Then one should wonder why. Why did people quit, and why was so much money being wasted?

Well, let's look at an early teaser. TR 2004 preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVkPNUyrW9A

Could've fooled me, honestly. Without the explanation, I'd have guessed I'm looking at an Aeon trailer. Maybe they salvaged what was there from pre-revamp TR to make Aeon out of it, I dunno.

When you redo your game, basically from scratch, then a lot of your money goes down the loo. MMOs are expensive and risky businesses. But 100m is something you can recover. Not easily, mind you, but you can. Of course, you'll need more than 50k subscribers to reach that goal.

And for that, you have to keep people interested. I'm not really convinced that there was no plan for endgame, I just think that the devs were tied down fixing the killer bugs and redoing the game well into the second half of 2008 (hell, whole skills were replaced until well after July if I remember correctly). Just now, when the game finally reached some sort of stability, they can (and do) actually bring along content for level 50s. How are you supposed to create new content when the old one is falling apart?

My opinion is still it was released too early. Yes, management certainly got cold feet when they saw the cost side of the balance drop down past the 100m threshold, and they wanted to see this game make money. No doubt about that. I'm still convinced, though, this game had the potential to attract a sizable amount of players. It would never have been a WoW killer, but recovering from this 100m hole would have been possible. Not easy, but possible. I could see this game had the potential to reach the 1m sub mark, if it had proper management, sensible development and was completed before release (with "completed" meaning the completeness an MMO should reach before release, no MMO is "complete" at release).

It failed at many levels. Most of all, the game's focus was placed wrongly. Hindsight is always easy and it's easy now to point at the mistakes made. Well, if someone learns from them, it will at least serve as a lesson how to NOT turn a great idea (and I'm still convinced, the idea and the gameplay of TR is great and can attract many users) into a game.

staff, tabula rasa that will end in February, or still some hope

I started playing when It went free and it hasn't really felt like i was playing a mmo game.  Instead it feels more like a sci-fi diablo 2.

The moral quest affecting NPC interaction,  lack of lvl grinding,  well thoughtout story line would have made an awsome single player game.   

I wouldn't mind the ending being you kicking the bane off of earth and now standing in front of a gate with an army behind you ready to take the fight to the bane instead.

Originally posted by thaile4ever

I started playing when It went free and it hasn't really felt like i was playing a mmo game.  Instead it feels more like a sci-fi diablo 2.

The moral quest affecting NPC interaction,  lack of lvl grinding,  well thoughtout story line would have made an awsome single player game.   

I wouldn't mind the ending being you kicking the bane off of earth and now standing in front of a gate with an army behind you ready to take the fight to the bane instead.

The shame is they did not take the moral quests further. They really have little to no effect on gameplay. They really could have been a huge part of the game, but like most things in TR they never went as far with them as they should have to make them great.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by thaile4ever

I started playing when It went free and it hasn't really felt like i was playing a mmo game.  Instead it feels more like a sci-fi diablo 2.

The moral quest affecting NPC interaction,  lack of lvl grinding,  well thoughtout story line would have made an awsome single player game.   

I wouldn't mind the ending being you kicking the bane off of earth and now standing in front of a gate with an army behind you ready to take the fight to the bane instead.

 

The shame is they did not take the moral quests further. They really have little to no effect on gameplay. They really could have been a huge part of the game, but like most things in TR they never went as far with them as they should have to make them great.

Sadly true. While I did occasionally see a difference in some quests further down the road (like, when you give the Bane the antidote in the first map, somewhere around the last map you get the Bane blood sample for "free" instead of having to kill the Bane scientist for it, with him implying that they are able and sometimes willing to cooperate with you if you show them you're not hellbent on exterminating them), the impact of your decisions is minimal at best.

It could have been expanded into a full blown betrayal quest line which would have resulted in actually meaningful PvP... ah hell, I can dream, can't I?

sorry to bother this topic, but I'm currently really confused... My english is bad, but as far as I read, Tabula Rasa should be free on today... I looked in the shop and you really can't purchase it, but neither there is no free activation codes nor any banners that say it's really F2P. Have I just misunderstood something?

Originally posted by Chlodwig

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by thaile4ever

I started playing when It went free and it hasn't really felt like i was playing a mmo game.  Instead it feels more like a sci-fi diablo 2.

The moral quest affecting NPC interaction,  lack of lvl grinding,  well thoughtout story line would have made an awsome single player game.   

