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Ten Ton Hammer Tabula Rasa Dev Forum Q&A #3
With all the new Tabula Rasa info released last week, Ten Ton Hammer jumped into the fray and gave their forum posters another opportunity to ask the TR folks questions about the future of this magnificent Sci-Fi MMO. Community Manager April "CuppaJo" Burba (former CommMan for NCsoft's other hit property, City of Heroes), came back with some rather intriguing answers. Of particular interest was the comment that for the foreseeable future every new patch will not only include bug fixes, but also some kind of new content (i.e., new areas). Another question posed was whether or not there had been any thought to given player's the ability to further customize their weapons by allowing them to paint them. Burba's reply was that it has been added to the "giant list of possible updates," but absolutely no time line was set for its release.For the rest of the Q&A check out the Ten Ton Hammer forums.
Tabula Rasa's Guardian gaffe?
As Guardians in Destination Games' Tabula Rasa already well know, the staff ability saw something of a change this past week, and it was an unexpected change at that. Players wielding a staff saw their damage reduced to about 20% of what it was, and the speed of their attacks was raised 5x times, ostensibly to make up the DPS lost. On the official TR site, a community update went up to let players know that this was only part of a proposed Guardian tweak that they're working on behind the scenes, of which the 5x speed increase was a part -- the lowering of the damage was just a hotfix to temporarily rein in the damage until the full fix came out.Now, as an aspiring Guardian myself, I can tell what's wrong with this idea right away. Giving the Guardian, the tank class of the game, a 5x attack speed increase is destined to upset players. Guardians tend to put five pumps into hand-to-hand because the damage bonus it affords stacks with staff damage. The problem? Putting five pumps into hand-to-hand also gives you a 75% knockback chance. Think about that. If you increase the number of swings Guardians take by five, you're increasing the number of knockbacks by five. Knockbacks, those fun little occurances where you actually lower your DPS by knocking your enemy out of melee range.I think this may be the first time I've heard a class-wide, "NERF!" in Tabula Rasa since it went live. *sniff* They grow up so fast!
Hotfix applied to TR
The gang over in the wonderful world of Tabula Rasa are fully aware of the problems with the brand spanking new Military Surplus auctions displaying as "none." A fix was dropped this morning as a matter of fact. The fix was published during the maintenance window somewhere between 4AM – 6AM, Central Time. Additionally, they fixed the attack speed/damage for staff, and whatever was causing the Palisades escort missions not to complete.The folks at NCsoft and Destination Games want to extend a hearty "thanks" to the player's for their patience as they feverishly worked to resolve these pesky issues.You may new resume fragging Bane with extreme prejudice.
Tabula Rasa three day free trial opened to everybody
For those who still find themselves without a three day trial code after the 'Recruit a Rookie' promotion, we've got some good news for you. Courtesy of MMORPG.com, all registered members can get a Tabula Rasa trial code to use for fun and profit. All you have to do is give them the vitals, click through a confirmation email, and you can be well on your way to experiencing the best sci-fi MMO to hit the market for a long time. Though this method is considerably easier, and quicker, than the Recruit a Rookie method, we still advise lobbying friends, families, and co-workers who play the game for a trial code first, because that will net them a full free month of playtime -- a veritable Christmas miracle if you ask me. Of course, if you can't find anybody to snag a code from, the freebie is the most sensible option. So go ahead and trial it up - we look forward to seeing many new faces in-game!
Starr Long talks Tabula Rasa's future
Laura Genender, community manager for MMORPG.com, recently spoke with Starr Long, producer for Tabula Rasa, about the future of this sci-fi fragfest. What they have planned will most assuredly keep players coming back for more. Here are some of the highlights: Control Points will eventually be controllable by clans, and yes - other clans can then challenge them for it. This will be absolutely huge! A revamp of the Logos tablet seems imminent. For starters, players will be able to hear the entire story of the Eloha all at once instead of just bits and pieces at a time. Higher end game areas are being planned and "big plans" are in store for upper level content, some of which is already being worked on for release in near-future patches. A crafting revamp will occur early next year based on player feedback. Within the next few months they hope to release more new level 50 instances, Hybrids, PAUs, and the Clan ownership of Control Points. Just to name a few. For the complete manifest of new features, be sure to read the entire interview with Starr Long on MMORPG.com.
