Tribes taught me how to like the ground pounding FPS games. Before Tribes I had played but didn't particularly like ground pounding FPS game. After having 360 degree freedom, it just was not fun to play games like Quake for very long periods of time. While I had liked Duke Nukem 3D it was the exception to the rule. I just didn't really play ground pounders that much. All that changed on December 19th 1998. My friend "E" came over with a game in his hand which had "Tribes" across it. He wanted me to install it on my computer and check it out, as my machine was better than the one we had just built him.

I reluctantly agreed, in fact he damn near had to beg me, I really didn't want to do it. I finally agreed because it was from the Starsiege universe, and I had Earthsiege and its expansion. (Earthsiege was a Mech FPS).

I was blown away by the options in the game. It had a command view so a person could co-ordinate attacks. The game had a vast and simple to use sound clip system for communication. It had server lists built into the game, a big deal, after all this was 1998. It ran great on 3DFX hardware and after being in the cramped quarters of the mines, the vast maps that were not just "bowls" with bitmapped horizons were beyond spectacular. The remote controlling of turrets, being able to place turrets and a still vast more selection of things to do had me hooked.

Since there was server side maps, and server side mods, game play was never boring. My main venue of playing was on the renegades mod using just the thunderbolt and scout armor. This was a fun combination as it took almost no damage to kill me and I had to remain close to my victim and locked on for several seconds. I used the weakest gun in the game that would not even hurt you until it removed all of you energy first. Using side stepping and the energy pack I was very successful at taking down most anyone, including ships with the thunderbolt.

In February of 1999, after having a demo of flying a scout in the Scarabe base posted on Tribesplayers, I started organizing pilots from the Descent-Rangers into a small band that could play Tribes together for fun. Radman put up a web site that was one of the first sites n the net to use a kickass custom flash intro. Radman is an artist of the highest caliber and his work on the custom site, skins and other stuff he did for the Rangers caught many other clans' eyes. And it didn't hurt he was good, very very good at the game. The core of this new group the Tribal-Rangers were Radman, FireFly!, Static, Grywolf and Killet who would take over leadership duties when Radman stepped down. This game was popular for a couple of years and its sequel Tribes 2 just did not have the fun factor of the original for me.

If you have never played Tribes, you really owe it to yourself to check it out; it was a historic game in all of the revolutionary changes it inspired.