Tabula Rasa: TR to Close Doors
MMORPG.com has learned today that NCsoft's Tabula Rasa will end its service on February 28th of next year.
When we learned back on November the 11th that Richard Garriott was moving on from his work on NCsoft's Tabula Rasa to persue other interests, we wondered what the future would hold for the game that held Garriott's name. Today, MMORPG.com has learned that due to what NCsoft is calling the game's failure to meet performance expectations, Tabula Rasa's servers will be shut down on February 28th, 2009.
The letter in which the community was told of the decision applauded the development team for the improvements that it had made to the game before launch, but admitted that this was not enough to create a strong enough player base for the game to continue.
Also in the letter, the team promises to make sticking with the game until the end worth the players' time and energy and have even announced that the servers will be free to play for a little over a month, beginning on January 10th.
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The game, which launched on November 2nd, 2007 meaning that when it finally closes its doors on February 28th it will have lasted a little under a year and one third, or for those number fans among you a grand total of 483 days. The game, which had an odd development process including a design move that saw the game change from high fantasy to gritty sci-fi, originally launched to relatively good reviews, but failed to meet players' expectations.
Cancellation or no, Tabula Rasa made use of a number of unique design elements that will likley influence some MMO design in the future, including its cover and combat system, which mixed an FPS feel with traditional MMO mechanics and the etical parables system which allowed players to make ethical choices in some of their missions.
Tabula Rasa is the second of NCsoft's games to be terminated after a relatively short tenure, following the closure of Auto Assault which ran since its launch in April of 2006 until its closure on August 31st of 2007 or 1 year, 4 months and 18 days.
Please find below the official NCsoft announcement:
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Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa® has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.
So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.
Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.
We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while. For more details about what we are doing for Tabula Rasa players, please click here.
Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players.
The Tabula Rasa Team
"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
I knew it was coming but didn't want to admit it. So long TR.
You guys sure typed this up quickly considering the announcement of the game shutting down was made only a few hours ago. Good job I guess.
I think the TR players should be happy. NCsoft is buying everyone who was still subscribed to TR as of today two free games each with three months of subscription time, giving them free entrance to the Aion beta test AND giving them Aion once it comes out next year. If they know it or not yet NC soft is doing them a favor by ushering them into some better games.
TR honestly had a good premise behind it, but the development never had any direction. Things kept changing all the time and nothing they did was ever as good as they (or their fans) wanted it to be. The game just never got to where it needed to go because of that. I suspect this has a lot to do with the games lead developer spending more time playing space man than doing his job. He is lucky they let him save face by "leaving" the game rather than just straight out telling everyone that he was being fired.
If you guys want to see some "interesting" discussion about this announcement then head over the the TR section of these forums. One guy posted an all caps rant cussing out the TR devs for shutting the game down. Another guy had just finished posting an essay telling people why they should resubscribe to the game and quit complaining about how bad it was in beta when they announced the game was being shut down.
Makes me sad to see this. Tabula Rasa was not a bad game at all. It just needed more content and variety. I still wish that Richard would have made a fantasy game instead, but then again I am partial to fantasy games(although I do like sci-fi too).
Being that they wanted to go with sci-fi, I wish that they would have at least stuck with their original concept which was a sci-fi / fantasy type blend. I know that they scrapped it because they were afraid that people "would not get it". But it seemed unique and in this day and age something different would be a welcome thing.
Well its all water over the dam now. Hopefully Richard Garriott will make another mmorpg some day in the future. And I hope Starr Long and company find good jobs within the industry. I wish them all well.
Hrm...
This game now in the bargain bin AND I get a month free?
Maybe it's time to play through what it has to offer :D
Can't say I'm surprised. It was a very shallow game and not much to do. Combat was very boring and I mentioned it several times when I was in closed beta. Even when in a group it just felt like soloing. The different classes didn't really feel like they needed each other. I am just a firm believer that quasi-fps/rpg hybrids don't work. It needs to be all or nothing. FPS players will play FPS and RPGers will play RPGs, it's as simple as that. Some things just weren't meant to be mixed, like fruit and beer.
