Tag: Tribes

Tribes: Ascend Update Undoes All Purchases


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Hi-Rez Studios recently surprised its community with the announcement that Tribes Ascend would be once again receiving the love and, more importantly, updates that had been denied to it ever since support for the title was dropped back in 2013. The Out of the Blue update, or ‘It’s About F*cking Time,” as it has also been called, is a massive list of fixes, tweaks, and new content. Chief among the changes is that the prior nine classes are being melted down into three: light, medium, and heavy. As a result, all purchases have been reverted.

Due to the dramatic changes to the underlying game, all in-game purchases have been reverted and all Tribes Gold and XP refunded to your account. If you have previously purchased the Ultimate Weapon Pack or Game of the Year it will be re-added to your account. If there is any Tribes Gold on your account you will be automatically gifted the Ultimate Weapon Pack.

New maps, new weapons, and an encyclopedia worth of balances make up the majority of this massive update. The entirety of the patch notes are at the link below.

(Source: Tribes)

Tribes Ascend "Break Even At Best," Mod Tools Unlikely


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Erez Goren has posted a letter to the community on the Smite Subreddit/official forum to clear up the “misinformed conclusions” that customers might come to if they look at Hi-Rez’s development history. In case you haven’t been following Hi-Rez Studios, their first game Global Agenda was a major financial loss and Tribes: Ascend, as Hi-Rez’s CEO puts it in the letter, “ended up being break-even at best.” Earlier this year, Hi-Rez Studios announced that development on Tribes: Ascend had come to a close, but revealed that tools were in the works to allow players to create their own maps. Due to the costs of development, however, it is “unlikely” that these tools will ever see release.

Goren goes on to reveal that Hi-Rez had attempted to shop the game to publishers, none of whom were interested due to the game’s niche demographics. Goren goes on to reveal that out of the $30 million in funding, Global Agenda and Tribes have generated $10 million in revenue.

How much did it cost to do the above? At that point I personally funded all the game development with over $30 million of funding (losses) and generated about $10 million in revenue (split fairly evenly between GA and Tribes) so overall we spend about $40 million running the company vs $10 million in revenue.

Smite, on the other hand, has had the pleasure of not just being Hi-Rez’s most popular title, but has grown in revenue and traffic since its launch and continues to grow every month. The team working on Smite has grown from an initial 15 to 80 members, and Hi-Rez has seen interest from outside publishers including Tencent to release the game in China.

(Source: Smite Subforum)

Tribes Ascend “Break Even At Best,” Mod Tools Unlikely


e3_globalagenda_domecity

Erez Goren has posted a letter to the community on the Smite Subreddit/official forum to clear up the “misinformed conclusions” that customers might come to if they look at Hi-Rez’s development history. In case you haven’t been following Hi-Rez Studios, their first game Global Agenda was a major financial loss and Tribes: Ascend, as Hi-Rez’s CEO puts it in the letter, “ended up being break-even at best.” Earlier this year, Hi-Rez Studios announced that development on Tribes: Ascend had come to a close, but revealed that tools were in the works to allow players to create their own maps. Due to the costs of development, however, it is “unlikely” that these tools will ever see release.

Goren goes on to reveal that Hi-Rez had attempted to shop the game to publishers, none of whom were interested due to the game’s niche demographics. Goren goes on to reveal that out of the $30 million in funding, Global Agenda and Tribes have generated $10 million in revenue.

How much did it cost to do the above? At that point I personally funded all the game development with over $30 million of funding (losses) and generated about $10 million in revenue (split fairly evenly between GA and Tribes) so overall we spend about $40 million running the company vs $10 million in revenue.

Smite, on the other hand, has had the pleasure of not just being Hi-Rez’s most popular title, but has grown in revenue and traffic since its launch and continues to grow every month. The team working on Smite has grown from an initial 15 to 80 members, and Hi-Rez has seen interest from outside publishers including Tencent to release the game in China.

(Source: Smite Subforum)

Who Needs Proper Forums? Hi-Rez Has Reddit


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I know what you’re thinking: “Omali, forums are for casuals. Hardcore developers prefer to use social networking sites who risk suddenly becoming irrelevant and unpopular.” I know this because that message is tied to a rock and thrown through my bedroom window once or twice a week (email is for casuals). Luckily, Hi-Rez has a close connection to the needs of their community, and not just because their software apparently watches everything you do. Giving twenty four hours notice, Hi-Rez deleted its official forums, directing players toward Hi-Rez’s multiple Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit pages in order to discuss everything from suggestions, show their videos, ask for tech support, shoot the breeze, and more.

