Talk:Starsiege: Tribes

PROPOSAL FOR ARTICLE RESTORATION & TALK PAGE ARCHIVAL
I propose this article be restored to the point before Eik Corell's cull/edit, so that we can look anew at the issues the article had and then fix them. I also propose this Talk page be archived so that we can begin with a fresh Talk page so that we can discuss section changes and improvement point by point in collaboration with all interested parties. GordonTG (talk) 00:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Before anymore drama gets piled onto this, what exactly do you feel should be changed/removed, Eik? I do agree that it is/was far from perfect, such as the ELF gun not even getting explained and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EvanVolm (talk • contribs) 01:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll see if I can go over the reasons behind specific changes/removals from . Sorry for the length, but it might help interested contributors to source what they want to see in the article. Below, in italics, I refer to WP:V, WP:OR, WP:VG/GL, WP:GAMECRUFT and WP:NPOV.
 * Lead section
 * Removed: Claim of being one of the only games of its kind (uncited, unspecific.)
 * Moved: Information on maps moved to gameplay section.
 * Removed: "relatively huge", "fast-paced feel" (original research)
 * New section, History, contains material merged from lead and "Sequel" section.
 * Gameplay
 * Added: Brief plot synopsis, per video game article guidelines.
 * Removed: Discussion of mods, per WP:V. If sourced correctly, we can have a section on mods, but this should not be mixed up with the gameplay section. However, mods rarely receive coverage from published sources. Some are listed at ModDB but have not received editorial coverage.
 * Sections on Packs, Vehicles, Base equipment, Generators, Turrets, Stations, Sensors - subsumed into the gameplay section. Some material left removed (that Packs are "A very important aspect"), others I managed to find citations for (that heavy mortars are good against base defenses, for example) These numerous sub-sections were also veering into gamecruft territory.
 * Removed: Jetpack section. The Comparison to other FPSs and its tactical usage in the game is original research. The statement that begins "The incorporation of this third dimension..." uses both weasel words and is not in a neutral tone. Opinion on gameplay elements should be gathered from professional critiques.
 * Removed: Skiing section. In addition to being unverified, also contains original research (comparison to Bunny Hopping, presence in other games, etc.) and weasel words ("angering to new players and to purists...")
 * Edited: Other features. Disregarding the poorly toned lead sentence, information on the PDA was moved to the Gameplay section.
 * Removed: HUDs/Scripts. That the game is scriptable might be mentioned, but is otherwise trivial. Unverified
 * Added: Reception section - I added an overview of the GameSpot review. This is an important section, as this third-party coverage is what's used to discuss parts of the game that a lot of contributors are trying to get in through original research.
 * Removed: Community support section- Again, trivial, unless one can show how a game's community is important, through the use of reliable third-party sources. Original research.
 * Removed: Competition section (uncited, probably original research, excessive technical detail.)
 * Moved: Game Types section - merged to Gameplay section.
 * Removed: AI / Offline Gameplay, original research. The gamespot review did mention the training missions. This is now cited in the Reception section. If there's no discussion of Spoonbot in reliable publications, we don't mention it either.
 * Removed: Mods and RPG sections. I know there are contributors who what to see a mods section, but our coverage should reflect that given by reliable publications. As far as I can tell, there's no coverage of mods at either ModDB or in any of the reviews I've looked through. Therefore, removed as original research.
 * Removed: Game Firsts. Most seriously, this is not in a neutral tone, but also appears to be original research.
 * Removed: Piracy section. Piracy effects all games, so the discussion here is trivial as well as apparent original research.
 * Edited: Sequels and Re-release sections. Sales figures and development decisions are unverified. Unofficial patches are probably unverifiable through third-party sources. Remaining information merged to History section.
 * Removed: Shazbot and Alvy Elna sections. Original research.
 * Edited: External links. WP:VG/EL suggests that fan sites are inappropriate but open to concensus. If the Tribal Wiki is stable then perhaps this could be linked to.

I appreciated Gordon's comments about community concensus about content. This can be opened out to the videogames wikiproject if need be. There is always leeway in the guidelines (WP:VG/GL in this case), but there are also many violations of core wikipedia policies. Material is being challenged and the "burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material."

