Tabula Rasa

Originally posted by Guillermo197

You want to know why Tabula Rasa failed and basically became the largest financial dissaster in MMO history (next in line with Age of Conan).

The fact that Richard decided to ditch the whole game after three years of development and start all over again.

Meaning the game you see today was developed in only 2 years! And it clearly shows in the game.

- All character progression stops at level30.

- Different classes are poorly fleshed out. Not really distinctive. And lots of abilities still either overpowered or severely bugged / lacking! Only the idea that you unlock your last ability 20 levels too soon already, making the last 20 levels just a boring grind without any feel of progression anymore.

- Not to mention that most interesting and available content stops at level30. They filled up some gaps past level30, but it still lacking!

But the biggest disaster and failure is this:

The whole mystery around the Eloh's and their artifacts is the main drive of interesting storyline that could have driven the game. Be it not that they just dumbed it down into a dumb collection game to unlock your skills.

This was for most people the biggest dissapointment. You were soaked into the mystery of the Eloh's and so thrilled about it, especially the Eloh Vale questline, that was needed to gain access to the stargate and move on to the next Tier of zones.

But in beta bugs were plague'ing the Eloh Vale questchain and prevented people from unlocking the stargate. So instead of fixing it, they removed the access requirement from the stargate and so killed the best questline in the game.

As that's right, after this questline it's over and then the nasty truth comes afloat and you discover that eloh artifacts are nothing more then collection objects to unlock your skills.

No more plotlines, no more interesting questlines. Nothing. Nada.

You got some standard quest series to get you into the dungeons of the game. But that's it!

You could really notice the game was optimised and polished in content through the first three zones and after that the severe lack of interesting quests (missions) kick in.

The buggy Eloh Vale story questline is proof that they even couldn't finish and optimise that one.

Tabula Rasa was a game with great potential. And that is what it always will be. A great MMO it could have been.

And these are my words. A longtime Closed Beta tester of Tabula Rasa up till 2 months after release.

Cheers

nailed it.

i was in the CB too and i have the CE. i recently activated it (CB told me i should wait a while before actually playing it) and found the following things un-ignorable:

-they nerfed the draw distance, in cb it was like 120 yards now its about 70. so the game actually looks worse now than it did then.

-they STILL never synced the sound of the shotgun reloading with the action. sounds like a small detail right? until you go to reload, "hear" the click and switch weps only to find out next time you switch to your shottie that you have 1 shot in it.

-certain parts of the game look kinda like aion, my theory is right after launch (and maybe even a little before) most of the team switch to production of that game leaving a skeleton crew to actually "fix" or improve TR.

-no talk of an expansion and adding boxing to the game was about the most pathetic version of pvp imaginable.

if NCsoft switches to a model like station access i MIGHT play TR just because i am already paying for it, otherwise 15$/mo is way too much (ditto on COX). it would be more inline with the 5$/mo that it costs to play as premium dungeon runners member.

on a side note i think people need to put the stroke fest around AION on hold (well all games really) there is nothing there to suggest that it is going to be a great game.

Originally posted by oronisi

The game got stale quick, and there seemed to be no reason to interact with any other people.  The story seemed stale, lack of variety in gameplay removed any desire to clone or reroll...it was just a sad MMO.

If it were a singleplayer game and I were into those games, it might have been worth the cash.  As an MMO, it fails on just about every level.

I don't know what changes have been made since I played, but at launch there were a lot of balance issues between classes, and balance issues between different gun types. There was also no PvP, and it was obvious the game was never supposed to have it in the first place.

Part of the problem, at least in my experience, was the community. This was one of the many games which had a rabid fanatic following, who would viciously attack anyone who tried to point out the many flaws with the game, yet when the game bottomed out they abandoned ship just like everyone else.

yea i quit not long after launch. i think maybe a month or so if that. it was a good idea but i wish richard garriott would have just released another badass ultima series game.

I played for 3 or 4 months but agree with the earlier comments that it just became stale. After a while there did not seem any real "hook" to keep me wanting to achieve more or explore further. I liked the theme and intent of the game but could not drum up any excitement to keep playing.

TR is just missing the X Factor I guess, I had the game when it was released and played for a few days but had no inclination to Sub to it ..... sadly it gets an extremely tedious and rinse and repeat affair, also as most people have stated their is practically Zero community and no one bothers with groups etc.

TR is a real shame because it could have been Awesome . And if ever a game was screaming out for good meaningful PVP its this one.

My advice would be to wait for Warhammer 40 k  Online, I think that will be awesome ! 

I also played the trial.  Actually a friend of mine started it and convinced me to try it.  I'm kinda in the same boat the game seems innovative and a lot of fun.  I am lvl 22 and play solo and with my buddy a lot.  I did sub to the game and so far it seems to be a lot of fun.

A lot has changed since Beta and one shouldn't think of TR as anything close to what was then. I've been there since CB and still love it. The developers polished it nice and shiny and now start to add the real big stuff. Yes, TR could have done with a few months more developement but has taken big steps since it's publishing. And with Deploiment 15 we will be able to start kicking the Crusties of our Earth. Oh, and there will finally be Mechs. :P

Anyone who tried at it's release and even thought it remotely interesting should really give it another try!

Hmmm... I sound like a TR spokesperson...^^

I'm not, I just love what has become of TR .

Originally posted by Sajud

A lot has changed since Beta and one shouldn't think of TR as anything close to what was then. I've been there since CB and still love it.

Nice try.  I was in the closed beta for over 4 months.  Played at release.  Been popping back into the game with free-trials now and then.  Most recently about 3 weeks ago.  TR has not changed signifcantly since release. 

They are still doing the 3 day free trial thing.  Which is nothing more than an attempt to trick people into buying the game since the first 3 days of play are fun.  But even after a week of dedicated play the shallowness of the game begins to become very clear.

Sajud, you've been playing the game since CB and you love it.  I'm very happy for you.  You found a game, that dispite it's many flaws in design and lack of content, fits your play style perfectly.  we should all be so lucky.

Just a slight correction and not stepping on anyone's opinion...

The trial on the official page is 7 days. The refer a friend from your master account is 5 days.

http://www.rgtr.com/trial/index.html

No idea if the refer a friend trial has the limitations set on it as the official free trial offer.