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Honoring Tabula Rasa through screenshots
Over the next 2 months, we here at Massively plan to honor Tabula Rasa through a series of articles. The news of the game's closing affects all MMO gamers, even if they never actually played Tabula Rasa itself. So in this first one, we're taking a look at the community's best screenshots in an abbreviated gallery of event pics, rare captures and just a bit to help us look back once it's all gone.These 45 screenshots were all created by the community at the PlanetTR forums, with a few thrown in by myself. They show everything from the early days of Beta to the high-level instances. I wanted to thank everyone at PTR who submitted literally hundreds of screenshots to me to make this possible. Follow the link below for the complete gallery.%Gallery-39348%
Tabula Rasa hosts another server war
The Server vs. Server War in Tabula Rasa is ready for this month's installment, as the PlanetTR folks get ready for what has quickly become one of their largest events. As with last month's server war, this one will follow the same rules, although this time Pegasus will join forces with Cassiopeia to battle those in Orion and Centaurus.Join the fun on Saturday, December 6th from 3pm-5:30pm CTS. This will be held on the Public Test Server, on the Divide and Wilderness maps. Over 14 clans from all four servers will be involved, as this fourth installment of this event should prove to be their largest yet. Check out more information on the main site, as well as the sign-up threads for both sides at the PlanetTR forums.
Tabula Rasa Server vs. Server War
If you follow Tabula Rasa news, you may have seen a recent announcement concerning the Server vs. Server war coming up this Saturday, October 11th, 2008. This war is the third one of its kind, and aims to be the largest and most popular to date. If you're new to the Server vs. Server war, you may be interested in a brief explanation as told to us by PlanetTR's Adele Machka. The war works by combining clans from Pegasus-Centaurus and Orion-Cassiopeia to join two "super" clans which then declare war upon each other. Each of these wars last 4 hours. The victor is the clan which has the least amount of deaths at the end. It's an extremely well-organized event, and the organizers want to make sure that everyone just has fun, first and foremost. If you'd like more details or information on signing up for this event, check out this thread. Let's all do our part to make this the largest SvS event ever![Thanks Adele and Andriss!]
Richard Garriott and special guest join TR's Friday Night Fights
In the past, we've reported on some excited bouts in Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights, but nothing compares to what they have in store for you now. Next Friday, July 25th, Richard Garriott will be facing up against two time featherweight boxing champ Jesus Chavez in the C.E.L.L.A.R. Arena. This will be held on the TR Test Server starting at 6pm Central time. They will be in C.E.L.L.A.R. 3, which can be accessed via teleporter from the barracks in Alia Das.If you're new to Friday Night Fights and aren't sure how it all works, TR's Community Coordinator Amy "Critters" Crider has assembled a handy Q&A which you can see right after the cut, as well as a hilarious promotional video created especially for this event. We hope to see you there!
Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights gets an upgrade
In this week's Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa, we get a few tidbits from within the community at large. Friday Nights Fights is still going strong, with this weekend's winner being Glass on his fifth FnF championship! Plus, the FnF ringleaders have announced some changes to the regular matches to help liven things up a bit. A new match type called the Gut Check pits the final winner against 6 of the previously-defeated competitors, who form a squad to take down the final contestant one at a time. This week, Glass made it through two fighters before finally being taken down by the third.Also, be sure to check out a new video compiled by Kaczmanchoy which showcases all of the weapons in Tabula Rasa. However, the video goodness doesn't stop there as Chae compiled some footage of his lottery event from last Friday.
TR's Weekend Wrapup proves the community is stronger than ever
One look at the most recent Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa and you'll see that the TR community is flourishing as strong as ever. Amid concerns from many early-adopters of the game, these community-run events seem to be popping up everywhere. PlanetTR's Hottest Armor Contest - The top seven winners of this glorified beauty contest are showcased and praised in the PlanetTR forums. Friday Night Fights - The FnF for May 16th will be the first time it will be done in the C.E.L.L.A.R., which is the brand new boxing ring still on the Public Test Server. So yes, this means the FnF itself will be on the test server as well. It's still not too late to sign up for this, but even if you don't participate in the fighting this week, it will certainly be worth watching! It's Raining Bane - This dev-supported event is basically a giant collection of players running around the Torden Mires killing stuff. Sounds great to us! PvP Singles Tournament - Sponsored by the Warlords of Exodus clan, this PvP tournament seems to be a well-organized event with some rare purple items as prizes, courtesy of the GMs.