And why? I don’t know, Hi-Rez is claiming that this will allow them to better connect with the community and listen to feedback on a level that is impossible with traditional forums. In one post, HiRezDuke states that there is more freedom on Reddit than the T-Rated official forums, begging the question as to why Hi-Rez didn’t simply alter their rules instead of burning the house down. You can check out the Reddit pages for Tribes, SMITE, and Global Agenda. Unless you are reporting bugs in which case you head here. Unless you need tech support in which case you need to contact Hi-Rez directly. Unless you’re reporting hackers on Tribes in which case you have to do it here. And you can find patch notes now hosted on Google Docs.

See? Neat and orderly. Who is to say that this will make Hi-Rez look unprofessional and disorganized, or that it makes the company unappealing to new players, or that it isn’t conducive to maintaining a long term community?

Major Development Ends On Tribes: Ascend


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Major updates have ceased for Tribes: Ascend, as confirmed today by Todd Harris over at Hi-Rez Studios. Instead, the developer of the fast paced shooter is focusing its efforts on launching their upcoming MOBA game, SMITE, as well as the continued development of the sequel to Global Agenda, also known as Global Agenda 2. As a result, however, there are no major updates planned for Tribes: Ascend in the next six months, and Harris notes that the company would more likely develop a Tribes: Ascend 2 than add a substantial update to the existing game.

Per the development blog on our forums, the recent TA work has been Kate developing some additional maps. If time allows then these new TA maps (along with some bug-fixes) would be finalized and deployed but no committed date yet.

The move isn’t entirely surprising, as development for Global Agenda was all but abandoned around the time Tribes: Ascend began picking up speed, a fate that will likely meet SMITE in favor of Global Agenda 2 and whatever else Hi-Rez happens to be developing at the time.

(Source: Tribes: Ascend Forums)

Get All Of Tribes: Ascend With A Single Purchase


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Tribes Ascend is enjoying all of the benefits of Hi-Rez Studios’ continued efforts to tweak its free to play model, ensuring that players have access to all of the game content but those that are willing to pay for it aren’t being nickle and dime’d. In response to player feedback, Hi-Rez has announced an upcoming patch for February 15th that will allow players to buy every single weapon, class, and perk in the current game. Non-gameplay affecting items are not included (cosmetics), and VIP players will receive a discount.

If all goes according to plan the single purchase edition will be available this Friday 2/15, along with the upcoming content patch.

No word yet on price, however it is set to be “in the ballpark of other PC shooters.” So possibly around $50-60 for the whole kit and kaboodle.

(Source: Hi-Rez Studios)

And Now An Unsolicited Testimonial: Tribes Ascend


Tribes: Ascend is not Tribes Universe, let’s get that out of the way from the start. The game is not the multi-hundred player shooter ala Planetside that Hi-Rez had promised us, that game is currently on hold until development of Tribes: Ascend finishes. Now that we have that out of the way, Tribes Ascend is an upcoming shooter by Hi-Rez, the same guys that made Global Agenda. Billed as free to play from the start, Ascend is offering a rather useful package for those that preorder. The package costs $30, and bequeaths upon you 3,000 Tribes gold ($30 worth), a 30-day booster for experience, tokens, and points ($15 on cash shop) and lifetime VIP status which gives you a permanent boost in said exp/tokens/points, as well as priority access and VIP-only servers.

I love Tribes, and Ascend does an outstanding job of bringing the fast paced action back to its glory days. A third map was added in today, there are currently two game modes (capture the flag and rabbit), with continuous updates as the game progresses through the closed beta phase. I can’t help but be amazed once again at the skill of longtime Tribes players, who are able to use the geometry to move faster than I can keep track of them. They’re like watching someone extremely skilled in Sonic the Hedgehog, the speed at which they can still react fluently is beyond comprehension.

Playing completely free, I have a lot of respect for you. You have access right off the bat to the soldier (with that spinner disc launcher) and a gunner class, but everything else is locked up unless you buy gold coins to unlock the classes, preorder the game to obtain the 3,000 gold to buy the classes, or grind an enormous amount of tokens to unlock the classes for free. Each loadout costs 15,000 tokens to unlock for free, and now that my character is halfway through level 5, with the added VIP bonus, I’ve achieved around 1,200 tokens.

If you’ve been playing Tribes, odds are we’ve come across one another (my username is Omali). I’ve come across familiar faces quite a bit, especially since I tend to play in the off-hours. Otherwise, check out my Twitter page to see how you can nab a beta key.