Rock, Paper, Spinfusor -- Tribes: Ascend

[Miker]

Steam group here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPShazbot

Rock Paper Shotgun now has an unofficial server!

t's called RockPaperShazbot. Right now, it's located in EU - Amsterdam. To find it, change your region to Amsterdam, then refresh and it should be in the list. Click on the small star in the far left column to add it to your favorites so that you can sort by favorites and our server will be at the very top.

The server was graciously paid for by Devadder, myself, and SquirrelFanatic.



I don't really know if this thread will go anywhere, but I thought of the title the other day and it made me giggle, so here it is. Since the private server system is still a ways off and the friend system isn't exactly full-featured, let's just use this thread to discuss the game itself and where it's going. I'm sure people have their varying opinions due to its F2P nature.

Here are my thoughts:

-- Movement feels fine. Great, even. I haven't played Tribes 1 or 2 much, but movement in Ascend feels like it should. People complain about the physics being bad or screwy, but aside from the moments when I run into invisible momentum-robbing bumps in some maps, it's fine.

-- Weapons and classes seem balanced for the most part. I hear the Tech's Thumper is too good and the Brute isn't that great, but that's about it. There are only a few weapons that most people would agree are outright better than the defaults, and everything else seems to be a matter of preference.

-- I love that it's F2P, if only because I think that's the only business model that can support such an incredibly hardcore game like Tribes. If Hi-Rez had put a price on it, even a budget one ($20-ish), you would still have people scared off by just how difficult it is to play. Sure, it would be "complete" as a paid product, but F2P means more people trying it, and a bigger audience in general, and that just might be more important in the long run.

-- That said, I still worry for the future of Tribes: Ascend due to just how unforgiving it is. It's a game that most people will bounce off of, to be honest, and even if it is F2P, I don't know how many people are left that really want a great arena shooter.

-- I paid $10 for the smallest package of Tribes Gold, and I stupidly blew it all on unlocking classes, which are all rather cheap in terms of XP. I haven't touched the specialized classes I've bought, and the weapon unlocks for the classes I *do* play are hella expensive in XP.

-- The XP prices are, uh, imbalanced to say the least. You have relatively reasonable XP prices for classes (7.2K at the cheapest, 28K at the most expensive) and for the upgrades for weapons. Then you have 42K, 75K, and 100K for alternate weapons. 42K is ever so slightly pushing it, but 100K (or $10 in gold) for a different grenade type is bonkers. I'm well aware that buying a booster during the beta period and playing lots will net you a lot of XP, but for the non-paying player, it'll take ages for them to save up for a weapon. And you can't use locked weapons in training, so you don't know if you'll like it or not.

-- I would like to think that Hi-Rez is keeping prices high for the time being because they haven't created that many alternate weapons yet, but I don't know if that's true. Hi-Rez isn't that engaged with the community like Riot, so I don't think anybody really has that good of an idea of what's going to happen in the future.

-- The game kinda has questionable performance. I'm playing around 40 fps on my rig that pulls a steady 60 in pretty much all other (better-looking) UE3 games. It's still beta, though, so I'll let this slide for now.

-- I think it really needs a stat-tracking system and matchmaking based on your rank. A lot of games turn out to be one-sided due to teamstacking, lack of teamwork, or just turtling.

Basically, I think Tribes: Ascend is flippin' fantastic, and the mechanics are spot-on and well-tuned. It still has some rough edges in the F2P system that are becoming increasingly obvious as I play more and more. I hope that Hi-Rez can fix these things and quickly so that Tribes might have the large audience that it deserves.

[Reinhardt]

Hey! I love this game and if anyone wants to team up, my name on there is Sheerchance.

[Windward]

I'm in love with Tribes all over again. I don't even care about all the stuff that is wrong with the game (okay... I do, BUT!), it FEELS LIKE TRIBES! I'm really happy that they nailed this down first because it's exhilarating like nothing else :)

Vehicles are a bit crap though, ey? Also, I miss the heat seeking missiles and the barrage of flares you would have to drop as you legged it with the flag. Agree about the stat tracking and matchmaking, I find it too easy sometimes but no doubt clan (RockPaperSpinfuser clan, please please please) matches will sort that out a bit.

The whole unlock system needs more work, but it's much better now than it was.

Wish heavies were a bit slower and that it had transports ala Tribes 2, that feeling of impending doom when you saw a fully loaded dropship landing was great, but I suppose the current speed is for the best without them.

So, RPS clan, if you need a Chaser...

[frenz0rz]

My in-game name is Frenz0rz, feel free to add me to your friends list.

As for your assessment of the game, I agree with most of it, particularly the XP/Gold cost of certain unlockable weapons. The Tech's thumper is an extremely effective weapon, particularly indoors, and it seems somewhat unreasonable that you should have to pay a whole $10 (800 Gold) to unlock it. The alternative, earning 100,000 XP (at a rate of perhaps 1-3K per game), is equally unreasonable.

Vehicles are a little underused too, probably due to the utterly naff weapons on both the Gravcycle and the Shrike. In fact, I'd probably go so far as to say the majority of kills I get using the Shrike are (admittedly very satisfying) roadkills.

Aside from a few niggling issues like that however, its an absolutely steller game. Its easily the best twitch-based shooter I've played in years.

[Sarlix]

I've not played for a couple of weeks, but plan to get back shazboting again soon. I guess you all jam on the Euro severs right? I'll keep an eye out for Y'all :-)

[frenz0rz]

Might I also suggest Rock, Paper, Shazbot as a possible alternative?

[Sarlix]

I like Rock, Paper, Shazbot. It has a better ring to it. Although Spinfusor is more fitting..

On a side note: Does anyone else think a fully upgraded Tech is like a one man assault team? Not that I mind as I play Tech :-) But it does seem a little overpowered, mainly due to the Thumper I think.

[mentor07825]

I love the game as well :) I purely play the Pathfinding class and it's awesome :)

[Scumbag]

I like Rock, Paper, Shazbot. It has a better ring to it. Although Spinfusor is more fitting..

On a side note: Does anyone else think a fully upgraded Tech is like a one man assault team? Not that I mind as I play Tech :-) But it does seem a little overpowered, mainly due to the Thumper I think.

On CTF they seem like a Gen room tank, and thats fine, but on TDM or the arenas with the full thumper they are really out of ballance IMO. Dump a few turrets in the centre of the map, then just run about spamming death everywhere with the thumper while watching the turrets rack up the kills.

[mentor07825]

On CTF they seem like a Gen room tank, and thats fine, but on TDM or the arenas with the full thumper they are really out of ballance IMO. Dump a few turrets in the centre of the map, then just run about spamming death everywhere with the thumper while watching the turrets rack up the kills.

I think though it's at that moment that you switch class to something with heavier armour and a bigger gun and just smash the turrets and the Tech guy as well. Sure, it may not be your style, but you're adapting to a situation and countering it.

At the very least, if you're playing with a good team and there's one heavy hitter, direct him to the turrets and watch his back for that pesky Tech.

[Reinhardt]

Oh, I guess I can't play with you guys since I'm in America. Too bad! I routinely finish in the top spot as a Pathfinder.

[Miker]

Surprised that there have been this many posts so far. It's too bad that they don't have the private server system yet, or else I'd suggest getting a server of our own. Since we're talking about loadouts, do you guys like AR/Thumper or Spinfusor/Pistol on the soldier? I much prefer the latter, but everywhere I go people say that the former is much more versatile and better all around.

[Antares]

I don't play much soldier (I'm more of a doombringer kind of guy), but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. The Eagle pistol is just... not very good, assuming it hasn't changed from before the loadout patch.
The thumper, assuming you've got the arc down, is only worse than the spinfusor when it comes to long range shots which can't be relied on in any case.

Loving the game, btw. There's still issues (the physics issue, namely, having really been brought out to light by temple ruin's 380+ grabs), but the devs have shown time and again that they're willing to listen to the community's feedback and do something with it. I plonked down 30$ for the preorder package (gold, a booster and VIP status) and I'm not regretting it in the least.

[DeVadder]

Wow, it is really tough that both iconic words of Tribes begin with a 'S'. Hard to decide. I think i like Rock Paper Spinfusor a little better though.
And i would immediatly join a RPS Clan. HoF here.
At least everywhere except Temple Ruins, i enjoy it just too much to drop an inventory station between the rooftops of the opposing temple and spamming turrets in their base.

Regarding the prizes: I agree that it is impossible to unlock everything using only unboosted xp. But i actually like the balance of things. A free player can play around with all the classes with comparable ease and fullfil all roles. With maybe two exceptions. Indoor Tech needs the Thumper (The smg is good for chasing however) and the Infiltrators primary is shit compared to the unlockable Spinfusor. But apart from that a free player can basically do whatever he wants, only if he wants the option to use different weapons or even have more than one class fully upgraded and all the perks at his disposal, then he needs to pay or play ungodly amounts of game indeed. So i guess what i mean, the prizes for guns are high, too high maybe, but in exchange, there is absolutely nothing that only gold can buy.

And last but not least: The Brute. Everybody thinks he is rubbish now that he can't kill lvl 4 Generators with two grenades and alone anymore. But that was ridiculous. He is still good at fighting in Gener-Rooms. And he is a great HoF. Not as good as a fully turtled Doomy with Forcefield and mines. But if the enemys do not allow that to happen, it is the Brutes day. He is way better at HoF out of the box. Either using shield pack to do it under fire or with energy pack, allowing him to be a not-too-bad chaser with his pistol and the massive amount of health allowing for discjumps in every turn or hillside.
You just have to focus more on the body blocking part and less on the killing than Doomy. Jump where you think the grabber wants to go past you and shoot a Disk where he would go to evade you and boom, aybe he dies, maybe he slows and takes a lot of damage. If he survives you may say 'There is a new sheriff in town' or anything else Wild West themed, get out that Revolver to shoot them down.
I love Brute :)

[frenz0rz]

One thing thats been pissing me off a bit recently is missiles. I've been messing around in the Shrike with varying degrees of success, but I've found that when missiles are locked on to you they are virtually impossible to shoot down with your crappy weapons. This isnt that much a problem on some of the more hilly maps, but on something large and open like Crossfire it can often be quite difficult to put something in between you and that missile.

The Shrike has great potential, but I think it could use either an alt-fire chaingun or some kind of anti-missile flares. Because right now you can more or less instantly shut down a harassing Shrike by simply firing off 2-3 missiles at it.

[Scumbag]

I think though it's at that moment that you switch class to something with heavier armour and a bigger gun and just smash the turrets and the Tech guy as well. Sure, it may not be your style, but you're adapting to a situation and countering it.

At the very least, if you're playing with a good team and there's one heavy hitter, direct him to the turrets and watch his back for that pesky Tech.

If its Katabatic Night, then I'm usually a jug dumping morters round the corners in the central tower. Its not the most fun way to play, but it racks up tech kills.
The problem with good teams atm with how the matchmaking works (or does not should that be) while its nice to have good players, more oftan then not people wont co-op with you.
"Tech in the centre"
"lol we know"
[vgtg] [vgtg] [vgs] etc...

Hopefully when matchmaking works and / or when VIP / private servers come along this will be less of an issue.

