Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time. –eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee– (more…)
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
–eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee–
So often the bleeding edge of games tech, yet so often fundamentally the same underneath: there’s a reason we can’t get enough of pretend shooting pretend people in their pretend faces. It is a pure test of skill and reflex, a game about movement at least as much as it is about v
So often the bleeding edge of games tech, yet so often fundamentally the same underneath: there’s a reason we can’t get enough of pretend shooting pretend people in their pretend faces. It is a pure test of skill and reflex, a game about movement at least as much as it is about violence, and done right it is absolutely delightful. And hey, sometimes you get a decent gimmick or story thrown into the mix.
These are our favourite 50 first-person shooters on PC, from 1993-2017. Your favourite is at number 51.
Eleven months after Tribes: Ascend unexpectedly received the ‘Out of the Blue’ update , reviving development on the superfast multiplayer FPS, here comes ‘Parting Gifts’. Update 1.4 is now out and seems to be the end for this fleeting reinvigoration. 1.4 is less flashy than some
Eleven months after Tribes: Ascend [official site] unexpectedly received the ‘Out of the Blue’ update, reviving development on the superfast multiplayer FPS, here comes ‘Parting Gifts’. Update 1.4 is now out and seems to be the end for this fleeting reinvigoration. 1.4 is less flashy than some of the recent patches, mostly bringing one last set of balance tweaks and bug fixes. You’re a big boy now, Tribes: Ascend.
The brilliantly weird, and largely unintuitive, Tribes: Ascend has endured a chequered past. It s on-off-on again legacy mirrors that of an afternoon soap opera romance having been brought back from the edge of extinction in late December last year via its first update in two yea
The brilliantly weird, and largely unintuitive, Tribes: Ascend has endured a chequered past. It s on-off-on again legacy mirrors that of an afternoon soap opera romance having been brought back from the edge of extinction in late December last year via its first update in two years however its latest update, named Parting Gifts, marks its curtain call.
We caught up with developer Hi-Rez following last year s rejuvenating patch 1.1, where the studio told us its mismanagement of Tribes: Ascend was like death by a thousand cuts . The latest appropriately-named update brings the game to version 1.4 and signals the end of the line.
Full patch notes which include tweaks to gameplay, equipment and vehicles, among other things can be located over here, and a pretty comprehensive weapons statistics spreadsheet can be perused this way.
In conversation with Chris at the start of this year, Tribes creative director Sean McBride who was a member of the original team that pushed for Hi-Rez to acquire the license in the first place spoke of how relaunching in 2015 was more about steadying the ship, not necessarily about turning profit.
We all know that player counts are not going to be super high, he said about the game s diminished community The intention is to at least stretch it out over a longer tail, so, if we do need to leave it, we ll have a planned date, so we can make sure everything s in order. We didn t do that last time. It was like we all need to go onto Smite, right now.
Over on Reddit, it seems the community, what s left of it, is already making peace with the fact Tribes: Ascend is no more. One user, Regginator12 , sums up his or her feeling thusly: This game was so good while it lasted, such a wasted opportunity, I ve never seen such a high speed FPS since with huge maps and no hitscan. RIP.
Following the publication of this story, we changed the original headline, "Tribes: Ascend is no more" to better reflect the fact that Tribes: Ascend is still playable and available. Patch 1.4 is simply the final official update for the game. Ed.
Hi-Rez Studios stopped updating Tribes: Ascend in 2013 as they shifted focus to their MOBA Smite , but they have recently returned to the free-to-play jetpacking FPS. Following December’s ‘Out of the Blue’ update and another patch in January, last night Hi-Rez released version 1.
Hi-Rez Studios stopped updating Tribes: Ascend [official site] in 2013 as they shifted focus to their MOBA Smite, but they have recently returned to the free-to-play jetpacking FPS. Following December’s ‘Out of the Blue’ update and another patch in January, last night Hi-Rez released version 1.3. This latest update has brought more balance tweaks and a new map named Hellfire.