At least NCsoft is offering some cool stuff in return. The Aion beta access alone is pretty sweet.
Honestly I saw this coming... I went back to TR about four months ago to play it and see if anything had changed (I enjoyed the Hybrid races) but seeing how few people actualy played the game realy spoke volumes to the state of TR. When I went back to TR I found that you were lucky to run into another player and that grouping was almost impossible, honestly it reminded me of SWG and its many ghost towns (except these wern't player towns but NPC player hubs!). 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 don't know much about Aion but based on NCsofts record I don't have much faith in it lasting longer than Everquest 2 rofl.
NCsoft games killed: Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa
SOE games killed: None (well no major ones... even planetside still runs)
With that said I have more faith in SOE as a company than NCsoft... I know lots of people hate SOE but at least you can be assured your game will keep running unlike with NCsoft. Afterall everyone hates SWG and yet that game is still running.
saw this comming from a mile away
too bad it was a good game but it was ruined by starr long
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.
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.
again another mmorpg to the garbage bin... ah well....
well, i got into this game free, cause they shut down Auto Assault, and now i will get into some more free games cause they are shutting this down
All Hail UO beating another one ,
, oooppss wrong forum 
No really ,I played in beta and 2 weeks after lauch and it never really peaked my interest , it was like it didnt suck me in , like some other MMO's I have played..
Stupid NCSoft...
They need to take a queue from SOE and lump their games into a pay-one-price-for-all subscription. Of all the MMOs I have played, AA and TR were two of the best non-conventional MMOs around. With an all access pass, NCSoft could have seen some of the Lineage or COX crowd to check these great niche games out.
IMO, when you are a niche game producer, you would benefit the most from an all access subscription. I'd still be playing AA and TR if I could have paid $30 a month to access all of NCSoft's offerings.
MMOs should never die...
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.
My thinking is:
TR = still needs a lot of development work, has a lot of extra costs, doesn't have the fanbase to sustain it.
SOE games = shared support between all games (and the less players a game has, the less support they need), shared server farms, the less popular games (Matrix, Planetside) are playable without needing massive bug fixes, and they have very small teams looking after them (seems like the Matrix only has 1 person working on it...), if a low level developer costs, I don't know $40-50k a year, thats only around 250-300 players needed to pay their salary...
This is kind of sad:\
I enjoyed the game immensely in closed beta, however being the gamer that I am, the lack of end content and persistent bugs left OVER from beta quickly made me cancel my paid subscription. The concept itself was unusual, and I did enjoy the mechanics. I figured, however, that this would happen....I just didn't expect it to be so soon.
Ah, well. I may resubscribe, just to give it a go again.
Here's my video from End of Beta. Not the best, but it definitely makes me nostalgic.
RIP :( It really was a great game in my opinion.
I wonder if TR might have been viable if it had been set up like Guild Wars: pay once, play forever.
Charging subscription fees is just not going to help a game like TR, which desperately needed a larger player base. It was an OK game that absolutely was not worth the subscription they were charging.
I bet a lot of MMO developers are shaking in their shoes, about now -- as well they should be.
Make the game worth the price of admission (e.g., WoW) or make it a better value by using a more sensible payment model: lower monthly fees or no monthly fees (e.g., Guild Wars). Otherwise, you will FAIL, big time.
Charging "full price" for a "just OK" product like TR is a sure recipe for failure.
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
I liked TR, but now I have Beyond Protocol. It just released and I have been playing it for a few days before it did. The devs showed us tons of cool stuff this game has built in to it. Their special researches make this game very deep. Space games are much more my thing.
I skimmed through the thread and I didn't notice anyone else mention this but..
"Aion beta access (coming soon)" For all the people saying there will be no Aion Beta for NA/EU I think this should be a pretty interesting development. Unless of course this was posted elsewhere already. :)
There was a debate going over one of COH's global channels about if COH was going to be next.
DOOOOM?
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.
That is absolutely not true at all.