[Miker]

When do you guys reckon the game will be out of beta? Hi-Rez doesn't seem to patch that often, and although the game has certainly come a long way as of late, there's still so much infrastructure missing (matchmaking, private servers, stats, etc) that I don't see it being feature-complete for months and months.

[frenz0rz]

Having just played a three games where my team was utterly stomped 5-0 within minutes due to a heavy team imbalance, I'd probably rank matchmaking as the highest thing on my "requsted feature" list at the moment. Even something as simple as balancing teams by rank at the start of every round would go a long way toward eliminating wildly stacked teams. I hate those moments where everyone sits and waits until they can join the team who dominated the previous round.

[DeVadder]

When do you guys reckon the game will be out of beta? Hi-Rez doesn't seem to patch that often, and although the game has certainly come a long way as of late, there's still so much infrastructure missing (matchmaking, private servers, stats, etc) that I don't see it being feature-complete for months and months.

Hmm, the last two patches had a lot of work intensive stuff like new models and changes to the way loadouts and the menue works. I would not be too surprised if they call it final within one or two months. They will keep adding new content anyway to make more money, but i dont think matchmaking and private servers takes too much time. How well matchmaking will work is a completely different question. HoF for example often gets way less personal points than equally skilled grabbers or gener room fighter, but we will see.

[Miker]

Hmm, the last two patches had a lot of work intensive stuff like new models and changes to the way loadouts and the menue works. I would not be too surprised if they call it final within one or two months. They will keep adding new content anyway to make more money, but i dont think matchmaking and private servers takes too much time. How well matchmaking will work is a completely different question. HoF for example often gets way less personal points than equally skilled grabbers or gener room fighter, but we will see.

I suppose that's true. I'm still expecting it to be two months or more until it's final. I do think that they should tweak the credits and accolades, though. I think flag grab, flag defense, high-speed grab and other things should be worth much more than they are now, while kill credits could probably be toned down a bit.

In other news, I found this amazing video of juggernaut play from r/tribes on reddit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMgc7adcS_c

[Sarlix]

..Shazbot!

[Sarlix]

Does anyone know what the key is to get off/exit a vehicle? I swear, I can't find the key binding for it anywhere!

Thanks

[Miker]

@Sarlix: I believe it's G, or whatever is bound to interact.

[Sarlix]

Thanks, I will give it a go. I've been wanting to try a flag capture by jumping of a Grav cycle. Saw it done the other day..very cool.

[Miker]

Is it just me, or are cappers, chasers, and HoFs in short supply in pub games? I play light defense soldier myself, and those are the roles that I usually find lacking on my team.

[dan.]

Being new to Tribes, I have to ask: what does HoF mean?

Sidenote: Also, what is it with gaming communities and ridiculous, impenetrable acronyms?

[Miker]

Being new to Tribes, I have to ask: what does HoF mean?Sidenote: Also, what is it with gaming communities and ridiculous, impenetrable acronyms?Heavy on Flag. Basically a heavy class whose only job it is to stand on the flag, shoot incoming cappers, and if possible, block them physically (usually with super heavy perk, i think).

[frenz0rz]

Heavy on Flag. Basically a heavy class whose only job it is to stand on the flag, shoot incoming cappers, and if possible, block them physically (usually with super heavy perk, i think).

Preferably a Doombringer who can deploy a shield in front of you at the last second when you're flying toward the flag at 200kph.

[DWZippy]

Like a bug on a windshield...

I've not played enough of Ascend to get any of the neat classes, but I tend to break into the enemy base as a Soldier, take down their Genny, then resist all attempts for it be repaired. I'd like to think of myself as a capture enabler.

[Anthile]

The HoF is basically the goalkeeper of Tribes. Best used with the Super Heavy Perk.

[Kemuel]

Goalkeeper's a really good analogy, actually.

Doesn't make me hate the bastards any less when there's three of them, all with shields, backed up by a small army of Techs with their turrets, though.

I know as an Infiltrator/Pathfinder they're my natural foil and all, but I think those turrets need their rate of fire or damage, or maybe line of sight cutting right now. When you have a couple next to each other they cover their blindspots so efficiently its practically impossible to take one down without the other finishing you off. Frustrating when you're speciality's supposed to be disabling base defenses.

[DeVadder]

I suppose that's true. I'm still expecting it to be two months or more until it's final. I do think that they should tweak the credits and accolades, though. I think flag grab, flag defense, high-speed grab and other things should be worth much more than they are now, while kill credits could probably be toned down a bit.

In other news, I found this amazing video of juggernaut play from r/tribes on reddit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMgc7adcS_c

Ohhh nice, i did not know Badding was uploading videos. I played against him a few times. This guy is way too good as Jugger, you can basically just give up on defending your flag unless you can co-ordinate an attack on him :)
I did kill him in 1v1 a few times though, after i suicided into him countless lives that is.


Goalkeeper's a really good analogy, actually.

Doesn't make me hate the bastards any less when there's three of them, all with shields, backed up by a small army of Techs with their turrets, though.

I know as an Infiltrator/Pathfinder they're my natural foil and all, but I think those turrets need their rate of fire or damage, or maybe line of sight cutting right now. When you have a couple next to each other they cover their blindspots so efficiently its practically impossible to take one down without the other finishing you off. Frustrating when you're speciality's supposed to be disabling base defenses.

If the enemys have too many techs cuddling, Raider with Jammer pack can wreak havoc. Of course that requires expensive unlocks, so as a non-unlock idea, snipe them with pathfinders or juggernauts spinfusors. Spinfusors can be shot scooped and have a massive range. Of course soldiers and brutes spinfusors work great as well, maybe even better, but those are unlocks again :)

[frenz0rz]

If the enemys have too many techs cuddling, Raider with Jammer pack can wreak havoc. Of course that requires expensive unlocks, so as a non-unlock idea, snipe them with pathfinders or juggernauts spinfusors. Spinfusors can be shot scooped and have a massive range. Of course soldiers and brutes spinfusors work great as well, maybe even better, but those are unlocks again :)

Theres always just a good old Tactical Strike if you've got the credits :P

[Anthile]

The problem is that the reach perk completely negates the HoF. I hope they nerf or better completely remove it soon.

[Coccyx]

I'm really pleased to see there's so much interest in tribes over here on RPS, I'll gladly join the next time we get a game going together (if indeed that's possible with the current state of the friend/server joining system)

[Miker]

I'm really pleased to see there's so much interest in tribes over here on RPS, I'll gladly join the next time we get a game going together (if indeed that's possible with the current state of the friend/server joining system)I'll chime in and add that I find it frustrating that you can't even message friends in-game, nor is there any notification that a friend has joined your game. I would have thought the friends system is something that would be a little bit more full-featured by now.

[Sarlix]

Just played a game and we had 6, (six!) Techs guarding our generator room. Needless to say we didn't do much flag capturing.

Tell me - is rolling a Juggernaut and endlessly volleying grenade rounds down onto the enemy base from great heights a legitimate strategy? Or is this akin to camping in a game of CS? It's just that it feels so right...yet it feels so wrong.

[Kemuel]

More than four techs in one place is a headache on almost any map just because taking out that many turrets while all the other turrets are simultaneously shooting you is next to impossible. Definitely should score some points or get a kill credit or something for taking those little bastards out.

I'd say raining hell down on the base is cool. Just don't let me catch you standing next to an ammo station in the basement and constantly blindfiring at the doorways. Two Juggernauts doing that can seal off most gen rooms with next to no way of getting in. If they have even a single tech turret supporting them then its even worse, as it'll stop Infiltrators from recloaking if they decide to take a shot.

For the record, I'd also like to register a vote for Rock Paper Shazbot and make sure all credit goes to the guy who called it first back in my other thread.

[Miker]

How about we make the RPS Steam group Rock, Paper, Shazbot and keep the name of this thread Rock, Paper, Spinfusor?

[Anthile]

Since juggernauts have no means of aiming besides good old trial and error, it's hardly cheesy. Not to mention that you will be constantly murdered by pathfinders with their ridiculous bolters.

[DeVadder]

Raining dead on the flag stand is what the mortar was made for and is not cheesy the slightest bit.
Let me explain the classic roles of Tribes. An organised team of tribes should have:

Heavy on Flag - A Heavy who stands on the flag and constantly looks around for incoming grabbers to shoot at them and bodyblock them. Normally should stay near the flagstand even if the flag is gone to guard it when it is returned.
Defence/Chasers - Sometimes different groups, often the same. Lights and mediums and sometimes heavys who defend the flag stand, hunt down enemy offense and chase enemy grabbers who hopefully have been slowed/damaged by the HoF. Chasers need to disc/thumper jump well to build up speed fast enough (the idea is, they regenerate while the grabber wont, so they can do that several times, Ascend maps are quite small for this though)
Offense (often HO for Heavy Offense) - Mostly Heavys typically whose sole job is to clear the flagstand for friendly grabbers to grab. Juggernauts and Raiders excell at this. Works WAY better with better communication as that allows to time the grab and clear. In public servers the way to do this would be something like saying VAF (Get the enemy flag) twice or something, but dont rely on your grabbers to understand at all.
Grabber - Lights mostly, sometimes mediums, who try to grab the flag. In a perfect world, they would get in position and say VTF (Target the enemy flag i am in position) like 20-30 seconds before they reach the flag to allow their friendly HO to do their job or even wait for their go. Often grabbers also say VFF (I have the flag) once they have begun their run to indicate to their team that nobody should llama grab (grab very slowly) the flag. Of course in public games that often doesnt work and expect to come in at 200km/h towards a cleared flag stand just to have one of your infiltrators or whatever walking over the flag.

Those are the fundamental parts every team should really have. Many people would add generator defenders and attackers, but that really is not as important as it maybe should be. One imho extremely important aspect of this for the techs out there: If you and both your turrets constantly are tied to defend the generator, it is not really worth it. Maybe if it is just you and some other tech repairs base turrets and sensor and helps defend flag stand, but i have seen way too many rounds where a single attacking juggernaut or infiltrator constantly ties 2 or 3 techs into the gener room and the gener does not help the greater good if all it powers is the gener defense.

This should only be a rough overview for people new to tribes. It is not complete or anything. Snipers, Infils and sometimes even heavy grabbers (grab of oportunity) have a place in the team. This should just hopefully give you a little hint what your team might lack (hint: it is not a 5th tech)

One last thing, because it drives vets crazy: Do not Llama grab. As in: Never walk while picking up the flag. You will get hunted down most likely and your actual grabbers wont have a chance to grab while the flag is in your hands. Only try a grab of opportunity if really no enemy is around and you are confident that you can build up enough speed fast enough to not be killed by respawners and nobody faster than you is visible.
OR when the enemy carrier is about to capture. That is called an E-Grab (Emergency) and there even is an accolade for it. That hopefully gives your friends enough time to retrieve your flag.

edit: I forgot another tip.
If your flag has been touched but the grabber died quickly and the flag now lies somewhere less open than on the flag stand (and in most maps that means anywhere near the base) do not instantly return the flag. Say VFS (Flag is secure) and stand next to it, looking around for enemys. If someone comes at you or someone like your HoF or flag carrier says VFR (Retrieve our flag) make a step ahead and retrieve it. In many situations that is WAY safer than retrieving immediatly, especially if the HoF died or left the flag stand himself.

