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Tribes: Ascend also going free to play
by Andrew Yoon, Jun 27, 2011 4:15pm PDTTribes: Ascend is being billed as "the multiplayer successor to the much lauded Tribes 2." Built on Unreal Engine 3, Ascend will be a downloadable multiplayer shooter for PC and Xbox 360. And, surprisingly, it will also be free-to-play.
Yes, like Team Fortress 2 and many MMOs, the game will be entirely powered by microtransactions. According to a report by IGN, Ascend is largely inspired by League of Legends' cycling release of warriors. In Riot's game, new "champions" are made available for purchase every two weeks, for about $5-10. Tribes: Ascend will, instead, allow players to buy entire loadouts. One loadout may give players more engineer-type attributes, while another may focus more on stealth. Developer Hi-Rez is hoping to create new loadouts on a regular basis, in addition to making cosmetic enhancements available for purchase as well.
Given the competitive nature of online multiplayer, Hi-Rez faces an uphill battle with making Tribes: Ascend a free-to-play game. In spite of the purchasable loadouts, gamers need to be assured that matches will always be balanced. On the other hand, Hi-Rez must constantly come up with new ways of ensuring gamers are incentivize to buy more. It's an interesting experiment, and definitely a sign of things to come.
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Built on Unreal Engine 3, Tribes: Ascend is a downloadable multiplayer shooter for PC and Xbox 360, billed as a "multiplayer successor" to Tribes 2. And, surprisingly, it will also be free-to-play.
Built on Unreal Engine 3, Tribes: Ascend is a downloadable multiplayer shooter for PC and Xbox 360, billed as a "multiplayer successor" to Tribes 2. And, surprisingly, it will also be free-to-play. : Shacknews
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Though with this model, there is incentive for the studios to make any new content slightly overpowered to drive sales, and then to rebalance later, either by nerfing new stuff or buffing old stuff. Some of the newer LoL champs have been suspicious...
Though apparently Yorick sucks.
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