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Tabula Rasa Goes Free, Brings New Content
Last month we discussed NCSoft's announcement that Tabula Rasa would be closing its doors at the end of February, and their plans to remove the subscription fee for all players in January. Well, they've decided to go completely free a month early, alongside the release of a variety of new content. The game has finally gotten a first-person camera view, something many players have been asking for since launch. A new instance and several other bits of additional content are available as well. NCSoft also previewed player-controlled Mechs and PAUs, which will go live in the next major patch. Ten Ton Hammer has an interview with Net Devil's Scott Brown about the closure of Tabula Rasa.
u is so smart. u saw rite thruh there evil skem to carg u money on ur credit card with out asking.
Right.
There are plenty of people not worth tossing your credit card number too for a free activation. Doing it for a Russia snuff porn site? Eh, probably a poor idea. Doing to a multinational company running a handful of other MMORPGs? Probably not all that risky. If they do decide in a blatant act of malevolent glee to empty your bank account like some Nigerian scam, I am pretty sure that the law kicks in.
I kinda agree with you, but then I can also see why they wouldn't do this also. There are probably issues with IP and third-party licenses that keep them from distributing the server code.
What I would like to see, though, is maybe something like a "dead MMOG clearinghouse" company. If I were such a company, for example, I would pay NCsoft $x for the rights to set up and run one or more Tabula Rasa servers so that players could continue playing. There would never be any more updates to the game, except maybe content updates to advance the storylines given the existing mechanics. (I.e. the stuff probably stored in text files.) I would charge some nominal fee to access the game, and the client would be given away for free.
it's not just an issue with 'upselling'. though certainly the company hopes to keep these people as customers, there's nothing dirty or underhanded about that- quite the opposite, i wish -more- companies put forth effort to reduce customer churn. TR is an MMO, the people who play this game really should understand that the majority of mmo's don't succeed long term, though i will admit TR went a bit quicker than most. generally, when this happens, you end up stuck. do not pass go, do not collect $200. Here, NCSoft is at least offering -something- it's a realization that it's a bad situation, but a company can't continue to operate an operation that isn't making, nor shows any signs of turning a profit. it's a "we're sorry we can't keep the game you want to play running, but here, have some time to get to know all our other games, and decide if there's something here you'd like to try before you leave." the attitude that offering access to their entire online collection for 3 months, plus beta access an a month free of the new game they're producing is insulting.. is just well, insulting. assuming a user took up all that offer, and spent 3 months with CoH and L2, that right there is more than double to cost of the TR game purchase, and while it wasn't completely clear with L2, i did note that the digital DL was included with CoH, so there wouldn't even be a purchase required. the idea of offering up the server software as a free item isn't highly likely. TR's engine has some unique features that would likely do well in another game, therefore, the program will likely stay in the hands of the creators to help prevent issues with any of those future products. really, just lighten up.