http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URjuA4XGBnc New patch landed, Twinfusor weapon is a premium at 88000 or whatever that was in gold for three classes, if you'd previously mastered the Pathfinder Soldier or Juggernaut the new weapon drops them back to 92/93%. Also new skins for other classes but no special bundle for them (in Brute and Pathfinder) you can buy new voice packs as well as new skins with gold, and clan tags cost 40 Gold or 1500 XP - and cost the same to change them later as well. [EDIT] Whatever bug they wanted to fix in Stonehenge, it's finally on the EU London servers for the public. Hopefully there won't be the same problem next month with the other two maps going onto the public servers from customs.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/17096/ Complete Raider Class Unlock, £5.99 until 6th August. Under the account-only pack you'd have needed 1282 Gold and the 1400 pack cost $20, or £12-13. From Monday 6th this Steam pack will go up to £12. So the Steam pack is best if you have VIP already from an old purchase like the first Steam pack or old gold through the Hi Rez screen (where you pay by Paypal) - however some people on the HR forums have said they still got VIP even if it's not billed, or have raised a support ticket and had it added as you're supposed to get it with any real-money purchase, not just gold.
2-3 patches and one new weapon later (SAP20 for Sentinel) , the only thing they added this month was a new server browser but thankfully, the lag caused by having to play through Amsterdam servers has (mostly) been sorted out. Haven't tried any other "themed" server other than the ones for large maps, but I like that change as well, if I only want to play Raindance then the knowledge that it'll always be the 4th or 5th map in the rotation means I play for longer. Maybe they've added other items as well in the grenades/pack categories but I haven't kept track, they've moved existing weapons from one class to another to let you mix up your loadouts, eg the soldier's secondary Spinfusor which still allows rocket-jumping for the price of a little less damage than the normal one, and then you can pick any old primary you like. Still a great game and if you haven't played it in a while, it's good that you stop being rusty after at most, 4 long sessions of play, especially on favourite maps.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/17096/ Or just enter Tribes Ascend in the Store section of Steam. Raider Pack £3.59 until 5th January, that's a fair price to me for one of the original, too-damn-expensive bonus packs in the game, if you're only going to dip in and out of a class you might as well have all the toys. The starter pack is also discounted again down to £4.49; (800 Gold is normally seven quid rounded up through the game's store) http://store.steampowered.com/app/17095/ [EDIT] but it is now only for starters so one per Steam account, can't buy it again just for the gold, which remains at £6.30-6.50 at the store for 800 depending on Paypal's dollar conversion. I've got back into it recently, whatever was in the last patch felt like a bunch of tweaks, we'd have heard about any new weapons. Still great, but still requires three long sessions of play to get the skills back.
It's honestly not that bad. I find it massively fun. Although time pretty much limits me to maybe a round of DOTA2 or League. And trying to trawl through AC3.
For CTF Look for and bookmark the server code AMS52 or AMS54, those are official servers which rotate the "Large" maps, large defined at Tartarus, Raindance, Katabatic and Temple Ruins v3 (the open air castles with generators above ground version). It does get fairly busy but connecting from London I've had no performance issues except the one token crashout in three months. I haven't tried a "Small" map rotation to see if Dangerous Crossing has been lumped in with those. Despite the size increase to make it wider, Stonehenge is defined as a small map so I assume Permafrost is also small or in an all-rotation server. and like Elton says, it's just time to play, it is all consuming sometimes and Raindance is a favourite map so being able to play it one map out of every four is the next best thing to a single-map server.
AMS52 and 54 were empty this evening so I went into a packed 7-20 large map server... I broke level 20 earlier in the day... first time I've been all over the scoreboard at the end. Shocking play in that server. Map was Tartarus. Straight away I went and capped twice, using the same route, 200 ish grab (I don't normally cap ¬¬). Then I did a bit of HoFing, a bit of chasing, a bit of LO, a bit of just mucking about, until we got 5-0. Somehow in the process I got to over 20,000 points so I used them on 2 orbital strikes, so I got multiple triple kills and one quatra-kill... Ok, it was fun to be comparatively good in the server for a change, but I don't think I want to make a habit of it. I was using tricks I'd seen higher level players use in 52 and 54, so... I don't want to stagnate Now I'm taking a week off Tribes (probably) due to family commitments but hopefully I can jump right in again next week!
Good to know there are others still playing it, the churn is normal for F2P, since beta I'm just about to clock up 400 hours after also having a month or so away. Also dropped into a Capture and Hold server as well when taking a break as well as a standard TDM one to level up a Twinfusor for the Pathfinder (IIRC AMS58 and 158, but couldn't tell you which was which, check the browser). I won't be levelling more weapons like that unless it's a class where I've unlocked all of it like the Raider. I'm fed up playing with crippled weapons that require 9000 XP to master after the first two stages, and would rather pay the 14/15/20K to master them if they're primaries or secondaries.
I should get back on this. But I really don't have much time. I still haven't gotten around to playing PS2 or even FC3 hell AC3 either. Life is time consuming. D:
For some reason today one of the teams I was on (pubbing) decided to go completely onto flag D when we were 3-1 down on Katabatic. Eventually I got fed up and did the capping myself with some awful routes (due to not being a capper)... I think the other team were so surprised to see someone bothering to cap that they weren't prepared at all to stop me!
Sounds a bit like my games today, had some players ranking 47-50 who must have been bored of PuGs, as they were all sticking on one team in a normal server and doing 5-0 clean sheets, they were so bored they were just flying around in Shrikes running people down if they picked up the flag - sometimes all three of them. In the end I got fed up being the only person to even try shooting the planes out of the sky let alone capping and didn't go back after a server crashout. On the positive side, learned plenty by fighting it out with top-ranked players when they weren't just flying Shrikes.
Tried AMS 52 or 54 today. Total lack of cohesion in the teams. No-one spotting cappers, no one VFFing or anything. Got fed up after 10 minutes, muted one whiny player (p3ndul4), and left.
This game has died a bit. Shame too, it's a fun game with some very interesting features. Marred by the total lack of competitive play. Makes me sad.
Bought the blinksfusor with XP yesterday... wish I'd done so before. I find it much easier than the Dueling Spin or the bolt launcher... pulled off more MA's yesterday than I had in months, including consecutive MA's!
I can't aim at all with the blinksfusor. At all. I miss stationary targets with it... Give me a 50% inheritance one any day. The Shocklance from the original tribes is making a comeback and is being tested on the PTS atm. Along with Canyon Crusade, which I believe is a ported map from one of the old Tribes games, and two other CTF maps. Also three new Arena maps on there.
