://tribesascend.com/

TotalBiscuit's Video Review

Currently in a Closed Beta, but will be Free-to-Play. Internal purchases can be achieved by game play as well as by actual purchase.

This has me stoked. I still love and play Tribes 2 (and Tribes: Source is balls) and while it is probably a little different in some aspects that Tribal nuts might not like, it A: Beats the pants off of Vengeance (easy to do) and B: It's not Yet-Another-Modern-FPS.

I'm seriously going to find some way to get into the VIP Purchase segment for this game. The $29.99 USD they are asking for is looking damn reasonable for everything that it offers to a player.

[Commander Zane]

Tribe 2-styled air vehicles?!

****. yes.

[BloodEagle]

Now all we need is a construction mod. 

[Polpolion]

I still play Tribes 2 as well. Shame there's only one decent unmodded server left.

I'm not a fan of the unlocks. Not a fan at all.

[Beskargam]

So playing the beta. pretty fun so far. very addicting. cant customize loadouts much. and skill trees seem kinda, well not that useful. to minor. only played tribes vengeance however so i cant really compare it to the rest. its not as hard to pick up as i thought it would be.

[Zacam]

Well, anyone that get's the ability to "invite" people, I'm eagerly awaiting giving this a shot (don't have a credit card or paypal account anymore or I'd have already sprung the $30).

I'm already on the forums and what not as Zacam for anybody to message me there.

[Zacam]

Okay, so now I'm in the beta.

Rabbit really needs more than just two maps. Hell, in general it just needs more maps, but that will come in time (I hope).

I can see some peoples gripes with the unlocks and progression stuff. Used to be you could quick profile a slot load for a class and just swap as needed at an Inventory station.
But on the other hand, this is a little more challenging in some respects. I can't count how many times in Tribes 2 I got nailed by a super fast light with a mortar of all things.

And being able to upgrade a particular class (or transfer XP earned in one class to another to unlock stuff there, THAT is an awesome feature, let's you pre-build a class before you play it) it is relatively balanced.
Being the "new guy" I've already gone up against people who have unlocked upgrades AND classes I don't have yet, I can still hold my own (I did 3 Rabbit rounds being first to flag and never losing it. In a row)

Still getting used to the speed mechanics for skiing. It helped to realize that Jump and Jetpack are actually two different things and giving them a bind apiece helped. Can't say that I dig Toggle Ski, could be useful in some places, but I haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Note, ski into a slope up, but don't ski UP the slope, use jump hopefully before you lose too much speed and then jetpack/jump spurt to conserve forward momentum AND keep yourself from burning too much jetpack energy. Unless you're aiming for gaining air to build ski speed, but that opens you up for Sabre's.

Directional momentum in this one is a *****. Especially if you have a lot of speed going a direction and get diverted by terrain, you can burn off either a lot of energy or speed trying to correct for it. Recommendation: Don't. If the terrain allows for a relative to where you are going direction, aim for something else that you can pin-ball/jump+ski off of instead to correct your course. This will also have the benefit of throwing any target leading being done to you by your opponents.

Still haven't gone for Deathmatch or CTF yet, mostly just Roaming and a LOT of rabbit (I'm actually starting to get good at killing my pursuers, but that's not the objective!) and I have to say, Tribes 2 it is not. But I swear to christ that people that think it's CoD with Jumpjets need to be punch in places where it will REALLY hurt.

Beskargam: Thanks for the PM, but after posting my message (and before your PM) I actually got a key from an old room-mate/co-worker of mine, so you can pass that one along to somebody else, but MANY thanks for the offer!

[Polpolion]

Any more details, Zacam (or anyone that has played it)? Is it worth the $30 to pre-order?

[Beskargam]

i PRE-ORDERED and loved it. they introduced a third map into CTF which so far remains my favorite game style. you really dont even have to play CTF in that mode. you can just kill pople, repair stuff or blow up the enemies base. the update they just released does some nice things as well. spin fusors have a bit more splash and you can earn more credits and experience which helps because before it was a trickle. i keep getting killed by soldiers whenever i go lighter or heavier, though I'm finding the pathfinder to be a blast to play.