Tabula Rasa: Wonders video is making a splash
Tabula Rasa is a gorgeous game, there's just no denying that. The sci-fi world can play host to some incredible imagery including technological, alien and even tribal visuals that surpass most other MMOs out there. Do you remember the first time you entered Eloh Vale, or got that first glimpse of the Trinity Bridge just over the horizon?To showcase some of the greatest natural and not-so-natural wonders of the TR landscape, a fan of the game has put together an amazing video that certainly deserves a look. You can view the low-res YouTube version above, but we highly recommend the full high-res version. Even if you've stepped away from the game for a while, there's no denying its beauty.
Curing Tabula Rasa's aggro problems
Over the weekend, we took up developer Kagasumi's call to try out Tabula Rasa's new patch 1.7, and the enhanced, killer AI that came along with it. You can read our impressions of the change here, but the short version is that the wider aggro sharing on test takes away all the strategy and decision-making of combat and replaces it with an unsurvivable zergfest.While we assumed the only choices were between a smaller or wider aggro sharing radius, Planet TR poster Line has written up a pretty thorough post exploring another possibility. It doesn't make sense, Line says, for enemies to be able to locate a player the instant he gains aggro of one enemy within a certain radius. Enemies should at least have to use an ability (which could be stopped by the player) to draw the attention of nearby allies, and that attention should be drawn to the threat's point of origin, not the player. What Line is describing, in essence, is the sort of AI routine more commonly seen in the shooter genre.Is it feasible to see this sort of code-heavy change this far into release? Maybe, maybe not. We do know it'd make the game considerably more engaging. And it'd be better than being zerged.
Hands-on with Tabula Rasa's next patch: harder enemies good for the game?
Tabula Rasa is a peculiar game compared to many in that the difficulty of enemy encounters usually isn't measured by enemy strength, but by their numbers and composition. Man to man, your typical AFS soldier is more than a match for even the toughest units the Bane can throw at them. While that would seem to make the game a cakewalk, this is balanced by the fact that the enemy usually travels in roaming packs, containing enemies of different types that complement and balance each other. The difficulty of the game is largely derived from finding ways to pick apart these units before they can burn you down.Among the many changes to come to Tabula Rasa in the most recent patch on the public test server is a new, enhanced enemy AI. For whatever reason, the Destination Games team decided to amp up the difficulty of enemy encounters by increasing so-called "aggro sharing" between enemy monsters. Having given the new build some time on the test server, we've got some thoughts and criticisms.
Experience modifiers are good, no bad, wait good, no definitely bad
When we reported early last month that the Destination Games team was looking to give a serious buff to Tabula Rasa's experience modifier system, it was then largely regarded as something to be happy about. Too many players were suffering from the attrition of climbing from tier 3 at level 30 to the so-called "elder game" waiting at level 50. Not only do the incentives to continue leveling dry up around that point, but the quests themselves become sparse and hard to link together.Well evidently, the fan community has decided in all of a week that the buffs to the modifiers are simply too much, and some have called for them to be scaled back, or changed so that anything more than 3x experience is restricted as a veteran reward or unlocked after leveling one character to 50. On this, we have to disagree. Allowing for the majority of players to finally make that push through to 50 will go a long way towards pressuring the TR team to finally implement a real end-game to draw people back into the fold. If they can't succeed at that charge, than they deserve to fail. We're OK with putting them on notice.
Has TR's cloning system become obsolete?
The clone credits in TR were originally created in lieu of an easy way to freely change your character's skill and attribute points. This pertains both to the storyline, and a more hardcore approach to skill point changes. We tend to think NCSoft had the right idea with this, as do most game developers in their MMO's infant stages. Does anyone remember the attribute point system in Guild Wars when it first launched? Now skills and attribute points can be reallocated repeatedly with no penalty or cost at all. This seems to be the lay of the land with most current games, but we wonder if Tabula Rasa will soon follow that trend.So now the question is, what's easier: completing a Target of Opportunity for the clone credit, or gathering 600 control point tokens for the respec? The opinions seem to sway for either side, but there are certainly pros and cons for both. With cloning, you can remake your character completely, while keeping the same class and points. This can also be a con though if you've grown rather attached to your character. In that case, a respec would be the appropriate course of action. Whichever you decide, it is nice to know we have a choice to use either now, depending on the situation.
TR's PAUs: batteries included, some assembly required
Giant, walking, robotic instruments of death. There's just something about them that appeals to us as geeks. Sure, it might be more practical to build a tank or an airplane as an instrument of war, but you don't get that same rush as you do when you see a bipedal weapons platform in motion. As we've reported to you recently, Tabula Rasa's own bipedal instruments of death have made an appearance on the public test server, and, even in their unassembled form, we couldn't be more excited to see them.A poster by the name of Seraph on the Planet TR forums went even further than we did, using his photoshop-fu to put together what the Grendel might look like fully assembled, just from looking at the parts sitting around the garage in Foreas Base. While we'd rather like to believe that it would be slightly taller and imposing, it seems like a pretty accurate mock-up from what we can tell at this point. But then, that's just the Grenadier's PAU. We've still got seven more to go!
