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General British wants you for a trivia contest
To celebrate the successful launch of Tabula Rasa, the folks at NCsoft have set up a surprise in-game event ... for tonight! General British / Richard Garriott will be on-hand for the AFS Sci-Fi Trivia Contest to be held in-game throughout the evening, and across the servers. The release alerting us to the event included this quote from the man himself: "I wanted to quickly do something fun in-game as a thank you to the players who have made this such a smooth launch. We have continued NCsoft's track record for incredibly successful launches and player interest and excitement is higher than we expected in both North America and Europe. The battlefields are full of players taking down Bane invaders & we're having a blast kicking alien butt."No word on where in-game you'll be able to play, but one can only assume details will be given out in the public channels. Here are the times for each server: Centaurus 1pm – Central Pegasus – 6pm Central Orion – 8 pm Central Cassiopeia – 9pm Central Bring your trivia caps and you could find yourself winning some credits. Good luck!
Under The Hood: Of Titles, Badges, and Achievements
Say what you will about achievement points on the Xbox 360. They may cheapen the experience, or reduce elements of skill down to raw numbers, but anyone who has ever played a 360 knows how addictive the little "Achievement unlocked!" message is. So what happens when you toss that into an MMO? Titles. It seems that a recent trend in MMOs is "titles". When they first debuted in the mainstream with City of Heroes, they didn't do much. All they did was add bragging rights for the person who has them, and a displayable title above the person's head. They were worthless (Well, mostly worthless). And most of the titles in CoX are still worthless. "Oh, I killed 200 Circle of Thorn members. I've got that sweet new title." Some MMOs are actually starting to change things up now, though, including the pioneers of the "Titles" system. Getting the exploration titles in City of Heroes/Villains will enable your Supergroup to teleport to that map from your Supergroup base. Getting certain titles in Guild Wars will allow you to increase your holding cap on faction. Getting all titles in an area in Tabula Rasa gets you a huge experience bonus (noticing a trend here? NCsoft developers seem to love the use of titles).
24 hours of Tabula Rasa: Hour 18
Well, it's 1:00 AM here on the East Coast in the US and you know what that means! No, it's not time to go to sleep, silly -- it's time for the next in our 24 hours of Tabula Rasa giveaways! This hour we're giving away a spiffy Tabula Rasa hat, and a nifty poster given to us by the powers-that-be at NCsoft. As with all the other contests, this one is nice and easy to get into. No messy screencaps, no "here's what I did on my TR vacation" or any of that. That's right! For the price of one measly comment, you can win a stylin' TR hat or a killer poster and be the envy of your gaming friends. You just can't beat free swag!Oh, and hey, just in case you're joining the party late, don't forget that you can still comment on the first giveaway to enter for a chance to win an iPod. That way you've got your tunes with you when you're out blowing things into the next life in TR. Sweet deal, no?
Tabula Rasa lead developer stops to thank beta players
Tabula Rasa lead developer Paul Sage took some time out at the end of last week to reflect on the long road the game has taken to reach launch day. In an open letter to the TR community, he talks about his favorite class, the best thing about the game (in his opinion), some of the title's little-known secrets, and thanks a bunch of the folks involved in bringing the game to store shelves. Most of all, though, he wanted to get across his thanks to the players who saw the game through the long and sometimes painful beta process.I want to thank every beta player out there: the grumpy ones, the indifferent ones, and the blissfully playing ones. Seriously, we make games so people will have fun. One of my biggest thrills is watching someone have a good time in the game. I love it when people taunt the Bane and cheer when they take over a control point. I very actively listen in general chat, read the boards, and listen to what you are saying, even when you think I'm not. Beta testing isn't like playing a game. Yes, you get a sneak peek, but sometimes you also get to stand on a carpet and have it ripped out from under you. I understand that can be frustrating. So for that, let me again say "thank you."
Tabula Rasa exclusive interview and NCsoft tour
We had the chance recently to head over to the NCsoft studios in Austin, TX for a tour of their swank living shrine to Richard Garriott and a one-on-one interview with Tabula Rasa producer Starr Long. We'll be rolling those features later this morning, but while you wait we leave you with something even better than elevator music: the NCsoft HQ gallery!%Gallery-9639%
Massively's Massive Giveaway Extravaganza
We conducted some recent focus group research and made an astonishing discovery: people like free stuff. Therefore, to celebrate the kick-off of this here blog, we are giving away boatloads of stuff -- every day for the next two weeks we'll have some amazing giveaways lined up. There will be something for you whether you play Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, EVE Online, or any other of a number of current MMOs. So what do you have to do to win free stuff? Just check in with us every day for the next week and see what we have to offer -- you can always find out what contests are currently running at this link. We're kicking off day 1 with a non-stop series of 24 hours' worth of Tabula Rasa giveaways -- you'll have no less than 24 chances to win some cool TR schwag today. Everything kicks off at 8am EST, so tune in for some fun and prizes. Say what you want about Massively, but don't say we never gave ya nothin'!
Massively's 24 hours of Tabula Rasa giveaways!
Since Massively and Tabula Rasa share the same birthday, we decided we had to celebrate big. Plus, when we toured their offices recently, NCsoft inundated us with such a mountainous pile of schwag that we needed a shopping cart to even get it out to the car -- and we're giving all of it to you. Get ready for 24-hours' worth of TR lewts; we'll be running a new contest every hour on the hour starting at 8am EST today. If you want to score some great stuff including posters, hats, duffel bags, display boxes, a digital voice recorder, copies of Tabula Rasa and an iPod nano, you'll have to check back here and leave some comments on our sweepstakes posts throughout the day (we hope you'll check out our other great content, too!). You can always find the most currently running contest at this link. Good luck to everyone who enters!
Tabula Rasa to go without official forums, common sense
No, you're not taking crazy pills - that headline says "without official forums." In a moment of inspiration, blogger noisyparker thought to write down Tabula Rasa's community model, as it was described in their now-defunct beta forums. Most of it is fairly standard fare. A blog with an RSS feed to chronicle press releases, community news, the usual. Conspicuously absent though are official forums. The reason? The TR crew feels that official forums aren't conducive to a community atmosphere, because people's posting habits tend towards the dogmatic when they think there's a developer listening. Most people have had to endure the pain and self-loathing involved in browsing official forums before, so we know the behavior they're talking about. Still, it seems like a questionable decision to eliminate what is typically the primary conduit for communication between developers and players. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how it works out.
