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Tabula Rasa Delayed Two Weeks
The FPS/MMOG Tabula Rasa, developed for NCSoft by Richard Garriott's Destination Games, will now be delayed for about two weeks while some last-minute testing goes on. Eurogamer reports: "The extra time will apparently be used to fiddle around with stability and balance issues, as well as put high-level area Ligo through its paces and iron out some crafting niggles. This is very important to Starr, who was adamant to share the development mantra of, 'Stable, fast, fun. In that order.' In the coming weeks, creator Richard Garriott will be writing features detailing what endgame content we can expect in Tabula Rasa, and how Destination Games will go about adding updates over time."
Apparently parent and grandparent have not played NCSoft's major MMORPG titles City of Heroes and City of Villains. Both have never had an expansion pack, and considerable content is added with each update. In fact, two updates ago, NCSoft added an invention system to augment drops. Additionally, the rate of experience is quite high for an MMO. I've been playing for about four months now and I can get a character up to level 10 in a little more than 10 hours of gameplay—level 6 in about five hours.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I don't see how General Brittish, as he is known inside Tabula Rasa, and his code army is going to fix all of the substantial problems that the game has in only two additional weeks.
/stuck macro (which takes you back in time about 15 seconds, hopefully to a time when you weren't stuck in the terrain). Players can pass through terrain (walls, rocks, flowers (HUGE FLOWERS) intermittently, causing all sorts of interesting situations which can often only be resolved by using the /stuck macro. This area of the game needs a substantial re-design.
MISIONS:
Missions (Quests) break constantly. If you die (or disconnect - which happens frequently) while attempting a mission inside an instance, the mission will frequently become non-completable, forcing the player to abandon the quest, return to the quest-giver, and ask for the mission again. Missions outside of instances are frequently impossible to complete because you cannot interact with one of the objectives (ie, blow up a mining drill or power generator). Logos obtainment quests frequently do not complete when you obtain said logos.
TERRAIN:
Clipping and Bounding planes are simply not enforced in many areas. Players get stuck in the terrain frequently, forcing the use of the
GROUPING:
What is this? All instances (up to level 30, at least) can be soloed by any patient player of any class. All enemy characters can be avoided simply by running by/through their patrol and continuing running until you out-range them -- seriously. The single time I grouped to complete an instance, which was not necessary, mind you, each player simply did their own thing. Nobody healed their teammates, and nobody teamed up to beat the enemy characters. It was essentialy a FPS game with the storyline being played in co-op mode, but without any co-operation.
That being said, TR is a great game, or at least it might be if Richard Garriott doesn't give in to unrealistic publisher timelines, and deliver a beta product as a finished product.
WoW, for all it's faults, at least conveys a sense of wonder, and the stylized characters generally convey a vibe of humor and fun. Characters and settings in TR are like dead wooden tokens that simply stand in as placeholders while you navigate the game.