OK, since Opstand is the only other former Tribes player here with whom I regularly chat, I thought it was high time to bring this to a post and get it out of the BF2 thread.

http://volitantassault.com/

RenWerx, the team which created the Renegades mod for Tribes 1 and Tribes 2 is well underway in creating their own new game. Since Vivendi Universal has no intention of ever letting the Tribes license go even though they have no plans to ever develop another Tribes game, the RenWerx team is intent on making an all-new new game with the same type of fast-paced jetpack action. The design process for this new game began many months ago, and the official site for the team's progress recently had a massive update. It's a slow boat to China, but the game will be 100% free to download once the RenWerx team is finished. "Free" distribution is one of the things which made T1 such a cult classic, so the team is going to try once again to build a fanbase in the same way.

I pretty much played nothing but Renegades in T1 and T2, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what this new RenWerx team can come up with. It's a massive undertaking, so I am pulling for them wholeheartedly. Tribes: Vengeance was a catastrophic disappointment, but the RenWerx team seems intent on not letting the fan community down. They also recently partnered with the team which created the Team Aerial Combat (TAC) mod, as well as the team which created the Meltdown mod, so project name "Volitant Assault" looks like it definitely has some creative backing. I just hope they can keep Vivendi from suing them and halting the project...

By the way, I was Silent Scope mk2 in T1 and T2. And I am a Tribes addict.

10/19/2005 2:35:48 PM

It should be interesting...

I played mostly T2 base, base++, and Classic. Played a little Ren here and there but not competitively. Lately I've been playing Version2 and Classic if I can find a decent server. Seems like these days there are only a couple CTF servers and a couple LakRabbit servers worth playing on.

I'll definitely be playing VA if they ever release it. I'm thinking it will be a couple years before it comes out, that or the project will die off, or maybe a small developer picks it up and offers to help out just to get their name out. I'm pulling for them to finish it though.

10/19/2005 3:29:10 PM

Yes, I definitely agree that it's a longshot. I'm much more worried about them being legally shut down than I am the project collapsing internally. I think they still have to buy TSE licenses in the future, so that's going to be an interesting obstacle to overcome. I have yet to see what - if any - kind of support this project is getting over at Tribalwar, but I'd be astonished if anyone over there had anything positive to say. Still, though, it'd be good weight to carry so long as the RenWerx team doesn't cater to their every whim. Eventually a line must be drawn where the developers say "no, this is how we're going to do it because this is how we planned it." I do think it's very promising that the TAC team and Meltdown team have joined up, though.

To borrow a quote from Red Alert, "Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell." Here's hoping that I'll be able to dig this post up a long time from now once the finished version is out.

10/20/2005 8:21:51 AM

I don't really think theres anything Vivendi can do to these guys. No one can sue you for making a game similar to a game they made (witness the deluge of tatical shooters after Rainbow Six, or the fact that UT and Quake are essentially the same game). The only problem will be if they start using too many of the same names from the orinigal game. As long as they rename everything (and dont use any textures and stuff from the other game), they should be fine.

10/20/2005 10:15:37 AM