Back in December, the free-to-play FPS Tribes: Ascend was updated for the first time in two years , shortly after which developer Hi-Rez Studios talked to us about how it had screwed up the game, and more importantly, what it was doing to try to bring it back . The December patch
Back in December, the free-to-play FPS Tribes: Ascend was updated for the first time in two years, shortly after which developer Hi-Rez Studios talked to us about how it had screwed up the game, and more importantly, what it was doing to try to bring it back. The December patch was a small step forward for the hardcore guys that stuck around, but Creative Director Sean McBride said that more was on the way. Apparently, he wasn't kidding.
The Tribes: Ascend 1.3 patch adds the new Hellfire map for CTF and Blitz modes, increases the votekick percentage from 35 to 45 percent, changes ammo pickup heals to 400 hp across all armor types, and, by community request, removes the Blueshift map from rotations, although it will still be available to play on custom servers.
Changes have also been made to equipment and vehicles, some of them quite dramatic: All automatic weapons have had RNG-based spread removed in favor of skill-based precision—you hit what you aim at, in other words, and miss what you don't—and Thrown Disk damage has been nearly halved, from 600 points to 350; the direct hit multiplier has been increased, however, from 1.5 to 2. Naturally, the update also includes some bug fixes and network optimizations designed to improve the game's performance.
It's not a huge patch but it's fairly extensive for a four-year-old game. What makes it interesting, though, is the fact that it exists at all. Tribes: Ascend doesn't have the worst Steam player numbers I've ever seen, but it's still in pretty dire shape. It enjoyed a nice bump in December thanks to the release of the patch, but quickly settled back into a sub-150 average player count. (Update: As a couple of folks have pointed out, Tribes: Ascend is available outside of Steam using its own launcher, so that's not the total user count. Even so, I think it's a fair reflection of the game's relatively tiny audience.) Those are numbers a studio might understandably be tempted to walk away from (especially when compared to Hi Rez's other game, Smite, which drew nearly 11,000 average players over the past 30 days), and so the fact that it's hanging in there is actually kind of impressive. I hope it works out.
Gameplay Hellfire is now available to play for CTF and Blitz and has been added to all appropriate server map rotations. Votekick percentage increased to 45%, up from 35% Changed votekick message to include player who initiated the votekick. "Vote by : kick ?" Ammo pickups now yi
March NA Draft Information Date & Time The draft will be on March 12th/13th; picking will start at 4PM EDT on the 12th. Group stages will start at ~5PM EDT. For the teams that make it to Day 2 (13th) the games will begin at 5PM EDT. Sign-ups Make sure you confirm your registr
Date & Time
The draft will be on March 12th/13th; picking will start at 4PM EDT on the 12th.
Group stages will start at ~5PM EDT.
For the teams that make it to Day 2 (13th) the games will begin at 5PM EDT.
Sign-ups
Make sure you confirm your registration by Saturday, March 12th, 12PM-4PM EDT otherwise you will not be picked.
Subject to change until the 4th
All matches will be best of 3
The group stages(day 1) will have predetermined maps, with the playoff maps being chosen by the teams with the following process:
Arx
Kata
DX
Raindance
Terminus
What is a newblood workshop? Teaching new players how to play PUGs (7v7 with coms), run routes, as well as how to fight enemies and so on.There will be Mentors for each specific role. If you are just curious about the event and arent ready to try out the workshop you are more tha
Teaching new players how to play PUGs (7v7 with coms), run routes, as well as how to fight enemies and so on.There will be Mentors for each specific role. If you are just curious about the event and arent ready to try out the workshop you are more than welcome to just watch. The workshop will be streamed on the official Tribes Ascend twitch channel
There is no level requirement, just install mumble and join us on the newblood channel at 8:30CET Having a microphone is strongly recommended.
shazbot.eu mumble
mumble.shazbot.eu
30033
If you are new or afraid to participate because of your accent, bad english, or your level: Fear not this is a class to learn and become a better player we want the experiance to be enjoyable and fun.