Polpolion: If you have the 30$ to spend and nothing better then go for it. If you want to try it first PM me and Ill send you a beta key

edit: hehe tribes is what I am doing now at 3:53 AM instead of writing a paper lol

[FireSpawn]

Iz just CoD wiv jetpakz!
Trolololol

[Polpolion]

Thanks, Beskargam!

My 2 cents so far:

Played one round, taking a brake to savor my k/d ratio of eight. That never happened in T2, not even when I'd just snipe all day. Hopefully I'm just not playing at the right time because this game could get a little boring. 

Anyway, all of the hitscan (pistol, etc) weapons seem to be overpowered just because it takes zero skill the hit the enemy. Kinda wish suit energy regenerated faster, I think that would speed things up a good deal.

I do enjoy combat more than T:V, though. I think this game will easily beat T:V's multi, even with the lack of customization.

[Commander Zane]

Played one round, taking a brake to savor my k/d ratio of eight.

And you didn't get banned?

I was banned from from a CTF server on Vengeance without warning because A: My K/D score was 37:2, and B: I was catching the flag most of the time and always taking back to base by riding along the very edge of the map where they never looked.

They simply were not good players at all for someone who can't get a single kill on UT or BF to steamroll them without effort.

[Beskargam]

It gets really competative at certain times. Its definantly harder in the evenings. or it is here for me at least. other times people who are on arent the greatest. and then its really fun to kill people. pathfinder is amazing. I think Ive revised my opinion of the skill tree thingy. its changes the gameplay very slightly but enough to be noticeable. as for the hitscan weapons, Im absolutly terrible with them for the most part. spinfusor and things with aoe ftw!and i really want the doomguard or w/e. the one with the chaingun.

what name are you playing with?

[QuantumDelta]

You have no idea how much I want this game to be Tribes2-2.. :<

[Zacam]

I have to disagree with the "hitscan" weapons being too powerful. I'm running ranger balls out, and kills are pretty much NOT guaranteed unless I soften up with a Thumper first. Could be that maybe I still need to dial in the sensitivity on my mouse, or that I just suck with the AR, it actually took me this long to stop -leading- with the AR, because really, that's what I'm used to doing and I think that is really the biggest complaint. The people *****ing about them are probably leading (and probably subconsciously and they think they're not), meanwhile the real heavy CoD style players already have it down, so it just -seems- like it's OverPowered in their hands.

I'm not doing too badly for myself though. It's been a while since I last did Tribes in any serious competitive fashion and a few years since I last fired up T2, so the fact that I'm pretty solidly in the middle of the score board on CTF and still pretty much owning at Rabbit makes me happy. Team DeathMatch though is just a fustercluck that I keep getting raped on.

[Polpolion]

Well if you're looking for a game like Tribes 2 then I can safely say that this game isn't what you're looking for. It's still a really fun game though. I'll just continue to enjoy killing all of the people that actually paid money for their special classes.

[qazwsx]

So, yeah, I recently started playing a LOT of this game, for those who haven't played in a while, the class system has been revamped and all XP and gold refunded so that you can spend it how you want. Classes can be bought relatively cheaply, 3-4 evenings of play will be enough for each class, upgrades for weapons/armour are cheap, basic ones can be bought for 1000XP, which can easily be achieved in 2 games. Alternative weapons however are incredibly expensive, 100,000XP each in most cases, so I expect most people will spend their gold there.
In terms of weapon balance, the amount of hitscan weapons has been dramaticly reduced, off the top of my head, I think only one standard weapon is hitscan, that one being the sentinel's sniper rifle.

[QuantumDelta]

Meh, the sniper rifle was always hitscan and should continue to be, it'd be bloody hard to snipe from the kind of ranges that tribes requires without it.. *though far from impossible.

Got into the beta since my last post and HOLYCRAPIT'SFUN.
It's no Tribes 2, but it's the closest in the franchise so far.

[Beskargam]

The reworked class system is much better. Pretty fun overall. I dragooned my roomate into playing it and now hes addicted. A lot of the alternate weapons add versatility to the classes and I look forward to more work in that direction.

[Polpolion]

Are there more than 4 CTF maps yet? Haven't installed it yet on my new rig but I probably will if there's new maps.