I would seriously advise you jump in a play it while you can....

NCSoft is again considering what to do with this game and they have ZERO reason to keep it alive. You know that meeting they said they were going to have last week, the one about what to do with this game? Well guys don't be surprised if shutting it down was one of the options.

www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/133_34158.html

Nov 10 2008

NCsoft, the kingpin of the local gaming industry, also has its own demons that need exorcising. The company is now reluctantly discussing whether to pull the plug on ``Tabula Rasa,'' developed by famed game developer Richard Garriott and the product of a seven-year, 100 billion won investment.

(thanks gameloading, for posting this article)

So spend some time with your old friend because IMHO, the time is near.

It will come as no surprise.  I think the timing of Richard Garriot's leaving is auspicious.

i dont know why they picked Garriot to lead this project.  the guy was great (emphasis on was) back in the 90's but this is 2007/8, there is a whole new kind of game and gamer out there.  same thing goes for the guy who made Vanguard (forget his name).  they think just because they made a good game 6+ years ago that they can make a good one now.

Originally posted by Death1942

i dont know why they picked Garriot to lead this project.  the guy was great (emphasis on was) back in the 90's but this is 2007/8, there is a whole new kind of game and gamer out there.  same thing goes for the guy who made Vanguard (forget his name).  they think just because they made a good game 6+ years ago that they can make a good one now.

Well yeah, I would expect people who have been involved in great MMOs in the past to continue doing it in the future. Do you honestly expect a company to drop 75 million dollars in the lap of someone with no good games in their past?

Sometimes no matter how great the idea it fails. Do you have any clue how many MMOs run by lesser people never even go past beta? It takes great minds to get this far. RG and the people behind Vanguard created worlds that could have been great and I think Vanguard still can be. TR is in trouble and likely to get the plug pulled soon.

What whole new gamer is out there? What is this whole new kind of game?

Originally posted by Death1942

i dont know why they picked Garriot to lead this project.  the guy was great (emphasis on was) back in the 90's but this is 2007/8, there is a whole new kind of game and gamer out there.  same thing goes for the guy who made Vanguard (forget his name).  they think just because they made a good game 6+ years ago that they can make a good one now.

Funny, doesn't seem like ANYONE is making a good game now, experience or not. So I don't think that has any effect on the game. Atleast he can say he HAS made a good game, which directors haven't been able to say for the last 4 years.

i never kept up with TR so i dont know the cluster fuck was that brought it to being such a crap game

but i know VG could of been thee greatest pve game ever!!!! if big bad brad had more time to finish it

it launched WAY!!!! to early, it needed probably another year of work. and ive heard the funding ran out which caused the early launch. vanguard was such a high hope of mine and fell as short as a girl throwing a ball HAHA! ZING!

i heard vg is coming around, but after checking it out its still pretty brutally unfinished

Hmmm...no Vanguard is ten times the mess this game is. In fact from what I saw, this game really isn't all that bad just not really all that MMOish, its more like an action game like GW but it doesn't have any real technical issues.

Vanguard is a frickin mess of game that hardly runs and even if you can get it going with decent FPS, its just a "10 rats" grinder with nothing else to really do. Yeah they have "diplomacy...but it doesn't really do anything, you can grind out crafting but..loot is better and there is no one to buy your stuff. You can get a boat but it doesn't do anything at all but let you ride around empty water...you can get a flying mount but again, it doesn't offer any real benefit except you get to fly around an empty landscape.

There are not enough players in VG to support an economy, not enough to group with at any level besides cap so its a long lonely trip, the world is enormous...and deserted.

How you guys even get remotely close to comparing the two is beyond me. I strongly suggest you download both the TR free trial and the VG free trial and play them back to back. Then rebutle my post. I was a beta tester of VG and played it on and off for about 8 months. In fact I wrote a bunch of player profiles until I ran out of active players to write about.

IMHO the base issue with many posters here on this site is that RG promised a next generation MMORPG but delivered a SciFi Guild Wars instead. (what did they call that an MMO action game or something?)

