Join The Fight Now! Tabula Rasa!

[ZeroGravitySE]

www.rgtr.com/pre-order/

Fierce and I will be playing this game along the side of playing NWN1, and NWN2 online. =)

[mishimayukio]

Sorry but I wont play any game with a monthly fee and the usual nonstop grinding that accompanies it. Maybe you should try out Guild Wars if you're looking for something different.

[ZeroGravitySE]

mishimayukio said:

Sorry but I wont play any game with a monthly fee and the usual nonstop grinding that accompanies it. Maybe you should try out Guild Wars if you're looking for something different.

"He is currently working on a sci-fi-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Tabula Rasa, which he claims will put right many of the mistakes that most contemporary RPGs are making--focusing on level grind, respawning, and a static game world, for example. Garriott claimed last week at the Develop conference that most RPGs available today are simply Ultima Online or EverQuest with better graphics." (THAT QUOTE RIGHT THERE is the sole reason why I love his work)

This was made by the same company as Guild Wars. The whole point of Guild Wars is PvP, and a rich storyline to follow that groups need strategy to beat. Can't just show up with a sword and shield and expect to win.

Its also from the creator of the first true 3D MMORPG, Ultimia Online.

I don't know what to tell you about the monthly fees, I've had more fun playing games with monthly fees because of the order that is forced in-game. This game is going to replace WoW in my eyes.

Here is some more information on Tabula Rasa:

Lord British, the creator of the Ultima series, discusses the real reason he decided to make his new title a sci-fi, Tabula Rasa's new combat system, and NCsoft's recent deal with Sony.

Richard Garriott has been developing games for longer than almost everyone else on the scene at the moment. Born in Cambridge in the UK, his family moved to the US when he was a young boy. He was nicknamed Lord British (and is sometimes also called General British) by classmates because of his pronounced British accent. Although he no longer speaks with a British accent, the nickname has stuck with him through the years.

Garriott is probably best known for his work on the Ultima role-playing game series, which he first sold by making copies of the games himself, putting them in Ziploc bags, and distributing them to stores.

He is currently working on a sci-fi-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Tabula Rasa, which he claims will put right many of the mistakes that most contemporary RPGs are making--focusing on level grind, respawning, and a static game world, for example. Garriott claimed last week at the Develop conference that most RPGs available today are simply Ultima Online or EverQuest with better graphics.

GameSpot got a chance to talk to Richard Garriott during the Develop conference in Brighton.

GameSpot UK: You say you've revolutionised the combat system. But don't you think that maybe some people actually like the usual gameplay mechanics, that whole turn-based and respawning method just the way it is right now?

Richard Garriott: The word turn-based has a variety of interpretations. So for example, there are truly turn-based games, like Pokémon, where when it's your turn to make a move, the game will literally be on hold until you make your decision. And that is a truly thinking game where you are strategically thinking very specifically about considering two moves, or thinking about the fine probabilities associated with one result or another, and then I can invoke it, and the enemy will respond, and then I can sit and wait before my next decision.

MMOs don't do that; what they do is they have a server click, where there is a timer click, then there is another timer click, the combat will invoke every second or whatever the timer might be. The way they usually operate is that you highlight an opponent, who is now your enemy, you now stand toe to toe, and on the timer they will swing their sword at each other. And if you want you can change it from a sword swing to a fireball, or to a healing potion, but otherwise, you're going to stand there until someone does the most damage over time and the other dies. The whole fact that people talk, instead of about, "Oh wow, I did this really awesome thing"--they talk about damage over time. And they talk about the precise percentage of critical-hit chances that they have with each of their equipment items. And they worry about what I consider inventory management and statistics, far and above their own immersion into the reality of the gamespace.

I would much rather have people talking about, "Wow, I tried to go to the Foxtrot outpost, but every time I go over there, the Bane sweep up from the north, and once every few hours they seem to have an invasion force that comes up, and that's not enough time for me to be able to deploy the activity that I need to do. So, can anybody give me advice on how to manage this story issue, this event that's taking place in the game?" And I think that's a much more interesting conversation for players to be having about their play experiences than levels, grinding, and damage over time.

