Community Blog Spotlight - Blogging on Tabula Rasa
Continuing today's Tabula Rasa theme, Laura Genender shines her Community Spotlight on MMORPG.com user Chryses and his recent blog entry about his personal experiences playing TR.
This past Friday marked the official launch date of NCSoft’s Tabula Rasa; many players, myself included, set foot into a new MMO world with varied expectations and experiences. One such player, Chryses, shared his experiences through the first two days of Tabula Rasa gameplay in his blog Chryses’s articles and reviews.
Chryses had not participated in the Tabula Rasa beta and all of his expectations were formed off of official postings, screenshots, video clips, and forum threads. He came into the game expecting an average to below average experience. The game does, after all, get a lot of flack on the forums! “Tabula Rasa is a game that only receives hate or love postings on these forums,” explains Chryses.
Chryses’s first day with TR isn’t actually spent in gameplay – instead, he discuses his purchase and installation. While his expectations are low, Chryses is apparently giving the game a long time to leave an impression: “I decided to purchase a 3 month sub so all and all” (including purchase and the first free month) “it will cost around 53 pounds for 4 months.”
On day 2, Chryses starts getting into the gameplay; he spends about 4-5 hours in game and makes it to level 5. “Creating a character was relatively fast since you can not fully customize your avatar. Don’t worry though there are plenty of options but if you insist on changing the size of your nostrils or eyebrows then you will be disappointed.”
“Your rookie avatar starts in a drop zone where you receive some basic training and your first mission is to defend a base. My first reaction was of dismay due to the graphics looking slightly dated and colors rather neutral but this was sorted quickly after tweaking graphic options. Then the fun started…
“Heading towards the base I really felt like I was in a war zone. The Bane land from drop ships and this created a sense of panic on the battlefield so I opened up fire along with the other 5 NPCs who were supporting me. About 30 minutes later and after some training missions I am standing on the ramparts blowing away Bane with a big smile on my face.”
From there, Chryses switches to a “snapshot” review of graphics, sound, gameplay, crafting and community. This mini-review is well done and accurate, highlighting things that had become second-nature to me after beta. On graphics, “If you love flowing fields of flowers and sandy beaches with red crabs then this may not be fore you. It’s gritty, futuristic, lots of battlements and very war torn.” On sound, “It’s the best sound I have heard in an MMO. You don’t have elvish ghosts wailing in the background or some orc grunting while he is thumping a head against the wall. This sound is on the immersion level. As you play TR you will hear gun fire in the distance with troops yelling for backup, drop ships flying over head and the Bane yelling that they smell human etc.” On crafting, “the game is too fast paced and full of action and the idea of having to craft for hours on end like Vanguard doesn’t make any sense.”
For his second day (and first day of gameplay) he gave the game a solid score: an 80/100. “[The] game delivered more than I expected, no obvious bugs or performance issues and above all I had a lot of fun.” While Chryses still seems to be in the honeymoon phase of new gameplay, I look forward to his continued review and insights on TR.
