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NDA Lifted
Taera
Community ManagerMember CommonPosts: 1,078
in Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is no longer under NDA. Talk, talk! 
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
Comments
Can't, I deleted after 2 days of playing. I thought it was very boring.
Thats funny......
I played it a lot longer than that but my experience was much the same. It was very monotonous and hard to get into. I passed out several times during play waiting for something to spawn at a mission point. The game simply isnt very much fun. Maybe if they had allowed play on both sides and focused on a pvp game it might have had a chance but in its current condition I have to say its doomed to mediocrity and low subscription numbers. It suffers from the same repetitive game play that other NC titles are plagued by.
Who knows maybe Aion will be better.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I didn't like it at all. I found it boring and the game play shallow. No matter what tree you choose you are still just shooting. Healing and buffing were awkward and just down right silly in execution. I'm sure it will sell quit a few boxes but Subs will die down drastically within the first 3 months when people realize just how shallow the game is.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Graphics are pretty good on max, but you need one helluva computer to run them at a high setting. Combat is reall hit-or-miss with most people. I appreciate that it is different from most MMO's but it really is just like a FPS. The quests are pretty much standard for the genre and are mostly kill quests. The game has a deep skill selection that has multiple paths to choose for your career. The new player experience is mediocre. While the tutorial section is pretty good, once you are dropped in the real world I found the game to be very boring and uninviting to new players. The community is very helpful in general and very mature. I liked the fact that the enemies dropped from dropships almost constantly in the wilderness, but the combat was very boring for me so it wasn't really all that fun.
My suggestion is to at least try out the game. I didn't find the game all that interesting but many people seem to love it. If you enjoy FPS-shooter style combat (almost like SWG:NGE) then I would recommend this game.
EDIT: Glad to see others feel the same way I do about it.
Desperately wanted this game to be good. Like most on here, i've been looking for a new MMO thats not fantasy. Unfortunately, Kenze hit the nail on the head, the game lacks depth, and is pretty boring.
omg what horrible case of false advertising. ive played the preorder beta for a few weeks and im still waiting for something exciting to happen... rather i've stoped waiting and deleted the game from my pc. NO way im gonna pay $15/month for a revamped environment from Auto Assault, a no skill shooter, and boring missions.
After reading articles and watching videos about the game you would expect something at least a few levels above a shoot em up grinder. SO much hype, so little substance.
I dont care anymore. The industry is producing junk. Warhammer is going to be a joke, or already is a joke. Conan is, well... who knows when they will finnaly finish it.
The only shining star on our horizon is The Chronicles of Spellborn! I cant wait for that amazing combat system to go live and dominate the genre.
They should have kept it a fantasy title, like it was a couple of years back.
The game is pretty, and may have interesting spawn features, but it is boring.
I figured that it would be a PvP game, seeing as NCSoft was doing it, I am left highly disappointed. I guess they think there are FPS people out there that don't want to kill other people?
Richard Garriot dropped the ball big time on this one. I guess the industry needs to stop looking at old washed up developers like Brad McQuaid and Richard Garriot and find ideas, real ideas, from somewhere else.
echo to all above...
I deleted it a ways back. the final starw for me was getten killed 2 times trying to pass a ship by the stream. id wait from a distance ship would pass id run crouch down behind a huge tree. Peaking around the corner i see the ship turn around. As soon as it got to BAM right through the tree dead. lol said when all the AI can shoot you through att the objects., and beable to detect you behind them. Glad I dint dump even a penny into this game.
I haven't played it that much yet, but it has been fun so far. I've only played to around level 7 or so at this point.
The most difficult part of the game for me is choosing a skill path as I'm not really sure what skills I would like or dislike. I don't seem to have enough points to max out one skill in recruit and I'm already choosing my second skill tree soldier/specialist which has a lot more skills to choose from.
The combat is a lot of fun IMO. It's like Star Wars Galaxies NGE, but it's much better done. All you hotkeys for switching weapons, abilities and talking to NPCs are right next to the WASD keys. The movement is generally very smooth.
The quests are decently tricky at first, but when you find out how to use the maps and waypoints everything becomes pretty simple. That quests are the same type of quests as in WoW, but I think they are good enough to keep you moving along.
The game has been fun for me so far and I will play it for a little while until I can try Warhammer.
Overall the game is pretty weak. "Shallow" is the adjective that leaps most to mind.
