Tabula Rasa

The visit to the NCsoft headquarters in Austin began with a tour around the general office area, down the corridors and past the rooms that housed the talented development team and the rest of the business side of the U.S. side of the company. The walls were lined with a personal history of Richard Garriott, stemming from the first game he ever created.

It was a rich timeline, all leading up to the current project – Tabula Rasa.

Years in development, the game has changed focus several times. There was the martial-based adventure, but now the game has moved into a futuristic shooter setting. In Tabula Rasa humanity has all but been wiped out but an alien race that is roaming across the galaxy and ravaging the worlds in its path.

Starr Long, part of the creative genius behind the title, began the conversation about the game.

“All online games tend to follow the same mechanics,” he said, “combat is what Richard calls ‘whack-a-mole.’ Players pay more attention to attack icons, not the world.”

Tabula Rasa is aiming to change that, pun intended. And the hands-on session certain bore out that. The game was so compelling and entertaining that sometimes timers were forgotten on missions (don’t worry, you can get the mission again and run it over to get the credit), and random battles, which are happening all over the worlds, were joined on the spur of the moment.

“The combat system has a lot of real-time tactical elements,” Long said. “These factors affect combat. And the pace of combat is a lot faster.”

Another statement that was proven in the hands-on portion of the day.

There is a progression, from boot camp as your characters move across the worlds, in the ebb and flow of the battles. There are control points that are up for grabs. Controlling such a point means that certain services will become available to the player. But not only are the players trying to secure the control points, but the enemy A.I. will battle back and try to reclaim the control points.

As for the storytelling …

“I believe we have some great innovations in storytelling,” Garriott stated. “Most MMOs abandon story (players don’t feel special or “statistically average”). Instanced spaces will affect that.” The instanced zones are “very scripted storytelling events” that will tell “a very detailed story” and “culminate in some grand event.”

“I think our story-based activity is superior to most MMOs,” Garriott said.

Players will face ethical parables as they journey across the world, with the goal being to have players live with the choices they make. Examples were given and shown, but no spoilers here, so those will remain under wraps for the time being.

Another innovative idea that Tabula Rasa will bring to the fore is allowing players to save their character before they branch into detailing their profession. Characters saved can be cloned and other profession branches can be explored. For example, at level 5 you get to select your first career path. You can clone your character, take the soldier route with the original character and then go back and take an engineer path with the clone. This will enable players to explore new profession paths without having to start all over from level one.

Fictionally, Tabula Rasa is a player-versus-environment game, but there will be a full system of player-versus-player, which will include dueling, feuding and clan warfare. And with the story so geared to telling the epic events in instances, each of the instances can last from 30 minutes to an hour or more. Once an instanced is completed, you will see the results of that should you revisit that particular instance. For example, you have gone into a base to destroy a power supply and you have been successful. The next time you go into that instance, the power supply (and associated damage) will be as you had left it. But should you team up with another player and enter the zone on that the other has not yet accomplished, the zone will be fresh.

The video presentation is top-notch and the audio is a terrific supporting player, helping to immerse players into the world. The action is indeed fast-paced.

As for a death penalty – yes, there will be one but “it may be light; we want you to go out there and risk it.”

The game’s money sink will be repairing equipment. While some items will be flagged for personal use only, there will be a secure trading system built into the game. And there will be crafting and equipment drops by the mobs. Equipment is important and “makes a difference between using cover and going Rambo” in the game.

Each of the continents, or planetary locations, has its own meta-story and there will be four main story arcs in the initial release of the game. There will be a “major feature enhancement” every few months (which will be free), and a major content release – including new planets – once a year (which will be retailed to game players).

The interface was intuitive and even going on a group mission there was never a lack of challenge.

Tabula Rasa is ramping up to give shooter MMOs a new face and if the release is anything like the preview event indicated it might be, then this is certainly going to be a different but enjoyable MMO.