Mr Dave wrote:
Mmm, that sounds more sucky. I was disappointed (to put it mildly) that there was any form of unlocking structure at all. This just makes it sound worse.
Alas, yes. In Tribes 2, the entire selection of equipment was available from the beginning. In Ascend, you can either play to earn points to unlock stuff, I think, or you can pay to 'buy' access to a specific class, and there might also be the usual buffs to buy as well.
Quote:
If there's one thing Halo, Battlefield et al have taught me is that I prefer my FPSs to have no vehicles for general shooting. The lack of maneuverability bugs me, and the way it forces specific choices also.
After viewing the tribes ascend video, I watched some quake 3 duels. It made me sad about the state of modern shooters.
The thing about Tribes, is they all worked together quite well. The tank had a slow firing fusion mortar which was best used in conjunction with a spotter, the bomber need a full crew or it was vulnerable to attack by fighters, and the fighters themselves were fast but only the very best players were able to use them effectively against ground targets (players or infrastructure) without getting blown up by missiles or another fighter. Further, the bases were very large structures where the vehicles couldn't go so if you didn't fancy vehicles or the presce thereof you could just go inside. There was one map in particular that I loved where the outside was a series of very steep, harsh mountains - hard to pass even with your jetpack. The intention was for air vehicles to deliver infantry to assault the absolutely enormous (easily the size of your standard deathmatch or CTF map) bases. It worked really well as those who wanted to fly flew, those who wanted to fight just hopped onto a player-controlled transport and were dropped off at the action.
They claim the Tribes retains some of its purity thanks to the Spinfusor but I'm not sure that's enough.