[Miker]

New patch today! Fixes a bunch of things, but not quite as many things as I would have liked. According to the patch notes, Bella and Temple Ruins were removed from rotation, but this was true as of the last hotfix patch last week. I was hoping that this patch would come with the fixed maps.

[Kemuel]

Sweet roundup, man. Like many this is my first Tribes game, so its cool looking at the roles broken down properly and not just in terms of simple attack and defence. Doesn't feel like I've seen much Heavy Offense in most games, compared to the others at least, which might be why I have such an issue with defence stacking.. Sometimes you do just need a big guy or two to blow through all the walls and mines and turrets.

[Miker]

So they've gone and added player profiles and stat-tracking, complete with badges (achievements). I've only seen screenshots so far, and it's all very nifty, but I personally think there's a big issue here: they're tracking kills, deaths, and kill/death ratio. I think tracking overall kills is fine to see just how long someone has been playing a game, but in my experience, letting people see their KDR isn't a good idea. People will look to it as the end-all be-all stat of how good someone is, and that's never good in a team-based game like Tribes.

[frenz0rz]

So they've gone and added player profiles and stat-tracking, complete with badges (achievements). I've only seen screenshots so far, and it's all very nifty, but I personally think there's a big issue here: they're tracking kills, deaths, and kill/death ratio. I think tracking overall kills is fine to see just how long someone has been playing a game, but in my experience, letting people see their KDR isn't a good idea. People will look to it as the end-all be-all stat of how good someone is, and that's never good in a team-based game like Tribes.

I agree completely. It reminds me of when I used to play Heroes of Newerth, where there are many heroes with different roles such as tank or support, and yet the only main stats that get tracked publicly are kills and deaths. This meant that if you particularly enjoyed playing a support hero, you'd appear shit on your profile for not having a good k/d, and would subsequently be kicked from the lobby.

In fact, one of the things I initially liked about Tribes: Ascend was that your deaths arent mentioned on the leaderboard, just your kills, assists and score. This seemed to me like a fresh new way of promoting team-based gameplay that wasnt prejudiced against those who spend half the game repairing deployables or making flag runs.

[Miker]

I agree completely. It reminds me of when I used to play Heroes of Newerth, where there are many heroes with different roles such as tank or support, and yet the only main stats that get tracked publicly are kills and deaths. This meant that if you particularly enjoyed playing a support hero, you'd appear shit on your profile for not having a good k/d, and would subsequently be kicked from the lobby.In fact, one of the things I initially liked about Tribes: Ascend was that your deaths arent mentioned on the leaderboard, just your kills, assists and score. This seemed to me like a fresh new way of promoting team-based gameplay that wasnt prejudiced against those who spend half the game repairing deployables or making flag runs.Yup. Also, the patch has appeared to break more things than it fixes. The TCN's light turrets now shoot much, much faster than they're supposed to, you can now join a team with more players at the beginning of the match (leading to imbalanced teams), and for some reason, earning the kill credit when somebody else kills themselves give you -1 kill instead of +1. And this might just be me, but I can't see any of the badges on the profile, and some of the stats aren't tracked or are being incorrectly tracked.

[frenz0rz]

Yup. Also, the patch has appeared to break more things than it fixes. The TCN's light turrets now shoot much, much faster than they're supposed to, you can now join a team with more players at the beginning of the match (leading to imbalanced teams), and for some reason, earning the kill credit when somebody else kills themselves give you -1 kill instead of +1. And this might just be me, but I can't see any of the badges on the profile, and some of the stats aren't tracked or are being incorrectly tracked.

I noticed the -1 thing, although at the time I assumed it was because I'd killed myself (damned bottomless pits...). I cant see any badges either. I hadnt noticed the turrets, but if thats true then I think we're about to see a lot more games with filled with TCNs.

At least they fixed the bug where light turrets were doing insane amounts of damage to Shrikes. I noticed that last week when doing a flyby of the enemy baseship on Crossfire - got snagged by a light turret on the way past and was near instantly obliterated.

[Miker]

Hi-Rez really does seem to let some glaring issues pass patch testing (which they say they do). I wish that they were as diligent as, say, Valve or Riot in patching, but I guess I'll have to get used to weekly patching cycles instead of the patch-o-rama of TF2 or LoL.

EDIT: Here's something I posted on r/tribes. My thoughts on the friends system and its perils:

Let's talk about the friend system -- where it stands currently, what needs work, and how to solve the problems that inevitably arise.Right now, I think the friends system blows. It's incredibly barebones, and you can't even message friends. You also don't get any notification of your friends joining your game until you notice it on the scoreboard or you see a green dot. That said, I think that the messaging system and notifications are things that will be fixed in due time.What I really want to talk about is how friends can play together. Right now, they can join their friends' game, and that's fine, but what if friends want to play on the same team? Barring the broken autobalance on this current patch, there's no guarantee that friends can play on the same team. While that sucks, it is understandable given that teamstacking is obviously frowned upon. I know that for some people, it's fine if they're in the same server as their friends, but for others (likely new players), they might be intimidated or frustrated.This might just be me, I think that the difficulty of playing alongside your friend might be daunting to the casual player. A lot of the reason people try League of Legends, another game with a really high learning curve, is because they can queue with friends and banter in the lobby while searching for a match. In Tribes, you click on a friend's game and you're "queued with SomeDude28" but all it does is dump you in the same server as him and leave you alone. I guess it's easy enough to do with a 1 or 2 friends -- just wait until a new game starts, then try and join the same team, but with more people, that's not very feasible.I honestly don't know how Tribes: Ascend will be able to solve the problem of letting friends play on the same team and preventing teamstacking. Do you guys have any thoughts?

[frenz0rz]

To be honest, the one thing I want from the friends system right now is to be able to see what map and game type my friend is playing. I dont like joining on someone to find they're playing team deathmatch or arena when all I want is a good CTF game.

[DeVadder]

So they've gone and added player profiles and stat-tracking, complete with badges (achievements). I've only seen screenshots so far, and it's all very nifty, but I personally think there's a big issue here: they're tracking kills, deaths, and kill/death ratio. I think tracking overall kills is fine to see just how long someone has been playing a game, but in my experience, letting people see their KDR isn't a good idea. People will look to it as the end-all be-all stat of how good someone is, and that's never good in a team-based game like Tribes.

I dont think those stats will be public. And way worse than K/D is the Win/Loss rate. Even if it never gets public, if i will look at that after a few hundred of pub games and it shows something below 0.5 i would hate that.
I believe some people will use snippets of their stats in their forum signature or stuff like that, but i am pretty sure most people are well aware how little kills and deaths mean in CTF Tribes. At least i hope so. I am much more interested in the flag defense/hr but even that is highly dependant of enemys attack frequency :) I would love a stat for Flag defender versus enemy captures.

[Kemuel]

Loving the stat screen. Having everything divided in to categories is pretty cool, can only look at the ones I really care about. Definitely looking forward to filling it up now that everything's actually being recorded. Might be a while before I get lucky enough to pull off some of my streaks again, though. ^^;


Yup. Also, the patch has appeared to break more things than it fixes. The TCN's light turrets now shoot much, much faster than they're supposed to

Knew I wasn't going crazy. I hate it when turrets get stacked at the best of times, but it seemed the other night like I was having waaaay more trouble than usual.

[Miker]

Hotfix out today that fixes those three glitches I mentioned above. I think stats tracking is still pretty broken -- it treats each flag return as a cap for some reason, and it doesn't properly track a bunch of other stats.

[frenz0rz]

By the way, has anyone else been experiencing crashes? The client seems mostly stable, but I've been crashing quite regularly when attempting to throw grenades. No other instances at all, just grenades. Its extremely frustrating considering that I do a lot of TCN and SLD indoor fighting.

[Miker]

By the way, has anyone else been experiencing crashes? The client seems mostly stable, but I've been crashing quite regularly when attempting to throw grenades. No other instances at all, just grenades. Its extremely frustrating considering that I do a lot of TCN and SLD indoor fighting.Tribes makes my GPU go up to crazy temps, moreso than any other game, and it hard locks my computer from time to time. That said, I can't say throwing nades has caused any of my crashes.

[frenz0rz]

So does anyone else have an opinion on the latest patch?

Frankly, my biggest problem with the game right now is the fact that nobody on my team ever seems to give a shit about the generator, which makes playing a class with deployables (TCN, DMB, SEN) much less fun. Particularly when I'm the one trying to retake the gen room all on my own and am getting repeatedly blown to bits by an army of heavies and/or INFs. I dont really know how they'd 'fix' that though, aside from giving better XP rewards or something for defending the gen.

[Miker]

So does anyone else have an opinion on the latest patch?Frankly, my biggest problem with the game right now is the fact that nobody on my team ever seems to give a shit about the generator, which makes playing a class with deployables (TCN, DMB, SEN) much less fun. Particularly when I'm the one trying to retake the gen room all on my own and am getting repeatedly blown to bits by an army of heavies and/or INFs. I dont really know how they'd 'fix' that though, aside from giving better XP rewards or something for defending the gen.I feel like the generator needs to do something more right now. A lot of the time, it goes down on my team, and people don't bother repairing it because we're doing fine without it. Alternately, people can be repairing it all the time but our turrets are shot at by heavies from miles away. It's helpful, but not *necessary* in the way that it should be.

[evilbobthebob]

I'd rather see focus move away from the generator in pub games. It seems that every server I'm on has a few TCNs circlejerking down in the gen room, providing nothing to the team. Either that or they are covering the flag stand with turrets. Flag > generator. If the generator comes to have more significance then I'll be happy for a few players to focus on keeping it up/taking it down.

[DeVadder]

I agree, to me it appears a lot of people overrate the gen. If two or three enemys spend their time at our generator, i am more than okay with it not beeing online and our team having 3 people more in the CTF part of the game.
I dont really have an opinion wether or not the generator should have higher impact though. I am just saying as it is now, if more of them spend their time at our gen than of us, i dont mind it beeing offline.

What annoys me much more is how few people understand the importance of standing on or right next to the flag while your HoF is away (if your team does not have a HoF, than wtf are you doing? ^^).
To me it allways feels, that whenever i step of the flag for just a few seconds, the flag is gone. Probably that is indeed because the gen is offline so often and thus tecs turrets don't help defending, but i am not sure.

[Miker]

I think that the generator is so important in pub games because in pub games, the generator *is* important. Not everybody is a good capper, and so if they're not good enough at high-speed flag grabs, they get nailed by the turrets. It's probably the case that a lot of people think that they need to take down the generator before capping is a possibility. As a result, you have a bunch of people going for the generator and a corresponding bunch of people defending the generator.

[Lilliput King]

Gen powers all the deployables and such though as well, right? So the damage-wall that's so good for stopping high speed caps and so on. Turrets are also useful for defending the base area from heavy offense (like, people just sitting round and shooting the flag platform to keep it clear) rather than just sniping potential flag carriers. Still, it's true that if you lose too many team members to gen defense you might as well not be bothering. I dunno really. It's a good mechanic.