GSUK: Are you worried that some role-playing fans will see this as too much like a first-person shooter?

RG: We've given that a lot of thought. I think the worry is reasonable but I don't think that will occur. I don't play first-person shooters very much. I admire them to watch, but I can't be a player of them because my personal dexterity is frankly not good enough. The people whose motor skills are finer than mine constantly ruin me, so to speak.

Also, I think that when you create a skill game, like a shooter, there's not really room for advancement. The advancement is less important than personal skill. This is not the route that we wanted to go down. So Tabula Rasa is absolutely a role-playing game, it is absolutely a mathematics-based game of "my character and their attributes," and the environment--which is the new piece--game. And environment is the part which most other MMOs totally don't consider. And that's the one place that I think we really shine; taking the environmental conditions into account. But I don't think it forces you to play any more of an arcade game than other MMOs, it's just that in other MMOs you generally stare down at your shortcut bar, and in Tabula Rasa you stare at the 3D environment around you. And I think staring at the environment is more interesting than staring at your shortcut bar and watching your reset timers cool down.

GSUK: So you deliberately kept the screen as empty as possible so that the focus is on the actual virtual environment?

RG: That's right. We want you to pay attention to what's happening here [gestures to gameworld] because--for example--a lot of the enemies that you face, as long as you stay away from them, you can probably do quite well, at least for the simple, little opponents. Every creature has a tactic so to speak, and since these guys I'm playing have no long-range tactics, if I keep backing up, I can do fine, but if they manage to catch up to me, they can with their tusks knock me to the ground, and they can get the advantage on me that way. And so, tactically, I want to stay away from them, even if I'm fighting them.

Whereas the Shield Drones, you need to get inside that shield, otherwise you do no damage to it.

GSUK: Why did you choose a sci-fi theme?

RG: The honest primary reason is because we've done medieval fantasy for 25 years, and the one thing I didn't want to do was medieval fantasy!

That's not to say that I won't do it again in the future, it was just time for something else.

I'm also a big believer that great gameplay creates the perception of a popular genre. Whereas right now, people on the MMO think that medieval fantasy is so cool, and nothing else seems to work, I think that's only because a handful of really good games have all been medieval fantasies. I don't think it has anything to do with the fictional setting.

GSUK: So if Tabula Rasa is a big success, do you think there'll suddenly be a ton of sci-fi MMOs?

RG: Yes, and I can tell you how that has happened in the past. It's really funny that if you look at the Ultima series, there are eras of the Ultima series where people were saying that it was cool that we were doing medieval, but there were also eras where you know, Command and Conquer and those type of games had shipped, more kind of contemporary military, and other than Ultima, there weren't very many popular fantasy role-playing games or medieval games. So I actually had my marketing people coming to me and saying "Richard, why on earth are you making fantasy games? No one wants to run around dressed like men in tights. You need to be doing Die Hard or some contemporary setting, not this silly fantasy stuff."

But now, of course, we're on the other side of that coin, where everyone's going "Ooh Lord of the Rings is popular, everyone's into fantasy," and it really is because there are some good movies and some good games that have come out that happen to be fantasy and so people will perceive those genres as hot. But I don't think it's really that the genre is hot, I think there have just been good products that have come out in those genres.

GSUK: So you often find yourself bucking the trend?

RG: It's not that I'm purposely bucking the trend, it's that I'm just doing whatever I feel like, as I don't think it's relevant to success. I don't think genre is an impediment to success. The success is purely determined on creating a great game.

GSUK: How will you be addressing the issues of gold farming and cheating in Tabula Rasa?

RG: It's a pretty complicated issue, so I'm sure that we will make some mistakes in that vein. But as a company we learn more about cheating each cycle we do and so we're better prepared over time. But especially with how we do ownership and character advancement, it's hard to describe the fundamental systems we have that prevent cheating, and gold farming of course we will also try to resist it.

GSUK: Tell us more about the deal NCsoft made with Sony and the reasons for doing so?

RG: When you think about console gameplay, it's important to note that there are real differences in the placement of a console in the home, and therefore in my mind the optimal gameplay for those platforms. A PC tends to be a machine that you sit close to, under a desk, the monitor fairly close to your face, usually there's a high-bandwith input device like a keyboard, and an accurate input pointing device like a mouse, whereas with a console you're generally on the couch, you're using a television that's further away, your controller is usually much simpler...So the kinds of gameplay that those two will tend to favour will clearly be different.

