Tribal Wars Mod Released!

[92Hotel]

Tribal Wars is a team based multiplayer shooter modification that utilizes some of the team oriented aspects of its parent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and combines it with equipment and weaponry found in titles such as Starseige: Tribes and Unreal Tournament. The game takes place in era far after Quake 4 where humanity has just recovered from a longstanding war against a formidable foe, but now find each other in conflict with one another; all vying for supremacy.

Download links follow. Also keep an eye on the twars forums for additional versions, such as the unpackaged version for mappers and such. Twars forums are back up, but the short version of their mod installation instructions are below.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-wars/downloads/tribal-wars-v10

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WMUJGRZ8

http://www.fileplanet.com/210636/210000/fileinfo/Tribal-Wars-Mod

As of April 12, a v1.1 patch is available. Check out the info here: http://twars.org/blog.php/2010/04/tribal-wars-v1-1-patch-released/

Twars is now posting an updated list of download links, so check there for additional mirrors or the server Linux dl:
http://www.twars.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12

Note: The fileplanet link didn't work for me, YMMV. For me the Megaupload site worked best, since I was able to recover from a stalled dl by pausing and unpausing it within Firefox, whereas the moddb hosted dl probably does okay if you have a good fast connection, but would not recover if it stalled.


Installing the Mod: PACKAGED VERSION INSTRUCTIONS

This package is WINDOWS ONLY. Ensure you have the v1.5 Patch for ETQW.

Download the installation package. The installer will ask for the Installation Directory, select the Enemy Territory - Quake Wars folder. Wait until the extraction process is complete. You will now have a Desktop icon which you can use to run the game.

IMPORTANT: If you have the Steam version of the game the Desktop icon will not work, you may remove it. You will have to add a Steam Launch item by pressing the "Add non-Steam game..." button. Locate etqw.exe in your ETQW installation folder and add it to your list. Select the list item and go to properties, and add these launch parameters:

+set fs_game twars

You can now use this launch item to start the game.


To find a game: In the server browser, go to the filters list. At the bottom is a TWARS filter that you can enable. The developer currently is hosting a TWARS server, and an EU server is also expected.

Links of interest follow. Bear in mind that some of these are new and not always available during this transition period of their launch.

http://www.twars.org/
http://www.twars.org/forums/
http://www.twars.org/blog.php
http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-wars/


Early production video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/radicum
Recent video from Beta:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-war...play1#imagebox
http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-war...play2#imagebox

I hope you will try this and share it with your friends. With the combined interest of some of this community and the migration of Tribes players and others, this could be a lot of fun. I will update this thread as much as possible during this launch, and feel free to message me with recommended news and links for this post. Thanks!

[92Hotel]

Anyone else been trying this yet? Early on when I tried it there were some fairly bad netcode issues stemming from improper settings at the US servers, but now that I've played it on the new TAW server I can see that it's really shaping up.

The guys that made this mod are still actively improving it. You can read about past and projected changes at the official forums of course. Also, if you register at their forum you can definitely have conversation with the developers about their choices as it goes forward.

And I deserve this bump because it's my birthday =P

[arizonachris]

Haven't had the time to try it out yet, but a few of my clanmates have on the TAW server and they say it's a little buggy but fun.

And Happy Birthday! :D

[92Hotel]

I just came back from playing with a few guys on that server and it was fun. The fall damage can be too high, which you can avoid by skiing more carefully, but they're gonna scale that back. It'll be more fun when you can move more recklessly imo.

[arizonachris]

Looks like my clan is going to set up a Tribal Mods server, as well as our ranked and unranked servers.

You can check the news here at our Forums: http://bullethell.clanservers.com/index.php?sid=a0c564e83dc6c949f916b02d9c3865a9

[92Hotel]

Thanks Chris, that's good news! :)

For those guys who are or have been trying this mod, a couple of notes.

First, this mod is essentially just coming out of beta, and there were a few tweaks yet to be made with weapon damage, fall damage, and other things, which is of course natural in the course of a new release, and they are actively patching these improvements.

Also don't be discouraged if you don't find a lot of people playing all of the time. The release is expanding, and an increase in good servers and upcoming patch are adding to the player base. If you check the official site you can find that there are some casual pick up games scheduled from time to time and really experience what this is like with full team capture the flag.

[arizonachris]

No worries, bro. We are all die hard ETQW fans and will play this game until the wheels fall off. Bullet Hell is always looking for another clan match or looking for new members (we do have a 30 day probationary period)

Played some on the "Gunstars Phantasmagoric" unranked server last night, was a lot of fun, new maps. Gives a boost to this old game. :D

[92Hotel]

http://twars.org/blog.php/2010/04/tribal-wars-v1-1-patch-released/

Here's the info for the v1.1 patch released a couple of days ago.

[Cybrid]

How many players are usually around on 7-12 EST?

And how much of Tribes 1 gameplay translates into the game mod? I watched a few videos on YouTube and ModDB. It looks promising, I see they've taken some creative liberties on the disk launcher, blaster, and machinegun (fine with me). The skiing looks good, I wonder how flag passing is. I noticed some "inventory stations" which, for the moment, serve as T1's "ammo stations".

A few other questions, which you may or may not be privy to, but do the developers plan on adding the same level of robustness found from within the original Starsiege: Tribes, with regards to: vehicles (HPC, LPC, Scout, etc.), base defensive turrets, sensor networks, generators/power, inventory stations where you can purchase different armors/packs/weapons, targeting beacons, command way points, remote turret control, and deployable items. Essentially, hallmarks of one of our favorite jewels of FPS+Z gaming out of the late '90's.

Also, with regards to the story/creative development, are they attempting to mold the game around the major four to five factions from the original Starsiege universe: Blood Eagle, Children of the Phoenix, Diamond Sword, Starwolf, and the Bioderm? You mentioned it will follow T1 and UT, so I assume maybe the core gameplay will be replicated but not the actual creative background that Dynamix coined (which presumably makes sense, from a legal standpoint on creative license).

Hope to hear back!

[92Hotel]

Cybrid, my general sense of this is that the development of this mod by a small group of volunteers is not going to be proceeding as aggressively as you may wish. The lead on the project recently said there's a limit to how far I can take it. I'll continue to work on it when I have time, but I'm focused on some other things right now.

"If anyone else wants to take a look at the project files and wants to take a crack at making a new map, or adding more armors and weapons then they can get in touch with me. Really, there's no way I can start looking at doing something like the ambitious on my own though. It's not the sort of thing that's a one man job."

If you would enjoy some dialogue on the mod and to get a better perspective on it I recommend you register at their forums at http://www.twars.org/forums where in particular the general discussion section includes things like feedback/suggestions.

I installed a new hard drive last week and have yet to reinstall ETQW and the mod, though I will. I don't expect you'd find big numbers of players right now, but they also post about pick up games. Frankly I am not expecting this or anything else to become Tribes again, and whether this mod continues to improve will probably depend upon a show interest from the community at large. The door still seems to be open for project volunteers also.