[frenz0rz]

Gen powers all the deployables and such though as well, right? So the damage-wall that's so good for stopping high speed caps and so on.

This was my main thought, having recently unlocked the Doombringer and been playing around with being HoF. The shields are awesome, particularly when deployed at the last second, and nothing is more frustrating than the gen being destroyed at a critical moment and having your flag swiped as a result.

Turrets are important too, because as Miker mentioned, many people (myself included) have a tendancy to either stumble into them accidentally or try capping at under 200ish, both of which tend to result in the victim being shredded near instantly.

Still, I find it hard to gauge how much the gen really makes a difference as if a team is repeatedly raping/camping my teams gen then they're generally a fairly stacked team anyway, and therefore win in minutes.

[Miker]

Tribes is getting less and less stable for me as of late. This morning, I couldn't play more than five minutes at a time before crashing consistently, meaning there's something actually wrong with the game or my system. I'm validating via the launcher right now, but it's looking grim.

[DeVadder]

I had plenty of disconnects with the current build as well. Hopefully they fix that soon. And bring back Bella Omega and Temple Ruins whie at it, only 4 maps get a little dull, and i liked both of them a lot. Allthough i did enjoy Bella more with the old big generator room.

[Miker]

I had plenty of disconnects with the current build as well. Hopefully they fix that soon. And bring back Bella Omega and Temple Ruins whie at it, only 4 maps get a little dull, and i liked both of them a lot. Allthough i did enjoy Bella more with the old big generator room.I think part of the problem those maps were not too popular is because they were much harder to cap on than other maps. Temple Ruins has a circle of death right around the flag, but even on Bella Omega, you kind of need a good skiing route to teach the flag in the (really high) tower. On both maps, if you don't have great energy management, you're probably not going to get far at all. I understand that some maps will naturally have harder to cap flag, and that's fine, but in Tribes: Ascend, many players don't bother capping, and many of those who actually try are, well, kind of bad. As a result, I think those two maps didn't fit the more open/easy-to-grab bases from the other maps.And Temple Ruins is just waaaay too big, even for 32 players.

[DeVadder]

Temple Ruins is still small if compared to older Tribes games. Larger maps mean better chasing as chaser can regenerate their health a few times before the capper reaches his base. I don't know, i like that.

And i think that a little harder to cap is actually a nice thing. Especially Katabatic is extremely annoying to defend. Also i have the impression, that actually too many people try to grab. If half of them would instead attack the def, the remaining grabbers would have a way easier time. But true, it is probably really hard for a new player to get the Flag in Bella at decent speed. And it is not easy to train.

[DeVadder]

Double post ftw.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjyUy5f3VIw

[Miker]

Cheeky trailer :) I find myself looking forward to Tribes patches more than actual game releases right now, especially with it nearing "release." I hope it's in a good enough shape come April 12 that new players will find it easy to get into. A Steam release would also be nice. EDIT: I also saw that the "Llama Island" trailer only has a little over 100K views. That's a bit sad, really. I'm not basing the game's fate off of trailer views or anything, and I know it's way too soon to begin crying doom when the game isn't even out of beta, but I am disappointed in the public's response thus far. The numbers from their press releases haven't been that comforting, either. Do you guys see Tribes: Ascend still going strong a few years from now?

[DeVadder]

I think 'years' is a lofty goal for every current game, even more so a FPS. But well, i do hope :)

What comforts me a little is the huge amount of community created stuff on youtube and the reddit vs /v/ matches and stuff like that.
Also, best video ever: (listen to the lyrics)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQkQ-CeqyU

[frenz0rz]

Also, best video ever: (listen to the lyrics)

Thats brilliant!

[Miker]

I think 'years' is a lofty goal for every current game, even more so a FPS. But well, i do hope :)What comforts me a little is the huge amount of community created stuff on youtube and the reddit vs /v/ matches and stuff like that.Also, best video ever: (listen to the lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQkQ-CeqyUNice. I'm not normally a fan of parody songs, but the meme footage was pretty chuckleworthy.

[Torchcamp]

Forgot to quote but this is a reply to frenz0rz :p

I actually have to disagree with you. The only ones that would say "LOL NOOB U HAVE LOW K/D RATIO" is low-skilled players. Me myself I actually prefer to play with people that I see have a lot of assists instead of kills (even though I play Dota and not HoN, but it's the same concept), because it means that they usually are great teamplayers. Anyone can get high killratio by just killstealing, picking hardcore carries every game etc. but it still doesn't prove anything. And there is more factors to take into account (avarage denies, creepkills, gold and exp earned, most played heroes and so on).

But the same thing goes for tribes. If someone has 1-2 kills in a long game but still really high score that probably means that the person has capped flags / repaired etc. If someone has a few kills but still really low score it could just mean that they have last-hitted or just hunted for kills the entire game without any success and actually done nothing for their team.

Smart players look beyond the amount of kills, deaths and assists and instead look on the bigger picture.

[Miker]

I just took a look in the official Tribes: Ascend forums to see if there's any word on a new patch, and here are my thoughts:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddUotyR3WEA

Yeah, yeah, it's a forum for a F2P game, so I knew it was going to be awful, but it was also interesting. There are a ton of threads from old Tribes vets just screaming at Hi-Rez to make Ascend play more like older Tribes games. Bigger maps, more players, full inheritance, better physics, naked spawns, faster weapon switch times, removing strikes -- you name it, they want it changed or out.

Then there's the insults thrown towards Hi-Rez and threats/promises of leaving/prophecies of doom -- "I'm gonna stop playing if X isn't fixed," "They haven't fixed Y in four months, this game is gonna crash and burn," etc. It's actually depressing to see how quickly people degrade to bashing Hi-Rez as money-grubbing devs who will do anything to make a quick buck (of Tribes Gold). Here I was thinking that they did a great job in resurrecting the franchise, but apparently other people don't agree.

Y'know the scariest part? After poring through some of the mega-threads and reading some surprisingly well-formed arguments, I'm not sure if the complaints are just purists clinging to the old ways or if there really are fundamental flaws with the game.

[DeVadder]

I stopped reading that forum because every second thread about old more tribesy features inevitably derailed into people flaming each other for not having played Tribes 2 competitive enough or for beeing a 'pubfag' and playing T:A on the public servers instead of 'clan-matches' (the game was still in closed beta and these people were already elitist above the general nub beta tester).
As i did neither play Tribes 2 to make a living nor am planning to do that with T:A, i can't really relate to all that 'pro-gaming' stuff, i just want a fun to play game, preferably with skiing. And that it is.
So i stopped reading that forum. I think Hi-Rez are doing a nice job. Even though i would agree with 100% projectile inheritance, that just makes sense, is intuitive and makes chasing more valid. There is no reason why spinfusor disks should make it a lot quicker from the chased to the chaser than the other way round.

[Miker]

I thought there would be a patch out today, but nope. The same four maps are getting a bit tiresome, eh?

[Sarlix]

I thought there would be a patch out today, but nope. The same four maps are getting a bit tiresome, eh?

Yup, after 1 full map rotation I'm just about done.

[evilbobthebob]

Well the servers are down for maintenance, so expect a patch today.

[Miker]

Yup, patch here: http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/305. Sunstar replaces Bella (it most likely won't be coming back), and Temple Ruin comes back in a new form. Lots of bugfixes all around, but not much in the way of needed UI/social features as I was hoping.

[frenz0rz]

Yup, patch here: http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/305. Sunstar replaces Bella (it most likely won't be coming back), and Temple Ruin comes back in a new form. Lots of bugfixes all around, but not much in the way of needed UI/social features as I was hoping.

Thats a shame, I think Bella was flawed but not irreparably so. I actually rather liked it when you had the generator underground and the sideramp leading in from the front of the base.

[Miker]

Just had a go at the two new maps. Temple Ruins is rather nice now. It's much smaller than it used to be, but I think its size makes sense given the player cap of 32 in Ascend. The midfield is much more interesting, and there's plenty of opportunities to chase. Sunstar is a lot smaller, with lots of action in midfield. It's a bit flat for my tastes, though, and its flatness, combined with the towers, are going to make sniping a bit too easy, I think.

[DeVadder]

Sunstar recycles a lot of Bella elements, so i fear we will not see that again. I really liked it, actually already in the first version, never got what people were so mad about.
But then again i thought the old Temple Ruins was the best map ever, so i guess my taste is flawed.

[Miker]

I think I'm liking the new Temple Ruins. Games are closer and chasing is actually possible. Sunstar needs more hills. A lot more hills.

[Miker]

New update incoming, the Cloak and Dagger Update: http://youtu.be/mNqaiUl27MQ. Contains new INF gear: smoke grenade, jackal (remote arx buster), throwing knives, and skins.

[frenz0rz]

New update incoming, the Cloak and Dagger Update: http://youtu.be/mNqaiUl27MQ. Contains new INF gear: smoke grenade, jackal (remote arx buster), throwing knives, and skins.

Throwing knives?! Yes please!

[Anthile]

I suppose all that new stuff is ridiculously expensive again?

[Miker]

I suppose all that new stuff is ridiculously expensive again?Hopefully they're not more expensive than 100K. I think there'd be an outcry if they were.

[Coccyx]

I STILL haven't played with any of you guys. Is the friend system really so broken we can't get a game going?

[frenz0rz]

I STILL haven't played with any of you guys. Is the friend system really so broken we can't get a game going?

Short answer - Yes.

Long answer - Not if we organise a time to all come online and play at once, praying that we'll somehow all get into the same game and end up on the same team.

[Sarlix]

Well I'm surprised I haven't run into any of you guys yet. What servers do you Shazbot on?

Since they split them up I've been on the Europe:London server. I tend to see the same faces over again - hence why I'm surprised I've not see any of ya. You must've run into that Jaggs fellow...Keeps on calling everyone a C**t.

[Sarlix]

On another note I've unlocked all off the classes now just from basic XP dish outs. The Brute was the last I unlocked and surprisingly my favourite class. Simple yet effective. I normally go straight for bases defences, turrets etc. Takes 3 shots to take out a level 1 turret. I'm amazed at how no one hardly bothers to repair base turrets...but spend so much time fussing over the genner.

Anyone else have a favourite class?

[Miker]

New patch today: http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/306

Contains bolt launcher nerfs, light spinfusor buffs, less teamstacking, and new INF gear. Solid all around, although I would've liked to see a nerf on the splash of the bolt launcher rather than the direct damage.

Also, I'm on N.A. East, but if we do make an initiative to play together, I'd be willing to suffer some stupidly high ping to play with RPS folk.

My favorite class is by far the soldier, as I'm a fan of all-out combat and duels. I like being able to do all things at once, but I usually play defense and try to chase if I'm not terribly out of position. However, I just unlocked my first 100K item, the LMG for the Jugg, and I plan on playing more of that soon.

[DeVadder]

EU-Amsterdam here.
Lately i had huge problems with insane loading times after the first match of a session. Hopefully the patch helps me out and to reinforce that i also completely new installed the client and to my huge surprise it now actually is called Open Beta ^^

[frenz0rz]

EU London here, although I admit I've not been playing much lately due to Mass Effect 3.

I usually play Technician myself, and I've forgone unlocking most other classes so that I can get that damned thumper.

[mentor07825]

EU London here.

