Open betas are awesome things; you get to play a game for free. Open betas are terrible things; the game you get to play may not be awesome, at least yet.
When I played the Tabula Rasa beta, I found myself charmed by some of it, but with a mass of worries. Now it's released, it's probably my favourite persistent-world MMO since City of Heroes.
Despite the differing theme, there are a lot of similarities. For example, it goes for all-out action against massed opponents. While in games like World of Warcraft you're being a little ballsy if you try to go more than one-on-one at lowish levels, with a mass of TR's area-effect weapons and plentiful ways to stack the odds in your favour, you'll be mowing down whole squads before you know it.
While it's not a first-person shooter, it often gives you a similar feeling to one when the action really kicks off.
Secondly, the attention to atmosphere. The alien worlds which you explore are often fluid warzones, in which the NPC allies (the faction all players join) and the dastardly Bane happily shoot the hell out of each other without the players.
Where most games are happy to spawn their orcs in fields to mope around, Tabula Rasa regularly flies in drop-ships to deposit a new attack wave or - at the least - does a sinister teleport flash. When you've got a Bane mothership lurking above the battlefield, it all ties together. It almost feels like Halo: The MMO.
But it still shares a basic structure with the rest of the genre. You get quests from people with marks above their heads. You run off and kill some people, and take their stuff. You sell it to buy some lovely new equipment. You level up. You gain new powers. Perhaps you team up with some mates and go off into a private instanced area for an epic mission. MMO stuff, you know.
Which isn't to say that the game's inventions are inconsequential. Take how Tabula Rasa deals with character development. Everyone starts with identical skills and abilities, but you branch at levels five, 15 and 25. At each of the forks you have the ability to create a clone of your progress so you can backtrack.
Then there's the combat itself which, while stat based, has enough twists to make it more than just standing still and shooting at each other. Partial cover leads to defensive bonuses. Kneeling gives you a damage bonus (but a vulnerability in limited manoeuvrability).
That you have to aim to get a lock and click repeatedly to fire with non-auto guns means you feel more connected to the action than the click-and-spray hosepipe of death of Hellgate, and things like chainguns overheating and the generally low level of damage it takes to kill most opponents means that combat feels like no other MMO.
Rather than the map being static like most MMOs, some settlements can alternate between allied and Bane control and the fights to claim or defend them lead to some of Tabula Rasa's most frenetic and memorable moments.
Not all of its moves come off. The much-discussed 'Ethical Parables' - quests with a moral choice element, and a hangover from developer figurehead Richard Garriott's earlier career building the ethically complex Ultima games - are very much minor details.
While it's a lovingly rendered world, the atmosphere occasionally cracks: while there have been far worse MMO launches, there are some rough elements, broken quests and interface issues that require a patch's loving attention.
But perversely, what I noticed most is the stuff that I didn't notice at first. Stuff that I didn't think about until I had a character in the mid-teens. Like how, despite the fact the game is based around a level system, monsters are flagged if they're likely to give you a kicking - and I didn't think about it once.
As I made my way across the warzone, I attacked people as the situation warranted, not according to what that number above their heads said I should and shouldn't do. I avoided situations based upon what it looked like - overwhelming forces, huge sinister machines - rather than some abstract game mechanic.
Which, after games where you find yourself skirting around a level 18 monster when you're only level 15, is just lovely, thanks.
In other words, while it's an MMO, it managed to make me forget it was, and I started treating it just as a wonderful place to explore, full of monsters to shoot, friends to defend and stuff to pick up. In other words, a world. Which was always the idea of this genre, but I'd lost the ability to see it in a fog of numbers and impeccably managed levelling curves.
Tabula may not have redefined the MMO as it no doubt intended to, but it's certainly refreshed it.
I got this game at launch and right now im loving it. Clearly there are issues with the game as one would expect with an MMO launch, server lag, bugged quests etc, however there have already been patches and hot fixes that demonstrate a determination to resolve these issues quickly.
In general chat in TR there is a constant stream of "WoW did x better", "TR does this better" as you would expect. Frankly I don’t really want to draw any comparisons because to suggest one or the other is better would just invite futile debate. What I will say though is that I loved WoW but after two years of playing I was ready for a change and TR feels like a breath of fresh air. The format is essentially the same "kill x" "collect x" but that’s just MMO steak, its the garnish that sets TR apart. The pace of the questing, the number of enemies and the general carnage cant fail to bring a smile to your face.
I was ready to play TR for a week see how it went but I can now see that I will be playing it for much longer, lets hope that some well thought out end games content will be added in the near future as the potential is huge. This game is available from Play.com at Ł17.99 last time I looked, with a month free subs, give it a try. I have not seen a bad professional review of this game yet, they cant all be wrong.
Ah crap, i was definately going to get this, but if it has a monthly subscription then i dont know how i'll justify it. I just cant bear to pay that kind of money for anything!..... maybe it's me who has the problem :$
I got this game at launch and right now im loving it. Clearly there are issues with the game as one would expect with an MMO launch, server lag, bugged quests etc, however there have already been patches and hot fixes that demonstrate a determination to resolve these issues quickly.
In general chat in TR there is a constant stream of "WoW did x better", "TR does this better" as you would expect. Frankly I don’t really want to draw any comparisons because to suggest one or the other is better would just invite futile debate. What I will say though is that I loved WoW but after two years of playing I was ready for a change and TR feels like a breath of fresh air. The format is essentially the same "kill x" "collect x" but that’s just MMO steak, its the garnish that sets TR apart. The pace of the questing, the number of enemies and the general carnage cant fail to bring a smile to your face.
I was ready to play TR for a week see how it went but I can now see that I will be playing it for much longer, lets hope that some well thought out end games content will be added in the near future as the potential is huge. This game is available from Play.com at Ł17.99 last time I looked, with a month free subs, give it a try. I have not seen a bad professional review of this game yet, they cant all be wrong.
cool, honestly, im glad to read that there are people that actually like it
A very disappointing game. But I can only speak from beta experience. Mind you, I gave a hell of a lot of feedback and some improvements were made. The trouble is, the game development started off on the wrong foot, and once fundamental mistakes are made, they can't be fixed without a total re-write. Whilst the end product will fare better than the dreadful Auto Assault (comparisons are drawn due to a combat system designed for melee being used primarily for fast paced, ranged action), I can't see it lasting. Which is a terrible shame as I wanted this game to do well.
Unfortunately, there isn't a single scrap of innovation, and the fundamental mechanics are executed poorly.
Once you get to grips with the game, and get stuck in it becomes fun. However, after a while, you realise that it suffers the same problems as most MMO's and lacks depth.
The so called dynamic battlefields are far from dynamic. Sure, there are constant skirmishes between the goodies and baddies, but they don't change. Reinforcements arrive by dropship, but it's generally the same mob in the same place. Just like every other MMO.
There is of course, the fact that there are bases to be won and lost, but again, because it's the same mobs spawning in the same place, it soon becomes tedius.
Perhaps the biggest sin comitted by TR is that it sticks to the unrealistic, and frankly outdated hit point system.
For example - low level average bad guy 'A' needs, say, 5 hits from rifle 'X' to take down. Fair Enough. Yet 20+ levels later when you now have rifle 'Y' which does 10 times as much damage, you still need to hit higher level average bad guy 'B' 5 times to take him down as he just happens to have 10 times more hit points than his low level cousin.
It makes you wonder what the whole point of levelling and gaining hit points is for.
Sure, you get beefier weapons (of which there are about 10 different types with 5 ammo types, not a huge selection), but the baddies are just scaled up to provide no more or less of a challenge.
Ok, that's not quite true...you'll get beasties which are immune to certain ammo types, but as you can carry a whole bottomnal...it doesn't matter.
Eventually it boils down to point & click whilst trying not to overheat your weapon.
What's more amusing is the cost of ammo. Unless things have changed since beta, ammo is worth more than its weight in gold.
The final straw for me was having a lvl 20+ specialist who had no skills of real value (everything was put into basic weapons and one type of armour as that pretty much covered every situation), whose specialist weapons were useless compared to a maxxed skill in basic weapons.
So whilst I could hold my own in a firefight, I'd still be facing wasp like creatures about the size of a cat that could soak up as much damage as one of the Bane's hugh fighting machines....
At that point, the whole game falls apart...you're not on a foreign world fighting for the survival of the human race, you're just a pathetic human who's mighty damage dealing weapons can barely scratch a large wasp.
To sum up, Richard Garriot is probably a nice chap. But he should really see his own game before mouthing off about how revolutionary it's going to be.
This game could have been the next step, the paradigm shift needed to bring the MMO up to date and leave its Ultima Online and Everquest roots behind. Ancient and unwieldy game mechanics which were designed for PnP RPG's, not todays processing powerhouses that are our PC's should be long gone by now. As should the notion that levelling up and gaining hit points and skill points constitutes roleplaying.
A proper war, where everyone has a part to play with a dynamic battlefield that will actually make the players create their own missions isn't a difficult thing to do, as long as you know how - I wonder who knows how to do that *- Instead, we've just got an average MMO that just happens to have a Sci-Fi setting that's hardly worthy of a Starblazer comic (heh, remember those? Made by the same people who do the Commando Comic).
What a wasted opportunity. Sure, it's fun for a while, but has no lasting appeal.
* It's me ok. But after being ripped off by the Government, MoD and Military and left to rot, I'm not giving away my secrets for free these days, especially when there's money involved Maybe one day someone might realise the key to getting it right, but none of the developers seemed to have grasped the basic principles as of yet...ho hum.
You see that's what I thought too, then I read this CVG review and it sounds like an awesome game.
I remember when I played I was bowled over for the first couple of weeks and then quickly got bored. I think this is what's happening with reviews and why we're seeing high scores. MMO reviewers should put in some solid play time, at least 100 hours to represent a decent month of play.
I didn't last the whole of beta and was hoping the game was fixed.
Aye. They held of the review for GW:EN for a month to give it a good play, and game up with a pretty solid review. Some new stuff, short campaign then lots of high level, repeatable quests for high level goodies; what is usually called the 'endgame' for MMO's...although I can't understand why an MMORPG should have an endgame...I guess it just means you've been playing too much. In previous MMORPG's, I've never hit the 'end game'..I don't rush.
A pretty spot on review. I personally have been playing since August in the beta & ever since. The action is fast and frantic and the game very immersive although like many have pointed out, and I agree , it needs some more content ie at launch there is no Auction house/Vendor system. However that is already in on the patch centre and is due for launch within a couple of weeks.
Ive played many mmorpgs (uo,doac,shadowbane,eve,ryzom,roma victor & now tr) The only ones that ever grabbed me out of those were uo & daoc which I played for 6 years & 3 years (with breaks) however from what Ive seen and played this is the new mmorpg for me.
For me the + points are :
a) Constant action whenever you want it, and good transport system so you can get anywhere in minutes.
b) A game with a great amount of player skill in it , not seen that since early days of uo ie. healing in any other mmorpg is simply a matter of clicking group member and spamming hotkey whereas in TR you must aim your repair tool so its fast and hectic (or use aoe but that only repairs 1/2 the amount)
c) All of the core game is soloable, no "forced" grouping like other mmorpgs since uo have drifted towards. Here instas are scaled to group size so the more you bring the more you gotta kill. It will still be faster in a group, but only if the group is coordinated.
d) NO downtime, armour and health regens very fast once your outof combat for 10secs so even without a tank+ healer you can solo fast and effectively, just without a healer you need to be more tactical as wading in will only get you so far before its just all to much
e) The clone point system is great, make one char take it to 15 and clone and youve got 2 diffrent classes. Take each of those to 30 and clone and youve got yourself 4 level 30 chars in diffrent classes Saves a lot of the lower level repetitiveness.
Well thats my opinion, fast paced and something a bit diffrent, more than worth a look. If you dont like it move on to the next game, no point in hanging around slating a game that just isnt your cup of tea
Oh and 1 correction to the review - the last level you branch at is 30 (but you didnt play it that far so Ill excuse you that mistake)
This score is over generous, the gameplay becomes very stale and their is a significant lack of variety in the enviroment and the way mobs are deployed. This looks like another Auto Assault in the making.
I felt compelled to jump to Tabula Rasa and Kieron's defence in saying the review is very accurate and balanced, as they tend to be from Mr. Gillien.
8.3 is saying that this game isn't perfect, but it's bloody good for an imperfect game. You're not going to be dissapointed unless you unfairly set your expectations through the roof, or just feel bitterly about the game already. It tries something different as far as controls, combat and story goes in an MMO.
Richard Garriotts name on the box, I once despised too, but when you see the love and care he and his team put into building the world (via the "Making of" Video), I think it's perfectly justified.
If you've made your way down to this comment and are on the fence about trying Tabula Rasa, firstly I don't think you should allow anyone's opinion other than a paid reviews influence your decision, and secondly it will probably surprise you as a very fun game.
Also, we now have an Auction House and some nice fixes that came out with Patch 1.4. With the team that they are behind Tabula Rasa, I have no doubt that there's much more goodness to come in the future.
Saying all of this, if you don't have the money, it's not worth spending more than you need to on this game. Play the free month in the box, and if you're compelled to continue or not, make a decision and stick to it.
P.s. I've played EVE Online, City of Heroes, Anarchy Online and SWG. Been Muhmorpurguhring for ages and this is my favourite so far.
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*- Instead, we've just got an average MMO that just happens to have a Sci-Fi setting that's hardly worthy of a Starblazer comic (heh, remember those? Made by the same people who do the Commando Comic).
Maybe one day someone might realise the key to getting it right, but none of the developers seemed to have grasped the basic principles as of yet...ho hum.
(or use aoe but that only repairs 1/2 the amount)
