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NC SOFT ...poor developer.
Wizardry
Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
I was bored so i started reading up a bit on tabala rasa as i am still baffled as to why the creator of ultima made such a poor game that also had such a different approach from ultima's design.
I found out that garriot's company was actually purchased by NCSOFT and lots of there staff were removed/replaced and the direction of the game was totally changed and re coded.
I think as was in my case ,that lots of people believed this was garriot putting his stamp on a game and truly believed that his knowledge couldn't fail.After all i have read,i strongly believe that NC SOFT ruined this game,especially since i don't care much for anything they have developed including lineage ,a game i played for a few months.
I got the same feeling playing lineage as i did playing TR,it felt super boring and gameplay was VERY superficial.I mean i could actually watch tons of pre programmed/scripted bots kill methodically over and over ,then they would walk back into town following a botted path directly to an NPC for quest cash in.Besides the obvious bots and no GM support that cared about there game,i also felt like i was one of those bots,doing nothing but killing the same mobs and walking back in to cash-in.I remember reporting SEVERAL times the bot problems within there game,yet week after week the exact same bots were still there.
Now i read on the NC soft site that there customer support is top notch[lmao] and that they have a system whereby they can release tons of staff after game launchs such as TR ,yet continue the utmost support for there game...again lmao.This was talk by there staff leader starr long/john erskine trying to shed rumours that TR is not dead and they somehow are making tons of new content and moving forward with great strides even though the game is failing.They said it was a poor release date that hurt the game as there was to much competition to combat against.This could be quite true,but it doesn't matter,release a good prduct and you will get the public support.
IMO i don't trust NCSOFT's staff or game direction for ANYTHING they do or take part in.They come across to me as nothing but another cheap F2P developer,that actually charges for there products.I mean look no further than aeria games ,a F2P developer and you will see that there games play and look quite similiar.IMO aeria's F2P games are perhaps more advanced and a much better value for the cost.
To sum up my opinion,i truly belive that TABALA RASA failed because NCSOFT got there hands on this product and not because garriot has no clue in the sci-fi genre,an impression i got from other posts i read.I was even more shocked to read that most every gaming site gave TR great reviews and rated there gameplay as advanced and breaking new grounds.I didn't find anything to warrant there reviews.This makes you wonder if you can trust gaming site reviews at all.I think reviews were more a case of garriot's name being stamped on the product ,so they wanted the game to be a success even if the finished product was not.
This is all too bad because NCSOFT now owns garriot's company,so i doubt we will ever see anything great from garriot again in the future.Perhaps one day if he can break free from NC and start his own company again.I doubt this will happen because he is getting to the age of no return.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
Raph Koster had as much to do with Ultima Online as Richard Garriott. People tend to forget that, but it's a very important fact. You can now see the difference in how Koster handled SWG and how Garriott handled TR.
I disagree with you, however. Tabula Rasa is a fun game, but it's not a classic MMO and certainly not a sandbox-style MMO like Raph Koster likes to make.
Changing staff on any developing product gives it two possible outcomes: death-march where the product never comes out or it comes out lack-luster which TR did. Because of this, you can say NCSoft is responsible for the fiasco of TR, but Garriott at numerous times, along with Starr Long, have stated there were cultural differences that couldn't be overcome by either Korean or US parts of the TR development team, which meant he (Richard Garriott) had to let go almost all of the Korean team and some of the US team, and start fresh. Such a decision is very risky and costly as they probably literally dumped millions of lines of code and hundreds (to thousands) of manhours of art assets from their HDDs. All in all, there is still fault to leave at Garriott's foot regardless of what hero worship status you may offer him (because every developer that gets an inflated ego is sure to fail regardless of their own individual skill in code and design).
-- Brede
I agree that NCSoft Customer Support is abysmal, but I don't think NCSoft gives that firm a hand in the development of titles they publish, just look at Dungeon Runner.
Tabula Rasa does have its merits. Although its noticebly missing development after release which is crucial to the success of a game. The combat is much more fluid, and weapon choice matters. Heck even ability choice matters. This in my book ranks it higher then most games released. Its instances are also the best in an mmo currently released. I think the reason it failed are several point. 1st it couldn't draw people from the precious mmo they were attached to, 2nd they didn't advertise and hype the game up enough, and 3rd they didn't continue a well paced development after release.
I disagree it was released at a bad time due to competition. Infact it was released in the midst of no competition and the mmo community seeking something new. If they could have delivered on the game it was possible to be a big success.
*Laughs*
I get it.
Replace Tabula Rasa with Vanguard:Saga of Heroes
Replace Richard Garriot with Brad McQuaid
Replace NCSoft with SOE
Nice.
not really, TR was playable upon release, just boring as hell.
vanguard was a fiasco from the word go; both technically and content/play-wise.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I love NCsoft...they're brought us Guild Wars and CoX among other games. Plus, they will be bringing us GW2 and Aion soon too. Woot.
you love Arena Net and Cryptic Studios, NC Soft is just the freaking publisher that usualy ruins all, also that crap L2 was made by E&G an korean craptastic studio i believe.
NC Soft is just a big dam corporation, EA Wannabe, with no real developers or creativity.
