To other 30 something that tossed their votes but never cared to show up - you pals are smucks and joykillers!
Also, you all missed a lot of potential fun by not being there, so your loss.
Anyways, my report (brace yourselves):
Tribes 2: Tribes has a heart of an old school FPS, but a complexity that goes far beyond that. That being said, the lack of actual human players was most hurting of the three games we played. For most of the time, there was 5 of us, though 6 (or 7? 8?) were present at some point. There were also 20 bots, which made the matches actually not dull, for they are quite decent shots and understand some basic tactics like deploying turrets and then defending the flag. But AI can only go so far. 10v10 or more humans would be match made in heaven, 8v8 too but even 5v5 would be good.
STILL.
I was very fun and I don't regret a second I spent playing. I got to fly in a bomber! And I bombed people! And once, me and Draxis (I think it was Draxis? Sorry, I forgot :S) nearly tank rushed their base just to be beaten back by a combined forces of TWO enemy tanks (how did you guys managed to do that? Bots don't use vehicles, right? Or was it just that two of you piloted and shot from one, while in another there was just a pilot?). Now imagine this with more people... Yeah, I'd be totally up for more.
Sub Rosa: Oooohh boy. The first few matches were very confusing. I saw some videos on YouTube and kinda knew what to expect and I did a quick shooting/driving/inventory tutorial, but still, the confusion!
But even with THAT, it was crazy fun with some quite memorable moments. At one point for example I nearly choked on my laughter. So here's the story:
A new match begins. Our objective - acquire a disk. I'm not sure if it was a legit transaction or just "acquisition" but with our teammate we decided to just kill the other party. Barely a second after we agree on that, another team messages us: "You wanna trade?".
"Wow", we think to ourselves, "they are done now." We are all like "sure sure, let's trade... Where do you wanna meet up?"
...
"Your garage."
Now I'm not sure if the other party was really trying to do a legit transaction, but as soon as we get this message, I spot a car right outside our garage.
And it drives in.
At this point, the surf album I had playing in the background starts playing a
Misirlou cover/homage.
And absolute chaos breaks up. My teammate starts shooting, I start shooting, one of the other party members falls down as he exits the car, maybe shooting back before he does but can't remember, his pal starts driving around our garage, trying to hit my teammate, the later shoots and shoots, the former is doing crazy circles around, I am shooting and barely breathing because coupled with the music the whole scene is so crazy it makes me laugh hysterically but I can't do that loudly because it's a late hour and I'm not home alone.
In the end, we shot the other guy down. I don't remember how that match ended, maybe we won after that or maybe we wait till the time run out but yeah, crazy.
Sub Rosa was fucking awesome. Just don't shoot during races Or give me a briefcase ever, I apparently think all briefcases are empty and murdered 2 grey team members, then got killed by a third who picked up a dead guy's gun (kudos to whoever that was) all for no reason.
There were some intense games. In one there was a massive shootout in the park. We killed one team then for some idiotic reason I called the other team to park for a fake trade and then attacked them. Long story short both me and my buddy were bleeding out and we had to run back to base to buy bandages while exchanging shots with a car that was chasing us. We rammed our way into the back of the garage, bought bandages, and I got an AK-47 and started firing shots to discourage them.
In the end I camped the door to our inner room while they apparently left for their base. Sucks for them, we both had 10 health
There was also a game where, with nothing, I told both teams to trade, one at park and one at garage C. We went to park, murdered them for their valuable disk, then I told the team I sent to C that the team we murdered killed Sinistar and stole our disk, while me and Sinistar headed back to base with the disk to wait out the clock and defend.
Oh and there were some legit trades too but who cares about those
Edit: I can't play A New Zero because the window is too large for me to hit confirm on options or joining games. Normal troubleshooting for this (like going fullscreen) doesn't work.
I'm not sure but I think I know what you are talking about when you speak of your first intense story so let share my point of view.
It was a 2v1v2 game. I chose to be alone since I had a pretty decent amount of money and weapons while some other people had negative money so we did a bit of a shuffling around.
Anyways, my mission for that match was to acquire 2 disks, black and red. Now, I'm not quite sure if I remember the conversation right. But soon I got the message from EnigmaticHat asking if I'd trade for black disk. I as him what's he asking for it. He says red disk. So I bluntly tell him I don't have it. However, I offer him a deal - let he message another team and broke a deal. Then, we ambush them together, and each of us grabs desired disk and we walk away happily. He complies. And so drive towards the park where the deal is going down. Even before I arrive I hear shooting. Just as I drive around the corner, I see two guys running to a car. Not sure who won the gunfight, I slowly drive towards them, observing. They jump in the car and speed away. Maybe even take a potshot at me, not sure. Anyways, smelling a foul deal, I decide to follow them. Now mind you, I was alone in car and you can't shoot while driving. SO what I did was I got close enough then let go of the driving wheel (the car still moves if you do that, but slowly loses speed) and grab my AK I luckily had. I let my dakka loose, they shoot back. I break their windows. I am hurting them, I can see. Alas, my speed drops down and I have to grab the wheel again. Still, they are too far away for me to catch them and repeat my tactics.
So we drive to their garage. I slowly go past, we exchange few potshots. Now EnigmaticHat messages me "What are you doing man? We left you the red disk!"
At this point, a maniac, evil grin appears on my face and I message him back "Sadly, I need both disks."
"Just take it and leave us!" he messages back. Not sure I he means they are setting a trap for me, if they are talking about the red one or if they are genuinely letting me walk away with both disk, I, now on foot, slowly peek around the corner. I think some shots are fired, but nothing to suspect a trap. So I weight my option of storming in, but then I realize - the CLOCK. The clock is ticking and it's ticking fast. I have to make a decision and I do. So I quickly backpedal to my car and speed towards the park, hoping they spoke the truth when they left me the red one. EnigmaticHat messages me if I plan to wallshoot them, puzzled at what my plan might be. And I did in fact plan to later come back and just drive around their garage, just to make them nervous. But right then I approach the scene of park shootout and I see the briefcase. The red disk. I quickly pack it up and hasten towards my HQ. I have the disk, but I don't have the time. I furiously race against the clock but the clock mercilessly counts towards the end of the round. I am not sure where exactly I was when it reaches zero, I am either just outside my garage or barely in, either way it's far from the black safe room.
But at the end it seems I still got some money.
Oh yeah, there were other things too like the chaos when we first encountered what we later realized to be NPCs - few seconds out of our garage a car is behind us, shooting. We shoot back but then out of nowhere another one comes point blank, murdering us all with intense gunfire. Good times.
Or that one EnigmaticHat already mentioned about how he lied to the other team. Genius.
Overall Sub Rosa was great fun. We should try that again. And this time, with voice chat. As I understand it it has integrated voice chat AND you use cellphone to talk to other teams. We need to try that.
Also, I am genuinely sorry for all the deals that ended as a shootout. Sometimes I wondered if the other team really wanted to make a honest, clean deal and then we murdered them in cold blood. And I felt like a jerk because of that. So sorry, everyone.
A New Zero: definitely something I need to try again. It's some sort of a weird 3rd person coop strategy... Needs some polish (Dear Armok the night is BLACK; and names in chat would be nice) and I played if just for a little while, but overall seems quite cool.
All in all - thanks gigaraptor487 for organizing this! It was great fun!