That being said, I think online gameplay is a benefit to entertainment, period. There's no question in my mind that online games will become very popular both on PCs and on consoles. The question is, "How will you tune those gameplay experiences to what will be appropriate for the physical console environment as well as the kind of entertainment people are interested in based on the biases that people bring with those physical limitations?"

That's one of the things I think NCsoft and Sony are excited about. There have been technical hurdles in the past associated with the fact that you needed a hard drive and the Internet. But now the latest generation of consoles can physically do online games, but then the next problem was as a business structure, how do you put it together, because it's also very complicated in that, as an online game maker, we need to reach into that hardware very deeply, modify the hard drive very regularly, have a direct relationship with the customer; you know, constant open communication to really understand their gameplay experience.

Of course all are also very scary to console makers, who are honestly and reasonably worried about the damage that might be done to the console by giving full access to that hard drive, or by changing the customer experience, which normally has been completely under their control...If they now have people changing the user interface or the customer's experience away from the rest of their product line, that's a big deal to them.

So, this deal is not a small statement about our confidence in working together [with Sony] to be able to solve those problems together.

GSUK: What business model will you be using for Tabula Rasa?

RG: Retail plus subscription.

GSUK: Will there be a place for user-generated content in Tabula Rasa?

RG: I am both an enthusiast for user-created content, and a sceptic for the contemporary moulds of user-created content. Back when I was playing Dungeons and Dragons in the early days, the game masters were very good interactive storytellers. But as Dungeons and Dragons became popular, you ran out of good storytellers and instead you ended up with a bunch of people who debated numbers and advantages and statistics in a way that was no longer role-playing in my mind, it had now become a numbers game. And the same thing will happen with user-generated content. There are very few users who actually make very good content. And a lot of games that have had very open-ended user content I think have become giant fields of boring junk.

The only time that that will change is when there's an economic reward to the players for making good, quality content. So I imagine going to see a play in an online game, but the play's going to cost you a real dollar that's going to be paid to the real actors, so therefore if you're going to pay a real dollar, you're going to want to read a review of that play to make sure it's worth your real dollar. And so then people will avoid the bad plays and go to good plays, and everybody will be happy. So, to sum up, I think that user-created content is a very important part of the future; it has not been facilitated in even close to the right way in any of the contemporary round of products. And even in Tabula Rasa, user-generated content is not really a part of the game to the depth that I believe it should be.

GSUK: Thanks for your time.

Tabula Rasa will be released on October 5 on the PC. For more information on the game, check out GameSpot's hands-on preview.

ROFL THAT ARTICLE IS VERY FUNNY

This guy is on my level with the gaming market, Fed up with the same old crap, so change must come!

[cathedralmaster]

zerogravityse said:

I don't know what to tell you about the monthly fees, I've had more fun playing games with monthly fees because of the order that is forced in-game. This game is going to replace WoW in my eyes.

How much is that the bias of previous investment though (the tendency for a person to more positively evaulate choices or outcomes they have already invested in)?

It's one of the reasons I really hate games with monthly fees - it's a yet another psychological trick to keep you playing.

[ZeroGravitySE]

cathedralmaster said:

zerogravityse said:

I don't know what to tell you about the monthly fees, I've had more fun playing games with monthly fees because of the order that is forced in-game. This game is going to replace WoW in my eyes.

How much is that the bias of previous investment though (the tendency for a person to more positively evaulate choices or outcomes they have already invested in)?

It's one of the reasons I really hate games with monthly fees - it's a yet another psychological trick to keep you playing.

I've been in constant debate with friends for years about the whole monthly fee thing.