While it's true that SWG doesn't have even 1/2 the number it did before the NGE, but it does seem to have a community of somewhat decent size. I'm even willing to bet that EQ and SWG probably have similar numbers, with neither doing as bad as TR was, or other NCSoft MMO's for that matter...
Where you are REALLY off though is concerning EQ2, and even Vanguard. EQ2 especially has a very healthy sized, and stable community, and is probably SOE's real money-maker atm. I have been playing WAR lately, but played EQ2 for the last year or so before that, and I have to say that it's actually a really enjoyable game. I played beta tested EQ2, and when it and WoW released so close to each other I ended up going with WoW b/c EQ2 wasn't all that great...But SOE really listened to it's players and improved the game ten-fold. I really dug it for what it was...and that's a very solid, PvE MMORPG. Vanguard is even making a comeback under SOE, and that says alot I think. Is it the end-all, be-all MMO that McQuaid hyped it as? No. But just like w/ EQ2, it has become a very solid game, and has improved immensely since release.
Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there? Lineage 2 (which admitedly has a much larger pop in Asia), but here never exceeded 150. Auto Assault shut down maybe just as fast as TR did, although I think if that game had more time in the over it could have sustained a community.
It is always sad to see a game shut-down though, and there are always people out there that are very passionate about thier game of choice, and to those of you for whom TR was yours...my condolences.
If only the devs doing SGW look at this as there combat system is close to what TR had but not as good
TR had a good combat system and nothing else that qualified it for a monthly fee.
R.I.P. Tabula Rasa.
Anyone following the troubled development of this game shouldn't be surprised by this.
Anyone paying attention to the irrational way Garriott has behaved over the years shouldn't be surprised by this.
Anyone playing TR upon release shouldn't be surprised by this.
Not that the MMORPG community is likely to learn anything from this. You can still see baseless hype over other games in development that have slavering fanboys thinking the next game is going to be the Second Coming.
At least this should finally eliminate any of Garriott's status as some kind of game desinger genius. I played some of the old Ultima games. They weren't that great. They were just the best thing you could run at the time on those early generation of PCs. They just always get remembered with rose-colored glasses. This has finally broken those glasses and forced everyone too see Garriott clearly.
And all it took was millions and millions of dollars thrown down the drain by NCSoft.
Don't agree i think it was very boring and one of the many things that help kill it
No long hair styles for females. This game was doomed from day one. I can not and will not pay to play a butch chick.
WOW has some long hair styles for females AND for males. 11 million subscribers.
I think you are forgetting Guild Wars there chief. You know, one of the most popular MMOs of all time?
As for Vanguard and EQ2, you can sit there and tell me they are "fixed" now all you want but it doesn't alter he fact that there is a very small number of people playing them. Release is what makes or breaks a game. More people will try a game when it is first released than at any other time. If your game isn't what it was hyped up to be at release then it never will be and most players will leave because of that, never to return. Watch how this happens to AoC. Or how it already happened to AO. Games just don't ever fully recover from bad launches, even if they get "better" later. EQ2 and Vanguard may be "better" now, just like some people claim AO got better and that AoC is getting better, but they will never get the numbers they were meant to have. I promise you that SoE wouldn't be keeping these games online if it wasn't for the all access pass.
I will admit that a lot of people have tried to tell me about how great EQ2 is during these discussions about Tabula Rasa shutting down, perhaps I will give it a try.
But that stuff you said about SWG... yeah, try saying something like that to a fan of pre-NGE SWG in real life and see if they don't kick you in the balls for it. Trust me, SoE only keeps it alive for the all access pass and because they don't want to admit how badly they screwed up. There are a lot more people out there who want to see that game shut down than there are who want to see it stay online.
Alienovrlord, I agree 100%. Garriot was apparently more interested in playing space man than in working on Tabula Rasa. I seriously hope he never gets another job in the gaming industry ever again.
Terranah, if hair style is the factor you look for in an MMO then do us all a favor: go sign up for Second Life and be done with it. MMOs are about gameplay, not hair. Stuff like this is the reason why women don't get taken seriously in the gaming community.