If you have any questions,concerns or comment, please do so here
There will be a draft tournament happening on the 27th and 28th of February 2016 Sign up here For more information please go to
There will be a draft tournament happening on the 27th and 28th of February 2016
For more information please go to http://www.ocedraft.com/
Tribes: Ascend is receiving another update this evening. Patch 1.2 will bring sweeping balance changes to the gotta-go-fast jetpack FPS, increasing heavy armour there, reducing blast radii here, making it so pressing ‘Q’ selects your previously held weapon, that sort of thing. Th
Tribes: Ascend [official site] is receiving another update this evening. Patch 1.2 will bring sweeping balance changes to the gotta-go-fast jetpack FPS, increasing heavy armour there, reducing blast radii here, making it so pressing ‘Q’ selects your previously held weapon, that sort of thing. There’s a full list of changes in this Google Doc and a chart of new weapon values in this here spreadsheet.
We will be upgrading Tribes starting Thursday, January 28th 2016, at 10:00 AM EST(5:00 PM CEST) Expected downtime will be around 3 hours. Skin prices have been reduced to 480 gold per skin. Equipment Changes Heavy Armor Increased mass by 7% Decreased initial jetpack impulse by 25
Skin prices have been reduced to 480 gold per skin.
Equipment Changes
Vehicles
Gameplay
Draft date: 23-24 January 2016 Signups now open Head over to tribesschedule.com and sign up for the January 2016 Draft Event. Introduction to the website and how to sign up here: done by Flagician the IT magician Check-ins will open Saturday 23 January at 8 am and close at 4pm Ce
Head over to tribesschedule.com and sign up for the January 2016 Draft Event.
Introduction to the website and how to sign up here: https://imgur.com/a/8SBTA done by Flagician the IT magician
Check-ins will open Saturday 23 January at 8 am and close at 4pm Central European Time (CET). After check-ins are closed, the captains will begin picking the teams. Games will hopefully start at 5 pm.
What are check-ins? A check-in is a confirmation that you will be present for the tournament. By signing up you just state that you might/will be there unless something happens. When you check-in you commit to being in the EU mumble in time for games to start.
Captains
Check that captain box when you signup. While it is true that not many people enjoy captaining, without you the draft does not happen. So be a good sandraker/butcher and lead your team to victory.
Tournament Format
Sadly we cannot provide you with a proper schedule. Why? Because this can only be done once we know how many teams can be formed with the players attending. And this is impossible to know until draft day.
That said, here are the scenarios:
In all of the above cases, the top 4 (or top2 of each group) will advance to the knockout stage, which will consist of semifinals and a final.
It is a bit different with 4 teams. In that case we will do the following:
Schedules for all of this scenarios will be premade and the proper one will be put in a reddit post on draft day while picking happens.
In all of these scenarios, even the last placed team will play 4 - 6 maps while it not being too exhausting as a format. We'll try to space the schedule properly so players can catch a breather in between games.
One thing I would like to hear from you lot: Currently the Final is set to be a bo3 if we have 5 teams or more. Would you prefer it to be a bo5?
Mappool
Arx Novena, Katabatic, Dangerous Crossing, Drydock, Raindance, Terminus and Ice Coaster
There was much deliberation for choosing a mappool. As pretty much every Tribes player seems to despise all maps bar 3 or 4. So pleasing everybody here is a gargantuan task.
The reasoning behind our picks is rather straightforward: Arx, Kata & DX are the golden trio (even if DX can be pretty polarizing). They are the most played maps in pugs for a reason. Drydock and Raindance are tested maps that favour a different playstyle. Drydock makes cluster play more viable while Raindance rewards offense & capper synergy. Terminus and Ice Coaster are included because they are new and fresh. Plus it wouldn't be an Out of the Blue tournament without Out of the Blue maps.
Do you already hate the entire mappool bar 3 - 4 maps? Do not fret! You will be able to ban them in the knockout stage of the draft. Here is how:
Map ban process:
For this tournament we would like to ditch the old map ban process and try something new. You are probably familiar with it if you follow CS:GO.
Previously, the captains would ban one map each and then remove maps until one was left. Then, the loser of the map would pick the next one (couldn't picked the 2 maps that were banned at the start)
The new system is the following: Captains ban 1 map each, then pick one map each. Then, captains ban 1 map each again and the remaining one will be the last map of the bo3.
For the semifinals, the seeded (as in, the team that placed higher in the group stage) team will be the one banning first. For the final, an admin will flip a coin to determine who bans first.
