No need to worry -- not banning anybody. Long post ahead, but you all will have to get used to these because I can't help going on tangents.

When it comes to the Tribes community, even the competitive FPS scene as a whole, I've been out of the loop. CS (up until Source) was the last FPS that I was really into and I'm only now getting back into things. Over the past several years I've been keeping an eye on what FPS have been doing in terms of mechanics and design, but I haven't been seriously playing FPS games like I used to so I haven't been keeping up with the competitive FPS scenes at all. I don't know who's who or what teams are what.

Thankfully, that doesn't really matter. You're all new to me and that's great. I need all sorts of players -- anybody that wants to help in a constructive way is welcome. The top players will naturally be decided in the Arms of Telos (that's gonna be my bad joke emoji); no need to argue about it on the forums !

If you read my blog post about Destiny and modern FPS trends, you know (among other things) that I'm not a fan of the way games have been dumbed down for the sake of accessibility. I'm going to be listening to all the feedback from everybody, but when it comes to balance I'm going to be acting mostly on what's actually happening in the game -- I think there are better ways to make a game accessible (more on that some other time, but it's going to depend a lot on you all as the community), so balance will be largely guided by my observations of high end gameplay. I also have the flexibility of being able to tune and balance things without worrying about the F2P-style weapon/equipment monetization or weapon/equipment grind (because they won't exist in AoT) -- it's important to me that the game is competitively pure and I think I have some clever ideas to please the people that want/need to unlock stuff as they play without negatively impacting the game itself (something I think too many games struggle with). It's my mission to try and be breath of fresh air when it comes to how FPS game design and balance are handled in these respects.

Side note: during the years where I was bored of the FPS game releases, I was getting acquainted with the fighting game scene -- I definitely recommend you guys give them a try. FPS games have always been my biggest gaming passion and I want to expand what the genre can do. Inspired by some of the ways fighting games characters can have drastically different play styles and still maintain superb balance, I've designed a series of systems for AoT that I think will really open up the meta to some really interesting possibilities in the future. You all will see a hint of this soon, but it won't really shine till later

With all that being said, I think this game will live or die by the community we create. We're laying down the foundation of this community right now, so let's do it right. These are the default Discourse posting guidelines, but I think they are a fantastic fit for what I hope we will create so I encourage you all to read them and take them to heart. Instead of dumbing the game down to make it more accessible, I want to make the community more accessible and inviting. I know this is the internet and it's not going to be easy, but this is how we can innovate. Let's create a community that people want to be a part of.