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Saving The Next MMO from Being a Tablua Rasa
WiccanCircle
Member Posts: 336
My subscription is up next week. And like most people that played for a few days with this toy - it won’t be renewed. I have left games before, we all have, but I have never seen a launch that failed in such strange ways as this one did. Six years of hard work and this is what pooped out the end? 
Tabula Rasa has convinced me that gaming developers are hopelessly out of touch with the gaming world. And/or that the gaming population in Asia must desire games that are mind bogglingly different from that of the US. I understand that the US and European markets are small change to these companies compared to Asia, but this can not be what the dev team had in mind when they though about making a game.
This game actually has some chump’s name on the box? (To set the record straight, I care far more about the design team that built my microwave than I care about the individuals that put together a toy game… and I don’t care one wit who built my kitchen appliances.) That being said, now that we have seen his namesake toy on the market, I hope whomever that dork is, he hugs his pillow at night knowing he is a complete failure in his chosen profession.
But, who cares about the people, there are dozens of games that come to market and fail. Tabula Rasa is just a larger disappointment than most. Let’s look at the game with a critical eye and instead of just saying what is wrong, let’s try to say how it could have been better so that the developers in the future won’t waste our time and money on poor products like Tabula Rasa.
LAUNCH – It had a clean launch. It functions well. I have run across some bugs, but those just seem like lazy programming more than mistakes in the code. All in all these should be people clapping their hands about a decent launch. I really can’t see anything they could have done better except waited until after there was some sort of game to be played on the smooth engine. I have heard that this is only the Auto Assault engine? That may be true, but I am happy with any engine that seems to function. Now they just needed to put a game on top of it somewhere.
GRAPHICS – I have a Quad Core with an 8800 GPU and well the graphics run fine, smooth and the shadows are nice, but the edges of the hills are still sharp and angular. It seems to me that they could have smoothed out the rough edges a little more. But I will give the graphics a B- for being good enough for a modern game.
SOUND – I guess the music is OK, but I have my own music so I turn theirs off. The rest of the sound I guess is fine, but it is the actual sound effects that are beyond annoying. Bang Bang Bang can only be tolerated for about 30-minutes the first time you play before it is turned down. That length of toleration is reduced to about 5-minutes the second time you log on and it is turned completely off by the third. I am not sure what could be done to fix this since the entire game is all shooting frogs with guns. I guess other games don’t have this problem because there are different attack skills that are less noisy than gunpowder by definition. I have never liked shooters and so this bangbangbang crap is unappealing to me. But for crappy sound effects, they are OK I guess, just not my preference to listen to for an hour.
GAMEPLAY – Here is where Tabula Rasa completely hopelessly horribly collapsed.
Characters powers – There are only a few skills in the game. There is the Bangbangbang skill and a few others. There is also basically one class - Bangbangbang Class. There are a few insignificant subclasses under that, but basically every subclass just shoots frogs anyhow so it doesn’t matter much. Some subclasses kill frogs much better than others - some do it quite poorly. But since the game is almost completely solo, you might as well go Commando and kill frogs faster and get the game over with as quickly as possible. This problem can be fixed by actually making different characters rather than just broken modifications on Rifle Shooting archetype.
Teaming – Even when ‘teaming’ there is no cohesion in this game. A player can not click on another player EVER. (Which proves that this is not an MMO but only a multi-person shooter) A healer can not click on the team mate’s bars and then find that person to heal. They could be on the far side of the map for all it matters since mostly people are just wandering in roughly the same direction anyhow. Buffs do not actually get cast on the person. They are cast in the general area of someone and they stick to whomever the algorithm decides was closest to that area.
This monumentally bad programming causes the “Specialist-Support” subclass to just spam AoE heals and recharges. There really is not much reason to have the support classes in the game at all. NPC Specialists can do this too, so why bother having anything but Soldiers in the game… which is actually happening on its own. This could be remedied by making actual powers and actual contact with other players, but that would require such a major overhaul of this game that it is never going to happen. So it was born a multi-person shooter and it is dying a solo shooter.
LFTing – The way people look for others to team with is the worst I have ever seen in a game of any age. Flowing text from every single zone mixed and jumbled together… wow, I didn’t think anyone made such a bad game mechanic in the last decade. The Fix? Easy, add a LFT box such as is used in City of Heroes. It shows the person’s level, archetype, type of missions they are looking for all with simple icons, then it even has a short few lines for the person to add more info about what they are looking for or what their character specializes in. This seems like something that should have been added to every single game in the last six years. How Tabula Rasa was able to get out of Alpha testing without something this simple makes me annoyed even more by this horrid dev team.
OK, this is long enough right now.
I can see all the problems, everyone playing this turd can. But what I would like to know is what others, that have played different games, could bring to the next MMO to solve some of these problems.
Which games have the best applications, characters, powers or features that would solve these problems and keep the next MMO from becoming some crap-fest like Tabula Rasa. 
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
Comments
If it makes you feel any better I doubt seriousley either Garriott will be at NCsoft come August 2008. Ncsoft gave RG unlimited resources and no schedual.....the game was the absolute best he was capable of, and now in true PT Barnum fashon RG is saying....
"I was more like a minor project manage I just did a few LOGOS really...but my next game that will be all me baby."
Yeah...umm we buy that.
Anyway, RGTR would have never happened if Origin/EA had named given UO a better name...like "Raph Koster's Ultima Online."
Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can walk.
I heard that was when contracts were up.
Yahoo profiles from 2005 say that the brothers own 6% of NcSoft. Don't know if they've sold, or when they can sell. Maybe it's not until August.
I'm sure both of them would love to leave right now. Question is, will the Koreans let them ?
Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can walk.
