You might already have read about those tragic events on Naboo, but there is no man alive who can pretend to be surprised by the predations of SOE's nefarious customer service at this point. Their behavior has been legendary since 1999, when they killed every tenth Everquest subscriber. They are the most diabolical force currently active on the world stage - teleporting player characters into orbit? Man, that's not even the main course.
There is so much to be fascinated by in the gaming context at the moment. I never quite know if I'm telling you things you've already heard, and I know that I would be annoyed with a person who continually regaled me with ancient trivia. Well, whatever. Rest assured that I'm about to mention something that was fascinating at some point.
In what observers called a "shocking reversal," I deferred to our defeated foe TribalWar regarding the showing Tribes: Vengeance had at E3. I did so because what I saw there should not have been shown to anybody, anywhere, let alone people whose job it is to trasmit information about the videogame industry. I checked out the new equipment, loadout interfaces, no real issues with it on that score, but the network performance was so poor that I really had no idea what they were thinking. And, since I never saw this plain, direct observation appear anywhere else, I wasn't sure exactly what was going on. Here is the mind-bending theory I generated: The game wasn't finished yet. Presumably, we're supposed to go to an event like E3 and come to genuine conclusions about things. The trouble is that sometimes we're only given a few handfulls of chicken guts, and we're supposed to somehow derive the value of x. More than any other expo, this year's event was thick with proto-games - green around the edge and nowhere near ready for consumption.
Well, we'll soon have a good deal more than fresh organs and dark magic with which to divine the quality of this particular title - it's apparently very near complete. Previews can be usually be counted on to laud the "return" to Tribes One era game speeds, which is at best simply good copy. Everything I have played and read leads me to believe the game as we receive it will be faster still than Tribes. Air control has been elaborated on. Skiing, intially an exploit, now has royal imprimatur as opposed to the wink and nod of Tribes 2. Beyond player control, the maps are wide open and the flag sits on an open pedestal like an hors d'oeuvre, vulnerable and toothsome. That all says speed to me. Speed, and lots of it.
(CW)TB out.
the fishes of the desperate sea
