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Tribes 1 Returns In-Browser At GDC Next Week

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-fad-has-begun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GarageGames purchased the IP rights to the entire Starsiege Tribes universe, and next week at GDC they'll be showing off their updated version of Tribes 1 running in a browser, using all the original artwork. Afterwards, it will be available to play standalone or via the Instant Action website. While you wait, you can play Fallen Empire Legions in your browser, which is based on the Tribes 2 engine. Their blog entry about the Tribes 1 preview at GDC has further details."

55 comments

  1. Tribes 1 Returns In-Browser At GDC Next Week by Jabaruk1 · · Score: 1

    Great game as is T2 true multiplayer only game which has used far too many hours of my life.

  2. Shazbot! by Trevelyan · · Score: 1

    I have Tribes 2 for Linux and I loved playing it.

    Unfortunately I can't really play it anymore, there seems to be no one to play with, bots are boring, and it is a total pain in the arse to install on a modern linux system (yes I know about icculus.org)

    1. Re:Shazbot! by Jabaruk1 · · Score: 1

      Try this for PC T2 (not sure about Linux version) http://www.tribesnext.com/ Tribes2 has upto 60 players on a night.

    2. Re:Shazbot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most current T2 player would likely be currently centered around Tribes Next - http://www.tribesnext.com/

      I'm not sure how Linux friendly that is though.

      Come to think of it, I'd hope that GarageGames buying up the IP doesn't effect Tribes Next in any way, I honestly have zero interest in playing Tribes 1 in any form, in or out of a browser.

    3. Re:Shazbot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TribesNext doesn't have a native Linux version just yet, so you will have to use T2 on WINE if you want to use TribesNext. However, there is a patch you can install that lets you find servers via the LAN option, and you don't need to have any sort of authentication or anything. If you like CTF, you should join us on =Rebels=Katabatic, or if you like LakRabbit, join us on the Cygnus Systems LakRabbit Server (both of these show up after installing the patch, which isn't too hard, just add the files to your /base folder, I believe). See you there!

    4. Re:Shazbot! by malkir · · Score: 0

      TribesNext isnt linux friendly at the moment, but its lite enough to run in a virtual machine (i'm loving virtualbox). Goon Squad server easilly has 60 players a night, Branzone Central & Pick up has another 34 - IRC is: irc.tribalwar.com #lastgasp for all info/good players.

    5. Re:Shazbot! by kriebz · · Score: 1

      Are you like the one guy in the whole world that thought T2 was better that Tribes? Or did they fix a lot in the last 7 years?

  3. effin awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is just effin awesome period.

  4. Mac support? yes! by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 3, Informative

    IA supports Mac, so hopefully I'll be able to get my Shazbot on when it goes live.

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  5. Tribes was awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Loved Tribes. There really isnt anything to compare. This is great news.

  6. Tribes 1 = Best Game Evar! by Spedge · · Score: 0

    Tribes 1 was brilliant, a game that has never been bettered since. Quake 2? Pfft, this was where multiplayer gaming was AT.

  7. Extra Install by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will the in-browser game require an install like Quake Live? I was really, *really* disappointed when I discovered I had to install an .msi to play that browser version of Quake. The biggest draw of an online game is the ability to play it on *any* computer, even on those insanely restricted computers at my university's library.

  8. Top 10 all time game. by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    T1 gets my vote as one of the best games of all time. PERFECT game-play for the most part. If they had just updated the graphics engine and maps but touched no other code for a T2 and T3 version I would have been happy; while T2 was good it was lacking a certain....something.

    1. Re:Top 10 all time game. by ndavis · · Score: 1

      T1 gets my vote as one of the best games of all time. PERFECT game-play for the most part. If they had just updated the graphics engine and maps but touched no other code for a T2 and T3 version I would have been happy; while T2 was good it was lacking a certain....something.

      I played T1 all the time and T2 seemed to miss the same mods that people came out with. Then again T1 mods seemed to go too far in some cases which caused me to stop playing it as often.

      I hope this browser version is like the original as I thought it was an amazing game that caused me to stay up till the sun came up without realizing it.

  9. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Finally! T1 is one of the greatest FPS games of all time, and the way to play it online now (which I still do) is a bit of a hassle (no master server etc). Lets hope this generates more interest in the game!