This system is only for the knockout stage. In the group stage, maps will be pre-determined.
Tournament Rules
Gameplay rules
This is basically the current EU Pugs ruleset. If the upcoming patch happens to drop before the tournament and changes any of these items to the point that they aren't a problem anymore, we will consider unbanning them. On the same note, if this upcoming patch breaks something horribly, we can make a last second adjustment to ban it. Let's hope that is not needed.
Things looked so good for Tribes Ascend when it was released in early 2012. Wonderful, breath-clutching games of chicken happen along the z-axis in Tribes: Ascend, wrote Evan Lahti in our review. We loved it. We played it. But it needed love from its developer, too—bug fixes, new
Things looked so good for Tribes Ascend when it was released in early 2012. Wonderful, breath-clutching games of chicken happen along the z-axis in Tribes: Ascend, wrote Evan Lahti in our review. We loved it. We played it. But it needed love from its developer, too—bug fixes, new maps, tweaks to make it more fun, major changes to the F2P economy. Instead of getting better with patches and updates, Tribes: Ascend got worse. A year later, it was all but abandoned by Hi-Rez Studios, which moved on to its now-successful MOBA Smite. All but a few players were gone, too, and the ones who stayed were angry and bitter.
On the Origin of Tribes
Before Tribes Ascend, Hi-Rez prototyped a Tribes MMO called Tribes Universe. They already had the resources for an MMO thanks to Global Agenda. But it wasn't a good fit (thanks to the high-speed skiing Tribes is known for).
Tribes Ascend started life as an Xbox Live title. When Quake Live flopped, Microsoft cautioned against an Xbox release. Hi-Rez shifted to PC and F2P partway through development. That's when they split light/medium/heavy into nine classes.
Now, out of the blue—the apt name for Tribes: Ascend s first patch since 2013—Hi-Rez has returned to the game to fix its many, many missteps. It s a small team, and they don t expect to make money off the game. But they may be able to make things right.
We made a lot of mistakes in a lot of different places, creative director Sean McBride told me on a recent trip to Hi-Rez. Pricing definitely was off. Way too expensive in the beginning. Both for XP, our earned currency in the game, and gold. And money was just one of Tribes: Ascend s problems, which McBride talked candidly about. It was a refreshing conversation—you rarely hear developers so openly talk about everything they did wrong.
It s death by a thousand cuts, right? McBride said. In the early days, Hi-Rez patched Tribes, but the patches were bad. Weapon releases bloated the game. So he s ditching those. Ascend s perk system included some overpowered abilities and some worthless ones. So they re getting rid of it. Everything was too expensive, so they re refunding every player the gold they spent to re-buy weapons and equipment as they please.
We re pulling back on a lot of the patches we did post-launch, he said. They had tons of weapons in them. At the time our numbers always bumped up when we had patches with weapons on them. People come back for new content. But it wasn t quality content at all. We were just scrambling to get content in the game, and we had this tiny team. So we created variants of the weapons, basically. And they were useful variants, it wasn t like they were just junk. But it bloated the game.
"It's death by a thousand cuts, right?"
One example: The Jackal, a triple-round burst sticky grenade launcher. Unlike the rest of Tribes: Ascend s weapons, you could detonate it in the air whenever you wanted. That made it a lot of fun—and completely broken in the hands of better players. It wasn t designed to be pay to win, but it ended up being pay to win. Because people are better at your game than you are.
Surprisingly, even at the height of Tribes: Ascend s development, it was being handled by a very small team. I think at our biggest we were like 15, but it didn t stay at 15 for very long, said McBride. It was a passion project from the beginning. I think there were many weeks where I pulled over 100 hours just to try to get Tribes done. That wasn t just me. That was people I was working with as well.
Hi-Rez was a much greener studio at the time, and in a way the positive reviews and buzz for Tribes proved to be its undoing. We didn t really listen to the community, McBride said. Once the high scores rolled in...PC Gamer gave it Editor s Choice, and we got a couple 10s and a bunch of nines and a few eights. We did pretty well on the scores. I think at the time we were very resistant to changing the game. We were like, people like it, it scored really well. It wasn t until the numbers started to fall that we really would consider even changing it. There was a big resistance to listening to feedback from the community, which wasn t the right call.
