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Tabula Rasa closed beta keys News

PC News by Tom Bramwell

8 August, 2007

Would you like to play NCsoft's Tabula Rasa? I know what you're thinking: "Oh if only I could play NCsoft's Tabula Rasa! How heartless of Eurogamer to dangle that prospect in front of me when the possibility of it being so is so minimal!" To that we say: relax! Because we've teamed up with NCsoft to let you play Tabula Rasa.

We are in fact giving away several thousand keys for the Tabula Rasa closed beta test over on Eurogamers right this second! Just register for Eurogamers and then visit the Tabula Rasa beta key giveaway page and you too could be playing the next MMORPG from Richard Garriott - him of Ultima fame.

And while you wait to find out if you're lucky enough to have made it onto the beta, why not creep around our Tabula Rasa gamepage, where you can find an interview with the man himself, as well as news, trailers and screenshots in abundance? There really is no reason not to do that, and we're sure you will. Enjoy the beta.

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Comments: 1-50 of 67 in total | next 50 »

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Lim-Dul
08/08/07 @ 16:50
#1
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One of the first to get a key and the first one to post a comment.

A winner is me!

I guess this will be quite boring as most MMORPGs (and boy, I've seen most of them) but it never hurts to try. =)
JediMasterMalik
08/08/07 @ 17:00
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Keyz plz!

I'm in, Downloading from GH now, thank goodness they used GH and not the aweful FP.
PearOfAnguish
08/08/07 @ 17:01
#3
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Huzzah. Got it.
Deepo
08/08/07 @ 17:10
#4
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Hmm, how long is it supposed to take before you get the key? Ten minutes since i clicked and still none.
Shanucore
08/08/07 @ 17:11
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Yay, I'm in... and now I have to leave the house and go SOCIALISE with people over DINNER and WINE. I mean, christ, don't my friends have their priorities straight?
knuttan
08/08/07 @ 17:13
#6
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Whee, gots my key!
Khab
08/08/07 @ 17:20
#7
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Any idea on the specs for this?
kallenai
08/08/07 @ 17:40
#8
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Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows® XP/Vista
* 512 MB System RAM
* 2.5 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or equivalent AMD™ processor
* 128 MB Direct3D and Shader 2.0 compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 5 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
* Broadband Internet connection

Recommended System Specifications:

* Windows XP/Vista
* 3.5 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD processor
* 2 GB System RAM
* ATI™ X1800 series, NVIDIA® GeForce 7800 series, or higher 3.0 Shader compliant video card
dave06
08/08/07 @ 17:48
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got mine, seeya on there, we should form a eurogamer party and go kill xenos
redd
08/08/07 @ 18:11
#10
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Got myself a key.
I've been looking forward to this game, hope i'm not disappointed.
dredd97
08/08/07 @ 18:43
#11
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have me a key, and busy d/l from GH now...

please don't disappoint me Tabula Rasa...!!!!
Dizzy
08/08/07 @ 19:08
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Played in beta... deleted after a few hours. Sucks sadly.
Whizzo
08/08/07 @ 19:19
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A 2.5 gig download from a site that doesn't support resuming? Er that's rather stupid.
dredd97
08/08/07 @ 19:51
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man, a 2.5gig download and now a huge patch too...

why didn't they just upload the latest client?
geoffw22
08/08/07 @ 21:08
#15
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Why use GH or FP, you can get a 393k installer client from the PlayNC website. This downloads the latest client for you.
[DVDF]Gooner
08/08/07 @ 21:10
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so what's the word on the virtual street? is it worth the disk space or are we looking at another Vanguard?
gmmonkey
08/08/07 @ 21:29
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3 hrs left until ive downloaded. I've had my eye on this because it's a sc-fi mmorpg. Not as much as age of conan though.
dave06
08/08/07 @ 22:32
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how fudging big is this patch, godamm asscrunchers
gmmonkey
09/08/07 @ 00:33
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WTF is this shit? I download the game then I've got a patch that takes longer to download than the game? Forget this guys. You can't even pause the patch and continue it at a later date.
Miths
09/08/07 @ 00:58
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Seems like Windows 2000 is at the end of its rope for gaming. Until less than a year ago I could pretty much run 99% of all games, but that's unfortunately not the case anymore - and not just with Microsoft games.
It's too damn early to get Vista, and buying and installing XP seems like a bit of a waste so close to the time where Vista will probably be worth the upgrade :).

Well, I'm trying my luck with this beta anyway - sometimes they just don't mention 2000 to avoid having to provide official support.
NegativeZero
09/08/07 @ 01:41
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Looks like play is restricted to certain times of the day? Might have been nice to have known that before I took a key. I was really interested in checking this out but because of timezone differences it's basically 2am until 9-11am here.
Lim-Dul
09/08/07 @ 02:26
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LOLZORD! 2.8 GB of downloading goodness... And that's by PlayNC who have been working several years with ArenaNet who made GuildWars and that wonderful streaming content delivery system where you could start the game after like 5 minutes and the rest would be downloaded as you went along... This is friggin sad...