I wouldn't mind the ending being you kicking the bane off of earth and now standing in front of a gate with an army behind you ready to take the fight to the bane instead.

 

The shame is they did not take the moral quests further. They really have little to no effect on gameplay. They really could have been a huge part of the game, but like most things in TR they never went as far with them as they should have to make them great.

 

Sadly true. While I did occasionally see a difference in some quests further down the road (like, when you give the Bane the antidote in the first map, somewhere around the last map you get the Bane blood sample for "free" instead of having to kill the Bane scientist for it, with him implying that they are able and sometimes willing to cooperate with you if you show them you're not hellbent on exterminating them), the impact of your decisions is minimal at best.

It could have been expanded into a full blown betrayal quest line which would have resulted in actually meaningful PvP... ah hell, I can dream, can't I?

Yeah could have been nice.
 

Originally posted by hackzack

sorry to bother this topic, but I'm currently really confused... My english is bad, but as far as I read, Tabula Rasa should be free on today... I looked in the shop and you really can't purchase it, but neither there is no free activation codes nor any banners that say it's really F2P. Have I just misunderstood something?

I think you still need to request an activation code from NCSoft.

ah, thats it, I just don't get what a user ID is... it's not my name

D::: i dont want this game to close!!!! T_T

They would pay me 15$ a month to play and i would'nt.  Free, i dont care.

I really think all this game needed was bane as a playable race.

And let the pvp begin!

Originally posted by Zyllos

I really think all this game needed was bane as a playable race.

And let the pvp begin!

Would not have been enough to save this game.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by Zyllos

I really think all this game needed was bane as a playable race.

And let the pvp begin!

Would not have been enough to save this game.

Probably not. NC already sunk too much money on it to give it a chance. Yes, a "better" game could have recovered those 120m, but a sizable portion of that money was sunk into a completely different game that was eventually scrapped and remodeled almost from scratch. When you look at old TR teasers and trailers you see that this game was originally a lot less Sci-Fi and a lot more Fantasy.

Maybe they salvaged this artwork now and built Aion on top of it, I don't know. Aion sure looks like it at the first glance.

So what you really have in TR is a MMO that was hacked together in less than three years (instead of the seven-ish it took, including the code that went to /dev/null) and started with a heavy mortgage on its back. I wouldn't say it was doomed to fail, but it sure had it a lot harder than most.

Which is a shame. The idea was quite appealing. A unique blend of MMO and an FPS-ish interface (yeah, it didn't use "real" aiming, keep your complaints) that dared to something else than the usual "grind up and harvest bosses" MMO playing style.

I played a bit last night had to wait 2 days for a serial key but they did give me some trial keys for other games....

main problem i saw was the game had big latency issues.  seemed fairly busy tho ?

Originally posted by fusionx212

I played a bit last night had to wait 2 days for a serial key but they did give me some trial keys for other games....

main problem i saw was the game had big latency issues.  seemed fairly busy tho ?

I am sure it is fairly busy now that it is free to play for a month and a half.

How do you get a free key? I cant find anything on their sites that tells you how.

We are 6 ppl here who wanna try out the game but neither of us can figure out how to get a free key.

Originally posted by tigris67

 

---

If you're a new player who has never tried Tabula Rasa, you can get a Tabula Rasa Serial Code by visiting our Support siteand submitting a request for a new code. Use that code at www.plaync.com to create a new account! 
You'll need to activate your new account with a credit card number, but don't worry - that's just so we know who you are. We willnot charge your card for Tabula Rasa gameplay.

---

 

I trust them and all, but just posting this up for people who don't like this type of system.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SEE above register at the ncsoft support forums you need to create an official ncsoft main account then raise a ticket with them. for a new key request for tabula rasa they'll email you the serial

Originally posted by Securion

How do you get a free key? I cant find anything on their sites that tells you how.

 

We are 6 ppl here who wanna try out the game but neither of us can figure out how to get a free key.

 

Go to www.plaync.com and email Tabula Rasa support requesting a game key.

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by Securion

How do you get a free key? I cant find anything on their sites that tells you how.

 

We are 6 ppl here who wanna try out the game but neither of us can figure out how to get a free key.

 

Go to www.plaync.com and email Tabula Rasa support requesting a game key.

Yea, thanks, we will do that.

Strange though it cant be done in another way...?