I also support the archiving of the talkpage above this section - none of it was particularly constructive. Marasmusine (talk) 04:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, archiving would probably be a good idea. Won't take long before it looks like this again, though. Eik Corell (talk) 12:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The "skiing" and "jetpack" sections need to remain in some form if possible, if sections aren't possible then they certainly deserve subsections under gameplay. The jetpack is something which defines the game from all others, and skiing is probably even more important to Tribes than bunny hopping is to Quake. I'm guessing that the only problem is backing up this information with a decent source, as the game is over 10 years old - finding reliable sources which verify this might be tricky. However I'm sure most players would agree that these features of the game are more important than most of the current gameplay content. Sudo make me a sandwich (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I've found a usable source at . It mentions both the importance of jetpacks and the concept behind skiing, and Future Publishing is a reliable source. Whilst we need to avoid writing anything resembling a strategy guide or hints & tips section, I think I can use this to enhance the gameplay section. I will consider subsections. I might not have time to do this today but will certainly dig into it tomorrow, when I can investigate other reviews as well.
 * In the meantime, I know a Mods section is something that the Tribes community wants to see. Whilst ModDB was a dead end, perhaps you guys could track down any PC magazines these mods might have been mentioned in. Marasmusine (talk) 17:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for archiving the original Talk page. I'll be looking for reliable links to cite supporting content removed as original research. I have to say that a quick google search will find plenty of references to "Alvy Elna". Sourcing links and reviews for Mods on the otherhand is a tricky one, the game itself is old and the interweb is notorious for losing content as pages get deleted or domains expire.


 * A few reliable sources exist for Tribes in general and I will add more as and when I find them
 * http://www.archive.org is perfect for retrieving 'dead' websites (I'll be using this one to source info if I can remember the names of sites we lost).
 * http://www.planettribes.com is part of the IGN entertainment network and can be considered a reliable information source.
 * http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22starsiege+tribes%22+review&meta= will provide a plethora of reviews from which you should be able to pick and choose quotes about the more innovative aspects of the game.


 * I'll be keeping my eye out for citations in support of the Mod section. Whilst I can say Mods were instrumental in the popularity and longevity of the game, I need to find details to support this. I'd also like to see the most popular Mods covered in basic detail, a small overview and description of how they diverge from Tribes Base. In particular I'm looking for historical references to server stats to extract info on Mod popularity as well as where Tribes placed compared to other online FPS games of the time. GordonTG (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As for the reception section, I've found one more review if needed(IGN)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by EvanVolm (talk • contribs) 23:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I may have hit the jackpot on Mods a massive 139! Mod list is here http://theexiled.pwnageservers.com/mods_database.php containing some useful links to the official mod sites. As you can see from the list the Renegades Mod, Ultra Renegades, Ultra Renegades VX, Shifter, Annihilation and the Paintball Mod were all popular and updated. I'm still looking for some sort of reference to Mod popularity. Finding this list is a reasonable start as is the most extensive I have found so far. GordonTG (talk) 02:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC) PS Evan remember to sign your posts by using 4 ~ symbols ;)


 * While searching Mod popularity I dug up this record of server stats from Gamespy showing Starsiege: Tribes as the 3rd most played online FPS game in december 1998, by april 1999  it was a 2nd by june 2000  Tribes maintained it's posistion as 2nd but by july 2001 it had slipped to 5th behind it's sequel Tribes 2 . I hope this goes some way to explaining the importance of Tribes as an online game for people who are less familiar with it. An on online game that for a sustained period was played by more people that than any of it's contemporaries excluding Half Life. GordonTG (talk) 03:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that pwnageservers qualifies as a WP:RS. We can link to the gamespy archive, but literally all we can do is flatly state the numbers. We can't extrapolate any comments about importance or popularity without falling into WP:OR. It will be worth checking journalist's retrospective comments, perhaps in Tribes 2 reviews, for citations about popularity. Marasmusine (talk) 08:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Although skiing was unintended, it wasn't an exploit. Skiing also was in the Tribes 2 manual, so to say that the first to include it was T:V is wrong. This is why we need tribes fans, and not mods editing this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.236.206.26 (talk) 13:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I found a citation for skiing in Tribes 2, so have updated. I'm not sure what you mean by the skiing technique being unintended, but not an exploit. If you use a inaccuracy in the code for an advantage, that's the definition of an exploit. Marasmusine (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering that skiing was patched by the developers out of the game, only to be restored after it was deemed beneficial, then became an integrated feature in later titles, its hard to define it as an exploit as exploit carriers a rather negative tone. If it was really a true exploit it would have been left out rather than becoming a major part of the game, revolutionising it. It may have been unintentional, but a cure for cancer could be found as an unintentional side effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.24.73 (talk) 21:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Skiing was originally an unintended side effect of the game's physics, but it was found that it speeds up the game quite a bit so it was added. (It makes it easy to traverse a large distance in a short timespan) It's essentially using pulses of your jetpack in combination with the jump key (spacebar). But this is quite heavy on the spacebar and on your left thumb so eventually scripts were made and eventually happy jump ( http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/project.tribes/t1_happyjump_patch/ ) (a modified tribes executable).

