Fixious
Test Lead
That art style doesn't bother me too much, for a multiplayer game I prefer the bright graphics. I find I go a bit cross eyed if I'm playing something with a ton of detail (most recently Arkham Knight). With that said, I'm hoping the final character models will be less 'waxed prepubescent boys' and more 'hairy macho men'.
I'm hoping you're wrong about the cookie cutter sentiment, but it's hard to argue at this point. I'm hoping once the base assets are introduced, we'll get a better idea of how deep (or shallow) this game will be. Personally, I'd love to see the complexity of T1 and T2 return, where base management was a key feature. It seems to me that anything 'Tribes-inspired' lately has just been trying to squeeze the Tribes experience into something suitable for esports. It would be interesting to see a game that featured Blastside/Broadside/Scarabae-style matches, but with base customization and options similar to that of Minecraft.
Yeah I've felt the same for a while. The Greenlight video essentially shows LT; light armor, 3 weapons max, very open flag stand, no base assets other than a brief look at a sensor and generator essentially saying nothing more than 'hey , we exist!'. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of LT every once in a while. But I sorely miss Tribes base. In an ideal world players wouldn't have to choose one gametype or another, but instead have several servers so we can try out whatever 'works' in Midair.
When you look at the history of Tribes, LT came about due to the player base dying. It's a mode suited for 7's and 5's, much like how Legions is. Then you look at Ascend which from the very start was decided it would be 7's for eternity (from both Hi-Rez and the competitive scene). It promotes faster and more exciting gameplay, but at the cost of base management and additional roles such as turret monkey, dedicated HO, goalie, etc. Not to mention it's a very different game compared to pubs(along with weapon bans...sigh), and I'm not a big fan of having disparity between pubs and competitive play. Anything to make the transition easier and attract pub players into the pug/comp scene gets my vote.
The LT crowd is very vocal right now, more-so than those who are looking for a more classic Tribes experience. The Greenlight details sort of hint at more of a classic approach (vehicles, deployables), but we have yet to actually see that or get detail regarding what the devs want to make. I can only assume the Kickstarter video will provide such details.