Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The 100% true facts about TR...
Mithrandolir
Member UncommonPosts: 1,701
... in my opinion!! 
This is not a review, more of a journal of sorts...
TR starts you off in a boot camp environment. It's quick and to the point, gets the UI learning out of the way fast and gets you into a fun little rush of enemies that come in fast and furious waves as you overtake a control point base.
This really sets the mood of the game as it never really slows down after this. TR is fast and furious for as far as I have gone (mid to high 20's in beta with a couple of characters).
Once you finish the boot camp part of the game, you'll have a pretty good feel for the combat mechanics and be able to defend yourself in the wilderness which is where you are sent next.
The wilderness area introduces you to some ally aliens and also your first real base of command where you can pick up many quests and missions. Some of these missions are the same as other mmorpgs, fed-ex, kill and collect types but others force you to make ethical decisions which I found to be an awesome twist on questing. Also, the standard Fed-Ex and kill missions are different from most games in the sense that the world that you are travelling through is MUCH more hectic and dangerous.
Enemy ships are forever dropping more Bane (the enemy) in groups of 3 - 5 at low levels and more at higher levels, in your path. NPC's and PC's alike ban together in fighting these bane and the fights are chaotic and an absolute blast. TR is better than any game I have played in this respect and I have played every mainstream mmorpg (and some not so mainstream) except for WWIIO. In the beginning you are often suprised by the sound of enemy ships coming in and/or Bane teleporting in, and suddenly you are under attack. Players have been awesome through beta and beyond now as far as joining together in the fight.
Combat consists of setting up a series of equipped weapons on the lefthand 5 buttons of the hotkey tray. You can cycle through which weapon is equipped with either the Q key or by pressing the associated hotkey button (1 - 5).
Whatever weapon is equipped, you use that weapon with the left mouse button, firing your weapon at whatever is in your crosshairs. You can hit TAB to lock your target if you wish, or you can not hit tab (which is how I play) and keep it feeling more like an FPS. But once it starts getting chaotic in the heat of battle, with tons of players fighting tons of bane (like defending or assaulting a control point for example) you may wish to use the target lock feature simply to keep up with the chaos.
The right hand side of the hotkery tray "6 -=" is for your skills like Lightning attack and Shrapnel and things of that nature. These attacks are set to active by cycling through them with the E key and landing upon one you want to activate, or by hitting the corosponding number key. Then you use that active skill with the right mouse button.
Cover matters in this game. Ducking behind a tree or a sandbag (anything really) will reduce the amount of damage you take from enemy fire (and vice versa. Again, this is the only game I've seen doing this and therefore they do it better than any other by default 
I find it very fun to use tactics like this in assaults and defending bases.
Kneeling (crouching) give you a stornger shot and better aim so that the damage you do will be higher. Another very cool aspect for a mmorpg and one that find myself using alot and really adding to the immersion of the battles.
As I travelled upward in levels, the quests became far more insteresting to me. The ethical decision type quests were awesome still, I just wish there were more of them, but they seem to be a big hit so i am sure they'll be adding more very quickly. The normal quests are fun and the rewards are awesome! I have been gaming a long time and very seldom do I feel like the quests are important. In TR I feel just that, like I am needed... like I am doing my part in the big picture.
The zones are GIGANTIC and instanced (shared), so many players can be in each instance. This doesn;t seem to detract at all from the social aspect as there are always plenty of people on each instance of each zone. At times I have been involved in huge fights at control points with over 75 players and 50+ Bane coming wave after wave and it's just pure fast paced chaos. But the great thing is there is no lag during these huge fights! I have never played a smoother game as far as lag goes. i have not crashe din over a month of beta and now retail. I have not lagged at all thgouh gigantic fights. I'm running a mediocre machine : Athlon64 X2 4600+ Dual Core with 2GB ram DDR 800 dual channel, SATA 250GB HDD and Vista Home Premium... Also a GF7600 OC'd a bit. Even on this system the game runs like lightning and remember that I am talking about gigantic fights full of players and NPC's and enemies.
There's a second planet full of zones already and a third (Called Mycon I think) coming next year per the TR team.