TR players take PvP up a notch
In lieu of a more structured PvP system like the one the developer's have promised in future patches, some Tabula Rasa players have taken the initiative and decided to start their own community event on the Pegasus server. Dubbed "The Supremacy Circuit," the tournament will take place over five weeks and will feature four different tiers of combatants based on level. The tiers go by a strict level cap of 15, 30, 40, and 50 for each respective tier. On the designated nights, participants assemble in their teams of four and go at it in the Irendas Penal Colony.Registration will remain open until March 29, giving you plenty of time to level a character to your desired tier. The actual circuit doesn't begin until April 5. Players are allowed to field hybrid characters, though each team is restricted to a single character of any one class in their four active participants. No word yet on what the prizes will be for the winning team in each tier, though it probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch to expect a good chunk of in-game cash, and if the developers pay attention, perhaps even some berets as well. Planet TR has a sub-forum specifically dedicated to the event, so head on over there to find out more detailed information and sign up.
AFS mechs' new animations show their mettle
As is usually the case, there were a lot of things that we wanted the Destination Games team to put into Tabula Rasa's patch 1.5 that we don't see in the build on the PTS. The opacity of the development process usually has that effect. But one of the nice benefits of our ignorance is that we are often quite pleasantly surprised by the unexpected things that we find every time a new build shows up on our a desktop. One of the things that eluded as when the patch notes were posted yesterday, but which delighted us when shown in motion is the new attacks and animations for the mechs that patrol the heavier AFS bases.One player who goes by the name of Flashburn on the Planet TR forums was courteous enough to record these new animations for our viewing pleasure. Notice the way the mech raps on his head to unjam the rockets. It's subtle, but worthy of a chuckle. And who can't be at least slightly awed by that new jumping attack? Are these new animations in some a way preview for what's ahead with the long-promised personal armored units? We can only speculate at this point, but we're suddenly excited about the prospect all over again. We'll have more on the new build as we explore it.
New patch for TR on PTS
Tabula Rasa's long-awaited patch 1.5 has finally entered the process of rolling out (at least, we assume it's 1.5 - it's called 1.5.4 on the update screen, but the notes make no mention of it), as the Destination Games crew has released a new build onto the public test server, and the patch notes along with it. Just a note before you drop what you're doing and go try and log into the PTS, it appears as though only those on the Pegasus server got their characters copied over this time around, so suckers like me on Orion will just get to QQ for another week or so.There's a lot of small changes, but some of the ones that most immediately stuck out to us were: Green, Blue, and Purple Healing Discs and Repair Tools now offer +20%, +40%, and +60% effectiveness like other equipment. Since itemization finally became a big deal, Specialists have had to put up with repair tools that were not as proportionately effective as their weapon counterparts. I've never actually seen a blue or purple repair tool though, so presumably those will be added as rewards. You should no longer be stunned for a significant duration after standing up from a knockback. This may not sound big, but it's a pet-peeve of most players. Thrax have a habit of kicking players in the face, which takes an inordinate amount of time to recover from. We're also getting reports on the Planet TR forums that boss drops have increased significantly, and now drop named items. This is a big (and welcome!) change, as bosses were rarely worth the trouble in previous versions. We'll have more on this patch as it develops. Check out the full patch notes after the jump.
TR's epic Blind Race finally sees winners
We reported on it last weekend, and on Saturday it finally came to fruition. Certainly fetching the honors as one of the more... bizarre in-game events we've ever heard of, for Tabula Rasa or any other game, the gregarious lot on the Planet TR forums put together the first ever Blind Race. Racers were tasked with running a marathon race through a series of predetermined check-points with their monitors turned off. Guided by the voice of a coaching partner, they had to navigate the oft-treacherous landscape of the Wilderness, the Divide, and the Plains. With the buff to enemy mobs in patch 1.4, it's difficult even making that run when you have all your senses about you, so even more kudos to Andriss and Mcloseky for their victory!In a sadder bit of news, the DG crew rescinded an announcement in a previous community update. Due to some complication on which they didn't care to elaborate, PvP safe zones will likely not make it into patch 1.5 as expected. It's still in the pipeline, we are assured, just not for a little while. I can live with that, as long as they're using the resources to address some of the other, more easily-fixed problems with the game.
