General Discussion

Tom Potter, the new Lead Designer for NCsoft's Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, sits down with MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood to talk about his thoughts on the game and where it's heading.

MMORPG.com:

Can you give us an idea of your own personal game design experience?

Tom Potter

If you had told me when I was eight years old, "hey kid, you're gonna be making games someday", I think my head would have exploded.

Whether it was making my own rules for Axis and Allies, or actually sending Nintendo proposals in the mail (which were all kindly rejected), I always knew I wanted to be a game designer. But back then it really didn't seem like a viable career path. So I took a long detour through some other fields before realizing that is was in fact possible to make games and make it a career. I was a chemist for a while, but it just wasn't really fulfilling personally. So I made the decision to switch careers, and through a lot of blood, sweat and tears I finally got a chance to join the industry. Prior to joining NCsoft I worked at Iron Lore Entertainment as Lead Content Designer. While there I worked on Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, and a little bit of Dawn of War: Soulstorm. I joined NCsoft initially as a Senior World Designer and was responsible for making maps and instances. I just recently transitioned to the Lead Designer role which is really a whole new set of challenges. But the team is really fantastic and we're making strides towards making TR better and better with every update.

Read the whole interview here.

What weak questioning!

How about asking why they have destroyed the class 'Engineer' resulting in me and many others joining the thousands leaving the game?

Or perhaps why they put out patches on the test server and then ignore player responses to them?

Or why patches are invariably released broken or which break other elements of the game even when those problems are highlighted by players on the test server.

Or why they are concentrating their efforts on pvp when the majority of players left in the game have little or no interest in it and would much rather have some substantial new playable content?

Tom may have gotten his dream job as Lead Designer, but under his lead a high quality game is dying. Even those like me who loved the game will not be coming back now that alternatives like AoC have raised the bar. Every patch since February 2008 has eaten away at the playability and fun factor of TR and now Tom and his minions are simply re-arranging the deckchairs on a ship sinking because they themselves torpedoed it. Enjoy it while it lasts Tom but make sure you are wearing a life-jacket.

Personally, I started playing a couple of months ago and I really like Tabula Rasa.

I don't play as a engineer, though...

The latest changes they have been making seem quite interesting, in particular the substitution of Prestige for the assault/defense tokens, and the new clan control points.

:(  Mass Effect comes out this week.  I really LOVE TR, but....  Gah!  :D

1) revamped Crafting

2) revamped use of the Logos (part of the lore the game was sold on, but serve no purpose other then a small percentage opening powers)

3) revamped classes OTHER THEN SPIES AND SNIPERS!! Honestly, Spies and Snipers are the pretty blond that get all the attention, while the underappricated brunett sits idly by... Soon, the brunnette is gonna hit puberty and it'll be to late! Focus on the other classes!!

There's a list Tom. I hope you do better then Paul. The best thing you could do is take RG's name off the game, since essentially his name is all the fat,  limey, scab has done for the game. 

Make these happen and I'll play until KOTORO comes out.  

Too little too late.

I actually forgot that I even played TR until I saw this article. That's how memorable this game was and I played it for a couple of months.

TR blew its chance to impress and attract players. With AoC out, WAR coming this fall, and others on the horizon, it shouldn't be long until it suffers a dreadful fate. Maybe Sony can buy it.

The game wasn't bad, there are just so many small things...

Copy and Pasted questions + Copy and Pasted responds = nothing that havent been said before.  I actually know less after reading it then before (if that's even possible)

But hey,, those 2 weeks of playing TR was great wasn't it?!

Right now we're really focused on making the clan-owned control points fun and compelling.

I have to agree with Roadshow. The folks that are left, could care less about pvp and even less about clans. I told NC to get the pvp thing out of their heads in the beginning. But like most devs..if they think its fun to play at their office..then EVERYONE must think its fun. Personally, I play a lot of online FPS, FPS style rewards I'd like to see. Unlocks or medals, pins, badges, ranks. Instead of posting pvp ranks on their official web site, how about MOST CONTROL POINTS CAPTURED...for the week..or total.  Most Bane vehicles destroyed. Most bane killed this week. Highest kill/death ratio. You know, give us things to shoot for that actually make the game fun.

LOL @ not having ANYTHING (no sarcasm) to do past level 50.

Loved the game in the begining, but endgame killed it for me, not to mention the endless attention to the spies/snipers when every class in the specialist tree was in desperate need of fixes and tweaks.  *cough medics - demos - engines* Everytime they even attempted to touch a specialist class they broke it more. I gave them more than enough chances. I even kept my measly 15 bucks a month account active just so it would "help" them financially to come back and fix things, while I sat and waited, not playing at all.

All it takes is a couple solid games to come out like AoC and it will take out whats left of TR. 

If you want something fresh and inovative, I recommend picking up AoC. Fabulous game.

What a bombshell. Should be a free MMO shortly IMO.  Archlord anyone?