 All things being equal the main issue with this game appears to be that it has the playability of a normal PC game. You basically "play it through" and then you are "done", I'm est it has maybe 1 or 2 months of play before you esentually "finish it"? In the big picture of Video gaming thats actually pretty good (most games you are lucky to get 40 hours out of them). For an MMO, thats pretty bad. To do an action MOG it needs to have a lot of content and an open ended aspect like GW. You grind out to level cap in GW in about 1 - 2 weeks but you have so much content AND basically an unlimited amount of gameplay in the PvP portion. TR shoulda followed this more closely.

To say this game was "poorly" made is a stretch. It was poorly and incorrectly marketed and not filled out enough at launch and then RG lost focus and went to play Spaceman Spiff instead. It needs an open ended aspect and like I've posted here a few times, IMHO more emphesis on "Control Point" gameplay (with impact) and Humans vs Bane in a PvM style set up would have given this game the edge it needed.

Other then that it would have helped if it was correctly marketed, the wrong people totally bought into this games hype lol.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Do you honestly expect a company to drop 75 million dollars in the lap of someone with no good games in their past?

You are speaking of Richard Garriot, the man who made Ultima Online?

{ Mod Edit }

Originally posted by eldanloco

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Do you honestly expect a company to drop 75 million dollars in the lap of someone with no good games in their past?

You are speaking of Richard Garriot, the man who made Ultima Online?

{ Mod Edit }

 

What was wrong with Ultima Online?

Originally posted by Torak

Hmmm...no Vanguard is ten times the mess this game is. In fact from what I saw, this game really isn't all that bad just not really all that MMOish, its more like an action game like GW but it doesn't have any real technical issues.

Vanguard is a frickin mess of game that hardly runs and even if you can get it going with decent FPS, its just a "10 rats" grinder with nothing else to really do. Yeah they have "diplomacy...but it doesn't really do anything, you can grind out crafting but..loot is better and there is no one to buy your stuff. You can get a boat but it doesn't do anything at all but let you ride around empty water...you can get a flying mount but again, it doesn't offer any real benefit except you get to fly around an empty landscape.

There are not enough players in VG to support an economy, not enough to group with at any level besides cap so its a long lonely trip, the world is enormous...and deserted.

How you guys even get remotely close to comparing the two is beyond me. I strongly suggest you download both the TR free trial and the VG free trial and play them back to back. Then rebutle my post. I was a beta tester of VG and played it on and off for about 8 months. In fact I wrote a bunch of player profiles until I ran out of active players to write about.

 

IMHO the base issue with many posters here on this site is that RG promised a next generation MMORPG but delivered a SciFi Guild Wars instead. (what did they call that an MMO action game or something?)

 

 All things being equal the main issue with this game appears to be that it has the playability of a normal PC game. You basically "play it through" and then you are "done", I'm est it has maybe 1 or 2 months of play before you esentually "finish it"? In the big picture of Video gaming thats actually pretty good (most games you are lucky to get 40 hours out of them). For an MMO, thats pretty bad. To do an action MOG it needs to have a lot of content and an open ended aspect like GW. You grind out to level cap in GW in about 1 - 2 weeks but you have so much content AND basically an unlimited amount of gameplay in the PvP portion. TR shoulda followed this more closely.

To say this game was "poorly" made is a stretch. It was poorly and incorrectly marketed and not filled out enough at launch and then RG lost focus and went to play Spaceman Spiff instead. It needs an open ended aspect and like I've posted here a few times, IMHO more emphesis on "Control Point" gameplay (with impact) and Humans vs Bane in a PvM style set up would have given this game the edge it needed.

Other then that it would have helped if it was correctly marketed, the wrong people totally bought into this games hype lol.

 

I have been playing VG 3 months and compared to TR it is worth my $15 a month. There are more people on now than  you might have been used to and finding groups at different levels is far from impossible. VG has issues no doubt, but compared to TR it is a true MMO. TR would have been a decent PC game if it had no fees after purchase. Should have went with the GW buy it and no monthly fee system, then maybe it would have been worth the total money I spent on that tiny MMo with so little to do.
 

Originally posted by eldanloco

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Do you honestly expect a company to drop 75 million dollars in the lap of someone with no good games in their past?

