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U-M CIS 587 - Study Guide

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Tribes EvaluationBryan P JagerCIS 577Tribes EvaluationBryan P JagerCIS 577May 16, 2000Tribes is a multi-player only first-person shooter game from Dynamix, a division of Sierra Entertainment. It retailed for $44.99 when it first came out in early 1999.However, you can now get the game for about $20. The minimum requirements are a Pentium 200, 32MB RAM, Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or greater, a LAN Card for high speed network gaming, a 4x CD-ROM to install the game (The CD is not required to play the game), 2D graphics card with a minimum of DirectDraw compatibility and run at SVGA mode 640x480 at 256 colors, a DirectSound compatible sound card, a Mouse and a keyboard.The optimal minimum requirements are a Pentium 200, 32MB RAM, Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or greater, a LAN Card for high speed network gaming, a 4x CD-ROM to install the game (The CD is not required to play the game), a 3D graphics accelerator that is 3dfx glide compatible, a DirectSound compatible sound card, a Mouse and a keyboard. Tribes is a multi-player only first person shooter. This means there are is no singleplayer missions. There are 8 single-player training missions. The training missions are to help the user figure out the controls before going online and getting fragged. These missions have no computer controlled enemies. They are set up like a typical map the user would play on in a multi-player game. The multi-player portion of Tribes is very strong. There is no fee to play online. Tribesforces the user to strategize and work in teams or the user’s team will loose.Tribes takes its story line from another Dynamix product called Starsiege. Starsiege is a first person shooter that can be played as a single-player or multi-player. Tribes is a continuation of the story line from Starsiege. It is a struggle of power between the different clans fighting control of the universe. The clans are Children of the Phoenix, Starwolf, Diamond Sword, and Blood Eagle. However, these are the clans that come with the game. Any clan can form and join the fight for this battle.The player’s role in the game is to go around and deter the enemy’s team (or just enemy) to accomplish the given goal. The goal varies depending on the type of game. The types of games usually team oriented such as capture the flag (this is the most common type of game), but the game types can be also free-for-alls with no teams.The installation of Tribes is similar to any other Windows games. There are three installation options: Minimal, Typical, and Maximum. The interface is minimal. The game interface consists of a compass, a shield meter, a health meter, time left in the game, a chat window, a weapons array, and a radar detector. All the menus logically ordered and it is very easy to find any option that you want to change. This interface can be modified depending on whatthe author of the modification (mod) wants you to see. For example, an interface mod that someone wrote is a zoom window in the lower right corner of the heads up display (HUD). The zoom window shows the user what their crosshairs sees but zoomed in about 200x.Tribes plays similar to all first-person shooters with using the keyboard to move the player forward an backward and strafing left and right. The mouse is used to “look” as if you were to look around in real life. The only difference is that you play against real players instead of bots. Playing against real life players makes the game play level more difficult than a single player game. All the controls are customizable so that you can reach any key you want in a way that is easy for the user. It depends what games you play for scoring. The most common ways to score are,depending on game type, killing (or fragging) the enemies, capturing the flag, and capturing the objectives. The artwork for Tribes is great. The skins of each type of armor, weapons, terrain,explosions and sky for each map are very detailed. Even when the user flies around with their booster rockets and you look at the sun at certain angles, the usercan see the sun glaring your vision. This is just one example of the realness in the artwork of this game.The sounds are also very realistic. Blowing things up and actually feeling the blast (if the bass is up with a subwoofer) is great for the user to feel very immersedin the game. Walking on snow sounds mushy and walking on some rocks sounds like rocks under your feet. Also, there are prepackaged sayings that come with thegame. Sayings such as taunts for multi-player games so you can rub in a great frag your just made to your enemy and commands to tell your teammates to do specific tasks. Tribes’ soundtrack is ok, but it distracts from the great sounds and taunts or commands in the game.The manual contains the story line, the default controls, what each weapon does, what each armor does, and what the different vehicles are used for. This isn’t veryuseful to most gamers.In the initial release, there were very few bugs. Dynamix did a good job testing and releasing a relatively bug free product. One thing that was improved was the lookup for game servers. As of now, there has been 8 patches (to version 1.11). The best part of the game is ability to create modifications to it. For example, you can create new skins for the different armors, new maps, new weapons, new sounds (both taunts and commands) and even new types of games. This gives users the ability to create new game types and skin types. Which helps give the game longevity and a chance to perfect tactics and teaming. Being a multi-player only game, it is vulnerable to network lag. This is where it takes longer than desired to communicate to the server. That means you see everything move really jerky or the worst case scenario as a gamer: as you line up an enemy in your sites and fire, they could be long gone before your deathblow gets there. Cable modem users can expect a ping of between 40ms and 80ms. Dial-up users can expect a ping of up to 1.3 seconds, which is basically not playable under a very competitive match. There are some differences in Tribes to other first person shooter games. For instance, it does not take place in confined spaces. It would be much harder to have a dogfight in a cramped maze. Since you have a more expansive environment, you have a booster pack and plane type vehicles to quickly fly your across the maps.


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U-M CIS 587 - Study Guide

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