Tabula Rasa - A Talk With Starr Long

What kind of high end content is slated for Tabula Rasa? Will there be raids, and if so, can you give us some examples?

We have already begun adding new maps starting with patch 1.3 with a new level 50 instance. We are hoping to get another couple in with patch 1.4. We also are going to work on multi-squad maps sometime “soon.” These will be maps that multiple groups can enter (instead of just one group).

What is planned for high end PvP content? Are you adding contested areas, or even player-contested Control Points?

In addition to other high end content we’ll introduce over time, we are planning on Clan ownership of Control Points that clans can challenge each other over. We think this feature will resonate with our higher level players.

Logos seem to play a surprisingly small part of the game – are there any plans to make Logos more useful?

We are seriously considering a revamp of the Logos tablet. Currently, as you collect Logos elements you hear a small bit of the story about who the Eloh were and what happened to them. When the revamp is done the players can hear the entire story of the Eloh via the Logos Tablet instead of just one piece at a time via the Logs Shrines. We have other long-term plans for Logos, but this is what is coming in the near future.

Some players have expressed that the higher end areas seem barren and unpolished; what are your plans to improve and add to high-end play

The higher end areas got added in later than the starting areas and so they have had less time for polish. We are actively working on polishing all of those areas and this should be evident with each publish we complete (we do multiple publishes per month). Beyond polish, there are big plans for the upper level content being worked on now and we will get those features into the game in the coming months.

When will we see an auction or private store system?

We call our player item selling system Military Surplus. The first iteration of this feature went live to the players on Tuesday, December 11th! We will continue to expand the features of this system with periodic updates.

Currently, most players don’t seem to bother with crafting until level 50. Are there any changes planned to make crafting more useful and intuitive and lower levels?

This is an area in which we’ve had a lot of feedback from our players and we are planning on a crafting revamp early next year based on that feedback. We hope to make it much easier to use and much more relevant to gameplay.

When are we going to get our hands on the PAU?

We hope to have PAUs complete in the first part of ’08. We’re as excited about PAUs as the players so the sooner we can get them in, the better!

What are we going to see in the first expansion/update?

We are planning to release constant updates vs. periodic expansions through the first half of 2008. After that we’ll start focusing on expansions, but for now, we decided to get content and features in the game as they are completed, rather than holding and packaging them for release at a later date. In the next couple of months we hope to release more new level 50 instances, Hybrids, PAUs, and Clan ownership of Control Points (to name a few).

Are there going to be more servers? Do you have any plans for reducing server lag/issues?

So far all “lag” issues are not a general issue across the board, but are isolated to specific maps (mainly at higher levels). Adding more servers won’t fix these. Instead, we are making further optimizations that will help those specific maps, as well as tweaking things like how many NPCs are on those maps. There really aren’t any server lag problems in the game, according to our data centers – just in certain, specific places there are issues which we will be fixing very soon.

How do portable waypoints work, and how are these different from the Engineer Temporary Wormhole? If they’re the same thing, why would an Engineer spend skill points on Temporary Wormhole anymore?

Portable Waypoints are consumables that are very much like the current Temporary Wormhole ability. When the portable waypoints come on line we will also be removing the Temporary wormhole ability from Engineers and replacing it with the ability Malfunction, which breaks down mechanical objects to jam weapons, prevent Logos use, and even stop movement at the highest pump levels.