I usually play as the Pathfinder, although I play as Technician and the Brute if the needs of the team calls for it. My name in the game is mentor07825, if anybody wants to add me.

[Coccyx]

EU London, was primarily pathfinder but I'm moving more towards sentinel. In game name is just Coccyx.

Perhaps we should see if we can organise something? I did manage to join on a friend just now.

[DrSlek]

So I think you can only buy the near gear with gold, from what I can tell. The store page lists the Assassin pack as being 800G.

I've only just unlocked the INF, and am still getting used to it. I habbitually hold forward while skiing. Apparently doing so does not allow pack items to be used. Until I stop holding W, items like the pathfinder speed boost and the infiltrator cloak cannot be used. So I have to force myself to take my finger of W when approaching the enemy base, or else I'm quite boned.

Now after unlocking the heavy bolter and mines for the Doombringer, that class has become the be all and end all of defense.

[Miker]

So I think you can only buy the near gear with gold, from what I can tell. The store page lists the Assassin pack as being 800G.I've only just unlocked the INF, and am still getting used to it. I habbitually hold forward while skiing. Apparently doing so does not allow pack items to be used. Until I stop holding W, items like the pathfinder speed boost and the infiltrator cloak cannot be used. So I have to force myself to take my finger of W when approaching the enemy base, or else I'm quite boned.Now after unlocking the heavy bolter and mines for the Doombringer, that class has become the be all and end all of defense.The weapons can be unlocked with XP (100K for jackal, 75K for knives, 42K for smoke nades), but the skins can only be bought with gold. The skins aren't exactly priced to move, either... I read somewhere that Hi-Rez said that they'll be lowering prices of equipment once it's been out for a while, and I hope they stick to their words.

[Miker]

New patch: http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/307. Spinfusor velocities normalized, Jackal nerf (oh boy!), and Brute Nova Colt buff.

[Scumbag]

Just got back into this after a long break from playing. Really fun to be playing it again!
While the damage on the bolt launcher has been nerfed, have they flattened the trajectory on it? Seems a lot easier to hit stuff then I remember.

[evilbobthebob]

Something that may be of more interest to Tribes veterans, HiRez are bringing out CTF Raindance for PAX East. More info and a couple of screenshots here: http://www.hirezstudios.com/hirezwp/?p=1908

There will also be a new gamemode, Capture and Hold. Sounds interesting.

[Phantoon]

I just got 433 KMH by ejecting out of a boosting Shrike.

[MOKKA]

I'm playing this game for about a month and I really like it. In fact it's the first multiplayer-FPS since the original UT where I get the desire to, at least, 'not suck' at.

I mostly play pathfinder. I'm not very much of a capper though, mostly because my Internet ist quite laggy. I don't know how many times I lost the flag because I magically ran into a mountain and got shot. Therefore I try to concentrate on chasing enemy flag carriers and I think I'm ok at it. I usually end up somewhere in the middle of the scoreboard with a horrible K/D.
I try to get into playing the Infiltrator, Juggernaut and Doombringer as well just in case if there's an overabundance of Pathfinders .
My ingame Name is "MrBland" and I usually jump between the Amsterdam and London-Servers, depending on how many people are raging in the chat. I mostly do 4-5 matches in the evening, sometimes less if I think that I have a bad day.

I would really like to try and play this game with balanced and organised teams and not just with some random people as I think it could be really interesesting .

[Miker]

Since it's not going to be practical to play together on pubs, would you guys be interested in an unofficial RPS server once the private server infrastructure is up? Not that I'm promising anything, I just want to see how much mileage we would actually get out of one.

[evilbobthebob]

I'd gladly play on a RPS Tribes server.

[Coccyx]

Yes yes yes yes yes

[DeVadder]

Totally yes, the experience teaches that everythin improves if you add 'Unofficial RPS-' to it. And i am not even joking.

[Miker]

Okay, I'll take a look at the options for private servers once they're released, and see where we go from there.

[Antares]

An RPS server would be awesome. I play as "SenorPresidente" on London, HoFing or chasing most of the time, feel free to add me!

[grinn]

Would love to play on an RPS Tribes server too.

[grinn]

My nick is Grynn by the way

[Miker]

Launch on Thursday, with no patches in the past week and a half. Hopefully it delivers is all I can say.

[grinn]

Any news on the server? Would love to have more organized games now that I m finding my way around the slopes...

[Miker]

Any news on the server? Would love to have more organized games now that I m finding my way around the slopes...Info on renting servers presumably won't be available until Thursday, when the game launches. If the servers don't come by then, people will be /angry/ at Hi-Rez.

[evilbobthebob]

The COO confirmed in an interview at PAX that custom servers will be available on release. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdK0uZvScUE&feature=youtube_gdata

[Miker]

Launch patch out today, bringing the game to version 1.0: https://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/312

New developer diary about Raindance and custom servers here: http://youtu.be/9MUht_nYc2Q

Custom servers are only half-implemented. There's a handful of sample servers hosted by Hi-Rez available to play on, but according to the video above, actually renting your own server won't be available until a few weeks from now. A bit disappointing, but it's good to see that the infrastructure is more or less in place.

There have been a few new bugs added with this patch, it seems, like missing hit sounds, some ignored .ini files (bloom), and something about nades and melee. Hopefully these are ironed out soon.

[grinn]

Just been playing the objective capture mode. Reallllly don't like it. Every game I played ended up being a spam-grind. One map that's an extension of Arx Novena especially so. Could be fun but not with those short distances to objectives and areas not specifically designed for that sort of gameplay.

[evilbobthebob]

Yeah CaH is a spamfest. I spent most of the time after the patch playing on the "hardcore" servers that have been put up by HiRez that have naked spawn, friendly fire etc. That was fun, helped by the generally higher level of player on such a server.

[Miker]

I just played one game of CaH on Raindance and it didn't seem terribly spammy to me. Considerably less spammy, than, say TF2. I've yet to try the other CaH maps, though. That said, Raindance looks and plays great.

[evilbobthebob]

It's the control points that have chokes or are inside that get spammy. The point inside the domed central building on Outskirts is probably the worst for it. On the bright side, the game has a nice combined arms feel when you have vehicles out on Raindance CaH.

[Scumbag]

For playing the beta before the full release the game seems to have given me a cool 20k XP, which is nice.

[grinn]

Have posted about the game on my blog - pretty noobish stuff but yah: http://grinnsgamearchive.tumblr.com/

Anyone playing tonight? Would love to try and coordinate a bit more than in random games.

[evilbobthebob]

I'll probably be on all night. We could always invade one of the London or Amsterdam custom servers. They have some pretty cool rulesets up right now. My in game name is evilbobthebob.

[MOKKA]

Now that was interesting, a shame the server was so much underpopulated though.
Sorry for not joining you on mumble. I'm usually not very much of a social gamer and was therefore completely unprepared for this kind of stuff. This and Tribes was behaving rather annoyingly tonight. Next time I'll be better prepared.

[evilbobthebob]

Yeah, it was good fun until my internet died on me unexpectedly. We need to get enough people together to properly populate a server.

[Miker]

I missed yesterday's shenanigans because my feeble mind didn't make the connection that evening in the UK =/= evening here in the states. Also, how are you guys playing together? When I took a look at the servers, there didn't seem to be that many slots available.

[evilbobthebob]

The custom server browser doesn't show the player counts correctly. They're almost always close to empty, though I had some incredible games on the Amsterdam Old Timers #1 server today.

[DeVadder]

I had several awesome games on the normal server queues yesterday. Co-ordination, skilled players, people who actually attack the juggers that bomb the flag...
So far the release appears to not have done the servers any bad.

[Skabooga]

Well, all the positive talk around this game has convinced me to try my hand. I'm signed up as Skabooga, and while I'm based in North America -East, if the internet can take the strain I wouldn't mind migrating over to EU - London.

[Lazy Writer]

Oh yeah, I'm game.

Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 were easily the most fun I've had in an online-shooter ever and Ascend has so far delivered. I'm also surprised (pleasantly) that rest of the old player base seems to have and combusted; they were the most elitist bunch of tighwads ever.
Still not a fan of unlockables in my Tribes since I notice bad tendency to point farm instead of just winning the game right there and then.

[evilbobthebob]

There are still a somewhat vocal minority of people who claim to be "veterans" of the Tribes series. They mostly complain and ask for features that don't work quite as they should (see: naked spawn). There's also a bunch of people who continually seem to ask for "physics changes" without ever explaining what those changes should be (except for more powerful disc jumps, which I agree with at least partly).

Unlockables are probably the biggest downside of this game, but I think the point farming will die off as the player base matures.

[Norskov]

MMORPG.com has a key giveaway which grants you the Medium Spinfusor for the Soldier(Worth 42k XP). Before getting the key they require you to sign-up and activate your account.

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/330/Tribes-Ascend-Spinfusor-Gift-Keys.html

[Lazy Writer]

I would dearly love to see naked spawning return so generators would become high value targets again; match tempo would also drop a few notches and it would make base defense a priority.

"Physic changes" roughly translates to "make it like starsiege: tribes" in common-speak. Us veterans (you shoulda seen the proclamation ceremony!) clamour for a chance to relive our youth. And play some starsiege: tribes with it. Not me, Ascend is fast enough as is.

[evilbobthebob]

Naked spawn is available in the custom server preview. Check out the Old Timer servers for that. It doesn't work very well in Ascend though because the current naked implementation (PTH with no upgrades or grenades) is very weak. I got my first Slayer accolade on one of those servers as soldier, camping the flagstand against reasonably skilled players.

[Miker]

Anybody see the 10/10 on Eurogamer? And I thought I liked the game. Seriously, though, I feel like it's an overly generous score for a game that still has a ways to go, if you ask me. Not that I'm unhappy about the score -- it'll bring in more players, and that's always good.

[Codor]

Dumb, dumb question. Just started, really enjoying pathfinder and want to try technician but... How do I get turrets to place? I seem to start with 0 and I have no idea how to get them.

[Miker]

Dumb, dumb question. Just started, really enjoying pathfinder and want to try technician but... How do I get turrets to place? I seem to start with 0 and I have no idea how to get them.Using your pack (TCN's is turret) is bound to C by default.

[KorbenGoodkat]

I only wish I could have the thumper as technician, those evil infiltrators are always messing with my generator! Guess I'll have to spend some gold and unlock it, I think they deserve, the game is amazing.

[evilbobthebob]

The most important thing to remember as TCN is that the generator, while important, is not the prime objective. The flag is. Defend the flag first, generator second. The TCN SMG is actually great at chaining down incoming and outgoing cappers. The thumper is good at hitting them when they grab the flag.

[mentor07825]

I only wish I could have the thumper as technician, those evil infiltrators are always messing with my generator! Guess I'll have to spend some gold and unlock it, I think they deserve, the game is amazing.

If you have a Facebook account and haven't cashed in already, you can get 250 gold for free just for liking their app which does nothing but generate a one time use code for gold.

[frenz0rz]

If you have a Facebook account and haven't cashed in already, you can get 250 gold for free just for liking their app which does nothing but generate a one time use code for gold.