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.
Military Surplus not without bugs
As reported to you yesterday, patch 1.3 of Tabula Rasa went live yesterday, bringing in many of the changes, fixes, and additions that we'd been salivating over for weeks. The addition of Military Surpluses, which allow players to auction off crafting items and old or unused gear, was among our favorite new things to play with (along with the change in itemization), because it gave some value to those AFS credits we'd been hoarding since launch. And while there were kinks in the repair numbers that got ironed out yesterday, there appear to be more bugs within the Military Surplus of which we weren't initially aware. From the official website:Some players are reporting their auctions from yesterday are currently missing their date and time. We are investigating this issue, but so far, it does not appear that items are at risk. We will post an update as soon as we have it. Thank you for your patience.It didn't sound like too big a deal until I logged on this afternoon and found that some of my items on auction not only lacked a start or end date, but could not be taken down from the Military Surplus. What a bummer! Of course, I'd still recommend continuing to put up items as normal, because the market for purples is still so inflated that there's a tremendous amount of money to be made, bugs or not.
Tabula Rasa 1.3 patch delights despite repair hiccup
After much to-do, Tabula Rasa's 1.3 patch finally went live today. The Military Surpluses are finally giving the game's currency some value, the Festive Seasonal Holiday Observance Flora look spectacular, and rare weapons are finally doing the sort of damage befitting their type. My purple Laser Cannon went from being a situational weapon to one that I can use in a huge melee to considerable success. I am overcome with holiday joy!The only hiccup was a problem with the repair system, which DG has acknowledged and are currently hotfixing as we speak. The changes to itemization necessitated that rare weapons were more costly to repair, but something got fudged in the implementation, and when players logged back in post-patch, they found that the item health on their equipment was much lower than it was pre-patch, and that things were prohibitively expensive to fix. As of 4:30 EST, they pulled down the servers to fix this problem. The update on the website says that players that logged in before this fix will receive a "credit bonus" to compensate. We'll see what that means when the game comes back up in a little bit.
Richard Garriott talks MMOs at GWU lecture
Yesterday, the Washington DC chapter for the Association of Computer Machinery welcomed game design guru Richard Garriott to speak at its last meeting for the 2007 calendar year. Garriott, who has been writing and designing games professionally since the age of 19, is currently the executive producer on Tabula Rasa, though he's perhaps better known as the man behind Ultima Online, likely the MMO for which he will be most remembered. It helped pioneer the massively multiplayer game as we know it, and ushered in many gaming conventions that we're still familiar with today.While we were expecting something of a more technical speech from Garriott given the venue, the lecture was more autobiographical, with the esteemed Lord British explaining how, as one of the industry's oldest members, he's had to ride the wave of expectations in PC gaming over time. He also reflected on many aspects of Tabula Rasa's recent release, making it a relevant discussion for gamers who are more familiar with his more recent offerings in the genre.
Tabula Rasa patch this week, attributes not part of respec
In case you missed the Weekend Wrap-up post by the impeccable community staff over on Tabula Rasa's official website, here's the scoop. The long awaited 1.3 patch will be hitting the live servers this week, heralding in some of the big change we've been talk about for weeks, including the Rage nerf, Military Surpluses, the itemization changes, and perhaps even the completely non-denominational Festive Seasonal Holiday Observance Flora. The only downside is that the promised respec will not apply to attributes. So you can reset all your ability points governing which skills you can use, but your attributes won't get another look until 1.4.As excited as we are to see all these changes, perhaps more exciting is the rapid pace that Destination Games is setting for getting their content from the test servers onto the live servers. We reported on the changes to the build on the PTR only a week ago, and already they're set to go live? That's pretty impressive. It's much faster than certain other games that I won't mention by name.Click here to check out the patch notes.
