What is different about Midair CE?

[Ainsoph]

I played the original Midair game in the past, but saw that this was being released in a few months. How is this different from the original Midair game? Did the devs of the original Midair pass the rights onto this group? There seems to be no info anywhere about this (including the game's website).

[Copper Boltwire]

maybe some kind of ripoff?

[Swordfish]

Hello!

Originally posted by swordfish:

Website [midair.gg]

Discord [midair.gg]

Twitter

Midair: Community Edition is being developed by a group of community developers, mostly with no association with the former team who worked on Midair - but there are a few of us who did, most notably the lead artist Voidspawn.

The lead dev on Midair gave this group permission to develop a separate version of the game.
The idea was to make a better-looking, better-running, more player-friendly version of Midair. Midair was plagued by trying to have too much, and coming through with too little.

We are trying to manage expectations as we're an entirely volunteer team, so going for a more focused version of the game *without* any base elements like vehicles, multiple armors, generators or deployables. This allows a smaller team to focus on realistic, grittier visuals/art style, new character armors, redone weapon models, all new lighting, engine updates, new UI, integrated player stats, quickplay, new game modes like Duel and Team Rabbit (and revamped versions of Arena and Team Deathmatch).

Hope this helps and come hang in the discord for the latest!

Sword

[Copper Boltwire]

Originally posted by swordfish:

Hello!

Originally posted by swordfish:

Website [midair.gg]

Discord [midair.gg]

Twitter

Midair: Community Edition is being developed by a group of community developers, mostly with no association with the former team who worked on Midair - but there are a few of us who did, most notably the lead artist Voidspawn.

The lead dev on Midair gave this group permission to develop a separate version of the game.
The idea was to make a better-looking, better-running, more player-friendly version of Midair. Midair was plagued by trying to have too much, and coming through with too little.

We are trying to manage expectations as we're an entirely volunteer team, so going for a more focused version of the game *without* any base elements like vehicles, multiple armors, generators or deployables. This allows a smaller team to focus on realistic, grittier visuals/art style, new character armors, redone weapon models, all new lighting, engine updates, new UI, integrated player stats, quickplay, new game modes like Duel and Team Rabbit (and revamped versions of Arena and Team Deathmatch).

Hope this helps and come hang in the discord for the latest!

Sword

So your saying, your are abandoning the reason Midair was made, to be a spiritual successor to Tribes series?
Because taking away armor, vehicles, generators and deplyables are a hallmark of what made Tribes... And your just taking that away then...
If so, it should not be called "Midair" at all. - But i guess these days it's become a trend to just "use" the name of one thing and make it something completely different...

[Swordfish]

We believe there's more to being a Tribes spiritual successor than being a carbon copy of what came before. Tribes was definitely about multiple armors, and vehicles, and base assets but there was always so much more than that.

Midair tried to bring back base, in the same style as T1/T2 instead of T:A, and it failed. Whether or not a proper base mode could work today is a moot point, unless you have several million dollars to do it AAA right?

It's still Midair because the engine & physics are unchanged, it's the same universe, the same artist, the same maps, and the same weapons.

I'm sorry to hear we won't be fulfilling your vision of Tribes, but I think if you give it a try when it's released you could find differently..

[Copper Boltwire]

Well... Maybe the majority of people these days have gotten tired of those game mods and the Tribes game overall...

As for trying M:CE i can't tell until i see how it even turns out...

But here is something to question:
If you remove the hallmarks of what made T1/T2 - how much does the game feel like every other shooter out there?

Soo... from what i gather, you are just making a game with skiing and large maps, but basically like the 500 other FPS shooters out there with little to nothing to set it apart from the rest???

Gonna look forward to see what you gonna bring to the table, but if this project flops, i'll be among the people who will throw the "told ya so" in your face because as far as you told me so far, this is gonna be just like all the other 500 games out there... Not much to set it apart then the artstyle...

