The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

Post by stephengillie » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 12:25 AM UTC

buzzybee wrote: post #19

digi_owl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best i can tell, most of the dev team and budget is dedicated to the art side of the game. Meaning maps, models, sound etc. And 18 years of learning? Sorry but most of the people and companies from back then are long gone. Best i can tell there are very few game development courses out there, and fewer still focus on the network plumbing.

The difference is substantial: There are books describing some standard practices now, third-party engines will at least include some basic networking functionality, and every worthwhile book on engines will at least mention what you need to do to reasonably support multiplayer. At the time that Tribes was developed, none of that reference material existed yet - you had to do your engineering from scratch, and there…

Post by covercash » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 12:31 AM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #4

Tribes 1 remains my favorite FPS experience to this day.

Post by stephengillie » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 12:35 AM UTC

blakeyrat wrote: post #44

MrZongle2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in retrospect, even Tribes 2 wasn't that much of a disappointment. The hard-core types that frequented Tribalwar complained incessantly about it, and I grant you that the weeks following its release were bumpy, but there were a lot of people who enjoyed the game considerably. Now Tribes:Vengeance and the free-to-play nonsense that is Tribes Ascend? Those have brought the franchise to a near-standstill.

You're joking, right? It took something like 3 months of near-constant patches before Tribes 2 would even run on my machine. It was the buggiest game I've ever bought, and I was shocked that they'd chosen to release it in that broken state. By the time they'd patched it well-enough that it actually ran somewhat reliably, my friends and I had completely lost interest in it. Tribes 2 was a franchise-killer. I never eve…

Post by zump » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 1:00 AM UTC

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #42

sleepybrett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battlefield series tends to support a large number of players on very large maps. No jetpack assisted skiing though.

Battlefield 1942 came out 4 years later. Although it was incredible fun too. Its network code was infamous. Unloading entire magazines at point blank range was certainly no guarantee that you'd even scratch your target.

Post by 15155 » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 1:32 AM UTC

mey wrote: post #12

stevebmark wrote: post #10

Part of why Tribes was such an incredible experience was it had 64 player servers. The maps were constant chaos. Haven't quite experienced anything like that since.

PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2. While hard to get into, when platoon level operations are at their best it's something I've yet to experience in another game. I expect Eve would be the other example, but with time dilation and combat mechanics, the game is more strategic than tactical in my understanding.