Tabula Rasa

When Richard Garriott puts his stamp on a game, at the very least you know that the game will likely break ground in the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, upstairs above South Hall in a private meeting area, representatives from Destination Games (the developer) and NCsoft gave a tour of the pending MMP title, Tabula Rasa.

“We have a very specific goal in mind,” they stated. “We wanted to take the best of the single-player game and the best of multiplayer games and combine them in one space.”

Tabula Rasa can best be described as a near-future fantasy, and while the game is big on martial-arts style combat, this is a title that combines a variety of wonderful elements into a lush and dynamically graphic world.

The first noticeable thing about this game is that every player will receive a fully customizable house on estate grounds. You can decorate this any way you wish and even put out an NPC with your crafted items nearby.

The game also speeds up the way players can travel about and hook up with friends. All travel is through portals to hubs. Players can teleport to or teleport friends to them almost instantly. And should players group, there is fully integrated voice chat through the servers. The game looks to eliminate travel time and downtime in fights. Consumables (which could best be likened to mana) will regenerate after fights and players will be at full abilities within five seconds after a fight – if they survive.

The game has three mission types: objective based through instanced missions, combat against mobs on battlefields in public spaces and player-versus-player scenarios like capture the flag. The biggest focus of the game is objective missions in private spaces. All spaces are scaled to number of players and skill levels.

The game also shies away from ‘sandwich’ combat models in which a player initiates combat and then walks away from the computer while the AI exchanges blow after blow until a winner emerges. In Tabula Rasa, the player will control every combat move.

There are three attributes – body (akin to melee specialists), mind (which is closest to the wizard class) and spirit, which are more like bards and use sound-related weapons.

The missions are all scripted, hand-crafted, and every mission has primary and secondary objectives. The secondary missions will be much harder to accomplish and there will be leader boards to chart those who accomplish the tasks.

The developers are looking for fast-play cycles and the ability for players to jump in and get the most from the game without the treadmill. Tabula Rasa is slated for release in the winter and developers are hoping for the beta in late fall.

Tabula Rasa is a terrific-looking title that steps away from the miasma of typical MMPs and may well afford players a new faster-paced online gaming experience.

For All E3 2004 Previews