That's why tribes 2 was such a huge flop!! Because people really loved how simple tribes 1 was so what they really wanted was tribes 1 with super graphics :S not going to happen is it?
I'm sure this is right for a small percentage of them, but nothign compares to the blow done by this :
<img src="http://www.planettribes.com/tribes2/troubleshooting/ue.jpg">
One of the largest post-release flops by a game company ever (that im aware of). I beleive i read only 40% of the people who purchased the game legitimatly were able to play it out of the box. Then after that, when you could play the game, it was pretty sloppy, plus its sys requirments were rediculous. (i still cant run at absolute max settings with my up-to-date hardware.) And mantanza did hit the nail on the head there , tribes 2 was an outreach project. Tribes is a somewhat unique form of a popular style of game. So in order to pull more people to this, and make more money, they targeted people from other games, not the loyal fanbase from before. Tribes 2 was made to run/feel more like its quake 3/half-life/unreal counterparts. It really felt like they changed everything they could, just to say "hey look we make it different". Everything was dumbed down to kill the learning curve. However its that learning curve that brings most tribes players to truly enjoy the game, the skill required. Tribes is one of the few games where you can learn new tricks even after playing for years on end. As someone who doesn't play tribes-base often, i only learned about mine-discing in the last year or so. Its strategies and variations of strategys that come form the complexity of tribes that make it unique and great. You don't have ski-routes in CS, you dont have to calculate bullet trajectory/bullet speed/target distance/target velocity, when sniping in quake 3. You don't have to worry about maintaining a power grid in Half-life. Another huge bonus is tribes base was coded as if it was a mod onto the core game, so its almost like the game is open source, minus the core stuff. On top of that it has a powerful scripting engine, as opposed to mod engine, so its not as good at full conversions (as you can see from trpg) but its extremely good at scripted mods (annihilation, shifter and the like)
However, i do agree that i wish for a tribes with stateoftheart engine, water, working vehicles and the works, but its not going to happen. Right now we'll have to settle with our tribes 2 textures/model kits + hudbot for our tribes 1.
Games are made with only the purpose to make money, and nothing else. No game company ever plans to make a game fun for your enjoyment, they make it for your paid entertainment. Sometimes the money-machine of the gaming industry turns out somethign great that we like, but ussually its an accident, or a result of good marketing.
Oh yeah back on topic :
I really dislike the T:V interface, its very sloppy and proccessor intensive, I hate when the simple interface to a game is slow (at least in tribes everything speeds up once you get into inv, even with hudcam).
But i feel the same way about UT2k4, its a very bugly interface, but after a while you seem to stop noticing it.
There is alot to like about T:V, but i've been playign the beta for a few months now, and it just doesnt seem to grab me. It does appear as though they didnt dumb it down as much as t1-2, but i have yet to see. Also the V system chat is perfect, perfect key, pefect setup, pefect organizing (i DESPISE the tribes 2 version of it, its annoying as hell). I do notice theres alot of copied features from other games though, kicking things, and the new deathmsg display is so alike half-life im suprised they havent gotten pissy over it.