Unfortunately the Thumper costs 780 gold/100,000XP :(

[jackspade]

Wahey, just got this yesterday and it's EPIC. Is there any sort of RPS group for playing this casually on pub servers? Would be nice to play CTF on TS/Vent in a more organised manner :).

[mentor07825]

Unfortunately the Thumper costs 780 gold/100,000XP :(

What a shame :( Are there any bonuses you can get for recommending games? I simmed over the menu once and thought I saw a button that said recommend a friend.

[mentor07825]

Wahey, just got this yesterday and it's EPIC. Is there any sort of RPS group for playing this casually on pub servers? Would be nice to play CTF on TS/Vent in a more organised manner :).

Honestly, none that I know of.

[Miker]

I'll be looking into an RPS server once details about the custom servers are actually announced. Right now Hi-Rez is still working on getting them rentable and configurable.

[Rakysh]

I dl'd this a day or two ago, looks like it become my new FPS obsession. I'm often in the RPS steam chat, so hit me up if you want to play.

[evilbobthebob]

What a shame :( Are there any bonuses you can get for recommending games? I simmed over the menu once and thought I saw a button that said recommend a friend.

There's a friend referral system, yes. Get your link on the Hi-Rez site.

[Scumbag]

The most important thing to remember as TCN is that the generator, while important, is not the prime objective. The flag is. Defend the flag first, generator second. The TCN SMG is actually great at chaining down incoming and outgoing cappers. The thumper is good at hitting them when they grab the flag.

Not only that, repair the radar and Turrets! The number of times I've seen half the base in ruins and the techs just sitting in the gen room waiting...

[Lazy Writer]

They seem to have changed the pathfinder hitbox somewhat; I keep getting disc'd more often than I would like and that never happened in the beta! "Aerodynamics" also seem to have been tonkered with and it's giving me a hard time adjusting to it for some reason.
Last time I played was a while ago, not to obfuscate my meaning. I suppose the new tweaks haven't clicked for me yet. I still love the finished look. It's tribes, with interface!

[evilbobthebob]

Maybe your poor jet control due to the changed systems is getting you disc'd :P

[Miker]

Okay, I don't think this has been made yet, so here it is: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPShazbot. Our own Steam group for Tribes. It's a public group, so feel free to join. Another reason you should join is because I spent hours making the logo to closely resemble that of our benefactors. (the original is from here: http://www.reddit.com/r/shazbot/comments/sb4oz/please_dont_hassle_the_hof/).

[CWalker]

MMORPG.com is doing a free (soldier) spinfusor promotion thing, I believe you need an account etc to claim it:

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/330/Tribes-Ascend-Spinfusor-Gift-Keys.html

2721 left at time of writing. Shazbot!

[mentor07825]

MMORPG.com is doing a free (soldier) spinfusor promotion thing, I believe you need an account etc to claim it:

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/330/Tribes-Ascend-Spinfusor-Gift-Keys.html

2721 left at time of writing. Shazbot!

Awh yeah, thank you!!

[Miker]

Okay, I'm making an announcement for the RPShazbot Steam group (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPShazbot) containing people's forum names and their in-game names. I've scoured this thread and here's what I've found. Let me know if you want your name added:

FORUM NAME -- TRIBES NAME

Miker -- Miker
Reinhardt -- Sheerchance
frenz0rz -- frenz0rz
mentor07825 -- mentor07825
MOKKA -- MrBland
Antares -- SenorPresidente
grinn -- grynn
evilbobthebob -- evilbobthebob
skabooga -- skabooga

[CWalker]

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I go by CWalker00 in tribesland. Why yes, I am very original.

[squirrelfanatic]

Just installed and gave it a whirl in CTF. Combat seems pretty uncoordinated with little to no communication. But it's fun skiing around and knifing people in the head.

[evilbobthebob]

It gets marginally more coordinated once you get past level 6 and stop being put in the newbie bracket. It will also get much more difficult.

[Rakysh]

I'm Viae1 in game, and I suck at Tribes.

[DeVadder]

Okay, I'm making an announcement for the RPShazbot Steam group (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPShazbot) containing people's forum names and their in-game names. I've scoured this thread and here's what I've found. Let me know if you want your name added:

FORUM NAME -- TRIBES NAME

Miker -- Miker
Reinhardt -- Sheerchance
frenz0rz -- frenz0rz
mentor07825 -- mentor07825
MOKKA -- MrBland
Antares -- SenorPresidente
grinn -- grynn
evilbobthebob -- evilbobthebob
skabooga -- skabooga

DeVadder - DeVadder

And group is awesome we can use the group chat to coordinate ingame if we ever feel like it :)

[Lazy Writer]

Tribes and me, we're back together again. LazyWriter reporting in for jellyshots and drunken rocketboot flying. Because that's the only way to fly while toting a fusion mortar.

Errr, as in "hitboxes ok, aerodynamics like-wise, I wanna play" but not quite so concise. I'm also amazed (or embarrased) that for all my beta playing I couldn't unlock 100% of any one class in retail yet. When'd I preorder this thing?! Oh that's right, soon as I heard I could. No wonder I've got "lazy" in my name.

I too am waiting for rental servers to rear their pay-to-play heads.

[Scumbag]

I am lemmington, and I'm always on the loosing side.

[Miker]

List of in-game names has been updated as follows:

FORUM NAME -- TRIBES NAME

Miker -- Miker
Reinhardt -- Sheerchance
frenz0rz -- frenz0rz
mentor07825 -- mentor07825
MOKKA -- MrBland
Antares -- SenorPresidente
grinn -- grynn
evilbobthebob -- evilbobthebob
skabooga -- skabooga
CWalker -- CWalker00
Rakysh -- Viae1
DeVadder -- DeVadder
Scumbag -- lemmington

Do people want an upcoming event to play? I almost never get a chance to play until 11pm US central time, which is probably 5am or something for UK folk. Regardless, suggest a time, let people reply, and I'll arrange an announcement.

[squirrelfanatic]

Miker, you can add me to the list as well. My ign is the same: Squirrelfanatic. Also joined the group.

[evilbobthebob]

Any time before midnight BST is good for me, though a bit earlier would be preferred. There are always a bunch of empty or near empty custom servers we could commandeer for it.

[jackspade]

Yay fantastic :).

I am flyingllama in game ([PIG] llama in steam group). We have a lowly 10 man TS server as well so msg me in steam if anyone fancies a game with voice comms.

[DeVadder]

You can join the chat of the group and enable voice chat there.
Steam voice works quite well and we all already have it installed and are in the same group, so i would recommend using that.

[Coccyx]

...or one of the unofficial rps mumble servers? There's one in particular which get's used for pretty much everything.

[airtekh]

Having a lot of fun with this.

I'm trying to get better at the Pathfinder. A typical run involves me patiently hanging out in the hills, building momentum, turning towards the base, getting closer, rushing into the flagstand at 200km/hr with my hand outstretched ... and missing the flag! :( Such a rush building up speed though.

Anyone else think the Jackal (one of the unlockable primary weapons for the Infiltrator) is supremely overpowered? I played a game where a pair of enemy infiltrators were able to lock down the gen room by themselves with it.

[evilbobthebob]

Yes, the Jackal's ability to be an airburst and trap weapon makes it very powerful. It's banned in competitive play.

[squirrelfanatic]

Having a lot of fun with this.

I'm trying to get better at the Pathfinder. A typical run involves me patiently hanging out in the hills, building momentum, turning towards the base, getting closer, rushing into the flagstand at 200km/hr with my hand outstretched ... and missing the flag! :( Such a rush building up speed though.The Pathfinder is pretty fun to play, I agree. For me the best part is when I have actually grabbed the flag (probably with a stupid expression of glee in my face) and then realise that everyone and their cat is after me.

Also during one match it has happened twice to me that I took the enemy flag as the Human Bullet, ran it back to my base, reached the flagstand, and nearly collided with the enemy Pathfinder as he nicked my own team's flag right infront of my nose.

[Miker]

I won't be able to play until Wednesday evening in the US, but if UK folk want to throw out a regular time in the evenings, I can schedule an announcement. evilbobthebob said any time before midnight BST is good, how about we give it a shot at 11pm BST tomorrow night? I've scheduled an event for it, hopefully people start playing at that time.

[Coccyx]

11's a bit late for me, not sure about everyone else. I was envisioning something more like 7.

oh and you can add me to that list Miker, I'm Coccyx on tribes also.

[Miker]

11's a bit late for me, not sure about everyone else. I was envisioning something more like 7. oh and you can add me to that list Miker, I'm Coccyx on tribes also.I changed to to 10, maybe that'll work out? And I added you to the list.

[frenz0rz]

Hang on, are we talking tonight or tomorrow night?

Either way I'll likely be about, unless I am summoned for a Blood Bowl league match.

[Miker]

Hang on, are we talking tonight or tomorrow night?

Either way I'll likely be about, unless I am summoned for a Blood Bowl league match.

It's tonight. Who knows if anybody will actually show up and play, but I made the event anyway. I won't be playing myself because I'll unfortunately still be in class.

[Coccyx]

10's not ideal but much more feasible XD I'll probably be there.

[Danny252]

Sneaked myself into the Steam group, having been pleasantly surprised by how well the game runs on my new laptop - Tribes name is "Dannei". Still woefully slow and liable to die a lot, but having fun anyway (well, when not respawning)

[Miker]

New update incoming tomorrow: http://www.hirezstudios.com/hirezwp/?p=1961

The update will also let players rent servers, so I'll take a look at that. I've never run a server before, but from the previews, it looked easy enough to manage.

I am, however, concerned about the price. Judging by prices for Battlefield 3, it's not cheap to run a 32-slot server at about 40 USD/month. There's no way I can afford that as a college student, so if we want a server, we'll have to figure something out. I suppose we could plead RPS itself to make an official server as they have for TF2/BFBC2, but that's not very likely.

[Coccyx]

Hmm, If there's a way we can get a communal pool of money towards a server I wouldn't mind contributing, though it depends how many other people are willing.

[evilbobthebob]

There's no reason why we should immediately get a 32 player server. For this game, 16 or 20 player is enough I think. That would allow you to gauge interest without massive outlay, I would hope.

[Miker]

There's no reason why we should immediately get a 32 player server. For this game, 16 or 20 player is enough I think. That would allow you to gauge interest without massive outlay, I would hope.

That's true. I might be willing to foot the bill for a 16-player server for the first month and see how popular it is.

EDIT: The event should have popped up for people in the Steam group. Let me know if you guys played or if anybody actually showed up.

[evilbobthebob]

I will turn up a bit later and join any RPSer online in my friends list if my internet stops having huge latencies :|

[squirrelfanatic]

Having trouble with joining the Mumble server. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure that out soon. Steam voice chat was ok for me, but apparently also a bit annoying for others.

[DeVadder]

I am still in favor of Steam as it is so easy to see who actually is playing and you can just join in.
But of course i woud also join mumble or ts if there are steam specific problems for some people.
The biggest problem where people who did not use push to talk combined with no headset, so you got a nice echo imho. But that is not steam specific.
Nevertheless, i got to add everybody ingame, had a few good games and capped a lot of flags, so i'd call that a success :)

I vote for begging RPS for a server, i believe Tribes becomes big enough of a game to reason that.

