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 !!!!

That would be a great move to move  to UO2 but I can't have a lot of faith in that either. He should venture in the console market I have not really seen a MMORPG on there but FF so it's up for grabs, of course there is a bias because PC gamers are so stingy when it comes too consoles.

I'd even admite that Tabula Rasa would have been better reserved on the console market.

It is with great lastma we lost a game of size potecial pity that not yielded very much like this game but already that the game will test Aion already close to receive a months to see if the game is only but I can understand how the Aion has only Graphics do not have the essence of a mmorpg as with other graphic quality and lower

I was.. no, i am a happy player, it was pretty sad news. Devs did a great job getting alot of things fixed, but sadly they also made stuff 'easier' making it way more often things were done solo. (only quest when needed, kinda like wow and such).

Goodside, i'm a Aion fan. Since i ever say the first screenshots and movie, totaly hooked. Now with the compersation, beta acces and a free month,  making me happy :D

I have plenty screenshots, great memories, and still some time to enjoy the game. But please, NCsoft, dont make the same stupid mistake again.

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

 

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

QFT. Along with people like McQuaid they have a tenuous (at best) grasp on reality.

Originally posted by GungaDin

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

Well, it looks more like "Lord British moving on from making games forever" apparently. Though I'd love to see UO2.

TR was a great game -

Auto Assault was ok -

Hellgate london was even fairly good once it got going

What do these have in common                           Sci - Fi games

Seems the only ones that make it arre stupid Fantasy games like (yuch) WOW

not sure why because wow is so simple and stupid and lousy graphics.

Good games get canceled, While bad games stay on, no justice in the world.

Well this game was always going to have issues. Heck they threw away half their lead development time and did the I'm tough I can stomp lotsa monsters less well than CoH and made a shooter just when the fps genre started using sophisticated monster/NPC team AI. But they didn't. So it felt like a poor cousin. At least SGW seems to have learnt from their eror and is aware of what its up against. A shame as one less game in my fave genre is a bad thing. nice rewards for the committed though which is a good note to end on. But a sad end nonetheless.

damn it. I bought this about 6 months ago and didn't get around to installing it but was looking forward to it. If I create my account now will I be eligible for the freebies?

nope, you had to have an active account by the 21st apparently.

Originally posted by eilar

TR was a great game -

Auto Assault was ok -

Hellgate london was even fairly good once it got going

What do these have in common                           Sci - Fi games

Seems the only ones that make it arre stupid Fantasy games like (yuch) WOW

not sure why because wow is so simple and stupid and lousy graphics.

Good games get canceled, While bad games stay on, no justice in the world.

 

You are joking, right?
 

Originally posted by miagisan

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

World of Warcraft is of higher quality than Everquest 2, hence the difference in subs.

Wow! This is a bit shocking (...well not really but...). I found this to be a very well put together Sci-Fi game that molded gun-play and melee combat very well. The story was fun and it overall really made you feel like you were part of something bigger.

I'd actually rate it higher than a lot of other games that are currently out and perhaps the best sci-fi/avatar mmo currently out.

TR...you will be missed.

Originally posted by Jpizzle

Originally posted by Starbear

!). In the end I have to say NCsoft has a horrid record and now that Cryptic has left them I have very little faith in them as developers.

 

I think you make some incredible points here.

NCSoft has seen some wonky shake-ups as of late. Most to do w/ TR staff, but even the fiasco that is Issue 13 has spawned the community manager to “resign”. That game seems to be taking a downward turn now too.

It wouldn’t surprise me if NCSoft decided that it’s North American market just wasn’t worth the trouble. Currently, Lineage is has like 1/12th of the Korea’s entire population.
 

NcSoft is a tradition Grind game company. TR was pretty out side of the box for them and I doubt they even wanted to produce it in the first place. I just wish for once we could get a straight answer to the real causes of the cancellation. Cryotic left NcSoft and yet CoH/CoV still operates, I don't see how R.G. leaving had anything to do with the game shutting down. I think somone butted heads with the main office and just said F this and took the IP rights .

Aion is a traditional NcSoft title , and you will see that they will give it the red carpet treatment .

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.

my thoughts exactly. i played the beta, and felt the same way. good riddance frankly.

Well, saw that coming. TR was a grindfest that pretended to be innovative- in the short form of the usual argument, the shooting mechanic was really just a new camera angle and it's as hard to shoot an enemy as it is to click someone in WoW. Rather than appealing to grindfesters (who are better off in WoW or Lineage, but I still say it's a terrible way to make a game at all) AND those who want an innovative game, WoW people figured a shooting mechanic wouldn't work and people who came because it was "different" found themselves sorely dissapointed. So in other words,

"NcSoft is a tradition Grind game company. TR was pretty out side of the box for them and I doubt they even wanted to produce it in the first place"

isn't really correct. The fact that NC spent lots of money on advertising shows that that wasn't quite true- aside from the fact that I consider TR a grind game as much as anything else- the shooter mechanic is just a shell.

The business side of things is a stark repeat of Auto Assault. It was an innovative game (or pretended to be- whereas Auto Assault truly changed gameplay, TR was just a presentation change- it probably looks the same to someone who's figuring out what demographic to market it to, but I'm sure that people who came looking for innovation didn't stay) set in a "different" setting (really it should be irrelevant, and there's been Sci-fi MMO's before anyways) that closed in an incredibly short time, because no-one played it (probably related to the innovative end).

On the gameplay side of things, it's accurately described as being the reverse of Auto Assault, whether comparing the games or describing Tabula Rasa alone. Whereas Auto Assault was innovative in gameplay, but ugly and poorly advertised, Tabula Rasa was a presentation-heavy, well-spoken take on the onld Lineage formula.

The last thing in commong would be the community. When a game like this dies, it's community whiddles down to a few hardcore advocates who fight to the last. The last man to e-mail PlayNC about bringing back Auto Assault literally stopped a [url=http://biomek.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=554]month and a day ago[/url]. Actually, curious that he should give up exactly a month before TR was announced to close- but surely coincidental. Anyway, there are still Auto Assault people, and I'm sure there will be TR people for a long time too (and you're cool in our book, if you click my signature you can come hang out with us ).

In conclusion, I congratuate you for having the attention span to read this post, and goodnight.