  10. All hail id Software by imbaczek · · Score: 1

    not sure who came up with the idea first, but it looks like id is trailblazing again, this time with quake live. of course, kudos for the tribes guys for following suit.

    1. Re:All hail id Software by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      The difference is that Quake sucks, and Tribes is good. :)

      Nah, I'm mostly kidding, different gameplay for different types of players. If you like any of the Battlefield games (especially Battlefield: 2142), remember: they ripped-off all their ideas from Tribes. Although they stopped short at Tribes' best feature, the jet-pack.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:All hail id Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, InstantAction was first, with Fallen Empire Legions, so congrats to id software for following suit. January of 2008 the game was announced, public beta started a few months later:
      http://pc.ign.com/articles/845/845984p1.html

      QuakeLive from Id Software didn't get released to open beta until February this year:
      http://pc.ign.com/articles/955/955982p1.html

      It is also worth noting that the graphics and gameplay in FEL are ten times better than QL, and didn't take as long to go to beta and then to release. The only reason QL got as much attention as it did is that there are a lot of fanboys.

    3. Re:All hail id Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not sure who came up with the idea first, but it looks like id is trailblazing again, this time with quake live. of course, kudos for the tribes guys for following suit.

      actually, Fallen Empire Legions came out before Quake Live did

    4. Re:All hail id Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sort of like how Tribes 1 was multiplayer only before Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament was

  11. YES! Can't wait for this! by wildstoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Starsiege: Tribes was one of my favourite online FPS games.

    At the time it was a breath of fresh air to the FPS genre. Quake II and Unreal were fighting for the FPS market share, but were ultimately very similar games. Tribes was different; suddenly Unreal and Q2 seemed very slow and static.

    Tribes features jetpacks, vehicles with interesting physics, new gametypes and huge maps. It was an instant classic. I have nothing but awesome memories of Tribes matches.

    Kamikaze scout runs into enemy flag rooms, disc-launcher jumping with jetpack to get insane height and speed, across the map in seconds rather than the minutes it would take on foot. :)

    Suffice to say, if this revitalizes the Tribes community, it might be one of the best things to happen to online gaming this year.

    The fact that the new IP owners are also (some of) the original creators of Tribes is just icing on the cake. I really hope they exceed their own expectations.

    Have to tip my hat to id for leading the way with browser-based FPS games. If this kind of thing is the result maybe the future of PC gaming isn't as bleak as some have predicted.

    1. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by Interl0per · · Score: 1

      Indeed, I have yet to find anything as original and fun since I first played a decade ago. Only the decline of servers running interesting maps and rulesets has caused my playtime to decrease, hopefully this move will cause a new generation to discover the game and bring their own creative energy to the game. Thank God I finished college before they did this!

    2. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by vertinox · · Score: 1

      Kamikaze scout runs into enemy flag rooms, disc-launcher jumping with jetpack to get insane height and speed, across the map in seconds rather than the minutes it would take on foot. :)

      Oh those were the days. I remember, using the scout to run people over in a mad fireball of glory.

      Of course, I also remember how people would take the transport and drive team mates to their doom ;)

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    3. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have to tip my hat to id for leading the way with browser-based FPS games. If this kind of thing is the result maybe the future of PC gaming isn't as bleak as some have predicted.

      I don't know what you're referring to with id leading the way.

      You are aware that instantaction.com had a functional in-browser framework with Legions (the spiritual successor to Tribes) way before id, right?

      Comparing quake live, a game without any real depth, to tribes or legions is quite lopsided.

    4. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If they add the Shifter v.1 MOD, I'll fly over there and buy them all a steak. Best MOD in the best team FPS game ever.

      --
      Comment of the year
    5. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by skeeto · · Score: 1

      I also loved Tribes. I spend hundreds of hours in that game. Once you mastered the jetpack, you could do some amazing things. Some of my favorite memories come from playing on the (Team Aerial Assault) TAC mod.

      In TAC, you died instantly if you touched the dirt ground (structure floors were safe), the home bases were placed very far apart, and the action was all in the middle on an island (an island in a sea of deadly dirt) of some sort. This forced teamwork because the only way to the action was on transports, and only light armor could fly transports. So someone became the designated pilot and the rest would gear up in various types of heavy armor.

      I found a video on YouTube of some action.