You are speaking of Richard Garriot, the man who made Ultima Online?

{ Mod Edit }

 

Eldanloco, try reading Rokurgepta's post again and the post that he quoted. He isnt referring to Richard Garriot, but to someone else's ignorance. He agrees with you lol.

{ Mod Edit }

That's why he should of went in the direction of making a UO 2 that would of been a hit but instead he followed the other MMOs.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

I have been playing VG 3 months and compared to TR it is worth my $15 a month. There are more people on now than  you might have been used to and finding groups at different levels is far from impossible. VG has issues no doubt, but compared to TR it is a true MMO. TR would have been a decent PC game if it had no fees after purchase. Should have went with the GW buy it and no monthly fee system, then maybe it would have been worth the total money I spent on that tiny MMo with so little to do.
 

That's exactly what I am talking about. You were the wrong person to target the game at. So much that you are willing to endure a technically inferior game then play a gamestyle you don't like.

Either way they are peer games. VG WAS at about 40k a year ago TR can't be a whole lot better off. VG will remain running for now as the stationpass enables SOE to keep all their games running (sorta like an MMO socialism) NC runs everything individually to live and die on their own performance (or lack of it) Anyway arguing about VG and TR is like arguing which is better, being set on fire or falling off a cliff. Pointless.

At least until SOE announces that they will be changing their overall strategy in the market with the coming of Freerealms, the Agency & DCU and starts cutting the fat. SOE isn't doing so hot in the market either these days and is probably in far worse shape then NCSoft as they have no big ticket names anymore and never had anything close to the level of success of Lineage 1 or 2. In fact SOE has damaged its reputation so badly that even if they made a good game I doubt that people would seriously give it half a chance. NC on the other hand...Aion, breaking records in Korea. Give it 3 months after launch and we will see how good the game really is. Then of course NC has GW2 on the way...

  There is no reason to keep it alive imho. The scraping of the first attempt at developing it with western  and eastern eastern developers failed due to dev egos. The next attempt with western only developers under Richard G resulted in a game that was poorly executed, and lost at its core on what it was trying to be.

 It didn't turn out as something that would make a lot of players want to play it long term. Good laugh for the first three weeks is all it was. It didn't help that the dev team decided to then take the game in the direction of capture points with clan vs clan warfare.

 This isn't enough, people can get a fix of that type of gameplay in Battlefield 2 or COD4 for example that does it 10x better imho for no monthly sub. Attempting action where most gamers interested in that type of action will not go to a game like Tabula Rasa and stay for any length of time, as it's poor compared to the other choices out there.
 

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by Death1942

i dont know why they picked Garriot to lead this project.  the guy was great (emphasis on was) back in the 90's but this is 2007/8, there is a whole new kind of game and gamer out there.  same thing goes for the guy who made Vanguard (forget his name).  they think just because they made a good game 6+ years ago that they can make a good one now.

 

Funny, doesn't seem like ANYONE is making a good game now, experience or not. So I don't think that has any effect on the game. Atleast he can say he HAS made a good game, which directors haven't been able to say for the last 4 years.

Hold on a minute.  This has nothing to do with making "good" games.  In the case of TR and Vanguard it has everything to do with making "ready-for-release" games.  Both those games could have been great.  Releasing betaware is the problem here.
 

Originally posted by indiramourn

Originally posted by Abrahmm

 

Funny, doesn't seem like ANYONE is making a good game now, experience or not. So I don't think that has any effect on the game. Atleast he can say he HAS made a good game, which directors haven't been able to say for the last 4 years.

Hold on a minute.  This has nothing to do with making "good" games.  In the case of TR and Vanguard it has everything to do with making "ready-for-release" games.  Both those games could have been great.  Releasing betaware is the problem here.
 

Since we are on that subject...

I only did the trial and although I didn't think it was all that bad, is it in a "ready - for - release" state now?

(I haven't a clue beyond level 15 as a commando, and I gotta say, rocket launchers did, in fact, ROCK) I experienced no technical issues and it didn't really feel grindy at all, I was doing missions straight through although most of them were pretty basic they kept with the fast paced nature of the game. The instances, although not super impressive, were pretty good...

