Starr Long, the Producer of Tabula Rasa® at NCsoft® North America, talks about the newest changes to the game with Deployment 11 and the impact of Operation Immortality™.

We've seen a lot of attention focused on Tabula Rasa® within the last few months, culminating with the release of Deployment 11 last week and the launch of Operation Immortality™ in July. The influx of new players from our promotions has been great, and with the monthly updates we're continually keeping our veteran players happy with new and interesting content. While we push forward with continuing to develop and promote Tabula Rasa, it's important to examine how we're accomplishing this and there's no better example than Deployment 11.

With all these new players coming into the game, we knew we had to look at our new user experience and make sure it was the best we could possibly have. We engaged in video-taped usability sessions and other metrics to determine what new players were doing and what we could do better. Then we re-examined the course of the game, as well as the storyline, to see how we could integrate new players better into our universe. When a new player finishes watching the intro trailer to Tabula Rasa, their first moments afterwards should be a continuation of that story. The new player experience needed to convey that Tabula Rasa is a science fiction game, and you're put into the meat of the drama almost immediately. We also wanted to manage the tutorial system better, as well as the context and delivery of the gameplay tips. Our incoming players and even the veterans who have gone through the new player experience agree: it's awesome.

Read more here.