Tabula Rasa Comments by Rob Fahey

Breaking the mould? Looks totally generic to me!

So despite all this talk of reinventing the genre the game is still based around stat-based combat, grinding mobs, levelling up, character classes, hit points, etc.

So basically pretty damn similar to every other MMORPG ever except 'fast-paced' and with a sci-fi theme. Woot.

Not sure what people were expecting, of course it still has the MMORPG basics - how else would you want to tie the community to the game for months or years?

The completely different setting to 99,9% of the MMORPG market and a more action-based combat as well as a "bot" AI that's a lot more active than it is usually in this genre sound sufficiently different to me.

Neocron did most of this 5 years ago, delivering action fps combat in a mmo setting. Admittedly its faded now and full of problems, but he should not claim to be re-inventing the wheel as much as he is.

Psychonauts MMORPG anyone?

Run around other people's heads collecting figments, then build levels in your own head for other people to come play in...

Now that'd be innovative.

I didnt know this had Joanna Dark in it?

The art direction is fugly as hell.

I think it looks cool. Future warfare wouldn't involve a bunch of clownsuited eejits flying round on silver jetpacks. And I like the idea of being able to 'branch' character development. Still wondering about the combat mechanism though.

I'm going to keep an open mind, something that would appear to be a rare commodity around here...

What's interesting is that Garriott has had very little interaction with the TR community to the point where people were wondering if it was just him being paid to have his name on the box to shift copies, and yet here he is giving interviews. Hmm.

Anyways fun game, but is there any depth? I heard the latest update had improved things.

The art direction (not to mention the setting) appeals more to me than WoW's, some of the shots are excellent. Garriott is a good designer and it's nice to see that he tries to include moral choices in the gameplay. Also, real-time combat elements in an MMORPG are a welcome change.

I really regret that I won't be unable to try the closed beta due to a holiday trip though...

Hmph, i thought it sounded good. I like the idea of being able to create character copies. I quit wow from having to deal with shit like waiting to hours to find an appropriate class to do an instance with. With TB you could just switch over :P

Then again it could all end up being poorly implemented of course.

With TB you could have a coughing fit instead! ;-)

sounds poop, wont someone think of the children! ... and make a modern take on planetside!

1st Image: "The interface is very stripped-down by MMO standards"

Thats a reduced interface is it? Could have fooled me ...

-wolfman

I think the key is 'by MMO standards', which it is if you compare it to something like WoW.

El_MUERkO: "make a modern take on planetside!"

Too fooking right!
Now that was an MMO that actually innovated.

Looks pretty impressive to me. I can see where he's coming from about the current market of MMORPG's though.

Just signed up for the beta. As long as everything runs smoothly, it should be a successful game.

If their client update system is anything to go by I'm going to fucking hate the game- 6 hours to get to 75% only to have them disconnect me, reconnect and the pissy fucking thing is somehow back at 39% and has another 6 hour estimated time. Assuming their c64 servers don't disconnect me again.

Crunchy, I've had exactly the same issue. Downloaded the client overnight, installed, and now patching... well, downloading the patch. Well maybe the patch, perhaps 57% of the readme.txt, for the last 6 hours.

Bad show! Boo!

Two games that need to be made.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R mmo and Company of Heros mmo

Glad I'm not the only one-

another boo!

as already said, NeoCron did this 5 years ago.... maybe this will be more polished etc, but it hardly looks groundbreaking

You are complaining about patches for a Beta Version of a Game :)

I find that funny.

No - we are complaining about not being able to get into the beta in the first place BECAUSE of huge stalling downloads/patches...

Which brings me to my patching process which ended with an "abnormal server disconnection" (or sth. like that) at over 50% (which has taken me half the day to download at a really crappy speed) - now it seems I have to download the patch again. Wonderful!

Garriott in no way created the MMO genre, and it's a fuckload older than ten years too. The only thing that Ultima Online did was popularise the concept of putting a graphical shell around things. Before that, we used to play our 'MMOs' in text.

Critical bunch, aren't you?

1) Say what you will about the history of MMOGs, Garriot designed the first wide-reaching and popular MMOG.

2) This sounds like its sufficiently different to your average MMORPG. From what I've read, it almost sounds like a diablo x mmorpg x fps. I'll see further once I get the beta this weekend.

3) Nothing will ever, ever be completely innovative. It will always have its roots in other things. Simply speaking;
Boardgame -> MUD-> Mmorpg.
And in each case it built on that which came before. All MMORPGs will build on lessons learnt in previous attempts. WoW did it. Even UO did it. TR will as well.

Its all about combining things in different mixtures to try and create something that feels "new", rather than re-hashing that which came before and putting it in a pretty box. (Eg, majority of game sequels).

Not to say re-hashing/sequels can't make for great games, but the truly innovative and trend-setting games are almost always new IP.

Risky though - it can always flop. The flipside is that if it takes off, you are guaranteed profitable sequels/expansions etc.

How about an enemy without a stupidly appropriate name in English? As if an alien conqueror would name themselves "The Bane" (unless they had a really really bad PR department). And no similarity to The Flood or The Combine, huh? At least the Strogg sounded like a plate of yummy cream based stew.

Wonder if Hitler and Goebbels sat about discussing spooky sounding names for the Luftwaffe over a plate of saurkraut. "Der Shroud?" "Nein. Lame. What about Das Swarm?"

If I was an evil alien conqueror, I'd name my race of uber mutoid cyborgs The Fluffy Bunny Wabbits from Planet Kyoote Ki'Tun. No-one would see *us* coming.

I finally got to 98%, after 14 hours of downloading and it error'd :p

No idea where it's at at the moment, it just carried on popping up errors when trying to repair or re-download it. I'm going to take it anymore- I'm going to the highest court in the land with this, it's a disgrace I tell you!!!



Or, I may just play something else ;)

3william56>
v v good point with Third Reich, but even scarier is that they WERE totally into progaganda - why do you think the Schutzstaffeln had skulls and crossbones as their insignia? To look like pirates?

Second point - any alien will know that we are easily misled by appearances and visuals. Perhaps the best bit of MArs Attacks is when the evil Martians are running around frying people and shouting "GAK GAK", and out of the universal translator machine the words "we want to be friends" come out. You have ot ask yourself - is the machine not working, or are they actually saying that?

I digress...

/goes back to Stormwind to check on [basilisk hide pants] auction

bloody whingers the lot of you..
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.

Even if it played almost the same to WoW thank god its not another fantasy setting. Absolutely sick to death of gandalf wannabes. Nothing like a big rifle.

Being able to create clones of your character at certain points is the best thing here. Imagine in WoW if you get to level 30, you can begin a new class at that same stage. No more effing crossroads woot! :)

@mingster

Where did you download the client from? I've been trying for the last 2 days to download it from Gamershell, but it keeps on timing out. The download speed is only about 50k/sec as well.

a mad max mmo game please!

Boy that is underwhelming. Anarchy Online (ish) but with better water doesn't cut it for moi.

Looks pretty interesting. The cloning feature sounds really useful too.

@ Amazing Bryan

You can download it directly from the PlayNC account you've registered for the beta.

konniehuqfan autoassault died the death mate.

Would describing the beta as 'laughably unexceptional' break the NDA? It'd want to very quickly become a very different game to even approach Garriott's modest ambitions.