Tabula Rasa launch: how it went
It's now over three days since Tabula Rasa went retail, so I thought I'd cover the kind of launch and reception that it's received so far.
Let's face it: MMO launch servers are notorious for spending their first couple of days offline -- but in a surprise twist, I'm still yet to encounter any of the TR servers going down for more than a second. Having said that, the game seems to have attracted a lot more players than NCsoft were expecting -- the solitary EU server in particular has been almost continuously maximum population since day one, and starting today I've had to queue up to enter. Not cool. There's also been major lag on the EU server at peak times with so many players logged in at once.
In more continental news, there's a large French (and German) community on Centaurus, both of which are obviously keen on getting their own language-specific server. A second or third EU server at very least is badly needed, but as yet there's been no announcement from NCsoft. Over on the US servers, things have been a lot more stable -- so much so, I've already decided to skip over to Pegasus.
Overall, I've been quite surprised by how enthusiastic the reception Tabula Rasa has received from players in-game has been. Opinions were divided in the beta prior to launch, and I personally thought the game was being launched early -- but the TR crew have cleared up the code, improved framerates, and given the game the extra layer of polish needed. By polish, yes, I *do* mean wearable shades.
The chat interface is still awful, though.
(Note -- there's almost no reviews for RGTR up at present, but once a sufficient amount have hit the Internet, we'll throw up a Joystiq-style metareview for your enjoyment.)
