I've barely scratched the surface of this epic thread on the stalwart Tribalwar Forums, in which former managers of the Tribes brand and lead developers finally vent about the ups and downs of the Tribes franchise. It's very inside baseball, but even if you're not a inveterate Tribes fanboy like me it's an interesting look into the push and pull that happens when developing a multi-million dollar game like Tribes.
A bit of background for those not initiated into the history of the pioneering first-person-shooter franchise: The original Starsiege Tribes was a game years ahead of its time that basically created the sub-genre of "squad-based first person shooter," later capitalized on by Dice's Battlefield series. An extremely buggy sequel in Tribes 2 negatively affected the continuing traction of the series, despite excellent sales, and led to a final outing in Tribes: Vengeance that never quite lived up to the expectations of the hardcore Tribes community and was deep-sixed by poor marketing in a season filled with games such as Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft.
Vivendi stills own the Tribes license, but after the poor showing of Tribes: Vengeance has no plans to ever revive the franchise. If you're selling, Vivendi, I'm buying.
Marweas still hasnt told us about getting fired [Tribalwar]