Tabula Rasa 'Recruit a Rookie' rundown
We know that many gamers were finally seduced into Tabula Rasa's warm embrace with the recent deal that popped up on Amazon, where you could get the CE for half off the retail price, but we also know that MMO players as a whole are a jaded lot, and bargain prices alone aren't enough to to pull you away from your current games of choice. To this end, NCsoft is currently running a refer a friend promotion for Tabula Rasa that could net you a three day trial of the shooty sci-fi MMO. On the PlayNC site (under Account > Manage > Game Accounts > Tabula Rasa), subscribers can email a trial code to a buddy, which will allow them to download the client and give the game a spin. For those who don't have friends who would be interested in receiving a trial, or who people looking for a code themselves, try one of the links below: Tabula Rasa Vault's Referral Thread PlanetTR's Trial Key Request Thread SciFi Massive's Recruit a Rookie Thread In the event that you do choose the purchase the game after using a trial, make sure to use your game code to upgrade your account, not make a new one. Every time somebody upgrades their account from a trial to a full account, the person who made the referral receives a free month of play time. There is a limit of four referrals per account, but that's a potential four free months for the cost of sending a few emails. So hop to it.
Garriott says too many Beta testers hurt Tabula Rasa
Gamasutra caught up with well-known designer Richard Garriott at the Independent Games Conference held late last month in Austin, TX. During the event he was asked what lessons he took away from the marketing of Tabula Rasa; his response was a bluntly negative appraisal of their Beta test. Too many testers were added too early, in his opinion, which created a current of negative views in the community and soured a lot of potential players on the game. The people who did participate in the beta, we've had to go back to and say 'look, look, we promise: we know it wasn't fun two months ago, but we fixed all that. Really, come try it again.' We've had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process.Massively, of course, was there as well. Check out Elizabeth Harper's great writeup of the keynote in full.
Adventures From the Back Row - the Technician of Biology
Once again we return to that special place in the adventuring party, the back row. The thin line between disaster and success, the party healer is the glue that binds a crew together. This column is a testament to everyone that puts their heart and soul into the supporting role of the online gaming world.Last week we talked a bit about the Tabula Rasa tier 2 healing class, the Specialist. That class sets out the basics of healing in the game, using tools and the leech gun to assist the more militant members of the AFS in their duties against the Bane. This week we'll move on to the tier 3 class, the Biotechnician. Gaining another class-specific weapon and our first Logos healing power, we're faced with a number of thorny choices as to how to develop just within the powers we have available to us now.And, as always is the case in new games, there are still a number of best practice choices still to make. The forums are still very much abuzz with the possibilities of the the healing classes. Let's see if we can work out some of the best choices for AFS healers-in-training, and we'll talk about a few issues newly introduced to TR's supporting cast. In the meantime, what do the Biotechs think? Hazmat or Bio Body Armor?
Under The Hood: Pseudo-MMOs, part two
I realized in my last article I promised to explore the viability of pseudo-MMOs as an expanding market, but it appears I will have to renege on that pledge. I've been getting a veritable glut of the names of games that incorporate MMO-style play in a distinctly non-MMO structure or environment. So instead, here is a brief exploration of the Massive Single-player Offline, or MSO, market, as well as a few online games which share MMO elements.The one which absolutely fits every single criteria for an MMO except for online play (and a rare few others) is Final Fantasy XII. This game, like no other, incorporates MMO-style play into an expansive and engaging single-player environment. Friendly NPCs, hunting quests, main story quests, instanced environments (monsters respawn after leaving and reentering a zone), real-time combat, non-random encounters (you see it, you fight it), and a distinct waypoint system. It's best described as the solo player's MMO.
Live at the Independent Game Conference: Richard Garriott keynote
This morning your cheerful (only because we've had enough caffeine) Massively staffers are reporting to you live from the Independent Game Conference in Austin, Texas where Richard Garriott is about to deliver the morning's keynote address. For those of you who aren't sure why you should care, let me give you a mini-bio: Richard Garriott helped pioneer the MMO industry with the launch of Ultima Online a decade ago. If that that doesn't ring any bells, all I can say is that you could trace the heritage of most massively multiplayer games today directly back to UO. This morning, Garriott is going to be speaking on good game design through research. Curious to hear his thoughts on the subject? Keep reading for our live coverage of his keynote.
Tabula Rasa mission designer Wynne McLaughlin interviewed
Wynne McLaughlin, one of the mission designers for Tabula Rasa, was recently interviewed by MMORPGslave to find out a bit about his background, and his involvement with the game. It turns out that he was previously working at a studio called Warthog that was bought by Gizmondo -- and you probably know how that story ends. But fortune intervened, and on the day that his studio shut down, NCsoft gave him a buzz and hired him to his current position.The interview covers his gaming interests of the past and present, other influences on his work (he was in screenwriting before the games industry), and what he likes and is proud of in TR: "On a personal level, I'm proud of my 'ethical dilemma' missions, and especially the 'Penumbra' black ops mission arc, which started out as a simple idea and ended up becoming a major part of the game's meta-story. I was also very pleased with opening cinematic and the in-game movies, which I had the opportunity to write."Check out the full MMORPGslave interview at the link below.