/sign
good post!
at least tr was different from all this shitty wow clones out there. its a shame that only the boring mainstream bs can survive these days ...
the mmorpg genere is really f*cked up atm. lets pray for something new & different!
TR was new and different as was AA it's predecessor but AA died and now it seems TR is dieing too :(
This is the NCSoft way - close down a failed game so that their subscribers bolster the numbers for their new game, in this case Aion. It was a shame to lose the innovative Auto Assault, same with Tabula Rasa but at least NCSoft brought that innovation to the table. We're already seeing a similar cover system in Stargate Worlds and I feel that exploration has become a bigger part of MMOs, perhaps inspired in some way by TR's Logos hunt.
Tabula Rasa is dead, long live Aion. Well for a year and a half until the next NCSoft release at least ;)
Guild Wars: 5 million+ games sold, a regular top ten in gameplay ratings on this site, between 500,000-750,000 active players. Yeah, they haven't done that well. In this day and age, get WoW-itis out of your friggin head. If an mmo can hold a quarter million on its server, it's doing good.
Aion is their big release, now. NCSoft want to put everything behind that game, and hopefully not make the mistakes they made with AA and TR. Garriot was in debt when he launched into space(space cadet is a fitting term for him), so he'll probably try to sell another mmo idea to get some cash. Also, if you look at the shape of NCWest, with all the Guild Wars employees in its upper management, it looks like they will be putting most of their cash behind GW2 being a success. That game has a huge, happy fanbase, appeals to PvP and PvE, and will, once again, be without a subscription.
After GW, I tried a few different MMOs, including(shudder) AoC. I liked the feel of TR. It seemed the closest thing to a Halo-style Starship Troopers MMO I could find, and I think they did the mechanics well. The thing it lacked was a progressive storyline, which is what you need if your PvP is non-existent. Leveling, gathering Logos and guarding CPs goes only so far. It proves that, while you can add extra content as the game progresses, the storyline and major areas of exploration must be finished! You can't substitute difficulty for quality; it just pisses people off.
I think there are three successful MMOs out there, with three distinct styles: Guild Wars, a CORPG style that is free-to-play; WoW, the model of the P2P fantasy genre; and EVE, a successful sci-fi space game that offers gameplay on different OS'es. No others have their numbers or staying power. If you are developing an MMO, these are the models you should be seeking, not to copy their design, but to get the basics of what makes a SUCCESSFUL MMO.
That is absolutely not true at all.
While it's true that SWG doesn't have even 1/2 the number it did before the NGE, but it does seem to have a community of somewhat decent size. I'm even willing to bet that EQ and SWG probably have similar numbers, with neither doing as bad as TR was, or other NCSoft MMO's for that matter...
Where you are REALLY off though is concerning EQ2, and even Vanguard. EQ2 especially has a very healthy sized, and stable community, and is probably SOE's real money-maker atm. I have been playing WAR lately, but played EQ2 for the last year or so before that, and I have to say that it's actually a really enjoyable game. I played beta tested EQ2, and when it and WoW released so close to each other I ended up going with WoW b/c EQ2 wasn't all that great...But SOE really listened to it's players and improved the game ten-fold. I really dug it for what it was...and that's a very solid, PvE MMORPG. Vanguard is even making a comeback under SOE, and that says alot I think. Is it the end-all, be-all MMO that McQuaid hyped it as? No. But just like w/ EQ2, it has become a very solid game, and has improved immensely since release.
Now that I think about it though, none of NCSoft's MMOs have really done all that well. It's top performer has to be, at least here in NA, CoX, and I'm guessing that at it's peak it only ever had maybe 250k players. Then what is there? Lineage 2 (which admitedly has a much larger pop in Asia), but here never exceeded 150. Auto Assault shut down maybe just as fast as TR did, although I think if that game had more time in the over it could have sustained a community.
It is always sad to see a game shut-down though, and there are always people out there that are very passionate about thier game of choice, and to those of you for whom TR was yours...my condolences.