Also if you really want to get citations for everything on this game you're going to run into a serious issue. Half of the community websites are dead (tends to happen after this long). And Vivendi did their best to remove any trace of Dynamix ever existing. But the original tribes website can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20010706183650/sierrastudios.com/games/tribesplayers/.

Though I really fear you will simply mess this article up if you go too strict about it (like you're doing now). If you intend to only use citations you're going to end up with something along the lines of "Tribes is a futuristic FPS with jetpacks made by Dynamics, released in 1999. Followed up by Tribes 2 and Tribes: Vengeance. The game was released for free, download at (insert url here)." And that would pretty much ruin the description of this game that made a serious contribution towards the history of online only games. Tribes was one of the first games that went down that path. And it's still alive today, more than 10 years later. And actually the wikipedia page you just "edited" (more along the lines of, remove all content if you ask me) was one of the only sources that still contained some of those things.

But if you really want citations you should look on the right places, I'd start here if I were you: http://web.archive.org/web/20010706183650/sierrastudios.com/games/tribesplayers/ http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/ (Lasthope aka 1.30, Happy Jump, Hudbot, ...), Obviously planet tribes (assuming it still works), The old HomeLAN Fed forums might also prove useful, http://www.giantbomb.com/starsiege-tribes/61-17179/ , TribalWar also holds quite some information like this http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=497388 , Also pretty important http://web.archive.org/web/20010208100834/sierrastudios.com/games/tribesplayers/scripting.html , http://www.answers.com/topic/starsiege-tribes (the first part is original information) Bart416 (talk) 00:31, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thankyou for the links. However, WP:Verifiability requires that encyclopedic content is gathered from reliable, secondary sources. The archived Sierra website (a primary source) could be used, providing the remainder of the other sources are strong enough. Self-published sources (WP:SPS) such as "Andrews Projects" and the Forum should be avoided. Answers.com cannot be used as it is a tertiary source.
 * In terms of content, please remember that WP is a general encyclopedia rather than a fan site. Weight of content reflects that given in published sources. If, for examples, none of the reviews/previews/interviews/making-of's we find have no in-depth discussion of scripting or mods, then we don't either. You might prefer to develop that content on a gaming-specific site such as Wikia Gaming . Since there are several people here who are from the fan forums, also consider WP:NPOV when thinking about this article. If you haven't already, then also look at the WP:Writing about fiction and WP:VG/GL guidelines.
 * At the moment we have several online reviews of Tribes, and retrospective comments in reviews for the sequels, to work with. There are also articles in print magazines that could be tracked down. Marasmusine (talk) 09:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I fear you are quite wrong on this. Starsiege: Tribes never has really been all that well documented in terms of general gameplay. The core aspect of tribes is in fact how easy it is to mod. This is pretty much the reason tribes still lives today in fact. It takes months to make a mod in a game like unreal tournament. In tribes you can finish the same project in less than a week. And to respond to the valid sources issue: TribalWar is one of the main community sites, as such it's obvious an important source of information. If you intend to only mention things with sources your articles about many subjects will be poor. For example Andrew is a valid source for three important Tribes related matters: Happy Jump (as described earlier), Lasthope (an anti-cheat system) and Hudbot (a modification that makes tribes use high quality textures). Not to mention that he actually wrote a couple of mods and released interesting information about Tribes (like actual working networking code). And actually now that you mention it, he's actually working for InstantAction at the moment and rewriting parts of Tribes for the InstantAction release. So that guy knows what he's talking about if it's tribes related (you could pretty much say he's on the same level as the original developers at the moment in terms of knowledge about the game). Then again if you intend to be strict on every game related article you can go and send out our little friend (but not really) Corell to also go and gut: Quake 1, 2, 3 and 4; Unreal Tournament, 2003, 2004 and 3; Soldiers of Fortune 1 and 2 (I wish to ignore the existence of the most recent one); and so on really... You can't expect a game article to be 100% neutral and have completely verified content. In the end of the day it's the pepole who actually play the game who should be in the position of writing it. Not somebody citing hundreds of wikipedia rules to try to gut every article he comes across. And really, if you think it's fine to simply gut an article about one of the most important games in terms of online gaming history. Then be my guest, but you should know you're pretty much gutting one of the only remaining sources of information about this game.Bart416 (talk) 09:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Before I address your comments, can you confirm if you have actually read through, and understood, the policies and guidelines I linked to above? Marasmusine (talk) 10:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, my proposed additions are in this revision. The changes are: a brief plot synopsis; moving the gametypes to higher in the gameplay section, with citations for the popularity of some of these gametypes; rewording of the armour/equipment section, with quick overview of the weapons; A new Movement section discussing the jetpack and skiing, with citations; A new Critical reception section discussing the GameSpot review. Marasmusine (talk) 10:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