I am willing to pay for online monthly games because of many reasons.
- Customer Support 24/7
- In-game Moderators responded to: racist, rude, and/or nasty language close to instantly.
- I've gotten stuck in many worlds, and free mmorpg's tend to leave me there helpless. On top of many other in-game bugs that have effected my gameplay and forced me to stop playing for the day with one character.
- I've played well over 20-30+ MMORPGS (more then half I payed for)
- I've also always noticed the staff support for any paid game I've played has responded to ingame bugs/fixes faster.
- Most pay-to-play games include more content do to bigger staff. (What would funky do with 20 clones of himself that could all do the same thing? Updates would be daily)
- Cheating / Hacking always seemed to be more common in low budget games.
- Lag is always a issue, and in some pay-to-play games I've seen them fail because they didn't manage there networks right. But in other pay-to-play mmorpgs I've had a flawless connection with over 1000+ people in front of me (example RvR: Dark Age of Camelot).

I think without a man like funky sitting behind the top chair of Higher Grounds this whole community would fall apart in bickering. Thats why I'm so happy to be here, he makes the community work with his forced orders and rules. Which a wonderful DM staff doesn't abuse and/or never abuses people they don't like.

I've gone to NWN servers where people have DM_Killed me over, and over, and over, and over, just because I was different then them. Thats impossible to happen in a pay-to-play game.

[FunkySwerve]

mishimayukio said:

Sorry but I wont play any game with a monthly fee and the usual nonstop grinding that accompanies it. Maybe you should try out Guild Wars if you're looking for something different.

This coming from the guy I hear talking about farming in GW?
Funky

[nohmask]

Looks like another trainer for the military....what was that book, Ender's Game?
The intro movie looks great, but the pictures (on the web site) make it look like running around in amazing scenes and shooting a gun a lot....let us know if it turns out to be more, please.

[dodrudon]

Daily updates?

*shivers in horror*

[ZeroGravitySE]

Well your all welcome to join us when the game comes out, I just wanted to share this one last time and will post in this thread on release, to tell you character names and such.

I've watched over 30+ beta videos and have seen all gamespot.com has to offer on this game, and if it doesn't replace WoW I don't know what will in the future. Tabula Rasa is amazingly well thought out. Its the next gen mmorpgs

Only other games I'm waiting for is Bioshock, and Crysis

[zerragon]

Wow, that intro movie game me the creeps.

Looks like a crossing between a fps shooter and mmorpg.
Games like that demands a MASSIVE network capacity on the server side, as requirements to response time increases bigtime when going from a semi turn based autoattack style (typical mmorpg) to interactive FPS combat.

Im allways sceptical to new mmorpgs, cause its so much junk out there, but if I can see a trial or open beta of this, Id like to give it a chance.
Though, must be rather flawless if Im to give up precious HG time for it

[ZeroGravitySE]

Lord British will not let this fail, his name is on the line, and with all the down talk of the industry like I have been doing, he has to come thru.

Its a mix between FPS and MMORPG, your right. But the network was flawless in the beta. People are going ape over this game, because of all the good reviews from beta players. Everyone is saying it is the next generation RPG, review after review is saying its the next best thing. The game design is amazing if you read the articles.

The game is meant for people with active lifes. If I read right there are only 20 levels like in guild wars, so this isn't some grind fest. Its all about skill, and FPS skill is where I come from.

I've been playing FPS games since Doom. Modem to Mode 1 on 1 matches with kids from school. The only other game like this that I know of that did horribly was planetside. But they did a horrible job with that game, I was #1 for two months for most kills. My name wasn't ZeroGravitySE it was "VashTheStampede." I was a reaver pilot who was very feared.

I once came down on a teleportation suv that had over 100+ people around it and bombed the heck out of it, with a barrage of missles. They shot me down eventually but I killed the SUV, and over 70+ people.

I just love FPS games, I have tons of skill when it comes to hand/eye coordination.

I love HG, but I know I'll love this game. And I also know someones name is on the line that has been apart of the gaming industry thats been around since day one practically. I'm a big fan of his Ultimia series.

[ZeroGravitySE]

I wanted to post this article because it tells a lot about basics.

After many years in development hell, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa is finally approaching its release date. With the game currently available in a closed beta, we've been spending time learning the ropes and exploring a number of the game's alien zones. The 12-hour journey took us to all corners of the first zone of the Concordia continent, the imaginatively named Wilderness, and off into the next zone, Divide.