However, like I said before, was more like GW then a traditional MMORPG (and that is why its catching so much flak IMHO)

So what are its real core problems? As a noob / trial I just don't know. I would guess its long term playability (I've only written that about 2 dozen times in various ways) and it dilutes at level cap to nothing more then a few limited repeatable activities or something. (I really gotta read up on this game one day)

 EDIT

I just got a message from massively.com and I just won a Tabula Rasa contest prize (soldier pack) which has a t-shirt, TR dog tags, and the game....

Talk about karma lol....

Of all the damn contest that site had, I won the TR....

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

I have been playing VG 3 months and compared to TR it is worth my $15 a month. There are more people on now than  you might have been used to and finding groups at different levels is far from impossible. VG has issues no doubt, but compared to TR it is a true MMO. TR would have been a decent PC game if it had no fees after purchase. Should have went with the GW buy it and no monthly fee system, then maybe it would have been worth the total money I spent on that tiny MMo with so little to do.
 

 

That's exactly what I am talking about. You were the wrong person to target the game at. So much that you are willing to endure a technically inferior game then play a gamestyle you don't like.

Either way they are peer games. VG WAS at about 40k a year ago TR can't be a whole lot better off. VG will remain running for now as the stationpass enables SOE to keep all their games running (sorta like an MMO socialism) NC runs everything individually to live and die on their own performance (or lack of it) Anyway arguing about VG and TR is like arguing which is better, being set on fire or falling off a cliff. Pointless.

At least until SOE announces that they will be changing their overall strategy in the market with the coming of Freerealms, the Agency & DCU and starts cutting the fat. SOE isn't doing so hot in the market either these days and is probably in far worse shape then NCSoft as they have no big ticket names anymore and never had anything close to the level of success of Lineage 1 or 2. In fact SOE has damaged its reputation so badly that even if they made a good game I doubt that people would seriously give it half a chance. NC on the other hand...Aion, breaking records in Korea. Give it 3 months after launch and we will see how good the game really is. Then of course NC has GW2 on the way...

 

You are assuming I did not like TRs gamestyle which you are 100% wrong on. The gamestyle was great, the fact the game was so easy I soloed to 50 in less than 2 months and then got there and had nothing to do but farm for loot to sell on the MS was the biggest problem.

Then trying to run an alt through the same boring quests killed my joy of the game. You played the trial, and I bet the trial was great because TRs best parts are below level 30. Hell after the first 20 levels I thought I found the MMO to play for years to come. Then I got past the truly polished and well built areas and got into TRs less thrilling game play areas. Post level 30 is really just blah, the missions are the same as any other MMO, nothing innovative there and CPs become a grind after you see the same exact Bane for the thousandth time.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 

You are assuming I did not like TRs gamestyle which you are 100% wrong on. The gamestyle was great, the fact the game was so easy I soloed to 50 in less than 2 months and then got there and had nothing to do but farm for loot to sell on the MS was the biggest problem.

Then trying to run an alt through the same boring quests killed my joy of the game. You played the trial, and I bet the trial was great because TRs best parts are below level 30. Hell after the first 20 levels I thought I found the MMO to play for years to come. Then I got past the truly polished and well built areas and got into TRs less thrilling game play areas. Post level 30 is really just blah, the missions are the same as any other MMO, nothing innovative there and CPs become a grind after you see the same exact Bane for the thousandth time.

Sounds like Vanguard Maybe Brad and Rich are buds or something.

Yeah bro, there is no winning with these things, is there?

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 

You are assuming I did not like TRs gamestyle which you are 100% wrong on. The gamestyle was great, the fact the game was so easy I soloed to 50 in less than 2 months and then got there and had nothing to do but farm for loot to sell on the MS was the biggest problem.

Then trying to run an alt through the same boring quests killed my joy of the game. You played the trial, and I bet the trial was great because TRs best parts are below level 30. Hell after the first 20 levels I thought I found the MMO to play for years to come. Then I got past the truly polished and well built areas and got into TRs less thrilling game play areas. Post level 30 is really just blah, the missions are the same as any other MMO, nothing innovative there and CPs become a grind after you see the same exact Bane for the thousandth time.