About the gameplay modes, there are actually 8 different modes, not 5. Balanced, Capture and Hold, Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Defend and Destroy, Find and Retrieve, Multiple Team, and Open Call. This comes directly from the in-game menu. EvanVolm (talk) 04:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, so we need to add Balanced, Multiple Team and Open Call. Do you know how "Practice" and "Arena" are involved? Marasmusine (talk) 09:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure Arena was a user-made mod. I don't remember Practice at all, though Gordon or Bart probably can provide some more info on the two.EvanVolm (talk) 19:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've found a source for Vivendi releasing Tribes for free with Tribes 2 release. EvanVolm (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Arena and Practice are mods. The only single player/practice option in the game as standard is "Single Player Training" which is the second option on the play screen below "Join Multiplayer" and above "Host Multiplayer". On this subject it may be noteworthy to state in the article that Tribes, unlike it's contemporaries of the time (Quake, Half Life et al), has no true single player game. GordonTG (talk) 10:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Or, more succinctly, "Tribes is a multiplayer-only game" :> Gordon, a few days ago I asked Cavalry to unblock the article. I'm still awaiting a response, but in the meantime I'd appreciate your comments on this revision as a starting point to build the article back up. Marasmusine (talk) 12:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I've started work on a wiki for PlayTribes, which I'll promptly delete and transfer over to this wiki once it's unlocked if wanted. The gameplay section for Tribes seemed to be one of the bigger issues, so feel free to use the PT wiki for reference or practice, since it's essentially the same exact thing.But I don't think we should say it's a multiplayer-only game, because it's not.EvanVolm (talk) 01:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I just stopped by this page today to check on if Wikipedia added that a new company is taking it over, and I find that nearly three-quarters of the information is GONE. If you want citations, I will find them, and I will be sure that the article is restored to its prime. --Scouto2 (talk) 01:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, this Eik Corell guy has done enough damage, and it's gone on long enough. Look at his Talk Page; destroying articles is obviously his favorite past-time. Until something better can be done, I've placed the longest archived copy of the article on a blog. The same content is accessible by digging through this article's History, but few people will think to do that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackinches (talk • contribs) 06:16, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The removed material was unsuitable for Wikipedia (WP:VGSCOPE). Why not improve the one at Wikia Gaming? Wikipedia has to be written from a real-world perspective; but at Wikia you can be as in-depth as you like about in-game stuff like weapons, story-line, etc. Your blog copy needs to follow the Creative Commons Attribute-Sharealike License, otherwise you are infringing copyright. Please also be aware of our civility policy. Marasmusine (talk) 08:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Tribes Extreme
Someone with more time should try to find out what happened to this. Did it turn into Tribes 2? --DocumentN (talk) 06:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This article explains that Tribes Extreme was cancelled, and the team and resources were merged into Tribes 2 (which was already in progress as a separate project). --71.205.132.108 (talk) 20:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Improving this article.
Alright, its been years since those warnings at the top of the page were added. What exactly needs to be done so Wikipedia is happy with this article? EvanVolm (talk) 23:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Noteability about servers and download sites
I'm curious if these meet Wikipedia standards. I don't see how we should be listing places of where to download the Tribes ISO or patches. If ever, the links and steps to install should be relegated to external links rather than in the Sequels entry.

Also, what is the purpose of adding the game servers here? Is it notable? I don't recall seeing anything similar in other game pages. Dasmarinas71 (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Source

 * https://books.google.com/books?id=7wEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT106 - Interview
 * https://web.archive.org/web/20000308221337/http://pc.ign.com:80/news/6191.html

can you people really interested in this not use reddit threads you made yourselves as sources
i dont want to register an account on wikipedia but this game is from the 90s and its weird to be reading stuff that should be sourced and end up reading reddit thread junk 70.53.102.227 (talk) 15:21, 10 September 2023 (UTC)