Logo's are hidden pieces of an ancient language that are needed to use skills and understand hidden knowledge. They are scattered throughout the world in shrines. As you find them, you learn them.
Movement is done by WASD and mouselook (which is deactivated by hitting the tilde key). Hitting CONTROL will bring up a radial menu system. You can resize the chatbox, and set the font options and filters for each tab.
The inventory is a tabbed backpack and each tab holds certain things (like a tab for ammo, a tab for armor and weaps, a tab for quest items, a tab for crafting material, etc...)
Crafting consists of enhancing and creating items based on blueprints and plans that you find as loot for the most part. It's not a crafting system like most games where you craft and sell your stuff (although you can), it's more lilke making each of us more self sufficient. Some think this is promoting anti-social behavior but it's not like that at all, it's simply making it so that you can get the things you need done, done quickly and get back to the combat which is really where the game shines.
The music is awesome and the ambiant sounds are some of the best I have heard in a mmorpg.
I have to run, I'll add more later, there's a ton to talk about. But before I go, let me mention a couple of things that I wish were different... because, you know... around here you'll get lynch mobbed and labeled a "Pathetic Fanboi who throws money at pathetic products" if you don;t have some level of hatred within your system.
I wish the UI was a little more customizable. Just a tad, it works and it works really well as is, but I would at least like to move my chat window from the upper left which is a weird place for it.
I wish that the S in the WASD set up wouldn't spin your character to face the camera while backing up, although as long as you are shooting a weapon it doesn't spin you, you actually back up
I wish that travelling was a little bit harder, it just seems way tooeasy to get anywhere way too fast, this is the future however and I guess it makes sense to have instant teleports.
Be back in a bit.
****************************************************************
Ok... back to add alittle more before hopping in game.
Someone mentioned bugs, ther are some but I honeslty have not run into any in the past 2 - 3 weeks. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying that I can't really comment on them at this time since I am not experiencing any. I do fully support anyone who finds bugs though as I do agree that a game that reaches release should have minimal bugs. I do wish they would make the arrow that represents the player on the minimap, stay on top and take priority over other icons.
The graphics are really nice on max settings. The world is lush and extremely explorable. I never tire of just exploring and finding new areas and new adventures. It's not Crysis but it's a great looking game that's full of detail and life. To add to this, the little PA broadcasts in bases are a great touch! For anyone who remembers M.A.S.H., this should be a nastalgic blast that really sets the mood.
This is the first game where I truly "feel" the war... the chaos. In my opinion no other game has brought a more realistic feel to the conflict with the common enemy.
PvP. It's not open FFA PvP but the clan wars are extremely fun. Once you join a PvP clan, and they declare war with another clan, those members of the two clans do have open PvP across the entire map (even some bases are not secure). The pace of the game makes this thrilling compared to other games PvP (speaking of mmorpgs here, not FPS's) and has given me some heart pounding moments! Between the control points and the open clan wars, I like this games PvP better than DAoC's and I feel that DAoC had one of the better PvP models out there.
This is only one of a very few games where leveling stopped mattering to me early on. I am having so much fun that when I do level it's a complete surprise to me. It's just an added bonus to the fun i am having.
They need to implement some form of player targeting while grouped. The lack of this is pretty bad. At times, while trying to target groupmembers I get fairly frustrated. It just makes no sense to leave this out.
Weaponwise you've got your standard futuristic sci-fi weaponry that you would expect. Hand to hand, melee, pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns,leech guns (life leeching), rocket launchers, grenade launchers, net guns (rooting guns with a small dot), polarity guns, injection guns, propellant guns, staffs, torqshell guns and blades, depending on your chosen profession.
Armor-wise you've got motor assist, reflective, hazmat, graviton, stealth, bio and mech armor, again depending on your class, som e make more sense than others.
The cloning system is perfect in my opinion and one of the games greatest features. They didn;t over do it, there's not too many and not too few. You can clone before major level milestones (where you'll chose a branch of the profession tree) and your clone can then start out at the same level that you cloned at, and therefore choose the other of the two paths you were faced with, if you'd like. It's truly a genius system. Each time you clone you can choose new character features (like at creation, face/hair/height, etc...).
