It was for the fourth one they gave away Tribes 1 and 2. I remember purchasing Tribes 2 day of release (as soon as it came to my local retail store, I purchased.. so my area's day of release), and don't remember ever seeing anything about Tribes 1 for free. Maybe I'm forgetting it, as I wasn't even a teenager yet.
I believe Vivdendi considered Tribes 4 (Vengeance) a success and I believe they still have servers up for it still. Tribes 3 was on the consoles that really sucked.
Tribes was my favorite game for years. I got a copy from my cousin, who introduced me to it, and after a month of playing, I went to go find a retail version. They didn't exist anymore.. Looking back on it now, I had wished I had contacted Dynamix and see if I could get a copy from them directly. That game is still one of the games that I attempt to play to this day still (even amongst the grotesque usage of aimbots) with the community servers. Hearing that it got stomped on by piracy isn't surprising in the least, because what you said is exactly right.. it was easy to just take the files and put them somewhere else. No real 'install' process other than making the shortcuts.
Tribes is a great example of piracy ruining the financial success of the title. BUT Dynamix did release Tribes 2 in 2001 and had a key system for playing online using their servers. They learned from their naive mistake and as far as I remember, Tribes 2 and beyond were successes. The franchise did continue, with the console game (Tribes3), and then Tribes:Vengeance under a new developer, as 2001 was the end of Dynamix.
By the way, Tribes 1 and 2 were commercially released for free in 2004 by Vivendi. Figured that went along well with this topic to note.
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It was for the fourth one they gave away Tribes 1 and 2. I remember purchasing Tribes 2 day of release (as soon as it came to my local retail store, I purchased.. so my area's day of release), and don't remember ever seeing anything about Tribes 1 for free. Maybe I'm forgetting it, as I wasn't even a teenager yet. I believe Vivdendi considered Tribes 4 (Vengeance) a success and I believe they still have servers up for it still. Tribes 3 was on the consoles that really sucked.
Tribes was my favorite game for years. I got a copy from my cousin, who introduced me to it, and after a month of playing, I went to go find a retail version. They didn't exist anymore.. Looking back on it now, I had wished I had contacted Dynamix and see if I could get a copy from them directly. That game is still one of the games that I attempt to play to this day still (even amongst the grotesque usage of aimbots) with the community servers. Hearing that it got stomped on by piracy isn't surprising in the least, because what you said is exactly right.. it was easy to just take the files and put them somewhere else. No real 'install' process other than making the shortcuts. Tribes is a great example of piracy ruining the financial success of the title. BUT Dynamix did release Tribes 2 in 2001 and had a key system for playing online using their servers. They learned from their naive mistake and as far as I remember, Tribes 2 and beyond were successes. The franchise did continue, with the console game (Tribes3), and then Tribes:Vengeance under a new developer, as 2001 was the end of Dynamix. By the way, Tribes 1 and 2 were commercially released for free in 2004 by Vivendi. Figured that went along well with this topic to note.