The graphics are decent, nothing amazing by any means. The gameplay is more or less standard MMO gameplay that tries to seem like, but very much is not, third person shooter gameplay. This shooter-style is what I think a lot of people were excited about and it was basically facade. The game boils down to the old get a quest (from a guy with a yellow walkie-talkie over his head) to kill some stuff, and return to him to get some cash, exp, and maybe gear as a reward. That's pretty much it.
The lack of skill variety doesn't provide much incentive to level. To compound this problem often only the early skills are useful. Another consequence of the lack of skills is that only functional difference between classes is what kind weapon you use.
Mob variety is also very lacking. All you seem to fight is the same 3 or 4 types of Bane alien soldiers over and over. Only their level changes. The whole "war with aliens" setting should not be an excuse to fight the same handful of mobs from start to end.
PvP is something I can't comment too much on simply because outside of one-on-one duels, it wasn't in the Beta. Which I feel is a bad sign in and of itself. In theory, they've said that you can fight other PvP flagged clans (and only PvP flagged clans). This could be interesting but all the info about it seems so vague and clearly unfinished I can't and don't consider it part of the game at this point.
The good points are the cloning system, so you can try out the different classes branches with having to level up another toon. Also, it's fairly polished bug-wise. The sci-fi aspect of shooting guns instead swinging swords is fun for the first hour or two, then reality sinks in.
To sum up, for all the talk about innovation and dynamic game worlds from Richard Garriott, I saw none of what he has described. The Bane spawns in the same places and does the same things. Tabula Rasa is a simply a static world with surprising few activities. You'll soon find yourself quite bored.
Now that I can say.... This game bored me very quickly. It's not a true shooter and gets quite monotonous. Take an average fantasy mmo and substitute guns for spells and swords. The game is pretty, and lots of stuff is going on, but it's just scripted events and respawns. I was really looking foreward to this one too. Perhaps Huxley will offer the real shooter mmo experience i was looking for.
oh, just to be straight. I beta tested this game. i submitted almost hourly bug reports and replayed bugged things to replicate them. I didnt just play this to have a free game.
I've been playing for a month now and I am really enjoying the game.
The pace and immersion of the game are the best I've yet seen in an MMO.
It doesn't really have great versatility, so if you don't like running around shooting the enemy and doing missions, then chances are you aren't going to like the game.
The main thing about the game is that the combat is actually a ton of fun. Even when running from place to place i frequently juts stop and shoot random mobs on teh way because it's fun.
Another thing to point out about the game is that it's 100% soloable. This plays both for and against it. I love to solo, but I also feel that the game lends itself really well to tactics and group play and would really benefit from significanly more difficult content.
Overall I love it and am planning to buy it.
The worst case scenario is that it will turn out to be a really fun single-player game for 2 months. Best case scenario is that it's the most fun MMO on the market. Really can't lose.
fyi, I made it up to level 24 out of 50 before the latest beta wipe.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
My personal view of the game played to like lvl 16, ITS MY OPINION....while others may not share it, please be civil and no flaming
Background (Score = 8)
Tabula Rasa™ (TR) is a massively multiplayer online action game that takes you into the heat of battle at the frontlines of an epic war between a xenophobic alien race bent on galactic conquest and the coalition of rebel soldiers who've traveled across the galaxy to stop them.
Combining fast-paced action with the immersion of a role-playing game, Tabula Rasa takes the player on an intergalactic adventure where the individual has an opportunity to significantly impact the pace of battle on a global scale. Players enter the game as rebel soldiers wielding a variety of futuristic weapons, potent demolitions and the mystical power of “Logos.” It is up to each individual to use their stealth, ingenuity and skill to assist a ragtag coalition of rebels in their efforts to stop an enemy known for its intelligence and unyielding determination to enslave the Universe.
The concept and story behind TR is very original and a break from the norm. Based on a sci-fi apocalyptic setting, it offers the change from your standard run of the mill Orcs and Elves.
The story is based on an alien invasion force, which came and conquered Earth. Few people survived and were transported to a secret military base, which held a secret government project – a worm hole to the invading alien’s planet. As a surprise attack, you are part of a military group, scrounged from the refugees of Earth, to destroy the enemy in their homeland.
Sound (Score = 3)
Perhaps the worst part of TR is the sound effects and sound ambiance. Nothing in the sound files even resembled a feeling of ambiance, nor was there any sort of sound that signified….well…anything.