I know i'm going to be called a troll but that bit made me lol
from what i know 350k subs down to 10k or under for SWG is NOT half and it only has a decent size on 3 servers now
but i do hear the love/hate for EQ2 in equal measure so i'm guessing it's slowly going the same way
It's sad to see one of the first MMO's that encouraged watching the action unfold instead of staring at the UI bar is going down. After having played MUD's to SWG to WOW, Eve, COx, and a dozen betas and trials, TR is the only one I subscribe to today. And yeah, when British parted ways, I knew what was next.
Horrible pre-holiday news for the TR team. I think that pretty much everything they did post launch improved the game to an extent. But at launch, they had some good (but often bugged)instances, and a pretty good run and gun system. Unfortunately they had not much else except probably the most messed up crafting system I've seen in an MMO. And like others have said, keeping players at launch is the best shot you've got unless you give the client away.
I hope some other MMO's devs see the things they did right. There were alot of good ideas, it's just that they really only offered one mode of gameplay.
And lastly, I hope this doesn't spook companies away from sci-fi MMO's.
I'll use my free months, and probably not subscribe to anything else til' Champions releases. I think I'm pretty much done with fantasy MMO's.
I know this isn't an EQ2 thread, but just wanted to say that it doesn't surprise me that a non-EQ2 player is seeing conflicting opinions right now about the game. The newest EQ2 expansion is a very group and raiding focused right after a very solo focused expansion. So the casuals might not be as happy with EQ2 right now (esp with WotLK just released), and the more hard-core players are digging into the new content.
I think EQ2 is officially a mature MMO now and has at least another 5 years of good gaming to go before it gets to the life support stage.
Guild Wars: 5 million+ games sold, a regular top ten in gameplay ratings on this site, between 500,000-750,000 active players. Yeah, they haven't done that well. In this day and age, get WoW-itis out of your friggin head. If an mmo can hold a quarter million on its server, it's doing good.
Aion is their big release, now. NCSoft want to put everything behind that game, and hopefully not make the mistakes they made with AA and TR. Garriot was in debt when he launched into space(space cadet is a fitting term for him), so he'll probably try to sell another mmo idea to get some cash. Also, if you look at the shape of NCWest, with all the Guild Wars employees in its upper management, it looks like they will be putting most of their cash behind GW2 being a success. That game has a huge, happy fanbase, appeals to PvP and PvE, and will, once again, be without a subscription.
After GW, I tried a few different MMOs, including(shudder) AoC. I liked the feel of TR. It seemed the closest thing to a Halo-style Starship Troopers MMO I could find, and I think they did the mechanics well. The thing it lacked was a progressive storyline, which is what you need if your PvP is non-existent. Leveling, gathering Logos and guarding CPs goes only so far. It proves that, while you can add extra content as the game progresses, the storyline and major areas of exploration must be finished! You can't substitute difficulty for quality; it just pisses people off.
I think there are three successful MMOs out there, with three distinct styles: Guild Wars, a CORPG style that is free-to-play; WoW, the model of the P2P fantasy genre; and EVE, a successful sci-fi space game that offers gameplay on different OS'es. No others have their numbers or staying power. If you are developing an MMO, these are the models you should be seeking, not to copy their design, but to get the basics of what makes a SUCCESSFUL MMO.
you do realize that you cant compare a suscription fee mmo with a f2p mmo? since the suscription based mmo actually makes money bei people who play for months and months since they pay evry month. while every hour you play guild wars costs them money. hence the fast progression and heavy instancing.
im not saying guild wars isnt doing good, but having 500k people playing a f2p game isnt even close to having 200k paying every month.
When they canceled Auto Assault, I had just started playing again. I was enjoying it a great deal and it really pissed me off they decided to shut it down. I quit TR a few months back and I really have had no desire to try it out again. If I wanted the TR experience I'd go play Halo. They let a MMO "genius" and I use that word loosely, create a product that was outdated.
If TR was released in the time of UO, then it would've been an enourmous success, but in todays market, people want a game that's dynamic and open ended. When you have no end game you fail. When you have no end game and then no PvP to boot, you definently fail. My suggestion, next time you start up a game, actually put some money into it so that it's a complete project with some depth to it. Aion is going to fail in about a year and half as well, wait and see. Why? Because they're doing the same thing... hyping the game without actually putting the money into it. Thank god City of Heroes was put out before they got into this "Lets make a quick buck" mode of thinking.
