Originally posted by DM19

If only the devs doing SGW look at this as there combat system is close to what TR had but not as good

TR had a good combat system and nothing else that qualified it for a monthly fee.

R.I.P. Tabula Rasa.

Anyone following the troubled development of this game shouldn't be surprised by this.

Anyone paying attention to the irrational way Garriott has behaved over the years shouldn't be surprised by this. 

Anyone playing TR upon release shouldn't be surprised by this.

Not that the MMORPG community is likely to learn anything from this.  You can still see baseless hype over other games in development that have slavering fanboys thinking the next game is going to be the Second Coming. 

At least this should finally eliminate any of Garriott's status as some kind of game desinger genius.    I played some of the old Ultima games.   They weren't that great.    They were just the best thing you could run at the time on those early generation of PCs.    They just always get remembered with rose-colored glasses.     This has finally broken those glasses and forced everyone too see Garriott clearly. 

And all it took was millions and millions of dollars thrown down the drain by NCSoft.  

Don't agree i think it was very boring and one of the many things that help kill it

No long hair styles for females.  This game was doomed from day one.  I can not and will not pay to play a butch chick.

WOW has some long hair styles for females AND for males.  11 million subscribers.

Originally posted by teddyboy420

Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there?

I think you are forgetting Guild Wars there chief. You know, one of the most popular MMOs of all time?

As for Vanguard and EQ2, you can sit there and tell me they are "fixed" now all you want but it doesn't alter he fact that there is a very small number of people playing them. Release is what makes or breaks a game. More people will try a game when it is first released than at any other time. If your game isn't what it was hyped up to be at release then it never will be and most players will leave because of that, never to return. Watch how this happens to AoC. Or how it already happened to AO. Games just don't ever fully recover from bad launches, even if they get "better" later. EQ2 and Vanguard may be "better" now, just like some people claim AO got better and that AoC is getting better, but they will never get the numbers they were meant to have. I promise you that SoE wouldn't be keeping these games online if it wasn't for the all access pass.

I will admit that a lot of people have tried to tell me about how great EQ2 is during these discussions about Tabula Rasa shutting down, perhaps I will give it a try.

But that stuff you said about SWG... yeah, try saying something like that to a fan of pre-NGE SWG in real life and see if they don't kick you in the balls for it. Trust me, SoE only keeps it alive for the all access pass and because they don't want to admit how badly they screwed up. There are a lot more people out there who want to see that game shut down than there are who want to see it stay online.

Alienovrlord, I agree 100%. Garriot was apparently more interested in playing space man than in working on Tabula Rasa. I seriously hope he never gets another job in the gaming industry ever again.

Terranah, if hair style is the factor you look for in an MMO then do us all a favor: go sign up for Second Life and be done with it. MMOs are about gameplay, not hair. Stuff like this is the reason why women don't get taken seriously in the gaming community.

Originally posted by Bronks

Stupid NCSoft...

 

They need to take a queue from SOE and lump their games into a pay-one-price-for-all subscription. Of all the MMOs I have played, AA and TR were two of the best non-conventional MMOs around. With an all access pass, NCSoft could have seen some of the Lineage or COX crowd to check these great niche games out.

IMO, when you are a niche game producer, you would benefit the most from an all access subscription. I'd still be playing AA and TR if I could have paid $30 a month to access all of NCSoft's offerings.

MMOs should never die...

/sign

good post!

at least tr was different from all this shitty wow clones out there. its a shame that only the boring mainstream bs can survive these days ...

the mmorpg genere is really f*cked up atm. lets pray for something new & different!

TR was new and different as was AA it's predecessor but AA died and now it seems TR is dieing too :(

This is the NCSoft way - close down a failed game so that their subscribers bolster the numbers for their new game, in this case Aion. It was a shame to lose the innovative Auto Assault, same with Tabula Rasa but at least NCSoft brought that innovation to the table. We're already seeing a similar cover system in Stargate Worlds and I feel that exploration has become a bigger part of MMOs, perhaps inspired in some way by TR's Logos hunt.

Tabula Rasa is dead, long live Aion. Well for a year and a half until the next NCSoft release at least ;)

Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there? Lineage 2 (which admitedly has a much larger pop in Asia), but here never exceeded 150. Auto Assault shut down maybe just as fast as TR did, although I think if that game had more time in the over it could have sustained a community.