Another tactical error: releasing Tribes a mere month before Diablo III. McBride remembers being worried that the older PC playerbase, which had played the original Diablo and Tribes in the late 90s, would leave Ascend for Diablo.
As soon as Diablo came out our numbers tanked and we never recovered from those numbers, he said. That definitely wasn t the reason we didn t take off. We were already starting to dip, but once you lose the players it s hard to get them back.
As Tribes floundered, Hi-Rez moved what remained of its small team to work on Smite. Two years later, Hi-Rez has ballooned from a studio of around 50 to more than 200 on the back of Smite. That s given them the resources to dedicate a small three-person team to Tribes, with programming and art resources occasionally borrowed from other teams, even if the game can t turn a profit. When McBride took charge of Tribes a few months ago, he dug through forums, reddit posts, and old Youtube videos to assemble a massive list of changes the game needed. There was, as he expected, a lot of hate.
But I listened to what the competitive community wanted, and all of it made sense, he said. It was a lot of the things we were already saying internally. Which is usually the case. We see the game first and look at it and are like, these things are screwed up.
Last week, after a few months of experimenting with the community on a public test server, Hi-Rez released the first new patch in two years, and a lot has been changed. The nine classes have been condensed into light, medium and heavy. The loadout system has been revamped and everything has been rebalanced. Perks were removed and distributed among the armor classes. The hitbox toggling cheat was finally addressed. There are three new maps and fewer useless weapons.
The out of the blue patch isn t a funeral dirge for Tribes, either. McBride said another patch will follow. His hope is to see a bump in player numbers, but he doesn t know if they ll stick around. That s partly why we re experimenting with game modes right now, he said. If we bring back the middle core player, the people who really loved the game but didn t stick around for very long, if they come back around and there s nothing really that new, like a new game mode that is a very different experience, they re probably going to drop out again after about a month.
But this patch, at least, is not concerned with players who might come back and dabble. It s for the hardcore guys that stuck around, he said. There was some concern that the hardcore guys were going to want things that made the game a lot harder. A bad experience for new players. I found that to not be the case at all. They actually wanted things that made it a little easier. They weren t asking directly for things to make it easier, but what they were asking for made it a little easier.
Since its patch, Tribes: Ascend hasn t seen a big enough uptick in players to settle into Steam s top 100 most-played games, but it has grown (and not all of its players launch the game through Steam). I myself, am loving the abundance of players...the return of old players, and of course, the acquisition of new ones, wrote one player on the Tribes subreddit. There is no denying that T:A has seen a dramatic surge in popularity since the launch of Out Of the Blue. The new wave of players has undoubtedly brought both optimism and hope to a subreddit that was previously full of wry humor, bitter sarcasm, and dwindling creativity. While I do not expect this second breath to last forever, I do plan on riding this wave as far as it can take us, wrote another.
The community seems energized—and hungry for more updates, which Hi-Rez says are on the way. For now, people are finally playing Tribes again.
Hi-Rez Studios gave up on Tribes Ascend for a couple of years, but a few months back made the unexpected announcement that they we working on a big ole update for their F2P jetpacking FPS. And they did release it! The ‘Out of the Blue’ update (or version 1.1, if you have no roman
Hi-Rez Studios gave up on Tribes Ascend [official site] for a couple of years, but a few months back made the unexpected announcement that they we working on a big ole update for their F2P jetpacking FPS. And they did release it! The ‘Out of the Blue’ update (or version 1.1, if you have no romance in your heart – if you wouldn’t pash with a plasma rifle) arrived last week, with new maps, new weapons, exploit fixes, and a whole hovershedload of balance tweaks.
… [visit site to read more]
Hello Tribes fans, and welcome to the patch overview for the Out of the Blue patch. With the new "Out of the Blue" patch, we wanted to bring back classic elements from older Tribes games, while not alienating Tribes: Ascend fans. This patch is a return to form that will better sp
With the new "Out of the Blue" patch, we wanted to bring back classic elements from older Tribes games, while not alienating Tribes: Ascend fans. This patch is a return to form that will better spiritually align Tribes:Ascend with the series in addition to fixing many longstanding quality of life issues in the game.