But what do i know, right? i'm just another moot voice in the ocean...
We'll see when it's "Released" or atleast made public...

I'll gladly go out of my way to see how much it sets itself apart from all the other games out there.

[kiteless 凧無し]

og tribes 1 player here
The original game initially was about vehicles, deployables, generators etc. but after the skiing script came into regular use a lot of these elements died because of heavy offense easily being able to ski, further still the meta turned into what people at the time dubbed a 'clusterf***' where people didn't even bother to load up and just threw large numbers at the enemy flag forever resulting in stand offs.

I have such fond memories of tribes1, still to this day my favourite ever fps game but I accept the original vision of T1 and what it eventually turned into were entirely different.

Modern, younger gamers just lack the patience to learn a game that catered to the original vision of T1 now and I believe this is why midair was pretty much dead on arrival. I hope this version garners more attention as all these years later I have never played an fps as endearing as tribes.

Keep things simple and have great core gameplay and I think we can see a good following for this, fingers crossed.

[Ainsoph]

Thanks for the response, swordfish. I see that the website got an update, but is still lacking the bare information of what this game is about and what the differences are with CE. Obviously we know now, but would be good to have it there for newcomers.

I also think the pared-down features makes sense given that it's entirely volunteer-based. I was also a long-time T1 addict (and played a tiny bit of T2 and T:A). Looking forward to what you all put out!

[Swordfish]

Originally posted by kiteless:

og tribes 1 player here
The original game initially was about vehicles, deployables, generators etc. but after the skiing script came into regular use a lot of these elements died because of heavy offense easily being able to ski, further still the meta turned into what people at the time dubbed a 'clusterf***' where people didn't even bother to load up and just threw large numbers at the enemy flag forever resulting in stand offs.

I have such fond memories of tribes1, still to this day my favourite ever fps game but I accept the original vision of T1 and what it eventually turned into were entirely different.

Modern, younger gamers just lack the patience to learn a game that catered to the original vision of T1 now and I believe this is why midair was pretty much dead on arrival. I hope this version garners more attention as all these years later I have never played an fps as endearing as tribes.

Keep things simple and have great core gameplay and I think we can see a good following for this, fingers crossed.

Thanks for this post kiteless :) I feel the same way. I played Tribes 1 from 2000-2012. Never found the same joy from any other style of game. Played T:A pretty hard from 2012-2016. Then I got involved in Midair as an early-Alpha tester, and eventually joined Archetype Studios to help out with marketing, media and community management of Midair.

All of us on the dev team are super passionate about this style of game, with deep roots throughout the various games of the Tribes series. We work with love and experience.

Originally posted by Ainsoph:

Thanks for the response, swordfish. I see that the website got an update, but is still lacking the bare information of what this game is about and what the differences are with CE. Obviously we know now, but would be good to have it there for newcomers.

I also think the pared-down features makes sense given that it's entirely volunteer-based. I was also a long-time T1 addict (and played a tiny bit of T2 and T:A). Looking forward to what you all put out!

Thanks for the reminder. I'll make sure we add an About section asap.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Are these things that are 'removed' or 'maybe someday'? I've always loved Tribes games, but I'm terrible at them, no matter how much I play. Generators are often the one thing someone who's bad at hitting moving targets can still help out the team.

I understand the volunteering constraints necessitate a smaller vision, and I'm fine with that, *especially* under 'Early Access.' but beyond that, I worry a too-streamlined game might get boring. (the original Midair had limited variety due to the progression system. You removed the progression system. Great! But then... it sounds like you removed the variety, too.)

It's not even the generators themselves I liked, so much as there were a large variety of strategies you could try and teamwork was absolutely rewarded mechanically. It wasn't just "who is good at aiming." I'm not a purist; new mechanics and systems are fine by me, as long as they work for the game and they foster similar kinds of teamplay and multiple play styles.