I

Guild Wars:  5 million+ games sold, a regular top ten in gameplay ratings on this site, between 500,000-750,000 active players.  Yeah, they haven't done that well.  In this day and age, get WoW-itis out of your friggin head.  If an mmo can hold a quarter million on its server, it's doing good.

Aion is their big release, now.  NCSoft want to put everything behind that game, and hopefully not make the mistakes they made with AA and TR.  Garriot was in debt when he launched into space(space cadet is a fitting term for him), so he'll probably try to sell another mmo idea to get some cash.  Also, if you look at the shape of NCWest, with all the Guild Wars employees in its upper management, it looks like they will be putting most of their cash behind GW2 being a success.  That game has a huge, happy fanbase, appeals to PvP and PvE, and will, once again, be without a subscription.

After GW, I tried a few different MMOs, including(shudder) AoC.  I liked the feel of TR.  It seemed the closest thing to a Halo-style Starship Troopers MMO I could find, and I think they did the mechanics well.  The thing it lacked was a progressive storyline, which is what you need if your PvP is non-existent.  Leveling, gathering Logos and guarding CPs goes only so far.  It proves that, while you can add extra content as the game progresses, the storyline and major areas of exploration must be finished!  You can't substitute difficulty for quality; it just pisses people off. 

I think there are three successful MMOs out there, with three distinct styles: Guild Wars, a CORPG style that is free-to-play; WoW, the model of the P2P fantasy genre; and EVE, a successful sci-fi space game that offers gameplay on different OS'es.  No others have their numbers or staying power.  If you are developing an MMO, these are the models you should be seeking, not to copy their design, but to get the basics of what makes a SUCCESSFUL MMO.

Originally posted by teddyboy420

Originally posted by Raltar

Originally posted by Starbear

NCsoft games killed: Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa

SOE games killed: None (well no major ones... even planetside still runs)

With that said I have more faith in SOE as a company than NCsoft... I know lots of people hate SOE but at least you can be assured your game will keep running unlike with NCsoft. Afterall everyone hates SWG and yet that game is still running.

The reason SoE never shuts a game down, no matter how unpopular or screwed up it may have become, is to pad the value of their all access pass. I mean, if SoE shut games down for the same level of unpopularity that causes NCsoft to shut a game down, they would have pretty much nothing but Everquest going! SWG and Planetside would surely be shut down and I doubt Vanguard or EQ2 would last much longer past that. But if all those games got shut down, what would your all access pass be worth? It would be a subscription to Everquest that costs an extra five dollars is what it would be worth.

On the other hand, NCsoft doesn't have an all access pass. And an all access pass wouldn't really work for them because their most popular games are either free (in the case of Guild Wars) or aimed mostly at the Asain Market (in the case of Lineage). so if they don't have an all access pass, then they are pretty much just flushing money down the toilet by running servers for games that nobody plays. I actually am proud of NCSoft for having the guts to admit when a game is doing poorly and being willing to take action by shutting it down (while also working to keep customers happy by refunding their subscription time and buying them extra games to boot). SoE on the other hand is too stubborn to do this, doesn't care about keeping customers happy and refuses to admit their mistakes. To this day they still tell people what a good idea the NGE was.

That is absolutely not true at all.

While it's true that SWG doesn't have even 1/2 the number it did before the NGE, but it does seem to have a community of somewhat decent size. I'm even willing to bet that EQ and SWG probably have similar numbers, with neither doing as bad as TR was, or other NCSoft MMO's for that matter...

Where you are REALLY off though is concerning EQ2, and even Vanguard. EQ2 especially has a very healthy sized, and stable community, and is probably SOE's real money-maker atm. I have been playing WAR lately, but played EQ2 for the last year or so before that, and I have to say that it's actually a really enjoyable game. I played beta tested EQ2, and when it and WoW released so close to each other I ended up going with WoW b/c EQ2 wasn't all that great...But SOE really listened to it's players and improved the game ten-fold. I really dug it for what it was...and that's a very solid, PvE MMORPG. Vanguard is even making a comeback under SOE, and that says alot I think. Is it the end-all, be-all MMO that McQuaid hyped it as? No. But just like w/ EQ2, it has become a very solid game, and has improved immensely since release.