You can resume the download, however...
NegativeZero
09/08/07 @ 03:18
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NCSoft are just the publisher. Tabula Rasa and Guild Wars are by completely different developers - TR is by Destination Software, which is basically comprised of a bunch of guys who jumped ship from Origin after EA canned all of Origin's in-development MMOs in 2000 (which at the time was Harry Potter Online, Ultima Online 2, and Privateer Online). Guild Wars is by ArenaNet, which is similarly composed of industry vets, though in their case they came mainly from Blizzard.
mkreku
09/08/07 @ 06:39
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Aww, I saw this at work. I got me a key but I can't start downloading anything until tonight! And I'm busy playing Gothic 3 at home! Damn.
Vandrius
09/08/07 @ 07:11
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Off topic, but I so wish they'd made a UO 2.

UO was the best fun I've had in a MMORPG ever. So much freedom, easy to travel, depth of gameplay, PvP tactics etc.

My gods, if only other MMORPG's had stolen the idea of marking runes in order to travel somewhere... None of this "Oh, if I want to go to dungeon X I need to travel to Town Y and run 20 minutes". Thats not immersion, unless the trip to the dungeon is different and fun every time (as opposed to the exact same, with the same spawn you need to avoid, etc).

And there was nothing quite so fun as casting Polymorph->Dragon and Incognito to scare newbies.

I had a pack of 6 newbies in bone armour try to take my polymorphed dragon down when I was near the graveyard :-)
Miths
09/08/07 @ 10:07
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According to the launcher, session times are Monday and Wednesday 5pm - 2am BST and Friday 5pm - Monday 2am, so for those of you waiting eagerly to get home to play the game, it looks like we won't be able to do so until tomorrow evening anyway.
dave06
09/08/07 @ 10:20
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ah ffs i just finished applying the ENORMOUS patch and now i cant play till 5 tomoz which is when i start work, why do u hate me gods of gaming whhhhhy
shamblemonkee
09/08/07 @ 11:22
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so anyone actually got in to play yet? i let it download the client last night, which finished at around 23:30 - thought woohoo, then boot it up and UBARMEGAPATCHOFDOOM.... *sigh*... 2 more hours of downloding which i've left running while at work...
Edited 1 times, most recently on 09/08/07 @ 12:22
Jaded
09/08/07 @ 11:42
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Yeah, I got a few hours play last night. It's not bad, but it's not great either... If anyone knows what "logos" are and why the hell I'm collecting them, please let me know.
Martin
09/08/07 @ 12:01
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Why won't it give me a key? I'm a nice guy.
Jaded
09/08/07 @ 12:04
#31
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try creating a new EG account
Martin
09/08/07 @ 12:11
#32
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If that's the case then EG is teh suck!

I've been an early adopter of both EG and Eurogamers and this is how I'm rewarded?

Bah!
Jaded
09/08/07 @ 12:13
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Huh? the new account is just a temporary way of getting the key, you don't have to use it after
Martin
09/08/07 @ 12:58
#34
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I'm very well aware of that but I think it's wrong that only new Eurogamers members get the key.

It'll only lead to what you just described - a lot of bogus accounts so that people can get the key.

Nevermind though, I opted for the CoH/CoV 14-day trial instead - sonds a lot more fun and polished.
craigy [staff]
09/08/07 @ 13:16
#35
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"I'm very well aware of that but I think it's wrong that only new Eurogamers members get the key."

Martin, that isn't the case at all - everyone is welcome to receive a key! If you're having a problem getting one, please PM me with more details and I'll be more than happy to look into it.
Martin
09/08/07 @ 16:09
#36
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@craigy: Good to hear - I actually didn't think it'd be that daft but I assumed (which I shouldn't do - I know) that Jaded had tried and got it to work.

As for the details - nothing happens when I click the "Gimme my key" button, I just end up at the same page.

It worked for the CoH/CoV key (although that key in turn didn't work but that's another story).
furrycheeky
09/08/07 @ 17:11
#37
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Well I'm not impressed. All day to download, having to find 8 gig space to install. Now the NC Launcher tells me Error loading skin: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: path.

It will not do anything else. Even if I solve this I still have the apparetn 200mb patch to go....
furrycheeky
09/08/07 @ 19:23
#38
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Win rar didn't like my download either, I let windows unpack it for me.

I cannot fix my problem I have installed, tried, uninstalled, reinstalled and tried with the same error.
Edited 1 times, most recently on 09/08/07 @ 20:24
Whizzo
09/08/07 @ 19:31
#39
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You can resume the download, however...

Not if you'd used the GH link that NCSoft have as the first option, fortunately there is the launcher download as geoffw22 mentioned.
Lim-Dul
09/08/07 @ 22:29
#40
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Not if you'd used the GH link that NCSoft have as the first option, fortunately there is the launcher download as geoffw22 mentioned.

Ah - didn't know that since I downloaded the launcher right away. I already had a PlayNC master account from Guild Wars and the download link in there pointed me immediately in the right direction.

But that doesn't matter much since you'll be spending even more time downloading the patch (like some people were saying)... Jesus Christ - this is one weak beta when it comes to getting people to actually play it...