[Swordfish]

Originally posted by ╲⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠╱:

Are these things that are 'removed' or 'maybe someday'? I've always loved Tribes games, but I'm terrible at them, no matter how much I play. Generators are often the one thing someone who's bad at hitting moving targets can still help out the team.

I understand the volunteering constraints necessitate a smaller vision, and I'm fine with that, *especially* under 'Early Access.' but beyond that, I worry a too-streamlined game might get boring. (the original Midair had limited variety due to the progression system. You removed the progression system. Great! But then... it sounds like you removed the variety, too.)

It's not even the generators themselves I liked, so much as there were a large variety of strategies you could try and teamwork was absolutely rewarded mechanically. It wasn't just "who is good at aiming." I'm not a purist; new mechanics and systems are fine by me, as long as they work for the game and they foster similar kinds of teamplay and multiple play styles.

I mean, never say never I guess. But it would be far off, and likely only with some significant capital investment or success post-release. We know there are plenty of people who would still love to play a big-concept, large-scale team FPS-Z. But if Midair CE can gain a decent following, making skiing, jetting and the fast play that comes with it popular again, that's a good starting point for the genre as a whole.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Originally posted by swordfish:

I mean, never say never I guess. But it would be far off, and likely only with some significant capital investment or success post-release. We know there are plenty of people who would still love to play a big-concept, large-scale team FPS-Z. But if Midair CE can gain a decent following, making skiing, jetting and the fast play that comes with it popular again, that's a good starting point for the genre as a whole.

I'll do my best to withhold judgment until I can actually play it, I guess. I'm not sold, but it's listed as free-to-play, so worst case scenario, I spend time downloading something I only play once. And maybe it'll capture more of that ol' magic than I'm expecting. The trailer certainly felt like it captured the right vibe.

[SomeGuy]

Just found out about this game. Looking forward to a release.

If you are looking to monetize, may I suggest a DoW 1/2 style army painter? Its the very definition of a cosmetic only upgrade and technically is only exposing things the devs need to build anyway as part of the team color schemes. Just let players pick the "hide custom skins" option to avoid Greeny McGreenskin hides in the grass stuff.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

Originally posted by swordfish:

But if Midair CE can gain a decent following, making skiing, jetting and the fast play that comes with it popular again, that's a good starting point for the genre as a whole.

A good way to move towards is for the "community" to stop treating tribes like its just lights cowboy capping and nerfing/complaining about every other aspect of the game (like how the ootb patch for ascend and midair made sustain on offense impossible) or how the charge rifle was not only a projectile but was visually a beam that didnt match the projectile (Giving arx busters with its 20% ineritance and the buckler a run for their money for most obtuse tribes weapons).

Tribes is both more interesting when its multi faceted (ie offense/defense or route speed vs route exposure) and more "accessible" to newbies to the genre vs "I just go perfectly on the most optimal route becus no one can shoot me" that ootb and midair devolve into.As annoying/opressive as things like raider/bxt in ascend or the charge rifle/chain in t2/v were they were necessary elements.

The lack of music/ unity asset phone sounds were also pretty bad as far as first impressions. Gendered and more "armored options" on the base models before monetization would also be a good visual direction (plasma gun was ugly but you know that).

Also ascend was the best success the series has ever had and while it had many mistep, why it did so well despite hirez would be a good place to start and how even with them driving it into the ground it retained a player base roughly the size of quakes until ootb killed it. No one was talking about t2/tv in eb games people were talking about/advertising ascend in gamestop well into its release.

Last note, titanfall 2 is basiclly a z-fps (yes it has an ultra low ttk outside the mechs which have a tribes like ttk themselves). So its not purely the genre nor is it just ttk (again the mechs have high ttk, some of these br games like apex/spellbreak/hyperbreak have "quake ish" ttk end game).

[Fuchop]

Hey, how in the hell did I miss this? I know a buncha guys who would hop on this in a second.

[Colonel Blair]

Awesome - we look forward to seeing you all in the game!