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.

actually it could STILL be saved from the gravestone if they adopt a GW style to it instead of just tossing it into the trash heap along with AA

By adding expansions for sale instead of by patch it could virtually extend TR's life cycle for a good while longer

Though this WILL require on their part some story developers as After you hit about 40 in the game the storyline just up and went poof.

Hmmm...

First John Romero with Daikatana

Then Brad McQuaid with Vanguard

Now Richard Garriot with TR

Wonder who will be next.

I never could get into TR, but I empathize with those who have played and enjoyed it. I rather enjoyed Asheron's Call 2, and to see that game go down really did suck. So, yeah... won't find me going "neener neener" at anyone over this.

I do think, though, that there's too much weight given to who is developing a game. Too many MMOs are, in my opinion, being over-hyped and - whether on their own merit, or due to raising expectations impossibly high - failing to live up to that hype.

I also agree with those who've said that mixing FPS and RPG elements together in a MMO sounds great on paper, but doesn't seem to work as well in practice. Spellborn has its own take on that approach, so we'll see how that does,  I suppose.

Originally posted by Ludwix

"To thank our loyal Tabula Rasa fans we've prepared a little closing down gift. Any active paying player as of 10:00 AM Pacific Time on November 21st, 2008 will be eligible for all of the following:

* 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
* 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
* Aion beta access (coming soon)
* Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
* 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)"

 

Hmmm these are some nice features/gifts, best connected with TR so far tbh. :P:P:P

Funny story.

Bought Auto Assault in the Futureshop (Canadian Best Buy) bargain bin for $5 one day... waited about a year to get around to installing it. A week later, it was announced that it was done. As a consolation gift, NC Soft gave out free Tabula Rosa games and COV/H games for free.

I didn't bother installing TR until about two weeks ago... now this, and I now qualify for 3 months of COV/H, Lineage 2, and this beta stuff.

I'd say that original $5 has gone a pretty long way!

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by Ludwix

"To thank our loyal Tabula Rasa fans we've prepared a little closing down gift. Any active paying player as of 10:00 AM Pacific Time on November 21st, 2008 will be eligible for all of the following:

* 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
* 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
* Aion beta access (coming soon)
* Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
* 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)"

 

Hmmm these are some nice features/gifts, best connected with TR so far tbh. :P:P:P

 

Funny story.

Bought Auto Assault in the Futureshop (Canadian Best Buy) bargain bin for $5 one day... waited about a year to get around to installing it. A week later, it was announced that it was done. As a consolation gift, NC Soft gave out free Tabula Rosa games and COV/H games for free.

I didn't bother installing TR until about two weeks ago... now this, and I now qualify for 3 months of COV/H, Lineage 2, and this beta stuff.

I'd say that original $5 has gone a pretty long way!

Wow, this is actually hilarious.

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by Ludwix

"To thank our loyal Tabula Rasa fans we've prepared a little closing down gift. Any active paying player as of 10:00 AM Pacific Time on November 21st, 2008 will be eligible for all of the following:

* 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
* 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
* Aion beta access (coming soon)
* Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
* 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)"

 

Hmmm these are some nice features/gifts, best connected with TR so far tbh. :P:P:P

 

Funny story.

Bought Auto Assault in the Futureshop (Canadian Best Buy) bargain bin for $5 one day... waited about a year to get around to installing it. A week later, it was announced that it was done. As a consolation gift, NC Soft gave out free Tabula Rosa games and COV/H games for free.

I didn't bother installing TR until about two weeks ago... now this, and I now qualify for 3 months of COV/H, Lineage 2, and this beta stuff.

I'd say that original $5 has gone a pretty long way!

I say you never install CoH or Aion for all of our sakes as gamers  (no, I don't care about Lineage 2)

what a shame !

i guess vanilla PVE game + saturated market - the UO faithful that Garriot effectively gave the cold shoulder to - (in the last month) Garriot himself = failure for this game

good riddance imo, but it's good that the company had the common decency to offer some consolation.  that's more than other companies that insisted on promoting and polishing turds, like Flagship, felt the need to do

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by Raltar

We were actually  talking about this in the Tabula Rasa forum.

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.

 

A little correction is in place.

EverQuest 2 is still doing pretty good! They still have around 250k subscribers, wich isn't bad at all!

It's safe to say that at this moment EverQuest 2 is their best running game at this moment. With EverQuest 1 coming in close second.

The Shadow Odyssey brought in some really great improvements into the game, a lot of people welcomed. So EverQuest 2 isn't going anywhere any time soon. It's here to stay for a long while.

In fact, EverQuest 2 has build up a very loyal fanbase, just like with EverQuest 1.  That's the advantage you have with a much older, more mature playerbase. They tend to stick around a lot longer and don't jump from game to game on each opportunity.

And basically, that is exactly the same now with LOTRO.

Cheers

EQ2 has maybe 125K subs left.

SOE has maybe 250K subs TOTAL across all games!

and yet eq2 has more depth and world and lore then the 11 million sub giant. Bad timing hurt it, as well as a bad launch

Lord British moving on?  UO 2 FTW !!!!