Slashdot Mirror
Tabula Rasa Goes Live
After a lengthy wait and a substantial retooling, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa has gone live. The New York Times is running a piece looking into the history of Garriott's interaction with MMOGs, while Wired had a chance to speak with the 'General' getting a better sense of what the game is about. "'It takes 30 minutes to an hour just to meet up with your friends to start playing' in most MMOs, says Richard Garriott, the new game's executive producer. In contrast, Tabula Rasa, a PC game that will be released Nov. 2, was designed to appeal to the average Joe who's probably not interested in learning what "gold farming" or "damage over time" means and just wants to amuse himself by saving the universe. It's a calculated shift designed to move beyond the hard-core gaming crowd and court the mainstream audience that has made Nintendo's Wii such a surprise success. And it isn't particularly remarkable, except that Garriott is the man largely responsible for inventing the MMO model in the first place. "
The escapist reviewed a pre-test beta for the game a few weeks back. Yahtzee had some "interesting" things to say about it....
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Played the beta, played the 3 day head start, and got to say, I'm enjoying it so far. /really/ quick to get into. /does/ feel like it's a single player game sometimes that other people just happen to also be in running around, but that's probably why it's quick to get into, there's alot you can do without a group.
Compared to existing MMO's, this is
My main game is EQ, and it's true, can spend hours getting things sorted, farming to prepare for playing 'for real'. This is 'log in, select character, go'. Never stop killing stuff, the grind for xp is very well hidden away.
Graphics look great, sound is good enough to make me want to keep it on and not turn it off instantly like most mmo's.
Now, it
I tried City of Heroes for a bit, that knocked me out for presentation, ease of use, but had little to keep me interested after early teens. I was worried at first in TR as I had that same feeling of 'this is fun, quick to play, great!' and worried that I'd hit the wall of grind/repetitiveness any second, but so far, so good. Plenty of missions/scenery to look at, and the lore of the portals between worlds offers them the chance to spice it up a bit. Seeing big Bots walking around with Chain guns for arms is also giving me incentive to hope that I'll get to drive one soon.
So, yeah, give it a bash, we'll see how it lasts at the mid-high game, but so far, it's had a pretty good start.
Just the memory leaks/crashes after a few hours of play that's the downer atm, sure to be patched soon, but considering some MMO releases (even after 8years), it seems a highly tuned and working game.
Most of all,
Fun!
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I'm a pretty hardcore Richard Garriot fan. I have always played his games, from back with Ultima 4, and I played Ultima Online for the first SEVEN years.
That being said I was worried about this game. For as much as I knew almost anything he makes is very good quality (almost!), I am now in my 30's and am married with a child. I was pretty sure I wouldnt be able to ever play an MMO again without risking divorce.
The pleasant surprise is that Tabula Rasa is NOT like other MMO's. It has most of the same game mechanics and "objectives" as other MMO's, but the big difference is that you actually CAN jump in and play for 30-60 minutes and get something accomplished (and have fun at the same time!).
This fits into my schedule. This is just what i needed in an MMO.
It doesn't work. You can kick a ball for 5 minutes and call it casual soccer. You can't run a 5 minute run and call it a marathon.
Somethings just take time and a adventure is one of them.
One part of an adventure is that you go into dangerous lands, far from your home and safety, battling against increasing odds until finally you reach your goal.
That takes time.
Doesn't mean ALL games have to long drawn out affairs, but a chess game without the full set of piece just ain't a chess game, playing patience with only 10 cards will go a lot quicker but is hardly to be called a game anymore.
Take for instance distance, how far should a target zone be from a player. A 1 minute hop? A five minute walk? A 30 minute hike? A days worth of travelling? Or a venture that takes even the most rabid player days to accomplish.
WHAT give the richer gameplay. Sadly most MMO's seem to think 30 minute hike that has maybe 1 minute worth of gameplay but feels like days is the best option.
Lord of the Rings Online suffers from this, the entire world seems far too small, to the point of being silly. Enemy camps are so close to city they are within arrow range of each others. With the front a few minutes walk away, live continues on peacefully in bree. etc etc.
At the same time quests have you going all over the place.
The worsed of what I listed above, long travel but no sense of adventure.
Back to an old maligned game, Star Wars Galaxies, pre-doc-buffs. Live was dangerous back then and equipment expensive. Once in a while, some brave idiots, eh adventures, set out to hunt rancors, gathering people at a space port for a dangerous mission. Travelling there was a short trip through space (instant travel) but the space ship only left once every 30 minutes. This gave a real sense of preparing for a journey. Miss that ride and you would not make it.