Anybody besides me noticed how the name "Richard Garriott" is plastered all over the place? Even the default installation folder is called Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa... OK, I know, he IS a well respected game designer and there were other games with their designer's name in them (Sid Meier's *Anything*? =) but I kind of can't get used to the whole Richard Garriott hype - especially if Tabula Rasa isn't as good as everybody would make us want to believe it is... I'll find out in a week when I finally manage to play the friggin beta - the thought that another patch might appear before I get the current one gives me the shivers. ;-)
Edited 2 times, most recently on 09/08/07 @ 23:34
furrycheeky
09/08/07 @ 23:18
#41
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I give up. I hgave downloaded the Beta TWICE. Both installs leave me with the NC Launcher giving a skin error. I was going to beta test for them, but I cannot be bothered to try anymore to the the launcher to work, to download more, to get what little time available there is to test.
mingster
10/08/07 @ 08:20
#42
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bloody whingers the lot of you..
you sound like spoilt kids.
downloaded the installer 2.gig no problems got 180k/s speed
dl'd in background while playing poker..
have left the update/ patch installing now while i'm at work will be done when i get home. No probs so far at all.
If you can't handle installing an update then you shouldn't bother with a beta.
furrycheeky
10/08/07 @ 08:41
#43
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Don't be so arrogant mingster, and stop showing off, some of us live in remote areas and have to make do with 512k broadband due to lack of BT network. That turns a 2gig+ download into an ordeal that ties up your whole bandwidth ALL day. I volunteered to beta test the game, not sort out the launcher problems


So its not just about the update, if you would care to read through. The Nc launcher failiure is not just affecting me, other sites have posted people with a similar fault.

mingster
10/08/07 @ 09:18
#44
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Look its a FREE beta.. your not being paid your volunteering.
If it doesn't work then thats the point of beta testing you post your results of your problems to the QA team. You don't complain your expected to find problems thats the point of beta testing. If it all worked perfectly then there would be no point.

Also the minimum specs state 512k broadband so you meet that requirement.

Do you use VISTA? The installer is having problems with it.. im on XP and all works so far.
Edited 1 times, most recently on 10/08/07 @ 10:20
mrbandersnatch
10/08/07 @ 13:28
#45
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"Don't be so arrogant mingster, and stop showing off, some of us live in remote areas and have to make do with 512k broadband due to lack of BT network"

Heheh Im sitting on a 20Mb connection and SOOOOO oftem Im lucky to get anything more than 512Kb to a site. Heck I see the same thing at work (2Mb). Currently patching at....43KBs :/

Lim-Dul
10/08/07 @ 14:03
#46
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Look its a FREE beta.. your not being paid your volunteering.

Exactly! Ha, ha!

Besides - a beta is far more important to the designer of the game than for players - some people probably don't realize that.

It helps him test the system, sort out the bugs and advertise his/her product through something that resembles viral marketing (hey, have you checked out the beta version of this and that? The word is spreading.)... And they get all this for free... If he/she can't even get the players to play the beta by discouraging them with a sloppy download system, even though the product enjoyed a lot of hype, then what does it tell us?

Believe me, the alpha version of Guild Wars (not to mention a lot of other betas) was easier to deal with than this crap (I'm not talking about the gameplay, which I have yet to see, but about the sloppy technical side) - and I should know since I was an alpha tester. =)

Update: Yay! And now the update servers have stopped working altogether! That's friggin great since the time the beta can be actually PLAYED approaches! Way to go!
Edited 2 times, most recently on 10/08/07 @ 16:10
markitzs
10/08/07 @ 19:19
#47
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I can't log in the game.

Got the serial from EG, went through all the steps needed to register. Downloaded the game AND the patch (twice, had some issues). Started the game, entered my user name and password, but the game says that they're wrong.

Wrote a detail question through the help interface. Hope to see an answer tomorrow.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

P.S. The game shows up among my game accounts on http://www.plaync.com/us/account. I know it says 'us' in the adress, but that's the link the game it self suggested to check.

P.S. I've been trying in the "legitimate" hours, on "legitemate" days.

Edit:

Here's a screen shot of the error:

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/8836/...
Edited 1 times, most recently on 10/08/07 @ 20:31
Pike
10/08/07 @ 20:52
#48
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Just got my first play session in. So far impressions are positive.

It's a bit glitchy and laggy, as is to be espected at this stage, but it's very playable still.

I like the styling even if it isn't a graphical powerhouse and combat is a step in the right direction, IMO.
Lim-Dul
10/08/07 @ 22:11
#49
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And I think it sucks quite a bit (I finally got to play it!). Yeah, it has a different theme than most MMORPGs and there are noticeable differences (as between all MMORPGs) but so far the overall feeling is very generic... Revolution my ass.
mkreku
11/08/07 @ 09:23
#50
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I am disappointed too. I was expecting this to be much more.. original. But it's the same "get 8 of these", "get 12 of these" quests and the combat, while it looks more like a FPS, is the same as in every other MMORPG out there; no direct control and player skills have NADA to do with the outcome of the fight. Richard Garriott :(

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