 

Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there? Lineage 2 (which admitedly has a much larger pop in Asia), but here never exceeded 150. Auto Assault shut down maybe just as fast as TR did, although I think if that game had more time in the over it could have sustained a community.

It is always sad to see a game shut-down though, and there are always people out there that are very passionate about thier game of choice, and to those of you for whom TR was yours...my condolences.

I know i'm going to be called a troll but that bit made me lol

from what i know 350k subs down to 10k or under for SWG is NOT half and it only has a decent size on 3 servers now

but i do hear the love/hate for EQ2 in equal measure so i'm guessing it's slowly going the same way

It's sad to see one of the first MMO's that encouraged watching the action unfold instead of staring at the UI bar is going down.  After having played MUD's to SWG to WOW, Eve, COx, and a dozen betas and trials, TR is the only one I subscribe to today.  And yeah, when British parted ways, I knew what was next.

Horrible pre-holiday news for the TR team.  I think that pretty much everything they did post launch improved the game to an extent.  But at launch, they had some good (but often bugged)instances, and a pretty good run and gun system.  Unfortunately they had not much else except probably the most messed up crafting system I've seen in an MMO.  And like others have said, keeping players at launch is the best shot you've got unless you give the client away.

I hope some other MMO's devs see the things they did right.  There were alot of good ideas, it's just that they really only offered one mode of gameplay.

And lastly, I hope this doesn't spook companies away from sci-fi MMO's.

I'll use my free months, and probably not subscribe to anything else til' Champions releases.  I think I'm pretty much done with fantasy MMO's.

Originally posted by Karahandras

but i do hear the love/hate for EQ2 in equal measure so i'm guessing it's slowly going the same way

I know this isn't an EQ2 thread, but just wanted to say that it doesn't surprise me that a non-EQ2 player is seeing conflicting opinions right now about the game. The newest EQ2 expansion is a very group and raiding  focused right after a very solo focused expansion. So the casuals might not be as happy with EQ2 right now (esp with WotLK just released), and the more hard-core players are digging into the new content.

I think EQ2 is officially a mature MMO now and has at least another 5 years of good gaming to go before it gets to the life support stage.

Originally posted by haggus71

Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there? Lineage 2 (which admitedly has a much larger pop in Asia), but here never exceeded 150. Auto Assault shut down maybe just as fast as TR did, although I think if that game had more time in the over it could have sustained a community.

I

 

Guild Wars:  5 million+ games sold, a regular top ten in gameplay ratings on this site, between 500,000-750,000 active players.  Yeah, they haven't done that well.  In this day and age, get WoW-itis out of your friggin head.  If an mmo can hold a quarter million on its server, it's doing good.

Aion is their big release, now.  NCSoft want to put everything behind that game, and hopefully not make the mistakes they made with AA and TR.  Garriot was in debt when he launched into space(space cadet is a fitting term for him), so he'll probably try to sell another mmo idea to get some cash.  Also, if you look at the shape of NCWest, with all the Guild Wars employees in its upper management, it looks like they will be putting most of their cash behind GW2 being a success.  That game has a huge, happy fanbase, appeals to PvP and PvE, and will, once again, be without a subscription.

After GW, I tried a few different MMOs, including(shudder) AoC.  I liked the feel of TR.  It seemed the closest thing to a Halo-style Starship Troopers MMO I could find, and I think they did the mechanics well.  The thing it lacked was a progressive storyline, which is what you need if your PvP is non-existent.  Leveling, gathering Logos and guarding CPs goes only so far.  It proves that, while you can add extra content as the game progresses, the storyline and major areas of exploration must be finished!  You can't substitute difficulty for quality; it just pisses people off. 

I think there are three successful MMOs out there, with three distinct styles: Guild Wars, a CORPG style that is free-to-play; WoW, the model of the P2P fantasy genre; and EVE, a successful sci-fi space game that offers gameplay on different OS'es.  No others have their numbers or staying power.  If you are developing an MMO, these are the models you should be seeking, not to copy their design, but to get the basics of what makes a SUCCESSFUL MMO.

you do realize that you cant compare a suscription fee mmo with a f2p mmo? since the suscription based mmo actually makes money bei people who play for months and months since they pay evry month. while every hour you play guild wars costs them money. hence the fast progression and heavy instancing.

im not saying guild wars isnt doing good, but having 500k people playing a f2p game isnt even close to having 200k paying every month.

