A little over a week ago, COO of Hi-Rez Studios Todd Harris answered a few tough questions from the Tribes: Ascend community. The main crux was if the Georgia-based developer planned any future content updates, major bug fixes or additional maps. The short answer was that Tribes: Ascend would not see development in the short-term, defined by the developer as the next six months. Harris stated that Hi-Rez has shifted its focus to SMITE and Global Agenda 2.
Players were a bit upset. A vocal portion of the community felt that Hi-Rez bit off more than it could chew. Or that the company didn’t understand the community, couldn’t balance or pull in new players or properly monetize the game. Some went another way, requesting that Hi-Rez leave the game in the hands of its active community. Basically, they were pretty vocal.
Todd Harris returned to the Internet by way of Rock, Paper, Shotgun to set the record straight. First and foremost, the sought after user creation tools are forthcoming. Harris told RPG that “we’re going to be working on next is a path for users to basically add their own maps.” He added that “it’s at a good point to have users maintain it.”
After exclaiming that the product is “complete” he went through a laundry list of content, fixes and community requests that the game has seen since its launch. “We added 54 new weapons. We added a new game mode, a new leveling system, custom servers, server browser, shielded base assets, 29 new maps – all free – and all that in a brief period of time.” he defended.
He reiterated that the company “focus is all-in on SMITE for next six months.”