Tribes as you say there is character dev, but the game is a match system rather than open world.
PS2 is the sequel to a open world multi continent shooter where as you killed other players you "leveled" and along the way you gained certification points which when spent allowed you to use more equipment - not all at once as you have limited loadout space and certain armours you could "cert" into limited what you could carry or vehicles you could use etc etc. PS2 still has "levels" (Battle ranks), but you gain certification points in a similar method to eve's training system, however you chose where to spend these points rather than pick x skill and points are applied along the way. The in game CP generation is a faster than the offline generation, obviously a clever move.
Territory wise in PS1, you captured all the bases on a continent it became yours (People would be locked from reclaiming it unless they fully owned a connected continent)- until one of the other factions managed to meet the conditions to start "unlocking" it. The bases also granted different effects/vehicles for your faction to use along the way, so they were very much worth capping. In PS2, bases dont have these wonderful affects, and right now, territory control is based on every hex of the map, each hex generates resources for the empire that has the most influence there (gained through killing and also owning neighbouring hex's). There is not a "win" condition for the continent system right now as each of the 3 factions has a perma base on them - the beta forums do want this changed along with lots of other items we are pushing for - but it is still fun regardless.
