Comparison to Tribes 2
Describing how a game feels is difficult. This document tries to explain the feel by comparing to Tribes 2. Realm Wars will support about the same numbers as Tribes 2 with roughly similar maps, but Realm Wars will be much different from Tribes 2 in many important aspects.
Movement
Characters in Realm Wars will be less mobile than Tribes 2 in general. There will be no rocket packs for starters. Characters will move forwards faster than they move backwards and side-to-side. The reason for this is to allow melee characters to close ground and engage in melee combat. You can't hack at someone who is 50 feet in the air, or approach someone if they can back up shooting at you as fast as you can run forwards.
Vehicles
Vehicles in the forms of beasts and siege engines will exist in Realm Wars. Our goal is for vehicles to be useful without being basically unstoppable by most weapons. Vehicles like the tank and bomber in T2 were essentially impervious to all but a few weapons. (Most of the damage tanks took was from crashing into things rather than weapons fire) A prime reason for this was regenerating shielding, something that will not exist for creatures. You can expect creatures to have powerful attacks and/or good movement abilities, but not to be damage soaking machines.
Maps
In general Realm Wars maps will probably be a bit smaller and flatter than Tribes 2 maps. Without rocket packs traversing maps will be slower, and very uneven ground makes melee combat difficult. Were the Realm Wars maps sized the same as T2 maps they would actually feel much larger, due to differences in map navigation abilities.
Deployable Items
Deployable turrets in Tribes 2 were too good. In general we want the players doing the fighting themselves, rather than relying on special items to fight for them. We can expect any creature or item that can fight for a character to have a limited lifespan.
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