Tabula Rasa Goes Free, Brings New Content 87
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.
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I was just waiting for Cedega to support it or a version of Wine that does to last for more than one patch and not require installing Mono. :(
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It's called Windows, try it one day, you'd be surprised how well it works.
None of that silly Cedega nonsense.
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and if this was fox news we'd be modded down for enjoying festivus or whatever it's called. My point here is there everywhere you go is bias and complaining about it is pointless.
You do realise that slashdot is part of the open source developer network don't you? It's pretty clear they'd have a bias towards open source.
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God help you, simple Slashdot poster, if you violate the holy rule. Windows = Hatred; Linux = Praise.
Yes, the generally insufferable Slashdot crowd. I've endured the inevitable downmods of un-inflammatory Microsoft remarks or constructively crticical linux remarks and maintained my Excellent karma status with the occasiona.... OH MY GOD A FLYING CHAIR.
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Nice ending (Score:1)
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Re:Nice ending (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, were I a Tabula Rasa user I wouldn't touch this offer with a barge pole. They paid somewhere around $50 for a game, only to be used as its beta testers. Then to add insult to injury, they find that almost precisely one year after the release date (and perhaps only a matter of a few weeks or months after they shelled out their $50), the game would cease to work just three months after its first birthday.
This is precisely why I don't buy games or applications that entirely rely on a central server hosted by the parent company for their survival.
If NCsoft wanted to make a good faith measure to Tabula Rasa users, their parting gift to the community would be the ability to host the game on third party servers. They're not doing that though, they're taking the money and running - and insulting their users' intelligence with the suggestion that upsales are "gifts" when they're nothing more than a marketing campaign being run at a wholly distasteful moment.
An alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Interesting idea but you're not talking about something as simple as renting out cartridges of Super Mario.
Running an MMO server (or any server for that matter) requires maintenance, both to ensure the software keeps running and to provide whatever in-game support was necessary to keep the bulk of customers from gradually leaving a piece of dead software.
Given how unlikely it is for short-sighted game publishers to invest in development of quality turn-key software I suspect that unless you hire the layed o
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I spent my time and money resurrecting a game I worked on that was shut down: Meridian 59 [meridian59.com]. I worked with another of the original developers to form a small team that included 3 other people to maintain and try to expand the game. So, I have some perspective on this issue based on first-hand experience.
Running an MMO server isn't easy. Even if you have a developer and team that put maintainability at the top of the list, your software will still have bugs. Any software developer knows that for any non-
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This is about how it is with the Everquest emulation servers. They take a single version of the game, as it was in about 2005, and then on the server end start adding content to the servers. All this, and most of them are free to play on.
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I guess you missed my submission from less than 2 weeks ago: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/13/041200 [slashdot.org]
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The alternatives are very Asian
City of Heroes is Asian? The MMO inspired by American comic book culture, with a main hero called 'Statesman' who basically wears an American flag, set in a city in Rhode Island, USA? City of Heroes bombed in Korea. They went the whole hog - even added an Asian supergroup called 'W.I.S.D.O.M' (eventually these became zone trainers in rebuilt zones), and they couldn't keep it going.
'Very Asian' indeed.
As an ex-Tabula Rasa user... (Score:2)
1. As a former Tabula Rasa user, I can only say: that ideological point would maybe bother me, if
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Those aren't gifts, they're fairly desperate attempts at getting you hooked on any other game in their lineup, in order to keep your revenue.
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any possibility of open sourcing it? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they plan on closing it down anyways, doesn't it make sense to open source it so people can run their own 3rd party servers?
or am I missing something obvious here?
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Also, there's always the possibility of various licensing issues, keeping them from redistributing the code.
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Mid to Big companies are not likely to do so. They do not need another competitor :p
I guess Id Software (76 people work in it, according to their teamlist [idsoftware.com]) is a small company worried about competitors then ;)
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The sound effect of the shields in Tabula Rasa was almost 100% identical to the sound effect of the force field bubbles in City of Heroes/Villains.
I assumed it was just borrowed from there.
If this is typical of stuff used throughout... then open sourcing would be very difficult, you'd have to separate everything like that.
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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:any possibility of open sourcing it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The sound effect of the shields in Tabula Rasa was almost 100% identical to the sound effect of the force field bubbles in City of Heroes/Villains.
I assumed it was just borrowed from there.
If this is typical of stuff used throughout... then open sourcing would be very difficult, you'd have to separate everything like that.
It's fairly unlikely the server code makes heavy use of sound effects. :P
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Why would you have to seperate it? I suppose if you licensed those sound clips from a third-party, then, yeah, you might have to. I might be wrong, but I believe that NCSoft pretty much owns CoH/V outright? (I'm not entirely sure - the game was developed by Cryptic, so it might be that Cryptic kept some rights to the assets and code, and NCSoft entered into another license to use some resources from Cryptic in TR).
So, these are some of the considerations that have to go into Open Sourcing your products. If
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Plus, who wants to compete with their own failure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only could it potentially give a leg up to a potential competitor, but from the perspective of a company like NCSoft, if you release the whole thing for free, and it starts to get popular once it's free, even though you couldn't make it a commercial success, you setup a potential competitor for your own future products. It's hard (though not impossible) to compete with free products. There's already enough competition, without creating more for yourself.
Now, some might say that if it's free, that it doe
Re:Its competition for player play time (Score:2)
Its the time the players have to spend playing that you want to get the market share for. The money follows since they will have to pay to play, but if they want to play they will pay because its usually only $15 a month.
I play MMOs about 1-2 hrs a night most nights, maybe 2-4 hrs on the weekend occasionally. I am probably a typical player in that regard. Some will play only occasionally, some will play very hardcore and be on it for 4-6 hrs a night. I am in the middle.
