WA-HEY! By Tomorrow I'll be official

ChungKing

Just received notification from DHL that my 'order' departed Dayton, Ohio at 5am this morning (euro time). My order being ... TRIBES.

Yup, i've been on a dodgy copy but only cos I was itching to play. I kept reading amazing things about it all over the net but had never seen it mentioned in the euro gaming press. Then, as happens, a buddy at work lent me his copy ... immediately after which I ordered the real one from www.outpost .com (great site in the states - do overnight DHL delivery if you have/are willing to spend the cash).

I actually would have been official last week but I also ordered a copy of Starsiege, which has been getting great reviews & had to wait until it had been released (last thursday).

So anyway; I usedta live in Hong Kong, home of software piracy; after a few bad experiences with crap copies & much to the dismay of my chinese friends I decided not to buy/use pirated software again. Hell, I'm a developer myself so if I'm enjoying a kick @ss game that a group of people have slaved to get right, then it's money well spent in my book!

Anyway, I say all this to point out that (a) outpost.com are an excellent site - it ends up costing about the same as the game does here if you choose fast shipping but this is my second time ordering from them (got sick of waiting for fallout 2 & grim fandango) and twice I've been really pleased with the result. The also provide excellent order tracking. (I do not work for them or any affiliates, btw)

And (b), just wanted to point out that, for those of you who haven't yet, _buy_ the game. either by ordering it or when it comes out here. I've played over 40 hours of it already, and for every hour more I play, the more value for my cash i get

Dr_Teeth

Hehe, newbies. I've had mine since mid-January. Isn't the manual excellent? You don't get that kind of quality packaging over here at all..

Teeth.

ChungKing

It actually arrives tomorrow ... sigh ... but it shipped!

Don't you find it strange how there was no publicity about it all all over here? I understand that dynamix were thinking about not releasing it at all in Europe, but you'd think some of the gaming mags would have picked up on it ...

I remember thinking what the hell is this tribes thing they're talking about & getting confused over the difference between starsiege & starsiege tribes (have never played the earthsiege games).

- looking forward to the manual - i've heard it's good. Damn gotta get some work done.

later

CK

tHE vAGGABOND

I also got the US version. I simply refuse to endorse warez, it ****s up the computer games industry (and it recks me head downloading 10 - 9 meg downloads or whatever )

I love the US gatefold sleves, I have 5 now (Q2's sleve rocks ) They remind me of Jim Fitzpatrick Thin Lizzy lp's

/*sniffle* those were the days.....

I recon I'll take yer advice and give them a turn with starsiege, then I can kick yer ass in that too

Yea teeth, you had the game and had learnt all the maps by heart before any of us even knew the voice tree - that puts you into super geek pole position in my book

I dont go in for all the "Sword of Uranus" D&D sh1te - and that all the manual really is.

ChungKing

do shop around with ordering sites tho - i don't think outpost are the cheapest, but they do ship overnight dhl which i like - as for kicking my @ss in starsiege ... hmmmm it's a date

Brit

Hehe - in that case, you're all newbies

I've had my copy since before Xmas - had it FedEX'd to me - hurrah!

--Brit--

ChungKing

Ha! newbie and PROUD!

I think I'll change my profile signature to be :

That which FED-EX bequeathed to thee,
earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it -
Goethe, Faust

earn oldies, earn it!

lol

Hobbes

They have a number of problems with International release.

1. The US export. There is some stupid law about export certain kinds of technology (funny that you can actually just get the stuff DHL'ed to you )

2. Localisation. I think it would be cool with the message tree is translated into different languages, that way people from other countries can play better, instead of running to the german->english dictionary every time.

3. Approval by the country. They have to go through a approval process. Least with some countrys. Don't know if it applies to Ireland as they should of banned "Postal" like Britain did, and I'm glad they didn't with GTA (GTA:London is coming out soon! )

strangely enough US has to do the same thing. When I first came over I noticed some games which had been around for months were only just being released. "Commandos behind enemy lines" was one of them (with various changes I noticed).