Once you arrived you were on a planet so dark and hostile it had only two small outposts. Some rich but clueless companions would attempt to mount their speederbikes, the more experienced would call them idiots and tell them to put it away or loose it. Speederbikes just serve as extra roughage on Dathomir. Forget about being dismounted, you could loose that expensive vehicle in an instant. Disabled and now probably miles from your mates. You hunt rancors on foot.
Now it depended, were you after money OR were you looting for resources, back then people still cared and that meant a trip to rancor valley. An well deserved name, for a large area to the NW. Better have picked the right spaceport to travel to, or now you had a long distance to traverse to catch up with your group.
If you were lucky, you could buy some last minute supplies from the local bazaar at outrageous prices (I know they were outragous, I put them on there, Ah, sweet money) but with a 30 minute wait there was no hopping back for supplies. You were either ready or left behind. Catch up? Sure kid. You do that.
Then you sat out on a long journey, trying to avoid most things, fightig when needed trying to not attract more. Resting from time to time to wait out poisons and re-orgnaize equipment. If the medic was running out you hoped the ranger was good enough to have the biggest camp available so he could craft new stims with the harvested materials. If not. Well, continue on with what available, to costly to return now.
And then rancor valley, every way you looked, rancors, with just a handfull of giant beasts who you could count on not to attack you, they provided safety of a sort, since they would attack any rancors that came close, as long as you made sure not to accidently attack them.
Then the long hunt would begin, trying to find the right ones, perhaps circling out a young one for a beast master to train. Avoiding the most lethal ones and always on the look out for some force users like nightwitches and more dangerous foes.
Once you were done with the hunt. Well know you have to make your way back, low on supplies
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You can find me in this game.
Well, OK, maybe not me--but you can find a NPC with my name. What happened is, one of the game designers is on another website I frequent, and as you can imagine, you have to name a LOT Of characters when you're writing an MMORPG. He asked for volunteers who were willing to donate their names to the cause. I stepped forward, and the result is that one Corporal Sager Weinstein can be found fighting for humanity, somewhere on the planet Areiki.
The best part: another friend of mine also has an NPC named after him, but he's a lowly Private. I outrank him.
I do not intend to let him forget this.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
> It's a calculated shift designed to move beyond the hard-core gaming crowd and court the mainstream audience
The childishly and embarassingly easy World of Warcraft is the "hard-core gaming crowd"?!?!?!
Good god, what would this new game entail? Portable guards who look like Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still, following you around to kill your rat if it looks like the rat is going to win? Auto flying-carpet back to your body in the unlikely event the rat gets a quadruple-crit just before Gort decides to take action? Everyone born as the King's son or daughter, and sent out into the world with the Gleamming Armor Of Indestructibility and the Singing Sword of Assramming, both of which are in fonts that glow a golden shine with flecks of rainbow in it?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
But you do seem to have an issue with people escaping reality. Sorry mate, but that is entertainment for you. 6 billion people can't be wrong. ALL entertainment is about escaping reality. It is why people read books, watch movies, even listen to music.
HOW you do it, well that is matter of taste, some people swoon for a romantic movie where people never have morning breath, some people thrill to action movies where people never are hold accountable for their actions. It varies and same with game players, some prefer to play roles different from what they are, other prefer to turn into a super soldier and win a war single handed.
Tastes differ.
The biggest problem MMO's face it the translation from SINGLE player to MULTI player. MMO's do not have savepoints or a pause.
Think a moment about this. When the phone rings and forces you to escape your break from reality, you can save any single player game. YOu can ever drop out of a simple multiplayer deathmatch, but do so while grouped with other people and you are wasting their time while they wait.
MS Flightsimulator is a game that allows you to fly all over the world, if you fancy it, you can do a transatlanctic crossing in realtime. Might be a bit boring, but who are we too judge. However the game does NOT dictate that you do those 8 hours in one sitting. You can save when you want, pause when you want so if you fly those 8 hours in a single day, a weekend or a year, the game does NOT care. It even provides speed increases so you can it in less time.
An MMO can't do that. By its nature it can't just stop the world to suit the schedule of a single player.
This really ain't all that odd, if you are taking part in a soccer match, the referee won't hold up the entire game because your phone is ringing. And sorry if you are running a marathon, leaving it to walk your dog will get you disqualified.
Ultimately gamers must themselves decide what time they are willing to commit, but then also accept the consequences. Do not expect to be taken on a raid if you can only spare 5 minutes. On the other hand accept that the number of people who can spare hours on end, are going to be a minority.
Again, this ain't odd, even in most real clubs, the amount of time invested in club activities varies widely. Yet in real life we accept that if you can only spare an hour a week for a club, you do NOT run for a leadership position.
Choices, make them but also learn to live by them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.