Also some numbers to keep in mind. In order for a MMO to be financially viable for a large company, it needs to have at least 10,000 subscribers, anything less and it can't sustain the employees and doesn't make a profit. That's 10,000+ long term devoted subscribers... the hard core people that have waited around.
Also the next big MMO that's going to wipe WoW off the board is the next big console game that goes MMO... I guarantee a Halo Online game would kill WoW. Just a thought. The reason? Because the Tweener player base they depend on would be going to try out the new game and they'd lose half their base. Just a thought.
For the adults (any mature minded 30+) that read this thread this portion is for you. You won't find any comparisons and dismal trash talk about whose MMO was better. It's a sad day when the hard work and dreams of many are brought low.
I applaude Richard Garriot and those who poured their imagination and determination into trying to entertain us with something new, allowing us to briefly be part of their dream. True it lacked the luster of a well polished game and the end content was limited but there was enough there to show some serious promise. I personally enjoyed the hell out of the defending and retaking many fortifications and the fatality moves were a great touch. It was the unique little things that stood out most for me.
There is a great deal to be learned here that I hope does not go unnoticed by the game houses that push their dev teams too hard and too fast to get to their dollar. They need to know that there will always be hardcore gamers striving to be the first to the end game so back filling the gaps is not an option. The game from beginning to end must be complete upon release. Period. Also it would be nice for once (yeah I mean for the first time ever, this means even you CCP) that the dev team start with the hardware and code and game knowing their abilities and limitations before hand rather than writing the software then trying to piece stable servers together that will run it.
In the end, game houses can build something "Great!" out of a complete collection of simply good things. A good premise (the story), a good combat system (easy to learn and use), a good selection of gear, a good crafting system, good content (complete), good gameplay (ex. PvP, PvE, RvR, FvF or whatever) but most importantly or all else goes to hell... a good stable client.
I look forward to seeing what RG will do next. If it's a new game I'll probably check it out.
Guess why we know copies of TR were recently being sold online for less than $1 USD.
Game was very shallow, so this outcome was far from a surprise.
Too bad so many "bad" games stick around so long, it gives the companies the idea that even if you put out mediocre games, people will still play them.
Ah well.
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.
Very well said Domiago. I agree 100%.
CoX is safe. But I agree with your "Saw this coming even before it went into retail" statement. In the end it comes down to whether or not the developers have the talent to impliment all their great ideas. The TR dev team were never short of ideas, but actually pulling them off was out of their league.
NCSoft gives new games a year to get their act together or they let the axe fall. That's Korean business style for you. Sink or swim, they left it up to the TR devs to decide. And so the coming of this announcement is without surprise for me.
Oh yeah- SOE will keep your game running, but that's their business model. Keep as many shitty games on life support as you can to fetch a premium price for them with All Craptastic Pass.
Its like no one wants to buy a single turd, but SOE has figured out that if you hold onto lots of turds- and then sell them collectively as "a big pile o' shit"; people buy.
They also achieve this by downgrading customer service/servers and pooling resources, human and hardware- across their league of extraordinary failures. It's anti-gamer to support companies that expect to make money off of inferior products. If many of SoE's games had to support themselves on their own merit, the free market would see to it that they failed, and quickly. SoE defies the natural order of things... which is a benefit for fanboy tossers of games like PlanetSide that no one plays- but a big step back for gamer-kind.
Tabula Rasa was one of the most promising MMORPGs out there and has had a number of innovations. I have had a love hate relationship with this game for over a year but I think that it is that way for everyone that plays games. It was easy to see that this game would be coming to an end for over six months as the servers were dead, the content was nill, and the lame attempt to bolster sale with the space cadets mission to know where. It doesn't make it any easier to accept such a promising game should end like this.
I will say that it is better to go out in a blaze of glory, than fade away into the night. So I really hope that Tabula Rasa ends as well as they have promised.