Tabula Rasa 'Blind Race' community event next weekend
MMO players are famous for the ability to come up with strange and often bewildering ideas for in-game events. Whether you're talking about naked gnome raids on Ironforge, naked races across a continent, or a large group punching a whole zone into submission ... while naked, MMOs and community events just go hand in hand. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised then to find that dinoroger on the Planet TR forums is trying to arrange a "Blind Race" on the Pegasus server for next Saturday.The basic gist of it is that each team will be composed of two players, a racer and a coach. The racer will be instructed to turn off his monitor, and attempt to race through a series of objectives as quickly as possible. The coach will be tasked with guiding the racer using Ventrillo or any other voice chat program. Motor Assist Armor and five pumps in the sprint ability are heartily recommended. The event is just for fun, so there won't be any prizes for the winners beyond the requisite bragging rights, but it could be potentially amusing if enough players decide to take part. And who knows, maybe the weekend after that there'll be potato sack races!
Forum fun: you can't always get what you want
When it comes to MMOs, change is inevitable. Every conscious decision that the developers make in response to player feedback is liable to affect the game in a number of important, though quite often unforeseen ways. When Destination Games acknowledged that they were going to tweak the effects of health and armor in Tabula Rasa's patch 1.4, most people (including yours truly) assumed that bumping up health relative to armor would have the positive effect of encouraging a larger role for Tabula Rasa's underutilized healing classes. And while experimentation on the public test server has shown that this has largely come to fruition, it has not come without its side-effects. The TR crew also opted to make similar changes in the health/armor to Tabula Rasa's enemies, and a large segment of the community has made the case that this has slowed the pace of the combat on the PTS considerably. Tabula Rasa's combat, driven in large part by the brain power of designer Paul Sage, was the one area of the game that most people agreed was an unmitigated success. Even playing solo, players get to feel like Rambo (more Rambo IV in this case than the first one) as they use high tech weaponry to pew pew wave upon wave of enemies. Reports from the PTS, confirmed by this blogger, show that the average engagement has increased by several seconds. Moreover, fights with multiple enemies (which are really the combat du jour) are made even more difficult by enhanced armor regeneration for humanoid enemies.Sadly, there isn't much for players to do but bitch. And bitching alone won't fill the content gap from 30 to 50!
TR alien hybrids beaten with ugly stick, have good personalities
One of the more shocking changes made when Destination Games announced the patch notes for Tabula Rasa 1.4 was the inclusion of inclusion of alien hybrids. After completing certain quest lines, players could gain the ability to splice alien DNA into any of their future clones, and are even given an extra clone credit to boot. These clones not only assume base attributes befitting their new alien heritage, they also gain the unseemly looks of the extra-terrestrial forebears. Most of the bigger TR forum communities have threads on the topic, with players having plowed through and gained access to the clones on the public test server nearly as quickly as it was announced. The Planet TR forum's overall write-up is probably the most thorough, but the image to the right was pulled from Gangrel's Unofficial forums.That ugly beasty, winner of the Miss Arieki hybrid beauty pageant, is a Thrax hybrid, and is the result of splicing in the DNA of enemy troops. The other hybrids are considerably less offensive looking, and I would go as far as to say the Foreans might even look pretty cool. Many players, and I count myself amongst them, had been complaining because there weren't enough character customization options, and while turning myself into a horrifying mutant wasn't exactly what I had in mind, it's certainly a start. The problem is that there are only a couple versions of these hybrid faces, so the problem isn't really solved in the long run. It's still amusing though, and it'll be interesting to see how many people make the leap when the patch goes live.
Forum Fun: Tabula Rasa Military Surplus 101
As a rush of items hit Tabula Rasa's new Military Surplus over the last couple days, things have been pretty chaotic, to say the least. Players have yet to strike a balance between prices that are ridiculously inflated and those that are barely higher than what you could sell them for to a vendor. There's a strange dichotomy to Tabula Rasa's economy that can be attributed to the fact that items aren't bind on equip. So you can get a purple quest reward, use it until you grow out of it, and then sell it on the Military Surplus for a tidy profit. (Or my preferred strategy, buy the quest reward as soon as you're high enough level for it, use it until you receive you've completed the quest, then sell the duplicate for what you paid.) Theoretically, this should lead to a huge glut of rare items on the Military Surplus, but people are still spending AFS credits by the boatload.As a service to the community, forum poster Doctor Victeonus put up a "Military Surplus 101" thread over on the PlanetTR forums. In it, he outlines what the MSRP (Military Surplus Recommended Pricing - very clever Doc) should be for items of different grades and levels. I haven't had the chance to try out his method since the market has calmed down a bit, but it's a very interesting guideline nonetheless. Now if somebody could just sort out the insane market for crafting ingredients, I'd be a happy camper.