Sounds like Vanguard Maybe Brad and Rich are buds or something.

Yeah bro, there is no winning with these things, is there?

 

To me at least Vanguard you gain skills and abilities past 30. In TR 30 is he last level you get new skills.

There is no winning but there is endless debate.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 

To me at least Vanguard you gain skills and abilities past 30. In TR 30 is he last level you get new skills.

There is no winning but there is endless debate.

Well I gotz me 30 more free dayz.

I winzors! For now anyway...

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 

To me at least Vanguard you gain skills and abilities past 30. In TR 30 is he last level you get new skills.

There is no winning but there is endless debate.

 

Well I gotz me 30 more free dayz.

I winzors! For now anyway...

 

I would play too if I had free days. They should have went GW style and had no monthly fees.
 

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by Torak

Hmmm...no Vanguard is ten times the mess this game is. In fact from what I saw, this game really isn't all that bad just not really all that MMOish, its more like an action game like GW but it doesn't have any real technical issues.

Vanguard is a frickin mess of game that hardly runs and even if you can get it going with decent FPS, its just a "10 rats" grinder with nothing else to really do. Yeah they have "diplomacy...but it doesn't really do anything, you can grind out crafting but..loot is better and there is no one to buy your stuff. You can get a boat but it doesn't do anything at all but let you ride around empty water...you can get a flying mount but again, it doesn't offer any real benefit except you get to fly around an empty landscape.

There are not enough players in VG to support an economy, not enough to group with at any level besides cap so its a long lonely trip, the world is enormous...and deserted.

How you guys even get remotely close to comparing the two is beyond me. I strongly suggest you download both the TR free trial and the VG free trial and play them back to back. Then rebutle my post. I was a beta tester of VG and played it on and off for about 8 months. In fact I wrote a bunch of player profiles until I ran out of active players to write about.

 

IMHO the base issue with many posters here on this site is that RG promised a next generation MMORPG but delivered a SciFi Guild Wars instead. (what did they call that an MMO action game or something?)

 

 All things being equal the main issue with this game appears to be that it has the playability of a normal PC game. You basically "play it through" and then you are "done", I'm est it has maybe 1 or 2 months of play before you esentually "finish it"? In the big picture of Video gaming thats actually pretty good (most games you are lucky to get 40 hours out of them). For an MMO, thats pretty bad. To do an action MOG it needs to have a lot of content and an open ended aspect like GW. You grind out to level cap in GW in about 1 - 2 weeks but you have so much content AND basically an unlimited amount of gameplay in the PvP portion. TR shoulda followed this more closely.

To say this game was "poorly" made is a stretch. It was poorly and incorrectly marketed and not filled out enough at launch and then RG lost focus and went to play Spaceman Spiff instead. It needs an open ended aspect and like I've posted here a few times, IMHO more emphesis on "Control Point" gameplay (with impact) and Humans vs Bane in a PvM style set up would have given this game the edge it needed.

Other then that it would have helped if it was correctly marketed, the wrong people totally bought into this games hype lol.

 

I have been playing VG 3 months and compared to TR it is worth my $15 a month. There are more people on now than  you might have been used to and finding groups at different levels is far from impossible. VG has issues no doubt, but compared to TR it is a true MMO. TR would have been a decent PC game if it had no fees after purchase. Should have went with the GW buy it and no monthly fee system, then maybe it would have been worth the total money I spent on that tiny MMo with so little to do.
 

Agreed I am currently in my 6th day of the Free trial for Vanguard and I plan to go out and buy it some time next year. I am having a great time. Quests have a good story behind them, not all quests are kill quests its very much a world of warcraft quest style with a variety of quest objectives but all quite simply and uninspired. The world is massive, and there are tons of things to explore. If feels like it draws you into it and you are part of this great big world. The classes play really fun and the character customization is top notch.

Tabula Rasa could not even keep my attention at Comic con 2007 when they first showed it to me. Honestly I picked it up 2 min later I was already tired of the game play. I checked it out again this year because a friend of mine got it, he got into it for about 2 weeks then quit it. I didn't see anything fun about Tabula rasa other than the monster encounters are much more entertaining than most typical mmorpgs. There is a bit of strategy in the combat but thats it. If I had to choose Vanguard would get my 15 dollars a month because its less buggy than EVERYONE thinks. (or maybe its just because I have a super computer). Runs fantastic, and plays like WoW with much better graphics and special effects.