R.I.P. Tabula Rasa
NCSoft has been losing money annually for several years. By cutting their losses they can reform their teams and redeploy their hardware assets. I've had issues with their customer support over the years but the 'parting gift package' to TR subs is quite generous and I applaud them.
While I didn't see for a fact that TR would close down, I (and many others) knew it was doomed to a troubled life as soon as R.G. was given a free slate to do as he saw fit. A bad contract that allowed a developer to do as he pleased gave Mr. G buckets of money with almost no strings attached. The only string in the end was how much money he could wring from NCSoft for them to buy him out of the loop. There are unscrupulous individuals (and organizations of course) everywhere and I'm sorry this person had to affect so many loyal gamers.
Richard Garriott deserved what he got. The way he left Origin Systems was terrible, and he abandoned his team. Those people would have done anything for him.
They just need to turn TR into an item-mall based MMO... and bam! the population number would go up in no time. I know I would be one of those to play a free to play TR cuz the only thing holding me back from playing TR was the monthly fee. I like the game and all but personally don't think the game has enough contents for me to pay a renting fee every month. But a free TR? yes yes yes.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
QFT. Along with people like McQuaid they have a tenuous (at best) grasp on reality.
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.
You are joking, right?
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.
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 .
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.
Not surprised at all. We warned them in Beta, they didn't listen.
I enjoyed [laying this in beta and visited again revently with thte free trail. While it had a few innivations and was a nice change of pace from the standard fantasy MMO, there wasn't anything in it that kept me up all night playing like WoW did.
My biggest complaint for TR was that the crafting system was kind of fragmented and unrewarding. I rarely subscribe to an MMO where I don't have fun crafting and selling.
Ummm.... are you, like, serious? Are you seriously asking what the "straight answer" is to why TR was cancelled?
It's because the game sucked and made it dick money. We're talking about a game which, one year after release mind you, was selling for less than a dollar on Amazon.com and couldn't even retain 30,000 subs.
thanks to private servers, tabula rasa will never really die. it might even get popular if there arent any retail servers anymore
Face of Mankind is now in Closed Beta. If you liked Tabula Rasa check this game out. Had some of the best PVP action ever in an mmo. I hate ganking, etc. but FOM is so realistic when confronted with gankers you can escape them, making for some of the most exciting chases ever. FOM is not full of gankers, please dont misunderstand but when I ran into players that had me outgunned I could get away and it resembled a real life situation losing the enemy in a maze of buildings, hallways, staircases, elevators just like being in a movie. So TR fans. There might be a game we can play using TR.s inginuity and gameplay. Hopefully see ya there. thanks.
Sorry to be redundant but you might like Face of Manking even better. Forgot to mention, since they did give us a generous amount of free time on City of Heroes/Villians thats what I have been playing again. Forgot how very cool that game was. Damn its good. Not enough PVP but now dropped every other MMO currently playing completly addicted to City of Heroes/Villians (wow, warhammer, lotro, etc. Even thought its years old there is a very large population still playing, even on the low populated servers you see lots of players and a great community. Never in any other mmo have I had so many group requests. The level system is unique to other mmos and gives you so many more options (you plan your powers and what to increase in advance) making leveling something to really look forward to. NCSOFT has shut other mmos down that didnt pull their weight. City of Heroes/Villians is obviously a winner. Check it out. Thanks Again.
I gotta say FoM is a poor replacement for TR. It looks like the original Couterstrike game graphics wise and probably has just as much content. Might be worth a few rounds while the game is free but I'd go back to Planet Side before I put down $$ on FoM.
To stay on TR topic I also gotta say TR was a blast to play, my only gripe was the lack of PvP & Vehicles. I cant believe TR dropped the game like they did especially since they are best known for Guild Wars. Since there is already hours of content to be experienced why would they throw it all away like they did. You would think there would be some way to restructure the game, shrink it, add PvP element to keep it fun.
People run free Private WoW Servers for Fun Play, I wonder what would be involved in getting a Free TR server up.
I said it in BETA, without launching TR with PvP, it didnt stand out enough, and was destined to fail.