Adventures From the Back Row: the Specialist and her tools
Given that Tabula Rasa is still so new, I'm going to focus for the time being on getting my fellow healbots up to speed. Unlike other games that have dedicated class systems, the tiered system in TR requires that you 'want it'; you have to choose the right class and specifically allocate skill points in order to keep your fellow soldiers on their feet. Today we'll start slow, by going over the basics of the Specialist class. We'll talk about her tools of the trade, and begin running down some of the particular challenges of being a healer in Tabula Rasa. If you're an AFS healer, speak up in the comments, because I want to know: how the heck do you keep your teammates targetted?
Tabula Rasa seeks more rookies
Tabula Rasa has wasted no time in joining the list of MMOs with "refer a friend" schemes. After all, if Earth had just been invaded by aliens -- and assuming Will Smith wasn't available -- the first thing you'd do would be to get your buddies to join the military and flee into ancient wormholes. Right?It's a pretty tempting offer with the game having been released so recently, though. If anyone you know happens to pick up a copy of TR, they get three extra days playtime and you get an additional month -- not a bad deal. Of course if Tabula Rasa really wants to sell some more copies, it could do with more than a handful of reviews on the internet. Perhaps General British is storming offices?
The Daily Grind: Good tutorial zones
One of the things we've noticed in jumping from game to game lately is how common tutorial zones have become. From EQ to Tabula Rasa, it seems common to have a tutorial now. As such, we thought it would be nice to touch on a few of the better tutorials for people new to MMOs.Probably one of my personal favorite tutorial zones is the one in EverQuest II -- now. The tutorial zones in EQ2 can get you into the swing of things fairly easily if you're not familiar with the game. Not only are there myriad quests designed to teach you what you need to know, but there are also tons of NPCs whose sole purpose is to give you tips and tricks about how things work in game. While the tutorial in other games such as EVE and CoX could be said to be roughly as good about telling you how things are, I simply don't think they're quite as much fun, or as chock full of quests to keep you engaged. (Although I will give props to CoH for having the Isolator badge in the tutorial.) A close runner up is the tutorial in LotRO, which drops you smack into the middle of the lore and story that people play that game for while doing a good job of explaining the game. On the other hand, there's the problem of believability when it occurs to you that any low-level character wouldn't likely come out of a brush with a Ringwraith alive. While WoW may be the 800-pound-gorilla of MMOs right now, I do honestly think their newbie zones could stand to be instanced like many other games are. Why? Because if you're new, there's nothing that will turn you off quite a quickly as being ganked and corpse-camped in a noob area when you're level 3 and you're dealing with players who are easily ten times your level. (Yes, I've been corpse camped in WoW's new-player areas by opposite-faction griefers.) Games with distinct, separate tutorial areas save new players from this hassle while they're getting used to just what those shiny new buttons do. There are many other things that we love and hate about tutorials in MMOs, but we'll skip off those for now or this will quickly become a novel. Instead we're curious what you think. What do you love about the tutorial zones in the games you play? What do you absolutely hate? Is there something an older game did better than the newer games you've experienced? Which is your favorite? Let us know!
One Shots: A moment in history
Today we've captured a little Easter egg in Tabula Rasa just for you. There are numerous computers throughout the game and most of them are usable -- which means you can see interesting little messages on them. Some are bits of story or lore, others simply give the world and environment a bit more depth than it would have had otherwise. This one, however, is a blast from the past! Using a particular computer in the Cormon base in Raja Gorge fires up Akalabeth, Richard Garriott's first game, published in 1980. (Though how the NCsoft crew managed to misspell Akalabeth with the original game disks hanging in their lobby I'm not sure...!)Do you have a screenshot of your own that you think expresses a unique or memorable moment in your favorite MMO? Send them to us with a description (including game name and location) and you may see it posted here for tomorrow's One Shots. %Gallery-9798%
