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. "

Re:Richard Garriot, The Lord British

[Anonymous Coward]

So which phrase do you use more often each day? "Get off my lawn!" or "MATLOCK!"

Tried the beta

[ringbarer]

Hated it when it was called NGE

Interesting review

[racerx509]

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 [escapistmagazine.com]

Re:Richard Garriot, The Lord British

[loafula]

Ahh the days... I used to hide outside of Moonglow and plant tinker trapped boxes to blow up curious passers-by. Then I would plant tinker traps in their backpacks and watch as the would-be looters met the same fate. Then I'd just loot everyone myself. Those were the days.

God, now what?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> 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?

Re:Try before buy

[Minwee]

Obviously that would be all of the _other_ games made by Blizzard.

You know, Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Horizons, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies...

After this I think I'm going to go out for a pizza at Taco Bell.