When they canceled Auto Assault, I had just started playing again. I was enjoying it a great deal and it really pissed me off they decided to shut it down. I quit TR a few months back and I really have had no desire to try it out again. If I wanted the TR experience I'd go play Halo. They let a MMO "genius" and  I use that word loosely, create a product that was outdated.

If TR was released in the time of UO, then it would've been an enourmous success, but in todays market, people want a game that's dynamic and open ended. When you have no end game you fail. When you have no end game and then no PvP to boot, you definently fail. My suggestion, next time you start up a game, actually put some money into it so that it's a complete project with some depth to it. Aion is going to fail in about a year and half as well, wait and see. Why? Because they're doing the same thing... hyping the game without actually putting the money into it. Thank god City of Heroes was put out before they got into this "Lets make a quick buck" mode of thinking.

Also some numbers to keep in mind. In order for a MMO to be financially viable for a large company, it needs to have at least 10,000 subscribers, anything less and it can't sustain the employees and doesn't make a profit. That's 10,000+ long term devoted subscribers... the hard core people that have waited around.

Also the next big MMO that's going to wipe WoW off the board is the next big console game that goes MMO... I guarantee a Halo Online game would kill WoW. Just a thought. The reason? Because the Tweener player base they depend on would be going to try out the new game and they'd lose half their base. Just a thought.

For the adults (any mature minded 30+) that read this thread this portion is for you. You won't find any comparisons and dismal trash talk about whose MMO was better. It's a sad day when the hard work and dreams of many are brought low.

I applaude Richard Garriot and those who poured their imagination and determination into trying to entertain us with something new, allowing us to briefly be part of their dream. True it lacked the luster of a well polished game and the end content was limited but there was enough there to show some serious promise. I personally enjoyed the hell out of the defending and retaking many fortifications and the fatality moves were a great touch. It was the unique little things that stood out most for me.

There is a great deal to be learned here that I hope does not go unnoticed by the game houses that push their dev teams too hard and too fast to get to their dollar. They need to know that there will always be hardcore gamers striving to be the first to the end game so back filling the gaps is not an option. The game from beginning to end must be complete upon release. Period. Also it would be nice for once (yeah I mean for the first time ever, this means even you CCP) that the dev team start with the hardware and code and game knowing their abilities and limitations before hand rather than writing the software then trying to piece stable servers together that will run it.

In the end, game houses can build something "Great!" out of a complete collection of simply good things. A good premise (the story), a good combat system (easy to learn and use), a good selection of gear, a good crafting system, good content (complete), good gameplay (ex. PvP, PvE, RvR, FvF or whatever) but most importantly or all else goes to hell... a good stable client.

I look forward to seeing what RG will do next. If it's a new game I'll probably check it out.

Guess why we know copies of TR were recently being sold online for less than $1 USD.

Game was very shallow, so this outcome was far from a surprise.

Too bad so many "bad" games stick around so long, it gives the companies the idea that even if you put out mediocre games, people will still play them.

Ah well.

Saw this coming even before it went into retail. You can thank ,the douchbag, Richard Garriot for this. Instead of focusing on the development of this game,he'd rather follow his pipe dream of becoming an astronaut. This sure will hurt NCsoft's pockets. First Auto Assault, now this. With Champions Online coming out next year,it's only a matter of time till City of Heroes succumbs to the same fate.

Originally posted by Domiago

For the adults (any mature minded 30+) that read this thread this portion is for you. You won't find any comparisons and dismal trash talk about whose MMO was better. It's a sad day when the hard work and dreams of many are brought low.

I applaude Richard Garriot and those who poured their imagination and determination into trying to entertain us with something new, allowing us to briefly be part of their dream. True it lacked the luster of a well polished game and the end content was limited but there was enough there to show some serious promise. I personally enjoyed the hell out of the defending and retaking many fortifications and the fatality moves were a great touch. It was the unique little things that stood out most for me.