When you create your first character, you pick a first and last name. Your last name is critical as it will become the last name of all of your future alts and characters. This is also a really awesome feature in my opinion as it not only eliminates people from being asses and then logging in an alt to escape to anonymity, but will also make it much easier to track down friends if they are on their alts.
This game has a ton going for it. It's simply one of the most fun games to come down the pipe in many many years. It's got some things that need work and some things that must be added real soon in order for it to fly, but these things seem to be coming sooner than expected and some have already cropped up in game recently.
Although I would highly recommend this game to everyone, I also understand that 50 bucks is 50 bucks and not easy to part with sometimes. If you didn;t get a chance to play beta and/or you don't have a friend playing it where you could swing by their house and check it out first hand, then maybe you should hold off until you get a free trial code which I am sure will come along soon knowing NCSoft.
Back in a bit, going to log in for a bit
************************************************
Part (3)
The first real private instanced dungeon.
Last night I had the chance to run Pravus Research at level 9 (my first time running it since beta) and let me just say they've made it a lot harder. This is agreat thing, it was a nice challenge at level 9 and took a decent amount of time and startegy.
My first run through I died a whole lot, these Bane in here are extra crispy buffed
I soon remembered to use cover as my best friend and did much better the second time through. Ducking behind sandbags and corners of walls, running and diving off of ledges and hiding in dark corners of rooms. Every object in the room becomes your friend and can be used for cover, severely reducing the enemies damage to you.
Making my way through the entire area and coming to the end (no spoilers) was a ton of fun and I loved every second of it. The story was compelliong and once again i felt like I was part of the big picture, something most mmorpgs fail at miserably in my opinion.
This is the first time in a LONG time that i have left an instanced dungeon after completing it in a game and felt like... "Wow! I can't wait to run that again!"
more later... /salute
Comments
Sounds about right to me. 'Course, I'm a Tabula Rasa proponent. What you didn't mention is any of the bugs and stuff which, rare as they are, should be included just to have a balanced review.
I will say that, upon reaching The Divide, I was a little disappointed to see that the Capture Points were not being assaulted by Bane at all. However, the NPCs for capture points are there, so I think it's just a matter of the devs throwing the switch.
I hear they're planning some pretty big things in the near future (as in, a week or two). There's going to be an Auction House/Bazaar system (pretty much a MMORPG standard) these days called Military Surplus, and I've even seen the building for it in the Precipace [sic] zone. There's going to be mechs you can pilot at level 40. There's going to be small contingents of NPC troops you can command too. Very optimistic stuff, I look forward to it.
Well, Megaflux ,while I can agree with you that optimism is unjustified, I find your insistence that Tabula Rasa is a "purple shit" despite the fact that many people are currently enjoying the hell out of it to be misplaced.
All I can tell you is, a few days ago, the developers were broadcasting during the 3-Day start that they were planning on having some of these cool features up within a few weeks after release. Not months, not years. I would indeed be assuming to much to insist that this is absolutely going to happen. However, so also would I be assuming to much to insist that this is absolutely not going to happen.
So, for the time being, I'm being cautiously optimistic, I'm suggesting that if the developers follow through with the promises, it'll floor me. I'm actually backing that up with current day experience that I actually like the game as it currently is despite mild disappointment that certain features are disabled.
If you regard yourself as a messenger of Jesus, that's another problem entirely.
Great post!
On a side note Mithrandolir, and this is oddly obscure, we have the EXACT same join date. Weird, eh?
I totally agree.
So.... No one else has performance issues with this game? I ran it on three different machines and it ran like shit on all of them. It was laggy and chuggy, damage took forever to update.... and all that is with graphics turned down to the point that the game looked about 5 years old.
I have seen a thousand people post roughly the same opinion i have of the game... that it's a huge steaming pile, doomed to either go free to play or shut down entirely within the first year.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
I don't know what to tell you. I'm not running a terribly up-to-date comptuer and it runs smooth as butter at 1280x720 resolution. Not even Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion runs this smoothly on my computer. My specs are in my Xfire profile.
