On September 5th, game journalists and industry professionals gathered at the home of Richard Garriott for an evening of Tabula Rasa themed fun.

On Wednesday, September 5th, in Austin Texas, I had one of the most interesting experiences that I've had since starting at this job two years ago. What was I doing in Texas? Well, I was there to cover the Austin Game Developers Conference, but on that particular evening, I was there as a guest of Richard Garriott and NCsoft for the pre-launch party for the upcoming game, Tabula Rasa.

Tabula Rasa is an interesting game for a number of reasons. First, it's a kind of melding between third person shooter games and MMORPGs. What I mean by that is that it combines the action of a shooter with levels, quests and other trappings usually associated with RPG games.

Check out the whole feature, including the video here.

And how exactly is a LARP mixed with a press event supposed to generate interest (or information) for an online game?

Well, it sounds like the OP had fun at least.   And I'm sure everyone enjoyed themselves.  But that's an awful lot of extraneous effort and activity when you would think everyone would be busy focusing on the launch.   One wonders how many QA testers they could have hired for the final testing crunch with all the money that was spent on that event. 

We'll see if it was money well spent in a month I suppose.

To me this shows RGs dedicaton to this project.  It appears to me he is placing an exclamation point on the quality we can expect from this company on this project.  I suspect this will be the first of many sponsored "events" for Tabula Rasa. 

I've maintained a minimalist info attitude during the development so I can begin the journey with clean slate in both knowledge and expectations, seeing RG so into it just wets my appetite even more.

R

To bad the stuff said isn't exactly true. There are a few and I do mean few quests where you are given and ethical choice. It has very little effect on the game, more like none.

The logos is silly. They do nothing. They are a prereq for limited number of logos powers your class unlocks and you can put points into. So a power might need the damage and area logos before you can use it.

fwiw RG has a long history of doing this kind of open larp-party stuff with friends and fans.  

I'd like TR to succeed for Garriott's sake but I don't see how this game will gain much of an audience.  It seems like a mix of plain vanilla elements that together generate a big "so what?" .  Other than the nicely choreographed demo videos i didn't see much that was really compelling about the game, that would hold my interest over a long period.  I dunno.  Maybe it's because the "action shooter" genre just isn't very interesting to me. 

I wish RG would make another Ultima - call it Ultima: Redux or Ultima Zero or Ultima Reflections or Ultima: Tales of Future Past  or something, kind of another look at the Virtues and the Avatar from the viewpoint of an older and wiser Lord British.

Long Live Lord British!  

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Originally posted by Flummoxed

but I don't see how this game will gain much of an audience.  It seems like a mix of plain vanilla elements that together generate a big "so what?" .  Other than the nicely choreographed demo videos i didn't see much that was really compelling about the game, that would hold my interest over a long period.

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Exactly. There is nothing new, it feels like singleplayer game most of the time and it lacks features that would help creating a community (working economy, user friendly chat, hubs for player gathering etc.)