The combat and sound affects seem like they were taken from a stock CD you can buy for $1.99. They come no where near the realism that games like Medal of Honor or Half Life exudes.
The only nice part of the sound was the voice chatter expressed by the NPCs. They kind of immerse you into feeling you are part of a live crew, and listening to them fight was pretty cool.
Performance (Score = 8)
System is running on a AMD 64 X2 4400+, 2 gigs of 667mhz ram, ATI Radeon X1600 pro video card, with 10/100 NIC on a cable modem, on balanced graphics settings.
Very smooth, clean and nicely done. No lag spikes to speak of, though this is beta, and there were not a lot of player controlled characters around. My frames per second were around 56, so very little hitching was seen.
Graphics (Score = 5)
The graphics critique is performed using the balanced graphic’s settings.
The graphics were decent, but nothing to write home about. They were reminiscent of Half Life, the first one. Looked very much like the same engine was used.
Lighting effects were subpar, there was one point entering the Luna Cave, where you could tell after entering the cave, the cave got dark. But the transition was not smooth, and it happened almost abruptly. Shadows and the external environment also seemed very rigid. You could walk into a tree canopied area, and your character would look the same as if he was standing in pure daylight.
The particle effects were also lacking. The first 2 “powers” you have are sprint and lightning. Sprint had was indicated by glowing red boots and lightning was very minimal….very very…non-threatening looking or powerful. Looked like a very thin blue zig zaggy line.
All in all a very poor showing for graphics, and it felt very synthesized.
Gameplay (Score = 5)
Hmm..well since this is beta, I will try to be lenient. But there were many glaring oddities that I did discover…that shouldn’t be at this stage.
First off, the actual gameplay. It is an odd combination of a third person shooter with a mix of first person feel. But unlike a true first person shooter, the targeting is a mix of twitch combat and sticky reticule. Before your head bursts trying to decipher what I wrote, let me explain.
The targeting is manually “steered” in a first person way, and the firing occurs as such as well. But when you get near or on a target, it locks on and as long as you are near the target it will fire at it. If you move your reticule far enough away, you will untarget it, unless you hit tab to lock on permanently.
It works…feels a little odd at first, but you get used to it.
Collision detection, well it is just horrible to say the least. NPCs were consistently shooting me through the walls, floors, force fields, etc. Also, unlike true FPS….there is no way to manually dodge a bullet. If your fighting a turret, and you see its lasers coming at you, and you move…guess what….the lasers suddenly curve and follow you (unless alien technology is so advanced they gave light the ability to curve and track its target…then that would be cool….from a story line point of view…never mind…I digress). Terrain mapping and negotiation is also waaaaay off. Numerous times I got stuck in a box, rock, terrain, etc. No unstick command or anything that i had found, just relogging.
The atmosphere in the beginning draws you in…you feel like there is a dire urge to survive, and when dropships land bringing the npcs and enemies you feel alive and in immersed within the story line. That dies down greatly after doing the same thing three times.
The gameplay becomes repetitive and stale. “Go here, stop the invading force”, “Talk to XXXX”, “Find XXX and return it”. Monotonous and very little story line/lore, replayability depreciates quickly…as well as your attention span towards the quests.
The game is very linear…similar to Lord of the Rings Online, with very little freedom of gameplay by this point. You go from NPC to NPC looking for missions, and the worlds are instance. You go from one “chapter” to the next via dropship, and you pick an instance/zone you want to play in (Such as XXX zone 1, XXX zone 2, etc.).
As a side note…I have not tried crafting…so I can honestly not comment on it
There is one pretty unique aspect, the Logos. Powers you find / receive during your play time. There is a huge inventory box you can use to store these in and have a wide variety to choose from, leading to pretty diverse powers/abilities/skills.
Controls/Interface (Score = 7)
Simplistic and clean, TR is very easy to get used to. Everything from the controls to interface is very streamlined and minimalistic, and the controls are all WASD movement, so people using this for their mmos or play FPS using this same setup will feel right at home.
The interface is very clean, and easy to use…minimal clutter on the screen. You have 8 (all I saw at this point) hotkeys, 4 for weapons, 4 for abilities. There might be an option for a second row or more boxes, but I haven’t found it.
Community (Score = NA)
Hey its beta…only a few people there, can say I haven’t run into any asshats just yet.
