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Tabula Rasa To Shut Down
NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."
Last time the marketing department springs for a trip into space ...
They really WILL become a "tabula rasa".
It's like when Bill Gates swam in a pool of money to promote Microsoft!
This is exactly why MMO's don't lend themselves well to keeping a historical imprint on society.
Of all the criticisms I've heard of MMOs, I have to admit... that's a new one.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
At least with a MMO you pay far more over the months than for the original game; when they cut off service it saves you money. What does it matter if you play for a year or so then never really play it again or if they shut it down totally?
What if hell froze over, pigs flew, and Bush found WMDs in Iraq ?
Yeah. Not gonna happen.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Ask anyone who remembers how the global LFG channel went.
/shudder
And I just got done with therapy for that, too. Thanks for reminding me...
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
One big EMF smackdown on the earth and its as if we never even existed past the early 2000's.
Well, much as I loved "Unbelievable," I don't think they're coming back, so we need not worry about that.
And anyway, do we really WANT to preserve the history of MMOs for future generations? They might see "LOLZ!!! N00BZ got pwned by agro horde!!!" and decide not to clone us back to life. Worse yet, they might emulate it.