If I had to take a total guess (seeing how you didn't mention your specs) I'm betting you're running Windows Vista. That is so not a worthy gaming platform yet.
You must expect games to automatically scale down so that they can play on your obviously inferior and crappy computers that you have access to.
No performance issues for me since I tend to actually upgrade my computer now and then.
Even if this game is not successful, I doubt it would become free to play or shut down. There are a handful of other mmo’s that are way worse and they are still around.
Oh by the way, there may be a steaming pile here in this forum, but I suspect it's not this game.
There's a ton of people playing right now who are loving the game and not out here posting about it. We won't miss the thousand who have posted that it's a steaming pile... honestly we're pretty glad to be rid of them.
As far as the game going F2P or shutting down within the first year... it's simply not going to happen. I know this to be as much a fact as you knowing it will shut down or be F2P.
Added to the original post, below the ***************** line
Excellent write up! I played the beta and got the pre-order headstart, and I absolutely love Tabula Rasa. On performance: for a totally new game, it runs like silk. I am l=glad to see some new games coming out of the gate running (like LOTR and now Tabula), its a refreshing changes from the crappy, buggy releases of yesteryear. I hope these new games set a benchmark for other developers to follow. There is no reason the game should not be running decently on computers with the required specs.
Tabula is not going to be for everyone, first off it's Sci-Fi and so many people are in love with elves and Orcs in this genre. It is also doing something fairly new, combining rpg and a fps styles. I suspect it ill be around for years, but will attract more of a niche crowd. Or perhaps it will attract more persons as it grows and addes new features. I dont know, but I am very happy with this game, everyone playing it is having a blast!
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online
I'm playing and enjoying TR atm
Anyway,your statement kinda loses impetus when you actually check your *not so up to date comp* that you try to make sound like its a pos lol;
like rofl quad cored for a start and x1600xt? really if you had a amd xp2800 with a 6600gt 128mb card maybe i could understand lol.
Oh and atm anyone with a 7600 card ,for example, will find they have bad fps but devs are supposed to be working on it (something to do with shaders etc)
hmmmm that's strange.
I'm running Vista and a 7600 card and get great FPS and smooth gameplay. When I say that this game is the best performing mmorpg I have ever played, I'm not joking, and I have played a ton of mmorpgs.
I have not had a single performance issue even though there have been a huge amount of players around me at times.
Anyway... I hope they sort out the issues for those of you having performance issues.
Well I have signed up and am hoping to be ingame soon. Look out mr.garriot cause I wonder what lootz you drop
I am running XP pro, I have a p4 3.2, 2 gig of ram and geforce 7800 GS (256). I tried on three computers here, all with roughly the same specs and almost identical results. It was really choppy when i was moving, and damage on mobs was badly delayed.
I can run oblivion on high, battlefield 2142, lord of the rings online and hellgate London at max settings. ... but this one runs like crap for me. I kept hoping it would get better as beta progressed, it wasn't even playable for me, so i just logged back in to beta after every update to see if it was any better... it never improved for me even a little bit.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
Defractive(?) light and shadows fooks me card over badly.
Oh and im on an amd 64x2 4500 with 2 gig ram and a 512mb 7600
Hopefully the coming days/weeks will sort that and th horrendous ping times out ( From scotland btw i get better ping to USA east servr than the euro server(singular!) )
Yeah, looks like the Euro-server is getting hammered hard!
And for those with good comps and are having performance issues?
I have been playing on a laptop.... Single core.... And the game runs ok. Low graphic mode, but the framerate is decent. Might want to check your rigs over real careful and see what may be interfering... There's got to be an answer. It just doesn't make sense that I have little trouble and you guys do.
Wow a lot of counter strike boxes here. I think you all need to know that games are moving away from single core CPUs and are now embracing multi-core CPUs. That means you nice little P4 3.2GHz Intel isn't going to cut butter. Spend 400 bucks and upgrade to a dual core intel and you'll see quite a difference. And, I recommend a video card with a 256bit memory interface MINIMUM and 512MB memory or more.