      Sometimes these transports would even fight it out in the air: two transports, each has 1 pilot and 4 heavy armors, and the heavy armor players are launching mortars, disks, etc., at each other while the transports take evasive action. For those unfamiliar with Tribes, the transports are very open, so the passengers can easily shoot just about anywhere (see the video, which shows the smaller transports). That was amazing fun right there.

      In the modless world, base raping was a lot of fun. Have several people from your team enter the enemy base in heavy armor. Destroy everything, especially their generator so they can't make ships, get weapons, and use their turrets. Then make camp with some portable inventory stations and keep your mortar gun pointed at the entrance. You own their base, and while the enemy is trying to remove you and fix their stuff, your other teammates concentrate on capping their flag.

      Oh, and remember skiing? There was a bug in the game mechanics with how applying a jetpack while going downhill worked, which made the player glide very fast. This was dubbed skiing, and people liked it so much this "bug" turned into a feature. When they made the not-very-good Tribes 2, the had to write in the ski mechanism.

      Tribes was the best FPS I ever played online.

    6. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quake Live has plenty of depth, however InstantAction was definitely there first, launching last March, and launching Legions in June. In fact InstantAction left behind the beta label the same week that QuakeLive entered open beta, and already has pretty good OSX support on top of windows.

      id is doing good stuff with QuakeLive, but they're not leading the way, rather, broadening the path with their name and brand.

    7. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by Adriax · · Score: 1

      Actually the bug was in the ground collision mechanics. There was a small delay between collision with a surface and the engine changing the player object's state from falling/flying to standing/walking. If you did tiny jumps or used your jetpack while in that transition period (after collision but before being rooted to the ground), the engine would reset the delay and you would keep using falling physics on the ground, allowing you to ski.

      The same bug caused some weird vehicle physics. Like if you tried landing a flyer on a deployable item (like a deployable wall or vehicle spawn pad some mods had), it would never transition to the resting state, and would collide 32 times per second for tiny amounts of damage to both.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    8. Re:YES! Can't wait for this! by wildstoo · · Score: 1

      Admittedly, I didn't check the chronology of InstantAction compared to QuakeLive. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr AC!

      I tried out Legions this weekend. It's very good for what it is, (a cut-down Tribes) but I'm looking forward to the original Tribes more.

      I wasn't comparing Tribes to QuakeLive in terms of gameplay. As I said, Tribes was clearly different to its predecessors in the genre. I was talking about the nascent browser-based FPS phenomenon in general.

      Also, I wouldn't say that QuakeLive has no real depth. It's a more traditional arena-style FPS, but that doesn't mean it has no depth, it just means it exposes its depth in different ways.

      Given the choice between the two games, rest assured I'd choose Tribes every time. :)

  12. Awesome by ZeroZenith · · Score: 1

    I've played all versions of Tribes and without a doubt these games are best games of all time. There is a bit of a learning curve to them but once you get it the fun is endless especially if you play with group of friends or a good team. If you like FPS and you have not played them you have not lived.

    --
    -- ZeroZenith
    1. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed.

  13. Re:Mac support? yes! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    Tribe 1 is a free download (it was released for free to promote one of the sequels). It runs quite nicely in Crossover, and may even work in the main branch of WINE if you can persuade it to build with 3D support. If you grabbed the free Crossover Games release from a few months ago, then you can already run the free Tribes 1 release on a Mac.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  14. Re:Mac support? yes! by zerocool^ · · Score: 1

    That free download thing mostly killed Legends: the game (http://www.legendsthegame.net/) which was sort of someone trying to make an open source Tribes-like game, with some graphical updates and a few fixes like auto-ski, etc.

    Was a decent game for a while.

    --
    sig?
  15. Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's all well and good, but who owns the rights to Earthsiege?! And when will I be able to take a HERC out for a spin, then get browbeat by my mechanic when I bring it back?

    1. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Earthsiege became Starseige, but it seems it has been put on hold just like the Mechwarrior series

  16. Awesome!! by tunafreedolphin · · Score: 0

    The orginal Tribes is what got me interesting in PC gaming. I did not care for T2 and I never played T3. The orginal is great. I can't wait.

  17. "In-Browser"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Via Flash, Java, Shockwave or Silverlight I suppose. Or a stupid Windows-only installation which makes the whole "in a browser" completely pointless and moronic.