ChungKing

All of those things you said are true, Hobbes, but I also read somewhere (planet-tribes, or maybe datumplane) that they had initially decided not to release tribes in europe at all, which is curious, but then changed their minds. Maybe that was just someone talking rubbish.

The differences in international versions are interesting too - often an emphasis on violence is removed. There was a huge amount of complaining that Fallout 2 had many references to drugs removed plus all children characters removed (it is a very violent game). While I have no particular violent tendencies (off-line, hehheh), I ordered Fallout 2 from the states to get the real thing.

Lastly, in the next year or so I think it is pretty likely that many of these loopholes will be closed up or made more difficult/expensive to use. Definitely the US and european governments are _not_ happy at their inability to enforce VAT & sales tax laws on international internet sales. And the US takes its technology exports very seriously and looks to be increasing restrictions of late (mostly due to china).

But anyway, enjoy it while it lasts I'm delighted I got the chance to get tribes, albeit months late compared to some of you early adopters (no names mentioned)

Shinji

Tribes european release date: 7th May

It will be bundled with Starsiege and will cost £44.99.

BTW, games in Europe don't have to be rated. They get passed by the ELSPA, a voluntary organisation made up of publishers themselves, and ELSPA can then decide whether to send them for rating or not.

Mata ne!
Rob

Brit

Hehe - I don't think I've ever been called an 'oldie' before. Sonny

Yeah - Dynamix/Sierra weren't going to release Tribes in Europe (and yes, you did read about it first on PT) because of the criminally high telephony charges; whey wrongly assumed that no-one would shell out for the online time. After all, those 1p a min BT charges soon mount up.

However, copies leaked over the oggin like you wouldn't believe, and they reversed their decision.

--Brit--

http://www.planet-tribes.com

Hobbes

Think your wrong there Shinji...

Carmaggeon was banned from being published in England until they removed the pedestrians and replaced them with zombies. Also they were to change the blood to green.

I think GTA was almost banned, but was proberly toned down. The Irish GTA wasn't toned down afaik.

Postal was definitly toned down before it could be released, although the whole games selling point is it's sickness (no gameplay).

Some games never make it to the country. A good example I remember was "Rocketman" for the Amiga, which was banned in Germany and took about a year before they rereleased it with the Nazi baddies taken out of it.

ChungKing

Yeah Brit - i can't wait to see my phone bill this month - I definitely did not spend as much time online with q1,q2 & halflife as I have with tribes...

*gulp*!

Shinji

ELSPA rate all games released in Europe. They then forward any potentially controversial ones to the local Film Cert board - the BBFC in Britain, for example. Carmageddon went to the BBFC, as did Postal and GTA. Carmageddon got the blood changed to green (patch available to change it back, gore-freaks), Postal got hacked to bits and GTA was released unmodified but 18-cert.

The germans are different, they have a very hard line on games. Odd, given that their sattelite channels are full of videos of people urinating each other and doing all sorts of other interesting things, that they banned Quake on grounds of violence....

Mata ne!
Rob

ChungKing

Well I got the games yesterday at work - and very cool - right from the boxes to the manuals - starsiege comes with two huge manuals - one being basically the storyline very nicely presented with loads of graphics & the other being the pilot's manual...

tried the training missions for starsiege & they are as boring as the tribes ones ... the reviews are awesome tho - still, i think i'll put it aside for now...

One thing i noticed last night during the 20 minutes i was playing tribes - I upgraded to release 1.3 of tribes after re-installing it from the real cd & my lag was the worst i have ever experienced. If it's this bad again I'm going to re-install back to 1.0 - any thoughts/comments on this anyone??

Shinji

I think that was the servers fault... it was extremely laggy indeed last night. Not to mention muppet-laden...

Mata ne!
Rob