[hal9000]

I joined for a couple rounds as 'halnuevemil'. For some reason, I have problems with steam voice chat. Sometimes my microphone doesn't work. I'm sure I messed up the settings.

[Scumbag]

Nevertheless, i got to add everybody ingame, had a few good games and capped a lot of flags, so i'd call that a success :)

Well I certianly saw you fly over my head a lot as a DMB, though I openly admit I am useless with them.
Sorry for also not noticing the steam messages, did not have the game in the client and alt tabbing Tribes is a recipie for mess.

[Miker]

Just hopped into a few short TDM games to get my first win of the day before I buckle down on studying and frenz0rz joined me and pestered me with his SLD assault rfile :( Also, my team that game wasn't too great, and I couldn't do anything about chasing since I played jugg.

[airtekh]

Some good games tonight, nice playing with you guys.


Having trouble with joining the Mumble server. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure that out soon. Steam voice chat was ok for me, but apparently also a bit annoying for others.


I am still in favor of Steam as it is so easy to see who actually is playing and you can just join in.
But of course i woud also join mumble or ts if there are steam specific problems for some people.

Personally I've never used Mumble, and Steam voice chat works pretty well for me, but I'll go with whatever the consensus is.



Nevertheless, i got to add everybody ingame, had a few good games and capped a lot of flags, so i'd call that a success :)


Yeah man, you capped most of the flags in the games I was in. Nice work!

I'm still lamenting the one lost flag where I was chasing a dude who was after you, but I couldn't kill him quickly enough to prevent the recovery. :( I think I need a Spinfusor for my Soldier since the peashooter that I have at the moment doesn't do enough damage.


Well I certianly saw you fly over my head a lot as a DMB, though I openly admit I am useless with them.
Sorry for also not noticing the steam messages, did not have the game in the client and alt tabbing Tribes is a recipie for mess.

Add a shortcut to Tribes in your Steam library and you won't need to alt-Tab. It worked like a charm for me.

[frenz0rz]

Just hopped into a few short TDM games to get my first win of the day before I buckle down on studying and frenz0rz joined me and pestered me with his SLD assault rfile :( Also, my team that game wasn't too great, and I couldn't do anything about chasing since I played jugg.

That was suprisingly fun, I dont often play TDM might I reckon I'll do more in the future.

Sorry about the whole killing you thing ;)

[DeVadder]

I'm still lamenting the one lost flag where I was chasing a dude who was after you, but I couldn't kill him quickly enough to prevent the recovery. :( I think I need a Spinfusor for my Soldier since the peashooter that I have at the moment doesn't do enough damage.

Despite i had so many xp from the good old token conversation that i rather bought 100k items instead of testing them on the training servers, i never actually got me a spinfusor until that mmorpg.com giveaway thing a few posts back. I allways thought the thumper was more my thing, you know, easier to hit things with while allowing for more thumper jumps because of the less raw damage and smg>pistol blabla.
Now i have to admit: What was i thinking. The spinfusor is indeed awesome. Beeing able to hit things further away than you can throw a grenade is extremely usefull.
However experience shows that i will most likely think exactly opposite in a few days, has been that way with Nova-Colt vs. Shotgun, Mirv vs. Mortar, LMG vs. MKD.... I just can't make up my mind.

[Miker]

This is extremely unconfirmed at the moment, but here's a post on r/tribes about server prices:

[18:54] <@Bort> <@Bort> 10 days is $8
[18:55] <@Bort> <@Bort> 30 days is $16
[18:55] <@Bort> <@Bort> 90 days is $40
[18:55] <@Bort> 32 slot

(Bort is supposedly HiRezBart, the esports/community manager)

That is exceptionally reasonable as far as server prices go, at least from what I've seen. For that much, I'd be willing to pay $16 for the first month, then depending on how populated it is, maybe we can all chip in money for the 90-day $40 plan. Or if people are committed enough, we can chip in for the 90-day plan right off the bat.

[Operatives]

I wasn't able to find it fast enough in this thread (if it does exist), but do we have an official RPS Tribes group on Steam? If so, what's the Steam Group name?

[hal9000]

I wasn't able to find it fast enough in this thread (if it does exist), but do we have an official RPS Tribes group on Steam? If so, what's the Steam Group name?

Rock, Paper, Shazbot (RPShazbot)

[Operatives]

Thanks, Hal9000.

My handle in Tribes Ascend is Operatives. My SteamID is Operatives.

[Scumbag]

New update and the raider just got beefed up.
That new plasma rifle looks really OP in my eyes. Not used it yet, but just watching people play with it makes me raise an eyebrow.

[Danny252]

I wasn't able to find it fast enough in this thread (if it does exist), but do we have an official RPS Tribes group on Steam? If so, what's the Steam Group name?

Maybe Miker could edit the first post to show that? The only mention I could find of RPShazbot is about 3 pages in!

[duff]

New update and the raider just got beefed up.
That new plasma rifle looks really OP in my eyes. Not used it yet, but just watching people play with it makes me raise an eyebrow.

Yeh I saw the preview footage. On the one hand the player looks incredibly skilled, but still the projectile seems incredibly fast moving and pinpoint accurate.

My Tribes handle is duffin66

[Jim9137]

How to pew pew tribes?

[airtekh]

Steam Group is this one (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPShazbot), for people looking for it.

[oceanclub]

Am just wondering what kind of performance people are getting on TA? On high setting, I was getting only 25+ FPS (High Detail) on the following system, 45+ FPS (Low Detail):

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 (B3)
Intel Core i5-2500K
Be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced Cooler
8GB-Kit (2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB (Cache)
OCZ Petrol SSD 128GB (OS)
Palit GTX 560Ti 1GB
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Corsair TX750 750W PSU

P.

[Guykild]

Just saw the link in the Raider article comments so thought I'd come say hello. Guykild1 in game/on Steam, so if anyone wants a DMB/TCN jumping into their games then give me a shout.

[TheGodzillaHunter]

Just started playing tribes, and am loving it. Joined the steam group my steam name being my forum name, and my ign being MeepMerp. Not sure if ill be able to join any games on account of being half-way across the world from England, but I decided to try.

[airtekh]

Am just wondering what kind of performance people are getting on TA?

I don't know the exact framerate, but my rig is about half as powerful as yours and my fps is smooth enough not to notice anything amiss.

I didn't change anything in the graphics settings apart from the resolution, so I'm using whatever the default settings are.

[IAmUnaware]

Am just wondering what kind of performance people are getting on TA?

We have extremely similar machines except that I have two Crossfired HD 6870s and I get about 60 FPS with the game's default graphics settings.

On another topic, just joined the Steam group. My Steam name is an unfortunate mess of clan tags and letters: [TH!] SB (|CC|). My Tribes name is the same as my forum handle.

[Jwoozy]

Am just wondering what kind of performance people are getting on TA? On high setting, I was getting only 25+ FPS (High Detail) on the following system, 45+ FPS (Low Detail):

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 (B3)
Intel Core i5-2500K
Be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced Cooler
8GB-Kit (2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB (Cache)
OCZ Petrol SSD 128GB (OS)
Palit GTX 560Ti 1GB
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Corsair TX750 750W PSU

P.

You should be hitting at or around 60fps just fine with that setup. What resolution are you playing on? Unless you're noticing a lot of screen tearing make sure Vsync and Frame Smoothing are disabled and make sure your Nvidia drivers are up to date and not forcing some obscene AA mode like Super Sampling.

I wasn't able to locate an advanced graphics option in the client, so it might be worth your time to run on low with no Vsync and manually adjust graphics through the GPU control panel. It's hard to tell by eyeballing it, but it seems that the difference between Ultra and High is the addition of SSAO/maybe just improved lighting and shadows, and the difference between High and Medium is improved texture/filtering and AA. SSAO is practically superfluous in a game as fast as Tribes and most of the time you'll be too far from the enemy to notice their skin, let alone occlusion.

[Kyndylan]

For what it's worth, I'm using a .ini from 51Titan from this post (http://area51gaming.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1153). Don't know what my actual framerates were/are, but it's much smoother than it was. I'm on old hardware: C2D e6850 and ATI HD4850.

Looks terrible though!

[Coccyx]

I am still in favor of Steam as it is so easy to see who actually is playing and you can just join in.
But of course i woud also join mumble or ts if there are steam specific problems for some people.
The biggest problem where people who did not use push to talk combined with no headset, so you got a nice echo imho. But that is not steam specific.

You can always check who's playing with the steam group, we just don't have to use their annoying voice XD With mumble (and similar, though we do just have a mumble server ready to use) the default option isn't set to continuous transmission, unlike in steam, so hardly anyone uses it - and that (vocal) minority can easily be told off :)


Am just wondering what kind of performance people are getting on TA? On high setting, I was getting only 25+ FPS (High Detail) on the following system, 45+ FPS (Low Detail):

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 (B3)
Intel Core i5-2500K
Be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced Cooler
8GB-Kit (2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB (Cache)
OCZ Petrol SSD 128GB (OS)
Palit GTX 560Ti 1GB
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Corsair TX750 750W PSU

P.

I haven't used any of these myself, but this guide to better performance I stumbled across looks pretty good and thorough - http://distractobot.com/tribes-ascend-graphics-tweaks-hardware-guide/#more-2430

[Skydancer]

Add me in. Skydancer on tribes, skydancer on steam, skydancer on here. Regular on EU-Amsterdam! Will gladly play with fellows if I can catch anybody online (TCN, broot, HoF most of the time, but will do anything in a pinch).

[Miker]

Okay, I've edited the original post to contain the Steam group, and I've added everybody's forum name and in-game name to the Steam group's list. Here's what the list looks like, let me know if I've missed anybody or have to make any corrections:

Miker -- Miker
Reinhardt -- Sheerchance
frenz0rz -- frenz0rz
mentor07825 -- mentor07825
MOKKA -- MrBland
Antares -- SenorPresidente
grinn -- grynn
evilbobthebob -- evilbobthebob
skabooga -- skabooga
CWalker -- CWalker00
Rakysh -- Viae1
DeVadder -- DeVadder
Scumbag -- lemmington
Squirrelfanatic -- Squirrelfanatic
Jackspade -- flyingllama
Coccyx -- Coccyx
hal9000 -- halnuevemil
Danny252 -- Dannei
Operatives -- Operatives
duff -- duffin66
Guykild -- Guykild1
TheGodzillaHunter -- MeepMerp
IAmUnaware -- IAmUnaware
Skydancer -- Skydancer

Now, on the subject of servers, the prices are as mentioned -- 10 day is $10, 30 day is $16, and 90 day is $40. The catch is, you have to buy it with gold, which is just fan-damn-tastic. I said earlier that I would be willing to foot the bill for a 30-day server and see how popular it is, then when it expires, we could pool together money for a 90-day server if people want. Alternatively, we can just pool together money for a 90-day server right off the bat. Thoughts?

