Tabula Rasa Undergoes Massive Overhaul

The Tabula Rasa site has been replaced with a large announcement stating that the game has undergone massive overhauls in the last year. The designers apparently felt that the game simply wasn't shaping up to be what they had hoped, and went back to the drawing board for some elements. From the announcement: "Over the next few weeks you will see changes to the Tabula Rasa website. The site will be receiving a major overhaul in advance of this year's E3 event. You can look forward to new creatures, new features, and new information."

That's good, at least.

[startled]

The last E3 demo they had was an awesome idea for a demo: the game has voice comm built in (about time! all MMOs from here on out should be voice), so they had a "tour guide" take groups of people through a mission. How could that go wrong?

Unfortunately, the rest of the demo was a disaster. You had 3 types of attack; enemies were resistant to various degrees against each type of attack. So, use the right type of attack against the right type of enemy. And... that was about it. No interesting combos (in the demo at least), no obvious cases for teamwork, and certainly nothing to distinguish it from Everquest. Even if the game possessed those qualities (which the demo very much made me doubt), the demo didn't show a single distinguishing trait, except for disconcerting art direction.

I lost all interest in the title after playing that demo. The fact that they're overhauling the game (a while back, they replaced a lot of people, and announced they were slipping the release date for massive changes-- I'm not sure how this announcement is different, actually) makes me a bit interested in it again.

Before World of Warcraft, I think some publishers and developers didn't realize their weak Everquest clones wouldn't bring in the bucks they were hoping for. Now that they see who's gonna eat their lunch while they die in obscurity, I think they're realizing they have to step up and do something different. I look forward to seeing if this game turns out to be any good.

Re:The original design looks good

[startled]

Really? That combat system description almost put me to sleep. Sounds like I get three buttons.

Re:That's good, at least.

[secolactico]

Before World of Warcraft, I think some publishers and developers didn't realize their weak Everquest clones wouldn't bring in the bucks they were hoping for. Now that they see who's gonna eat their lunch while they die in obscurity, I think they're realizing they have to step up and do something different.

My feelings exactly. And WoW is an Everquest clone. But a strong one. Improving upon many weak aspects of the original Everquest (I havent tried EQ2) like DAoC did.

Everybody (myself included) has hig

So I guess that means...

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

/ob UO reference

Trammel from day 1? /!ob UO reference

Re:So I guess that means...

[Nifrith]

Ok, so when Origin went ahead and split UO in two (both in their new Trammel/Felucca system and the playerbase, heh), they did so because they had strong demand from the players.
With Tabula Rasa (another Richard Garriot thing, heh again) it would seem like it's more like Half-Life's development than UO's sudden change (I believe Half-Life was practically scrapped and then started again from scratch alomst?). Still, the parent makes a good point when put in to context with all the EverQuest/UO clones.

Fitting name

[Sri Lumpa]

Calling a game Tabula Rasa (blank slate) and then restarting from scratch in mid-development.

Out on a Limb

[Zonk]

Commentary on this up at Grimwell [grimwell.com].

I personally think is is likely to end up with the product better than it might have already been. While you might say "WoW scared them into second guessing themselves", more development time seems almost universally to lead to a better product.

All that said, I liked the sound of the original Tabular Rasa design. I especially liked the idea of skill/attribute mods being plug-ins, with the avatar's appearance being entirely at the user's whim.

I swear, some of the color combinations I've worn in WoW has made me neauseous.

Re:Out on a Limb

[Geckoman]

more development time seems almost universally to lead to a better product.

Yeah, Daikatana benefitted greatly from the extra time that went into it, and Duke Nukem Forever is sure to be a high quality production because of all the extra time it's had, too.

Sadly, dramatic mid-project changes or indefinite schedules are seldom a good sign....

Skill

[Lord_Dweomer]

I wish there were some MMORPGs out there that actually required twitch skills instead of just "press button A to use power 1, wait for it to recharge, rinse, repeat"

Re:Skill

[AuMatar]

Try AC.

For myself, I'm glad they don't. Twitch isn't skill, its reflexes. I got bored with dodging and jumping years ago. I prefer the gameplay to be more about strategic and tactical skills, which is how current MMOs are. I wouldn't play one where twitching actually worked.

Re:Skill

[Lord_Dweomer]

You see, I desire the tactical element as well, but current games have some of the most dumbed down tactics ever. There's a reason why the army uses CS to train its forces. Its because it provides a good environment for tactical executions.

Current MMORPGs leave out so many factors that apply to tactics that I have no idea how many people claim to play the game for its "tactics". These are pretty basic things too, like range, elevation, sound, light, etc.

Re:Skill

[AuMatar]

Range is definitely an issue, spells work at different ranges. Elevation isn't, that would be a cool addition. ALthough not many FPSes do it right either. Sound and light are impossible to incldue as the client can easily hack the data stream to eliminate the issue, whereas elevation and range are server side checks.

Re:Skill

[Lord_Dweomer]

"A game that requires true intellectual skill need not require quick reflexes at all."

I disagree. I think there are several types of intellectual skill, and quick thinking and decision making is one of them. A twitch based game tests and trains that part of your mind, and develops hand eye coordination.

Re:Skill

[The Evil Couch]

D&D Online claims that twitch skills will play a part in combat.

Last thing I read from them was talking about certain monsters having attack patterns. Such as a minotaur liking to charge. But if it charged into a wall, it'd be stunned for a moment. So, you could dodge the minotaur and then go for the rear attack. (or if you're a really patient and lucky thief, a backstab).

Clearing up a couple of misconceptions

[SirBruce]

I also played the TR demo at last year's E3.

The first poster claimed that there were "No interesting combos" but that's untrue. You would string attacks together in combos; in fact, there was a mechanism very much like the "Heroic Opportunity" wheel in EQ2. Perhaps he simply didn't understand what he was seeing when he played it last year.

Secondly, from a design point-of-view, the distinguishing characteristic of Tabula Rasa was a "hub and spokes" model with instancing, which you see to some degree bein

Re:Clearing up a couple of misconceptions

[Teh Suq]

Quote from SirBruce: "But it would not be fair to suggest that the TR team is revamping simply to become more like WoW."

Nobody suggested they were revamping to be more like WoW.

They are revamping because they realize their weak EQ clone can't compete with Blizzard's strong EQ clone, so they are revamping to change further away from WoW, not towards. That would be the smart thing to do anyway.