Yet if it wasn't for them, they wouldn't be published games now would they?
And wasn't CoX bought by NCsoft?
Personally I think ncsoft has learned alittle bit as you see from things like dungeon runners and exteel, even if thousands of hours are wasted on little things no one cares about they still let them do it. Personally I think there needs to be a bit of a medium. Though it could just be the gamers as well, where stupid things like crafting and auction houses somehow take massive priority over making the gameplay fun and adding actual content; and in the end those gamers quit cause the game sucks and lacks content. Same thing is happening to mythos..
So ya, you let them run free and you get a shallow game with lots of little doodads, or you control them and force them to develop combat and content to have a fun base game, before they start adding extraneous features. If tabula rasa was in a strictly controlled environment it wasnt managed very well, the game gave a lack of fun combat and skills, dumb hybrid aiming system, and a lack of interesting content.
if it wasnt for them would be another publisher simple as that, about Cox not sure.
Another publisher yes...can you imagine SOE being that publisher?
hehe! i see a pattern.Yes u are right, they are less worse then SOE, not sure if somebody worse then SOE tbh lol, at least on mmorpg division.
Honestly, you just don't seem to like the style of many of NCS games. I wouldn't play them anymore if I where you. I don't care for many myself but they have a much better track record them just about every other MMO designer out there.
I agree with you on the point of RG though. I said the same thing. How does this guy go from UO to TR? The way he hyped the game I think people were actually expecting it to be along the lines of old SWG. He's more interested in getting into space these days then being bothered with his failing branch of NCSoft.
Guild War, CoX, Lineage, Lineage 2
Well you see TORAK,that's my point.All the stuff IN TR was totally NCSOFT's ideas,as they didn't like the direction of RG staff and the state of the game it was in.I don't believe you can use RG's name at all in the dev of that game,it was totally NCsofts direction.
Yes you are correct,that they may have bashed it,and perhaps it is more a case of the NA staff defending the game,but it is still NCSOFT.
Idon't agree with NCSOFT having success as just about anything and all games have success in korea,because it is by far the gaming capitol of the world.They support even the biggest trash over there,it's basically a theory that with such a large player base in gaming,everything is bound to appease someone over there.Ever play silkroad online in it's peak?my god there was thousands of players,i mean it blew WOW or any game away by miles,you couldn't even get into there 16 servers at one time it was so packed.Nobody in there right mind would claim silkroad to be the godlike of games,but it just shows how they support anything and everything over there.
Even if AION has success,i bet it'll be just like the F2P games where as the whole gaming world is static,with just a few flashy spells and glowing armour and weapons.That cheap concept idea is long OLD and should be discredited with any uniqueness.Basically they take a very cheap gaming engine and just base the whole selling point of the game off of the glowing weapons/ armour.Even L2 wich used the unreal engine,showed NO modifications,very cheap texture use,and a very weak battle system.
The thing is that even to this day,players over in the asian communitites still grasp onto there MU online days and base games off of that.They think anything that improves on MU is GODLIKE.In this day and age even scrabble is an improvement on MU online.GW only success IMO is that it was free to play,i need only to point back at silkroad to prove how anything is supported over there.This WEBZEN is another korean giant,who was claiming big things last year but i am starting to think they cannot deliver.The only asian developer i have confidence in is SQUARE ENIX,all others put out a cheap product.I do not base a game or developers success off of subs either as timing is huge.By using the word timing i don't mean just competition amongst other games,but also the fact that timing can be huge if the playerbase is getting tired of there current genre or games...AKA WOW,playerbase tired of or didn't agree with the change from EQ>EQ2,and Final FAntasy series was still unknown to many,UO outdated and you can see how timing was right for WOW no matter how good the product was.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
NCSoft is not a developer they are a publisher. NCSoft has only had 2 failures so far, Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa. Many successes and 2 failures does not make them a poor publisher.
Tabula Rasa was doomed from the very beginning, NCSoft had no control over how much much it would suck. Combining a Korean developer and a US developer to make an MMO was such a big mistake that the one and only way to make a bigger mistake would be to scrap the entire project and start over with a completely new and untested direction.
If you had done any sort of research before hand you would know that neither of these mistakes were the fault of NCSoft.
Also, Garriot let NCSoft buy Destination games because Garriot wanted money. In case you haven't noticed he has grown quite fond of money.
Richard "Lord British" Garriot is a has-been. He got lucky at the infancy of video games and the infancy of MMORPGs and hasn't done anything good in over 10 years.
Automaticaly, peole associate looking good with having a terrible gameplay, that's how spoiled we are. I recommend reading a bit upon your points before stating them, cause its hard to win an argument if you haven't looked into what you're saying. Aion has a quite good concept behind it.
L2 is probably one of the best games in terms of textures usage, right now, while armors look awesome and complex, the game can handle 500 people in your screen with little problem if you have a decent rig. With a high scalability so people with cheaper rigs can run it and still seeing it beautiful. It's funny cause right now, L2 keeps being one of the most praised games due to their texturing work, here and there, check "which MMO has the best armors" thread around here to see by yourself how L2 wipes the rest of the games. And weak battle system, I guess you haven't ever been involved with a siege, or with a PK run, you wouldn't think the same.