Throughout the first 12 hours we have gone up 11 levels and completed a wide range of quests, ranging from the ethically dubious, such as running drugs--we elected not to turn the dealer over to his base commander, as we really needed the money--to the bog-standard MMO fare of collecting a batch of boar tusks. Also during this time (we've been playing the beta over the course of a few weeks), the game has undergone a series of improvements related to player feedback, so expect the game to change a lot more between now and release.

After completing the in-game tutorial you are whisked by dropship to a forward base that is bustling with activity and attached to a friendly alien complex. Here you get your first simple quests and head out into the wilderness, armed with nothing but a rifle and the ability to throw lightning gained in the tutorial. The fundamental mechanic will be familiar to anyone who has played an MMORPG. You go out into the wilderness, kill things, and therefore gain experience, money (credits), and items.


Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

The combat system is incredibly simple and will be a relief to anyone scared by the massed action bars and cluttered interfaces that games such as World of Warcraft can present you with. In fact, it feels much more like that of a first-person shooter than an RPG. Pressing numbers one to five changes your selected weapon, six to 10 your selected ability--and you can reorder them by simply dragging and dropping, either within the selection tray or your inventory.

Attacking enemies is then just a mouse click away: left for your weapon, right for ability. Hover your cursor over an enemy to acquire them and an information bar pops up displaying their health, shield levels, and other useful information; either fire manually or press tab to lock on, then open fire with either your weapons or an offensive ability. The target information window also includes a precise range indicator which incorporates graphical representation of the optimum range for your selected weapon.

There is an impressive and somewhat confusing array of weapons and weapon classes that present themselves to you fairly quickly, and soon it becomes something of a challenge sorting out which five you wish to have easy access to. We generally opted for a pair of shotguns to deal with massed enemies--one of which took out shields and damaged robotic attackers, the other of which caused conventional damage--and a pair of chainguns for more heavily armoured single targets, with the final slot being taken up by a long-range rifle.

Economy is also something that comes into play--it's possible to mow down all comers with your shiny new laser chaingun, and then find yourself completely broke and unable to buy more ammo without first switching to a slightly lower-maintenance weapon for a spot of more profitable killing and questing. As your character progresses, you get to use a wider range of weapons that vary by class. Higher-level weapons such as rocket launchers, polarity weapons, and netguns can all find their way into your arsenal later on.

The secondary skills follow a similar pattern. All characters have both the ability to sprint and a long-range lightning attack, but you gather more as you specialise and level up. Our main character is a soldier class--we will look at the specialist in more detail in a later preview--and so also has an area-of-effect ability called shrapnel to call upon. The secondary ability tray is also where you can keep items useful in the heat of battle, such as grenades and medical kits, so once again you need to think carefully about what to place in there before you head into action.


Combining heavy weapons and Logos abilities can have a devastating effect.

These secondary abilities are enabled through the collection of Logos powers, and form the game's one obvious nod to the world of fantasy and spellcasting. Logos elements have a vast lore of their own and are core to the higher-level game and spread throughout the world--both in group-requiring instanced areas and hard-to-reach areas of the world at large. While we haven't yet seen much of the power promised by the Logos abilities, they are one of the things that we're most looking forward to investigating as we level up.

Over the first 12 hours the game seems grind-free. We got comfortably to level 11 going from quest to quest across the zone, and left many undone in the initial zone before moving onto the next. Also, the quests send you from hub to hub, so you are very rarely left with no choices or nothing to do. The sheer volume of quests on offer means that it's possible to avoid quest types you don't like without resorting to grinding, and it's also possible to play through, at least initially, without being forced into teaming up with other people to progress.

We were also impressed with how alive the world feels. Dynamic NPC battles, the relentless Bane assault some areas suffer, and the much-vaunted ability to lose control of your bases lend the game a very different to feel to many recent MMOs.

Tabula Rasa is set to launch this fall, so expect to see more coverage of the higher-level content, class specialisations, and customisation options between now and the game's currently predicted fourth-quarter release.
-GameSpot

[johannhowitzer]

All I have to say is that if you're concerned about games being a grind-fest, Yue... why are you playing NWN??

[ZeroGravitySE]

Bioshock came out!!!! I can't wait to play it, I'll let you guys know when I get it!