Tabula Rasa will run beautifully on a
Intel Core2 E6300 : $172
2GB DDR2 RAM : $100
Motherboard: $100
(optional) Video - x1950gt: $130
Really you people should do some research on where the newest games are heading in terms of hardware. If you do not have a dual/quad core CPU, 2GB or more of memory, and a memory loaded video card with decent pipes you are not going to get jack in terms of performance. I am running:
Intel Core2 Duo E6550,2GB DDR2 800 memory,Sapphire ATI Radeon x1950pro 512,WinXP Pro SP2
and for Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London, and Crysis I get:
Tabula Rasa:Maximum Settings @ 1280x1024 = 40fps (caves), 18fps (towns), 34fps (terrain)
Hellgate London: Maximum DX9 settings @ 1280x1024 = 50fps (dungeons with 12+ demons on screen), 20fps (multiplayer town with 30 or more players on screen)
Crysis: Low settings @ 1280x1024 = 27fps (terrain), 18fps (firefights)
So, if you are complaining about performance on a 4 year old processor you are obviously
Well the Quad Core processor was my most recent upgrade and it's not really all that hard of one to make considering the chip is <$300 right now. However, not many applications make fabulous use of a Quad Core processor, I'm not sure Tabula Rasa would perform any better on my Q6600 than it would your average Core 2 Duo.
However, one thing for sure is that Video Card tends to matter as much or even more in games. If you did your research you'd know that my ATI X1600XT is actually pretty ancient. My Motherboard isn't terribly optimized - it's a bridging board for people who are on a budget and still who want to use an AGP-based GPU with a modern CPU.
My ram, the DDR333, is pretty ancient. DDR2 is what people should be running on these days.
So yeah, I feel pretty damn justified in saying that I'm running Tabula Rasa on a "not so up to date" setup. You should really get some technical skill before accusing me of otherwise.
Dont be a dick.Youre stuff is far from OLD as in old like what you have is better than the average player.
But if you want to be an ass about it fine be an ass.
That sounds a problem more to do with lag/connection issues. I ran the game on a quad cpu, 8800gtx, 4gb of ram machine and got similar problems which cleared up after a while till it was smooth, though recurred occasionally. If all 3 machines were on the same connection then I would investigate that as the issue.
Well the Quad Core processor was my most recent upgrade and it's not really all that hard of one to make considering the chip is <$300 right now. However, not many applications make fabulous use of a Quad Core processor, I'm not sure Tabula Rasa would perform any better on my Q6600 than it would your average Core 2 Duo.
However, one thing for sure is that Video Card tends to matter as much or even more in games. If you did your research you'd know that my ATI X1600XT is actually pretty ancient. My Motherboard isn't terribly optimized - it's a bridging board for people who are on a budget and still who want to use an AGP-based GPU with a modern CPU.
My ram, the DDR333, is pretty ancient. DDR2 is what people should be running on these days.
So yeah, I feel pretty damn justified in saying that I'm running Tabula Rasa on a "not so up to date" setup. You should really get some technical skill before accusing me of otherwise.
Wow, I've seen nerds whip out their e-peni before in games and threads but this is the first time I've seen someone whip out their e-pimphand. Well done sir!
added a short (part 3) to the opriginal post.
Find me some survey information about what the "average player's" hardware is and then get back to me. You might think I'm pushing the envelope over here, but sad fact of the matter is that upgrading your PC to keep up with the gaming world is a perpetual endeavor, and Tabula Rasa is doing my 2-year-old video card some major favors to run as well as it is.
Just admit you flew off the handle when you saw my Q6600. Sure, it's a sweet CPU, but it's actually cheap enough for most people to afford (<$300 US, not like certain $700+ US CPUs). However, the rest of my system is at least as old as my video card. I'm not being a dick nor an ass to point out your faulty reasoning.
pretty well and they sure will optimze it further.
____________________
It`s alright
AC2,AO,D&L,Lotro,VsoH,SWG,Uo,HGL,Drunners,CoH,GW,Potbs,PWI
Eq2,Dofus,WoW,WWIIO,Ryzom,Planetside,EvE,TR,DDO,RFonline,FOM,VC,..etc blabla
also hobbies....staring at loadingbars