GOTY Tribes on Custom Servers
Custom servers and TAMods-Servers have allowed the recreation of 'GOTY Tribes'.
The TribesLauncher application has a GOTY Mode checkbox in the Configure Launcher menu to enable clientside features, and login servers and custom servers expose a number of features which may be combined to create 'GOTY servers'.
What is GOTY?
GOTY, or Game of the Year, refers to the Game of the Year patch for Tribes: Ascend, release in February 2013. This version of the game was superseded by the Out of the Blue (or OOTB) update in December 2015, which radically changed a number of aspects of the gameplay, including removing classes in favour of armours, giving players three weapons and removing a large number of items from the game.
OOTB and its subsequent patches represented the much-appreciated efforts of the few developers who cared about T:A who still worked at HiRez at that point. However, while OOTB brought a few new maps and much needed technical fixes, many long time players feel that the gameplay changes on balance made the game worse, and reduced its depth. For this reason, "Bring Back GOTY" has been a popular (but impossible) dream.
With the TAServer project enabling custom servers, and the TAMods-Server project opening up many aspects of the game for customisation, "Bring Back GOTY" is no longer impossible: it's been done (... with a few minor caveats). This is a full reconstruction of the game balance and ruleset of the GOTY patch within the constraints of the final ("Parting Gifts") patch of the game.
How do I play GOTY Tribes.
Playing GOTY Tribes requires you to first be able to join custom servers. Once that is complete, you need to do two things:
In the TribesLauncher application's Configure Launcher menu, check the
GOTY ModecheckboxJoin a custom GOTY-compatible login server, and join a game!