An all new map named Terminus has been added to the game. This map is based on well received Tribes:Ascend maps Katabatic and Arx Novena. Two new legacy inspired maps Perdition, based on the T2 classic Damnation, and Ice coaster, based on the T1 classic Rollercoaster are also now available.
We have removed Classes in favor of the classic 3 armor types. Light, Medium, and Heavy. That, by popular request, may carry additional weapons for the classic Spinfusor, Chaingun, Grenade launcher gameplay. With the removal of classes and the addition of extra weapon slots Tribes:Ascend now allows more flexibility than ever in both outfitting your character and playing a role that you enjoy.
Character outfitting has been redesigned. Players now pick 1 weapon from weapon classes to eliminate annoying or broken weapon combinations. In addition to those weapons that offered little to no unique gameplay have been removed from the game to streamline and simplify choices while equipping. New weapons have been added such as the Flak Cannon, and some classic weapons return such as the ELF Projector. Finally, all weapons have been rebalanced and refined based on community feedback.
We have increased weapon impulse, rebalanced weapons, vehicles, and base assets. Tribes:Ascend is faster, more refined, and more balanced than ever before. All of this has been made possible by excellent feedback from you, the Tribes community, across multiple PTS server cycles. A huge thank you to everyone that helped us out with our public testing.
These large changes may have you worried about your past purchases. Due to the dramatic changes to the underlying game, all in-game purchases have been reverted. What a well placed sound effect. That’s right, all Tribes Gold and XP has been refunded to your account, so if you have previously purchased the Ultimate Weapon Pack or Game of the Year it will be re-added to your account. If there is any Tribes Gold on your account you will be automatically gifted the Ultimate Weapon Pack.
And on top of all these changes, if you’re looking to dive into the history of Tribes, you can head over to
and download every single game in the Tribes franchise for free.
There are so many changes it's impossible to cover them all here. Head on over to
to check out the full patch notes, and until next time Tribes fans, we'll see you in the wilderzone.
At 5pm EST today, Tribes: Ascend will undergo six hours of downtime as its first patch since March 2013 is applied. It's a substantial overhaul of the free-to-play, physics-defying shooter that has been cooking on the public test servers since September, when Hi-Rez Studios annou
At 5pm EST today, Tribes: Ascend will undergo six hours of downtime as its first patch since March 2013 is applied. It's a substantial overhaul of the free-to-play, physics-defying shooter that has been cooking on the public test servers since September, when Hi-Rez Studios announced it was ending Tribes' long abandonment.
The full patch notes can be found here, although there's enough to form a small patch-cyclopaedia. The most susbstantial changes concern classes, maps and the premium currency, Tribes Gold. Three new capture-the-flag maps—Ice Coaster, Perdition and Terminus—join the roster, while the class system has been simplified into light, medium and heavy armour-wearers with full loadout customisation. Weapons themselves have also undergone major rebalancing.
All Tribes Gold and XP used to purchase items at any point in Tribes' lifespan is being refunded. If you've purchased Gold or the Game of the Year edition at any point, you'll automatically be given the Ultimate Weapons Pack—every gun in the game.
Hi Rez president Stewart Chisam told us that the team isn't expecting to make much money from the Tribes revival, and the patch does have the feel of doing right by a stonkingly good shooter as opposed to a savvy business move.
Say, reader dear, do you like the future? Do you like jetpacks? Do you like mechs? Do you like first-person shooters? Do you like multiplayer with vehicles and bases? Do you like classic series which folks grumble go forgotten too often? Do you like skill-based movement exploitin
Say, reader dear, do you like the future? Do you like jetpacks? Do you like mechs? Do you like first-person shooters? Do you like multiplayer with vehicles and bases? Do you like classic series which folks grumble go forgotten too often? Do you like skill-based movement exploiting weird physics tricks? Do you like free video games?
If you answered yes to at least three of those, hie thee to this website, where Tribes Ascend folks Hi-Rez Studios are offering (almost) the full Tribes world o’games for free, from 1994’s Earthsiege through to 2004’s Tribes Vengeance (their own Ascend, of course, being free-to-play anyway).
… [visit site to read more]