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.

Re:Nice ending

[Kedjoran]

They're doing a fair bit more than that, they gave this as a parting gift to active TR players when they were announcing the closing: * 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client * 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client * Aion beta access (coming soon) * Aion pre-order access (available in 2009) * 1 free month of Aion (including digital client, no physical goods, available in 2009)

Yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

From the site:

"You'll need to activate your new account with a credit card number, but don't worry - that's just so we know who you are. We will not charge your card for Tabula Rasa gameplay."

Free my ass. They want a credit card number. Like I'm going to just say "ok, I TRUST you" and hand that over to find they've ripped me off. Screw that.

Re:Yeah right

[andy9701]

While I read that too, I went ahead and set up a free account to see what the game was like. I was never asked for my credit card number - I assumed that they changed the sign up policy since they wrote that page on their support site.

Re:any possibility of open sourcing it?

[Anonymous Conrad]

If this is typical of stuff used throughout... then open sourcing would be very difficult, you'd have to separate everything like that.

That's largely irrelevant, though - it's the game code we need open sourcing and in particular the server code. As long as the game *data* (i.e. the sounds etc.) is generally available we can still use it even if it doesn't get GPLed or whatever.

Re:Yeah right

[PriceIke]

I picked up a copy of TR from Best Buy the other night cause it was going for fifteen bucks, and I wanted to see the world before it closed down.

I took it home, installed it, registered for an account and started playing. I had to enter the serial code for the game, but I don't remember giving them any credit card information. I was off and playing.