Posted: January 26 2008 at 12:41am | IP Logged

OK, it's official now.

Last month an internal alpha video was pilfered from Garage Games' new InstantAction website and then leaked out (click on image for video, which has no sound):

Take a look for yourself, but what anyone who has ever played Tribes will know is that this is clearly a Tribes sequel...

Well, "sequel" isn't quite right since Garage Games doesn't own the trademark nor rights to Tribes.  Strictly speaking, they are an indie game development company and distributor.  However, the founders of Garage Games happen to be the remnants of Dynamix, the development group that authored both Tribes and Tribes2...  So call it what you like, but it's made by the same people who made Tribes.

But it happens to be called "Fallen Empires: Legions".  Following the leak, Garage Games made it official last week that they are developing the game.  Here's their first promo video (which is much more polished than the above video clip):

[Click image to download video]

There is a lot of new buzzing around this, but the best link I've found is here.  It links to a fairly detailed interview on the game here.

For more information on InstantAction, this is a pretty decent link.  It's a great idea -- wish I had thought of it.  It's not really functional yet (can't play games just yet), but you can register on the site to reserve a username.  I'm already registered under username "Prometheus".

Kotaku also posted some interesting things about the leaked video, including some earlier video footage they saw in 2006.  An older YouTube clip of Legions (made by a guy who sucks at skiing) is also quite cool.  Check it out if you're interested.

Posted: January 26 2008 at 3:10pm | IP Logged

Lol...  So let me get this straight: Moo has his hands over his eyes, Quar wet himself, Stryder is ecstatic, and Gabe is speechless...  I guess that's a good start.

I'm not worried too much about high expectations.  After all, considering that the best PvP action I've been in lately is premade vs premade in Arathi Basin, it's almost impossible for them to disappoint me.  It's got jetpacks... and skiing -- I saw it with my own eyes.  What more do you really need to know?  If anything it looked like you have more control while jetting.

The only bad part is that because this was leaked before it was announced, it might be a ways off still.  They've just started beta for the InstantAction site, and most of that isn't up yet.  I anticipate that will go live with that platform with at least a few other games before they even get going with Legions' beta.

But on the other hand, Garage Games has tremendous strategic interest in getting Legions running ASAP as a proof of concept for their whole InstantAction platform.  So they may try to roll something out over the next several months.  They've said they won't roll on anything that's not ready (remember, these are the same guys that got forced into releasing T2 too early by Sierra), and I believe that, but they are also talking about starting with limited content (e.g. no vehicles or deployables) so we may originally see something which is functional but has not many player models, game modes, or missions but builds from there.

Garage Games did mysteriously start hiring new staff last fall, so they seem quite serious now.  As some of you know, I own a license to their Torque Game Engine, and I 've known Legions existed for over a year now, but Legions was pitched mostly as a stripped down game just to demo their game engine to developers.  I don't think that was a lie, actually.  My unproven theory is that until the last year or so, they didn't have the capital or a strategic reason to develop it into a full fledged game.  I'll bet anything they've wanted to do this for many years, though.

Interestingly, the project manager, Tim Aste, is well-known mostly for beautiful game art content.  I'm not sure, but I don't think he's a coder.  On reflection, though, it's not a bad idea to have a content artist overseeing it -- assuming he's a good manager.  From what I've seen and heard, he is.

Posted: January 26 2008 at 3:24pm | IP Logged

GABRIEL wrote: If they get this game going, I hope they at least have some bigger maps than what T3 had. Heck even some of the original T2 maps were a bit small.

Well, first of all remember that T3 (by which I assume you mean Tribes: Vengeance) was NOT designed or written by these guys and used the totally different Unreal Tournament 2003 engine.

The Garage Games engine (known as "Torque") is an outgrowth of much of the Tribes 2 engine, plus several years of updating and refactoring code.  It supports HUGE maps.  Anyway, the project director, Tim Aste, answered a question about map size, so I'll post what he said:

ShackNews wrote: Shack: How large will the largest maps be? Will it take only a few moments to cross a battlefield, or are we talking about a significant trek? Tim Aste: Technically we can do either. The engine itself would allow us to create battlefields miles and miles long, if we wanted. So, this all depends on the game mode and what feel is best for a level. Right now we have large and small maps, but we select the size so it's fun to play, not so we can impress ourselves with how huge they are. There should never be a dull moment while playing this game where you're just wandering around, yet you shouldn't be confined and unable to get away from the fire or set up strategic runs. Both freedom of movement and strategic combat are important to the gameplay, so for the maps to feel good we need well designed levels with clear objectives and choke points that also give players enough space to move around a lot and fight it out. It's a pretty hard thing to balance between all the movement, weapon, and level aspects, but it's already starting to feel good.

Posted: January 27 2008 at 12:13pm | IP Logged

Looks tons like tribes YES! Sonofprom is back into his oringinal roots if this ends up being good. (Thou shadowpriests are fun) This'll make Wow pvp look even more bad, like it needs more of that. IF pro gets it i'll try it and then maybe get it myself or something, looks pretty awesome. BTW, love the reactions .

Shamtana 70  Sonofprom 70 Choas 62

Posted: January 28 2008 at 7:56am | IP Logged

Hey all, its been a long while.  Nice to see I'm not the only fool who drools.

Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, I followed a link to a prequel to this interview Pro posted on the Tribalwar forums.  I followed the link to the article and signed up for an Instant Action account.  So I do hope that is sufficient to be selected for a beta run of Legions.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/845/845984p1.html

Man I so miss the intesity of Tribes, and I seriously can not wait for a for Legions.

Posted: January 31 2008 at 3:55pm | IP Logged

Ok, a kind of update:

InstantAction.com wrote: Good news!  You've been accepted into the invite-only Private Beta of InstantAction.  This is a preview of InstantAction before we go live to the rest of the world.  Sign in to begin playing 3D multiplayer games straight from your web browser: [Top secret link deleted...] Games are more fun with friends, so anyone you add to your friends list will be accepted into the Private Beta as well.  All of our games are multiplayer and issuing a challenge to your friends is as easy as copying and pasting a web link. Have fun and let us know what you think on the forums. ---------------- The InstantAction team

Too bad I don't have any friends...

Posted: January 31 2008 at 4:55pm | IP Logged

Yeah to bad huh? You should get some. It's actually better than just sitting in front of a monitor all day/night!  

  

Posted: January 31 2008 at 6:27pm | IP Logged

-Stryder- wrote: I don't have your email Pro, unless I missed something it is the only way to add Friends Mine is jazzmcewen@gci.net

Sent you an invite.  Hopefully that worked.