Personally I think the Koreans would love nothing more. The old guard at the Korean corperate office were huge fans of Garriott. A lot has changed since then, and the Koreans unlike the Japaneese won't reflect on how " they personally" may be at fault...they will just pull the rotten tooth and move on.
This has got to be the single best review that a level 3 Tabula Rasa player has ever given. Not only is it accurate, but it's short and to the point too!
/golfclap
Content Writer for RTSGuru.com
And overall bitter old man.
Actually he is being very accurate.
double post.
this is a fair post.
a little bitter at points, but still fair overall. (that said, nobody here, except me and maybe one other person is going to question any part of it. and I'm just gonna be labeled a NCsoft Employee, right? *shrug*)
that said, for the most part, my opinion of the game differ from yours. I'm enjoying it so far(cue the OMG HE'S PAID NCSOFT EMPLOYEE, HE CAN'T POSSIBLY ENJOY THIS GAME CAUSE I DON'T LIKE IT crap from the peanut gallery..). I enjoy the combat, it is a lot less sleep-inducing that the combat I am used to in my other MMOs. so much so that I find it hard to go back to them.
While I'll agree with you that the game does have flaws, I'll disagree with your assertion that they cannot be fixed, especially since the game hasn't had its first Major Update yet. most of the problems I see have to do with Content.
fact of the matter is, whether you like the game, or hate the game, the fact is...it's incomplete. as far as I know, They totally scrapped the game design what...3/4ths of the way into development(which would mean they spent umm....about 4 and a half years developing one game, and then totally scrapped it, and spent 2 years developing a new one), and then they rushed it to retail when the new game wasn't finished. that shouldn't have happened, but it is what it is. and Now they are playing Catch Up.
You have a gripe with the control system, obviously. I enjoy the control system. It seems to me you'd rather have a traditional control scheme, in which you don't have to point and shoot in real time, but instead click-to-target and then use your keypad to auto-attack and/or use your skills. that's fair as it is your preference, but I don't think that this is a fault or shortcoming of TR. it's just different, and not what you want. personally, i find such a control scheme just a little more fun, and that the fact that a good bit of the heals/buffs are area effect, keeps the Healer types from being locked into a "whack-a-mole" minigame with their group's health bars like they are in most every other game. anyone who has played a Healer for any amount of time, should appreciate that. One of the Number 1 Complaints of "support classes" in any MMORPG, is that they don't get enough of the action, and are forcd to "sit back and heal", staring at their health bars and playing whack-a-mole. This combat system pretty much eliminates that, I think. and it is a good thing.
But like I said, the combat and control system isn't your thing, to each his own, I say. But I disagree that it is something that is *wrong* with TR. It's just not your cup of tea, imo.
I'll agree that the game is just a little bit too solo-friendly, and I hope this is corrected along with adding the requisite high-level content that the game needs.
but overall, I'm enjoying it so far. (I'm still waiting for Garriott to send me my check) and I don't see horrific doom and gloom in TR's future as you, and the other posters in this thread do(and are likely hoping). I don't see TR going away anytime soon. It won't have 129372846738578957385 players like WoW does, but it'll have a firm, loyal fanbase, imo. provided of course, the requisite additions are made and content added. I'll be sticking around to see what the game becomes over the next few months.
Good Luck in whatever game you decide to go(or go back) to.
a Good-Natured Challenge to you. Come Back in 6 Months, and revisit your opinion on the game.
I expected TR to be some kind of new dynamic system of gameplay which is not. If i could improve something than it would be PvP. There would be option for players to pick Bane as a playable race and i would do someting about this outposts so that clans can build their own outposts, upgrade them etc. etc.
I'm so sad cos i believed that TR is going to be like that but i was so wrong.
Its strange that someone spent a lot of time creating all this instances only problem is that there is no some main story you feel involved in. It is fun from time to time but basically there is no other reason why you do them.
My feelings about TR are mess atm cos I'm disappointed and i still believe they can make something that would give ppl reason to play...
I agree that the LFG process does need to be greatly improved, but to say that TR is the only game lacking in this regard is inaccurate. TR does have a LFG channel that many people use, and SWG went for years with absolutely no way to form groups short of standing in a small area of a city and spamming local chat...that had a very short range. That would make the "other" sci-fi game worse than TR in this regard. I admit I would LOVE a group process similar to CoH though.
True, true
Actually he is being very accurate.
Having leveled 3 out of the 4 branches to 30, and after now having no real love for Tabula Rasa due to the lack of content, I'd STILL have to disagree with a good many of the points that the OP made.
Some of the things that the OP said, off of the top of my head, are as follows : Tabula Rasa isn't an MMORPG, not having click targeting is BAD, the classes are all the same, there's no benefit to grouping, and the support classes suck,.
If you agree with any of these points, you probably either haven't gotten past level 4. Bottom line is, Tabula Rasa has two problems - A. it lacks content, and B. it lacks purpose. Writing up a five page tirade and filling it with complaints is simply redundant.
<modedit>
Content Writer for RTSGuru.com
And overall bitter old man.
Can I have your stuff?
I must be doing something wrong as I have set it up with my middle mouse button to click on a target so I can click target.
I have found in a group using a direct heal tool is the best for sheild regen but a circular aoe tool is the way to go as I can spam heal and still throw the occasional lightning bolt at something.
My main gripe is that hitting lvl 32 on my main character after going through the lag fest that is mires zone, there is a sudden loss of content.
So I have cancelled my account I cannot be bothered to put another charcater through mires and I won't pay to just grind away. If they put a major content patch for lvl 30-50 I may come back.
Mires is totally broken, there is like 2-4sec delay from the server however instaces works fine.
Talking about Mires is there any info when its gonna be fixed?
Combine this OPs review with www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/160856 and you got a spot on review for TR.
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