For now FFXI FTW for me at least. I love how they force you to group up to get stuff done. The community there in my server is very warlm and welcoming. I am level 75 DRG 75 WHM and have a total blast helping out new players. The only problem in XI is the end game which is dominated by obsessed Jack asses who are unfair and selfish. So Dynamis and Story gear FTW.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta 

In TR 30 is he last level you get new skill

That statement is pretty disengenuous.  Level 30 is when you unlock your top tier skill class but actually choosing and enhancing the effectiveness (what TR players refer to as "pumping") of your skills continues all of the way to 50.

You make it sound like at 30 you're character's skill template is complete, done, and finished and you just spend the next twenty levels doing nothing but increasing attributes.

And as far as class systems go I thought TR's was really, really well done.  There just weren't enough skills/classes.  But in all reality TR's quasi-skill/class system was much more dynamic than the traditional class structures used in pedestrian MMOs (not that TR isn't pedestrian but there were a few things it did very well IMO).

I'm currently playing CoX and once you select your secondary and primary powersets that's it.  Thems your skills aside from a few you might choose out of the "general" power pools that are available to every toon.  But it's not like once I hit level X I all of the sudden have five brand new skills waiting for me.  It's still the same pool of skills I was looking at when I created the toon.

Kinda reminds me of Hellgate: London, where servers will be closed down forever in January 2009, although Tabula Rasa probably will have a few months more than HG:L.

Tough times for MMO(RPG)s. Ever since the WoW era began (which also was the beginning of more and more Asian f2p games flooding the market) I saw one MMO dying after another. Only a few could survive at healthy numbers in the long run (for example GW, because of its business model), but most struggle with low populations.

Some get shut down, others just try to survive. Just look at SOE's graveyard of failed MMOs (as somebody put it so eloquently and fitting). Vanguard, EQ1, EQ2, SWG, MxO, Planetside, PotBS... failure after failure, all pretty much dead (EQ1+2 probably being the strongest brands in the failboat... but still both severely underpopulated).

Once an MMO had a bad start, losing a huge chunk of its population right after launch, it never recovers. No matter how good the game gets afterwards, in the WoW-era you are DONE and out of the business with a bad launch. I have yet to see a game with a dying population recovering.

EQ2 is a perfect example. Very flawed game at launch, developed into one of (if not thee) best MMOs currently on the market, but the users don't and won't come back, neither can they retain their numbers. Sad.

[e] And I think that WAR might be the next victim falling to the monopoly. First server merges 1 month after launch are more than just a bad omen, and Mythic unimpressed a whole lot of people with empty worlds and 99% of the players bunching up in instanced GW-PvP-minigames...

Originally posted by lkavadas

Originally posted by Rokurgepta 

In TR 30 is he last level you get new skill

That statement is pretty disengenuous.  Level 30 is when you unlock your top tier skill class but actually choosing and enhancing the effectiveness (what TR players refer to as "pumping") of your skills continues all of the way to 50.

You make it sound like at 30 you're character's skill template is complete, done, and finished and you just spend the next twenty levels doing nothing but increasing attributes.

And as far as class systems go I thought TR's was really, really well done.  There just weren't enough skills/classes.  But in all reality TR's quasi-skill/class system was much more dynamic than the traditional class structures used in pedestrian MMOs (not that TR isn't pedestrian but there were a few things it did very well IMO).

I'm currently playing CoX and once you select your secondary and primary powersets that's it.  Thems your skills aside from a few you might choose out of the "general" power pools that are available to every toon.  But it's not like once I hit level X I all of the sudden have five brand new skills waiting for me.  It's still the same pool of skills I was looking at when I created the toon.

Did not mean to come across that way at all. But at level 30 you get you last skills. Can they be enhanced the rest of the way? Yes they can. Does that make them so different you feel like 30-50 was worthwhile? Not in my opinion.