There is a great deal to be learned here that I hope does not go unnoticed by the game houses that push their dev teams too hard and too fast to get to their dollar. They need to know that there will always be hardcore gamers striving to be the first to the end game so back filling the gaps is not an option. The game from beginning to end must be complete upon release. Period. Also it would be nice for once (yeah I mean for the first time ever, this means even you CCP) that the dev team start with the hardware and code and game knowing their abilities and limitations before hand rather than writing the software then trying to piece stable servers together that will run it.

In the end, game houses can build something "Great!" out of a complete collection of simply good things. A good premise (the story), a good combat system (easy to learn and use), a good selection of gear, a good crafting system, good content (complete), good gameplay (ex. PvP, PvE, RvR, FvF or whatever) but most importantly or all else goes to hell... a good stable client.

I look forward to seeing what RG will do next. If it's a new game I'll probably check it out.

Very well said Domiago.  I agree 100%.
 

Originally posted by TwwIX

Saw this coming even before it went into retail. You can thank ,the douchbag, Richard Garriot for this. Instead of focusing on the development of this game,he'd rather follow his pipe dream of becoming an astronaut. This sure will hurt NCsoft's pockets. First Auto Assault, now this. With Champions Online coming out next year,it's only a matter of time till City of Heroes succumbs to the same fate.

CoX is safe.  But I agree with your "Saw this coming even before it went into retail" statement.  In the end it comes down to whether or not the developers have the talent to impliment all their great ideas.  The TR dev team were never short of ideas, but actually pulling them off was out of their league. 

NCSoft gives new games a year to get their act together or they let the axe fall.  That's Korean business style for you.  Sink or swim, they left it up to the TR devs to decide.  And so the coming of this announcement is without surprise for me.

Originally posted by Starbear

 

NCsoft games killed: Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa

SOE games killed: None (well no major ones... even planetside still runs)

With that said I have more faith in SOE as a company than NCsoft... I know lots of people hate SOE but at least you can be assured your game will keep running unlike with NCsoft.

Oh yeah- SOE will keep your game running, but that's their business model.  Keep as many shitty games on life support as you can to fetch a premium price for them with All Craptastic Pass.

Its like no one wants to buy a single turd, but SOE has figured out that if you hold onto lots of turds- and then sell them collectively as "a big pile o' shit"; people buy.

They also achieve this by downgrading customer service/servers and pooling resources, human and hardware- across their league of extraordinary failures.  It's anti-gamer to support companies that expect to make money off of inferior products.  If many of SoE's games had to support themselves on their own merit, the free market would see to it that they failed, and quickly.  SoE defies the natural order of things...  which is a benefit for fanboy tossers of games like PlanetSide that no one plays- but a big step back for gamer-kind.

Tabula Rasa was one of the most promising MMORPGs out there and has had a number of innovations. I have had a love hate relationship with this game for over a year but I think that it is that way for everyone that plays games. It was easy to see that this game would be coming to an end for over six months as the servers were dead, the content was nill, and the lame attempt to bolster sale with the space cadets mission to know where. It doesn't make it any easier to accept such a promising game should end like this. 

I will say that it is better to go out in a blaze of glory, than fade away into the night. So I really hope that Tabula Rasa ends as well as they have promised.

R.I.P. Tabula Rasa

NCSoft has been losing money annually for several years. By cutting their losses they can reform their teams and redeploy their hardware assets. I've had issues with their customer support over the years but the 'parting gift package' to TR subs is quite generous and I applaud them.

While I didn't see for a fact that TR would close down, I (and many others) knew it was doomed to a troubled life as soon as R.G. was given a free slate to do as he saw fit. A bad contract that allowed a developer to do as he pleased gave Mr. G buckets of money with almost no strings attached. The only string in the end was how much money he could wring from NCSoft for them to buy him out of the loop. There are unscrupulous individuals (and organizations of course) everywhere and I'm sorry this person had to affect so many loyal gamers.

Richard Garriott deserved what he got. The way he left Origin Systems was terrible, and he abandoned his team. Those people would have done anything for him.

They just need to turn TR into an item-mall based MMO... and bam! the population number would go up in no time.  I know I would be one of those to play a free to play TR cuz the only thing holding me back from playing TR was the monthly fee.  I like the game and all but personally don't think the game has enough contents for me to pay a renting fee every month.  But a free TR? yes yes yes.