[DeVadder]

I have to admit, i prefer to use voice activation myself. With a proper mic and headphones, that should not make a too big problem unless in a room with dozens of people. I just do not have a button on my mouse left for push to talk and as you will often want to say something in Tribes in the most hectic of moments, my left hand is completely occupied with holding space, directional keys, maybe pressing q, and often even using VGS to spam stuff like VAF or VFT. After we called out the open mic+no headphone guys, it worked fine for everybody else apparently except we could hear someone breath from time to time.
But, yeah, post mumble details and we can use that for the next try.

ninjaedit:
Concerning server, i was planning to get me a new booster, so i am going to buy gold anyways. I could just buy more so we would be saving something. This is assuming people do not mind me beeing the admin instead of Miker (or someone else). I would not mind to use some of my own money on this as well, but not necesarily the complete 40.

[DeVadder]

Okay, i did some math, if i would buy 5500 GP for 40€ that would include a 60 day booster i would otherwise have to spend like 15€ on (i would buy a set myself as well ofc). That means the gold alone would be something like 25€. Given it only takes 4000 GP to rent a server for 90 days, that leaves us with only 18€ for the 90 days.
I am not sure that i will be willing to buy a 60 day booster and the excess GP every 90 days (actually i am quite sure i will not) but for this time i am happy with that.

[Miker]

Okay, i did some math, if i would buy 5500 GP for 40€ that would include a 60 day booster i would otherwise have to spend like 15€ on (i would buy a set myself as well ofc). That means the gold alone would be something like 25€. Given it only takes 4000 GP to rent a server for 90 days, that leaves us with only 18€ for the 90 days. I am not sure that i will be willing to buy a 60 day booster and the excess GP every 90 days (actually i am quite sure i will not) but for this time i am happy with that.Okay, so here's what I think. I don't mind somebody else being the admin for the server -- in fact, that's probably preferable, because I'm taking a trip to China come mid-May and I won't be back for a month. No Tribes for me during that period for obvious reasons. However, my worry is that the European prices are a bit unfair. The 40 pound gold package (5500 GP, 60 day booster) is 65 USD, while the same package is 50 USD over here. I wouldn't feel right making you pay extra for something that will be shared by all of us.

[DeVadder]

I guess that is just the poor british getting fucked over there. For me it is 40€ what equals 52USD. That does sound about fair imho.

[Coccyx]

The mumble server we use is: server.herosquad.org
With the default port 64738 (you can leave it blank)

[Miker]

I guess that is just the poor british getting fucked over there. For me it is 40€ what equals 52USD. That does sound about fair imho.Crap, never mind. I had a brain fart and I misread your euro sign as the pound sign. In that case, 52USD sounds more or less reasonable. I'd throw money your way for a 90-day server if other people will.

[DeVadder]

Okay, lets do this, i really want to pimp out my Raider :)
My paypal is eve.devadder@gmail.com
I am happy to spend 5€ of the server cost myself, so if we could get 13€, that would be much appreciated. I will keep this post updated, so check before you give, i do not want to make a profit of this! (If you want your name here, send me a pm stating who you are on paypal)
Donations so far:

18 / 18

DeVadder - 5€
squirrelfanatic - 5€
Miker - 5€
Antares - 3€

edit: Thanks everybody, that was quick.

[Miker]

I'll throw in 5 euros as well.

[squirrelfanatic]

Same here, 5 EUR sent.

[DeVadder]

edit: you people are too fast and nice for my writing speed :)

I already bought the GP and rented the server. I will launch it immediatly after finishing this post :)
The name is RockPaperShazbot.
For now it will have standard CTF rules, if we want to change anything, we can. It is in the region Europe - Amsterdam but even that can be changed anytime.
There appears to be no way to reserve spots for now, so if the server gets popular (and i assume so ^^) and is full but you really want to get in, you have to poke someone on the steam group who has the admin password and can kick some stranger. ^^
What brings us to the next point, the admin password. I am not sure how we should deal with that. It appears, that only i can change it, so we are probably not in danger of somehow loosing the server should the pass become public. But nevertheless, i would prefer to not make it public. If someone used it to grief, i would have to change it and resend it to everybody who will be part of the however decided group of admins.
For now, i will just send it to Miker and those people who helped pay for it and if you want it too, post here or pm me. And come on the server :)

Also, if anybody wants it to use some different ruleset, post here as well. And if you have nothing to say, still post! Posting is your friend!

[Miker]

Money sent, assuming Paypal worked. And thanks for the admin password :)

[Prester John]

Just getting into TA, mind if i tag along for the fun?!

[Torabayashi]

Just wanted to throw my name (Torabayashi) on the list as well. I'm rather busy writing my thesis at the moment, but I normally play a few games during the evenings.

[DeVadder]

Sure, join the Steam group and the server :)

I just saw, for some wierd reason, Tribes censors the official in Unofficial RPS community server in the description....

[Miker]

So I just joined our (currently empty) server and I get ping around 110. Not bad, really. Seems rather playable. The server browser seems to be missing the ability to add favorites, which seems like a pretty large oversight. Also, how do I actually admin a server that's not mine? Is it even possible? And one more thing -- earlier this morning when I thought I was going to be running a server, I created a server that I didn't activate, and now it's just sitting there with no way to remove it. Weird.

[DeVadder]

No idea how you can admin. I just assumed it to be possible, why else would there be a admin password.
I believe you can add favorites by clicking the small star on the far left in the browser.

[frenz0rz]

Blimey, I go make some dinner and by the time I'm back we have a server! Excellent! Will anyone be about tonight? I've got a Blood Bowl match scheduled but I should be on at some point.

Also, it might be an idea to add the server name (or IP - can you even connect by IP?) to the main thread and Steam group so that people know where to go.

[squirrelfanatic]

Not sure if this would be a wise idea, but maybe we could tell the Hivemind about this?

[Miker]

Announcement made in Steam group and added to first post. And I suppose we can notify the Hivemind. I don't think it'll hurt.

[Danny252]

Also an idea to give the guy updating this sticky thread a poke: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?668-Server-List

(I haven't done it myself in case this is what you all meant by "notify the Hivemind", to avoid us all PMing the guy 20 times :) )

[Kyndylan]

I'll add my details just in case: Tribes name: Bearum, Steam name...Kyndylan? I think. I'll find you in Steam Chat, I expect.

[Miker]

I just sent an email to RPS's contact email asking them to make a small post about our server as part of the somewhat-regular "RPS games club" posts that give updates on forum happenings. Hopefully they say something, although they're so busy I don't expect them to. And yeah, someone should send a PM to QuantaCat to update the servers page. I'm going to be busy for the rest of the day, so I won't be doing it.

[evilbobthebob]

Servers can be added to "favourites" by clicking the star on the far left column of the server browser. I'm not sure how admin works for non-owners. As far as rules go, I'd say keep it vanilla, perhaps with auto-assign and class limits- we don't need more than 4 TCN per team, for example.

As for the Raider update: plasma gun OP, other guns sidegrades. Expect a nerf on the plasma gun soon...or at least hope for one.

[Danny252]

And yeah, someone should send a PM to QuantaCat to update the servers page. I'm going to be busy for the rest of the day, so I won't be doing it.

Done!

When you favourite a server, is there actually a quick way to join it? I can't see any sort of "favourite servers" list anywhere (which probably means I am blind)

[evilbobthebob]

Unfortunately no, you just have to click the F button on the top column bar until it sorts all your favourites in the region to the top.

[Wayward_Ronin]

Ooh a server! I'll pop on later so that you can all kill me.

My Tribes ID is BushidoJoe (wayward_ronin on Steam).

[NieA7]

Didn't know there was an RPS server, I'll throw my hat into the ring (so you can throw discs at my head). TribesID NieA7, same on Steam.

[Antares]

Wow, I look away for a few hours and suddenly this thread is 12 pages long and we have a server! [VGCA]! I'll chip in the last 3 euros.

[squirrelfanatic]

That was a nice server birthday party, sadly I had to leave soon. Great fun with you guys, the lack of good team balancing à la TF2 is really annoying though.

[frenz0rz]

Bah, I just crashed whilst throwing a grenade at someone. I guess I'll leave it there and come back later after Blood Bowl.

[DeVadder]

We had up to 10 vs 10 playing when i left, awesome.
We have changed the rules on the fly to Friendly Fire (not on base assets), 1 shrike per team, unlimited gravcycles for 10 credits each.

If we want to leave them that i do not know, but i liked it this way. I suppose most discussion will focus on friendly fire, we turned it on when there were just 3 of us so we could fool around and play deathmatch and just left it that way. I guess it should not target deployables, we had some accidental dead forcefields, but the normal friendly fire, i would say yes.

But to sum it up, i am glad the server has been so well recieved and see you on the battlefield.

[Scumbag]

Had a good fun little play with the flokes about 20 mins ago. Nice to be playing on a server where any chat that goes on is either friendly banter or just casual talk about game mechanics (like how that plasma gun is indeed horridly powerful), as opposed to the public servers where the only talk is usualy far too hostile.

And sorry to Vadder and... cant remember the other guy there in the Steam chat. I kind of joined the voice chat like a creepy old man hanging about in the background then. Could hear you speaking Dutch so thought I wouldent butt in ;)

[Miker]

Great to hear that the server was populated earlier today :) And DeVadder -- I sent you a Steam friend request that you haven't accepted yet.

[airtekh]

Nice to see the RPS Tribes community is in full swing. Well done on getting the server organised and paid for; you guys are awesome!

One thing I would suggest is to keep the 'official' events coming, via the Steam notifications. I know there will be people who will join the server most days anyway and that's what it's there for, but events have a focus to them that sees a lot of people join at once.

People see an event pop up on Steam and a server, even an empty one, fills up within minutes. Without events people tend to drift off, and server population dwindles.

At least that's what happened with the TF2 server anyway.

[DeVadder]

And sorry to Vadder and... cant remember the other guy there in the Steam chat. I kind of joined the voice chat like a creepy old man hanging about in the background then. Could hear you speaking Dutch so thought I wouldent butt in ;)

Hehe, we had been in a private room before but figured we might as well sit in that one, in case anybody wanted to join. We are fine with speaking english though, so do not hesitate to say 'Hi'.

Oh, and that was german, by the way, not that it matters all that much. ^^

[DHP]

Am new to the tribes world, but after giving it a try am keen for some rps-y goodness. Steam:spandexamphetameinfuhrer, Tribes:nomenclature

[Miker]

Just added another event for tomorrow at (what I think is) 10pm in the UK. I would schedule it earlier, but I'm selfish and scheduled it at an hour when I can actually play with folks.

[shaydeeadi]

Been playing a bit recently, will try and check out the server when I get on tonight. Steam: shaydeeadi, T:A: shaydeeadi.

[oceanclub]

Looking forward to jumping into a game on Thursday, hopefully. Nickname in TA and on Steam same as my username here. I note that Mumble supports positional audio, which sounds pretty cool - does TA support it?

P.

[evilbobthebob]

I don't think there's a TA plugin for mumble yet.

[oceanclub]

I don't think there's a TA plugin for mumble yet.

There's a fairly good description of how to write plugins here, but I note one step is to use a memory reader called Cheat Engine to read memory location; with an always-online game like T:A, being banned is a danger:

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Pluginguide

P.

[Jim9137]

Randomly dropped in yesterday.

Tribes: Jirmack Steam: Jim9137

PS: The flag should be where the flag has to be.

[QuantaCat]

Ive started now as well. Oh dear.

QuantaCat, obviously.