Customer Service (Score = NA)
I have not had any issues (other then getting stuck in terrain) that I would consider calling a bug or need the help of CSR. The launcher and download all worked fine.
Roleplaying Value (Score = 2)
There are little or no tools in game for roleplaying, and toons are visually identical for the most part. There are basically 12 different customization options to choose from. Also, I haven’t found any emotes, nor housing, social centers (other than the hospital or shop).
And with little lore/story, this is NOT a roleplayers haven.
Other (Score = 4)
There is a built in voice chat…..
Overall (Score = 5)
Other than the game setting / timeline, this game does not bring anything unique or WOOHOO! OMG! THIS ROXORZ! To the table. The sci-fi apocalyptic setting is nice, but that’s about it. Very bland, middle of the road game in my opinion.
My Deep Thoughts
Would I play this if it were free to play……definitely, but as a pay to play game, probably not. Lots of bugs, uninspiring gameplay, and general loss of ambiance and the little things that make you feel immersed in the game seem missing.
I wouldn't preorder this game, as is, the game needs a lot of work.
I'd have to say this basically describes the game accurately. The only real difference for me, was that the story did not really pull me into the game. The questing is basically go kill 10 rats type of stuff, not badly done for what it is, but definitely nothing outstanding. it was definitely not what I was expecting from Gariott. He basically just used every formula already done to death, and put a sci-fi skin on it.
What moron designs a 'shooter' ish game with no first person mode!
Like I said when a couple days in a thread that got deleted and I got a warning for saying it..
I quote what I said that was deleted...
"I have the same problem I just can't get into this game. I can only play for about 30 minutes then I want to pull my hair out it's so boring."
I was in beta for about 2 1/2 months, I tried and tried to make my self like this game... I thought the idea of the game was cool. It's just the gameplay with the FPS style reminds me allot of SWG. Actually I found that SWG NGE kept my attention more than TR. I am sorry to say that. Again, I stress I tried several characters and several times to at least try to get a feel for the game. One of my main concerns was that the only playable race is Humans, was kinda lame. I wish RG would have made it so you could play the Bain and make the Bain have special melee combat like a fantasy game. That way people could choose if they wanted to be pew pew laser gun shooters or warrior alien's that could use guns as an option. Basically make the alien race have some native or original melee combat stuff. Yes there is melee kicking and punching and pistol whipping in the game... and hand to hand combat options but it's lacking depth. I just wish things were just little different as far as PVP and character choices. Like, make the PVP team based like EQ2 and WoW with PVP zones and battlegrounds. Yes, this would make corpse camping and ganking available but I like that stuff it's fun.
Sorry, if my grammer or sentence structer is screwed up... I am not a professional game reviewer and I don't work for any gaming companys. I am just a gamer. That likes to play MMOs. I will probably be editing my post allot after I submit it.
Bugs in a beta?
Oh no?!
Why do people expect a game to be perfect in beta? Grow up people.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Try reading. I'd say there are few, if any, people here complaining about bugs. Flawless programming means nothing when the gameplay is stale and boring.
Two pieces of news I'd like to share:
1.) The game has gone gold. What this means is that the client you played in Beta this week is essentially what you will find on your TR CD when/if you purchase the game in the stores (this doesn't mean there won't be updates on opening day - I assure you there will be tons):
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/34162/Tabula-Rasa-Goes-Gold
2.) The game's pricing structure has been released. WOW, I am very disappointed/dismayed. $14.99/month...I wish them all of the luck in the world - I just cannot justify a monthly fee for this game.
http://www.plaync.com/us/news/2007/09/ncsoft_announce_22.html
Most people I read mentioned getting shot through solid objects. Not only did this rarely happen to me, it is a pretty simple coding problem I imagine and isn't as game breaking as people say.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Try reading. I'd say there are few, if any, people here complaining about bugs. Flawless programming means nothing when the gameplay is stale and boring.
Most people I read mentioned getting shot through solid objects. Not only did this rarely happen to me, it is a pretty simple coding problem I imagine and isn't as game breaking as people say.
collision detection is no way a simple coding problem
Reading through the responses in this thread, as well as my own experience, i'd say the overwhelming majority of complaints are about the game design, not the bugs.
Way to single out one comment out of dozens.
Way to single out one comment out of dozens.
*Gives up on getting some sense out of this thread.*
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman