 Tabula Rasa, the newest MMOG creation from the mind of Richard Garriott.
Since my old Ultima Online playing days I have to give anything "Lord" British does a serious look over and TR is no exception.
I recently got a chance to chat with April "CuppaJo" Burba, Community Manager for Tabula Rasa, she discussed the vision that NCSoft wishes to impart with their revolutionary sci-fi MMOG.
Good bye old standards of point-click rinse and repeat, if this game is as advertised this could be a nice turning point in the development of MMO's and hopefully a "hump" buster in developing the 2nd generation player interface necessary to get MMOG's past thier World of Warcraft / Everquest Funk.
And with Garroitt at the helm, I personally can't wait.
Lets see what April has to say:
How is the development of Tabula Rasa coming?
Good! Things are definitely picking up speed as we hit GDC time. We just recently stated publicly that we are shipping TR in the Fall of ’07 and there is much to do!
How do you believe TR handle bypassing the pitfalls of other non-successful FPS MMOG's (e.g. Necron, Planetside)?
Well – TR isn’t really an FPSMMO – it’s more of an Action RPG. You can adjust your view to third person and adjust the stickiness of your reticle but when you pull the trigger you are still setting off a dice roll. The thing that makes it feel most like a shooter is the user interface. Richard really feels like when you play an MMORPG that you don’t play the game, you play the interface. Target, Fireball, fireball, hold, nuke as you work out you attack chain and click icons. In tabula rasa you move with WASD, shoot your weapon with the left mouse button, execute an ability with the right and look through your reticle while engaging NPCs that move to you if you try and hide. It’s a much more visceral experience.
What has been the biggest hurdle in the development of Tabula Rasa?
Starting over and redefining the game. It has made a lot of people wonder what we have been doing for so long, but in reality we only really stared working on the current version of TR for about 3 years, an average length of time for MMO development.
What such an emphasis on action, how will TR cater to the MMORPG 'purist'?
It’s still an RPG – it’s just less boring. Combat is more interesting and engaging. TR will have crafting, missions with ethical decisions to be made, and an entirely new language for players to learn while exploring the universe.
I love sci-fi themes and can't believe that MMOG's with a sci-fi premise haven't caught on or been more successful. What innovations will TR introduce to to hopefully break that deadlock and usher in a new era of sci-fi MMOGdom?
I guess it depends on your definition of successful. I hear Eve has over 100K players and SGW had even more than that. Has there been a WoW level of success Sci-Fi game yet? No – but I am not sure that it has anything to do with the genre.
The TR team feels like we have reached the last days of the first evolution of MMOs and are embarking on a new evolution where you play the game, not the interface. We also want to help reduce the pain of alt-itis with our Character Cloning system and Ethical Parables. You shouldn’t have to play the first 5 levels a zillion times just to try out different leveling paths.
What has been the most rewarding part of bring Tabula Rasa to life?
Working with the amazing talent we have making Tabula Rasa – it’s a great group of funny, caring, deeply talented people – many of whom have worked their way up in the game industry.
Have there been any updates on when a beta might be starting?
We are in Friends and Family right now and we just added contest winners. We should be sending out Closed Beta invites in several weeks.
I'll end with the standard GM question: If you could change anything about Tabula Rasa what would it be?
I’d add a global voice announcement system for events and server announcements. Who knows – it could happen some day as an expansion to our integrated voice system. :)
For more information concerning Tabula Rasa
Please visit them at: Tabula Rasa Official Website
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