Any company coming out with a new MMOR
Re:any possibility of open sourcing it? (Score:4, Insightful)
To many, your idea sounds impossible. But Cyan did just this same thin recently with Uru (Myst Online). They have announced their intention to open source the product and are working hard right now to prepare the code.
I see this as even more proof that Cyan cares about its customers. They have tried and tried and tried to make Uru a viable game, but have failed each time. I'm not sure why it can't make it, since Myst obviously can, but they did their best and they are continuing to support the fans.
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I'd reserve that judgement for when they actually release it. Right now they've done squat.
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I'm guessing that the server code (or at least the core code) for Tabula Rasa might be very similar or based upon the server code for NCSoft's other MMOs; afterall, it would save them a lot of development costs to keep the server code as similar as possible between games. Then the concern for releasing that code would be that someone might figure out from there how to hack the server code for their other still active games.
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If they plan on closing it down anyways, doesn't it make sense to open source it so people can run their own 3rd party servers?
or am I missing something obvious here?
Yep, you are missing it ;)
Proprietary Code.
These are the codes that were developed by NCsoft and which other companies want to get their hands on and study (and vice versa).
To the end-users, it appears that "to achieve something" can be easily programmed from scratch. That isn't the case once you get down to the dirty work.
There are bits and pieces and ways that one company did "some feature" and the other company did it differently for that SAME "some feature".
In fact, it may appear the SAME "so
Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
How stupid are you?
They'd want a credit card back when you were subscribing too. They're just changing the cost to 0$.
Man, no wonder we have so many stupid anon posts.
TR was a creative game, and this is a great way to end things, heck, a free bonus is pretty nice.
Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a difference between "free" and "free if you give us billing information but trust us we won't dick you". I thought we all learned that in the heyday of AOL free trials?
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eh I honestly suspect it's due to them doing a lazy approach to the billing where all they did to make it free was set the billing $ amount to 0 and leave the rest intact for now. Of course, I could be giving TR way more credit than due and I wouldn't doubt that you may be right. It's been so long I've forgotten about that kind of trash going on.
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Actually, it's not billing information so much as a verifiable means of identification that they already have access to. When you give a credit card number, the credit card company can verify who you are. This is easier than taking faxes a driver's license, for example, since the company already takes credit cards and has a system in place for verifying credit cards.
Why is this an issue? Because it allows them to ban accounts based on identity. If someone goes in and makes the game unpleasant for others
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Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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 i
Simple - generate a one-time number (Score:4, Insightful)
Dunno if your bank supports anything like this, but Bank of America has a feature in their web banking system, called ShopSafe, which (if you have a CC account with them) lets you generate a one-time use CC number whenever you want, with a limit you set. For something like this, you could genenerate a number with a limit of like $1 (or whatever the minimum is). Then, you don't really have to worry about getting ripped off by companies.
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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.
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Then I guess they're not going to trust your ass on their servers.
Why bother? (Score:2)
Seems a bit pointless really. As an RPG I assume that it is designed to have a long play-time (what with levels or other character development mechanisms).
Why bother to invest time in such a game that'll be gone in a few months time?
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point in playing any game? After reaching the end (or whenever they get tired of it), it's likely a lot of people won't play a single player game after that. Was it time/money wasted? Depends on if you enjoyed it or not. The enjoyment in an online game for some people isn't just having a max level character you can point to and brag about, but if you have fun. I'm playing the game and I'm having fun, even though I might not see the max level. YMMV, of course.
It's a real shame, because I think Tabula Rasa is a fairly interesting game. I'm more of an RPGer than an FPSer, so I like the combat system what puts more emphasis on preparation and strategy rather than twitch action. I think TR's cardinal sin was that they didn't define what they were. They appeared to be an online FPS, but that's not what the game is; so RPGers tended to give it a pass and FPSers were disappointed once they got into it. It didn't help that the development went on way too long and cost too much money to ever hope to turn a profit. It's also kind of sad to see Richard Garriott's career fizzle out on yet one more in a string of mediocre games.
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MMORPGs are a different kettle of fish to single player games though. Who really would want to invest time into building a character, when it's gonna be lost when the world ends in a couple of months time? The journey may be fun, but if you know that you'll never be able to finish it then it's not half as interesting.
Could just be me of course :)
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PS: Defending a base with other random people is also interesting. As you level you can start having more impact on the battlefield. At low levels your picking
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That's an aspect of MMORPGs that I find interesting. Players will often dedicate the same amount of time they put towards any given hobby. But even though they're spending build-a-ship-in-a-bottle time to build up their character(s), they don't get the ship-in-the-bottle at the end. When the server plugs get pulled, everything is gone. Like it never existed. There's an almost tangible loss.
The thing is, this isn't the first intangible hobby. People also dedicate considerable time (and money) to their
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Whenever my friend tells me about what he's up to in WoW I always ask him if he'll have finished the game when he does that. It never gets old.
If you ask me that question, I'd respond with "I hope not." But I do realize there are people who just can't handle that idea. They're driven to "win" or finish the game. Yet the nature of this kind of game makes these things highly subjective if not outright impossible.
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true, it is very action oriented tho and you can attack/defend control points nearly from the start.
Also its likely the last chance to see this, in my opinion, great game.
The interview is interesting (Score:2)
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A shame it was only partially developed (Score:2)
Tabula Rasa had some good basic ideas but felt like half a game. That was disappointing since there's still no decent sci-fi MMORPG out there. Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies filled that niche for the first couple of years before they each lost their way and I was hoping TR would pick up that mantle.