  18. Fallen Empire: Legions by Muffinmasher · · Score: 1

    What about Fallen Empire: Legions?
    The unofficial Tribes 4 (they couldn't get the name from Sierra) made by the same people. It ALSO plays in a browser with somewhat modern graphics.
    http://www.instantaction.com/

    --
    Schrödinger's download is slow.
    1. Re:Fallen Empire: Legions by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Says my OS is unsupported. I wish companies wouldn't (like Google) just block off your access all together like the IE only websites used to do.

      Yeah, I could probably edit my browser's user agent for this one game however I've already lost interest.

    2. Re:Fallen Empire: Legions by Muffinmasher · · Score: 1

      Damnit, hit Submit instead of Preview.

      What's the point of acquiring Tribes when they already have a modernized, almost direct port of it with better graphics?
      I guess they just wanted the recognizable name associated with it, but then why not just rename Fallen Empire?

      --
      Schrödinger's download is slow.
    3. Re:Fallen Empire: Legions by AstrumPreliator · · Score: 1

      I was actually playing this earlier today with a few people who had never played Tribes. It's a lot of fun (even they thought so) and I realize it's still in beta, but I wouldn't call it the unofficial Tribes 4 quite yet. As it stands it's kind of a dumbed down version without a lot of the things Tribes had. If they add a lot of it back such as proper classes, inventory stations, vehicles, packs, deployables, mines, etc... then I'll consider it a true successor. They don't have to clone the first game, in fact I'd prefer they mix it up (I quite like to overdrive function), but right now it's just a simple FPS with a jet pack and skiing. Definitely hope it turns out good though.

    4. Re:Fallen Empire: Legions by JuSTCHiLLiN · · Score: 1

      All successors to the original Tribes have failed at capturing the feel. Anyone who spent any time with Tribes knows this.

      --
      What's a Sig?
  19. Time to fire up my old server again! by WyrdOne · · Score: 1

    Tribes 1 with Chivalry mod v2 with addons. (No clientside install required.)

    Lets get some parabolic disk jumps going!

    1. Re:Time to fire up my old server again! by malkir · · Score: 0

      Ugh V2, IMO helped kill tribes 2, start up a Classic server and you'll get a grip of players ;)

  20. Re:Mac support? yes! by dannay · · Score: 1

    I don't believe Legends was open source

  21. Tribes 2 by malkir · · Score: 0

    Tribes 2 is still alive as well for all you tribes fan, available FREE for download - http://www.tribesnext.com/ No mention of this in the OP? Both Tribes games are FREE now this is a big deal!

  22. Interesting by olddotter · · Score: 1

    I only know about this game from reading the Penny-arcade.com collection books. Looks like they loved it back in the day. Looking forward to seeing what the deal is. :-)

    --
    Think Deeply. ...
  23. Tribes 1 a forgotten innovator by jaggeh · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tribes did effortlessly in 1998 what games are struggling to do today. 128 person games, massive landscapes (albeit primitive) destroyable buildings, deployable buildings. an integrated command and control system that was sorely underused. it also had great netcode for the time iirc. no game in the last 10 years has come close to the epic feeling i got when playing tribes 1 and to a lesser extent tribes 2 (too many issues)

    --
    I would give everything i own for a little bit more.
    1. Re:Tribes 1 a forgotten innovator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Battlezone 2 came pretty close. Did even better in the RTS portion.

  24. Legends by kriebz · · Score: 1

    Legends wasn't Open Source. It was a re-write of Tribes 2 with licensed Tribes 2 code, with the mechanics of Tribes so you know, it was fun. I know this because my Debian box was used by a friend to test build it during college (yes, Linux support was a goal). I've looked to see if the source tree was still in my backups, but I think I lost it. Oh well, shouldn't really have had it anyway.

  25. What I miss most about Tribes 1 (and 2) by JuSTCHiLLiN · · Score: 1

    Apart from playing in matches on the OGL or TWL, I miss listening to shoucasts of matches while hanging out in irc chatting.

    --
    What's a Sig?
  26. Re:I have Starsiege Boxset... by EW87 · · Score: 0

    How much

  27. But what about 'Starsiege' by Veretax · · Score: 1

    Not to interject, but is it only the Tribes Era of the Starsiege Universe? Or does it include the rest of it including the Fire Era (EarthSiege, ES2, Starsiege, etc.?)