Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Grublet]

Official release date is October 19th with pre-order honkeys getting in on the 16th. RG had a shindig at his hovel last night. NDA dropped as of 12:00:01am this morning. Official website redesign going live this morning. Have at it.

[Miasma]

I spent the first five minutes trying to wrap my head around the terrible control scheme and then another five going through the clunky UI.  I thought the scripted tutorial was pretty good even if didn't completely work (which was fine, it was beta and I'm sure it's fixed by now).

Then I spent half an hour with hundreds of other people trying to collect the first Logos since it only spawned once every so often but every single person had to get it.  Garriott's in game response was to laugh and proclaim that they would increase the spawn time - hahaha, maybe if the twit had actually walked over to where we were and could see a cloud of one hundred identical looking avatars trying to click on this stupid thing he wouldn't have been so flippant.

Eventually I got out into the game and started questing and so on, it was fun for a few hours.  Then it slowly dawned on me that the entire game consisted of pointing at mobs and holding down my left mouse button.  Then I realized that was all the future held for this game.  I swear you could hear the sucking noise as all of my will to play the game dissapeared.

I also found an unlimited money bug that was so obvious I'm sure one in three people figured it out, in order to fix it they would have to seriously mess with their cloning system.  I can totally understand bugs and lack of polish in a beta but the problems I found were deep in the core mechanics that you can't change by the time you're in beta, it's too late.

I would love to hear about what they have changed since then.

[Grublet]

Then it slowly dawned on me that the entire game consisted of pointing at mobs and holding down my left mouse button.  Then I realized that was all the future held for this game.  I swear you could hear the sucking noise as all of my will to play the game dissapeared.

To be fair, you sometimes need to crouch or hide behind a tree. Trees in this game are fun. Embrace the fun. Hug a tree.

[sam, an eggplant]

I haven't played for awhile, so take with salt.

- Endgame: there is none. At all.
- Character advancement: no real skills past level 30 or so
- Class differentiation: Soldiers and specialists are different, but the sub-specs are functionally identical. There are no real archetypical classes except for the medic.
- UI: can't scale, move items, or customize. Base UI is workable, although the map sucks.
- PvP: there is none, just duels
- Performance: client is fairly light, not a major issue like EQ2/vanguard/etc
- Combat: mechanics are fairly compelling, with cover taken into account, but lacks the polished tank/healer/CC/DPS complexity found in dikus like EQ
- PvE outdoor (non-mission) play: pedestrian, kill X elephants for X elephant uteruses
- PvE mission play: Story arc missions are quite good, with little scripted sequences, etc. I hear they added a lot more of these since I last played the game.

Summary: nothing special, but worth a shot if you're burned out on your current MMO.

[Grublet]

Massive patch is going live today. Patch notes have no been posted yet although the patch has. Seeing as how the release got pushed back two weeks I'm guessing they've a bit more work to do. Seriously, trees.

[sam, an eggplant]

To be fair, that line was in the VERY beginning of alpha, and they fixed it right away. The really funny part was that there were two lines with hundreds of people each-- and the line at the top ended at a statue with NOTHING THERE. I took some hilarious screenshots.

[shiznitz]

The post-NDA info rush is just mind-blowing.

[Miasma]

Hah, I went to the dead end first myself.  After I found the right place I went back and kept telling the people standing near the idol that nothing spawned there but they didn't believe me.  I can't believe you actually managed to form a line, on our server it was just a massive scrum.

The post-NDA info rush is just mind-blowing.

The game, at least when I played it, was so bad it isn't even worth the energy it would take to bash it, now that's scary!

[HaemishM]

I played TR all of twice. Maybe a few hours of gameplay.

The game's client needs some serious optimization. Performance on my (understandly) lower-end system SUCKED ASS, especially in the non-instanced public areas. The gameplay was really not that interesting. It didn't suck, but it wasn't in anyway interesting enough to write a lot about. I'll probably try it one more time, just to see if the latest patch made it better, but I see no reason to proclaim it as anything other than a mediocre game. The Logos spells things actually made me less interested in playing the game.

I have a laser rifle and I'm tossing spells on an alien planet. And yet I still don't feel any different than when I play any other type of diku game. The cover thing wasn't even prominent enough to matter. I made 5 levels and I think I might have died once because if I got in trouble I ran, and nothing I ever faced was that tough or fast enough to beat me.

Lag in the public areas was fucking awful. To the point of me firing weapons repeatedly at dead mobs who just stood there.

I forsee a gimpy release.

[sam, an eggplant]

Was there more than one server? Maybe I just logged on later in the day than you did. It was amazing, never seen anything like it in all my years playing MMOs. Hundreds of people lined up for hours to get that one little logos. The top picture is the wrong line, the 2 bottoms are the correct one. Note the minimap, every little white dot is a player in line. Yeah. A lot of dots.

I of course, jumped the line and got it in 2 minutes. Then I ran back and forth along the line, getting the self-appointed line watchers to yell at me, and responding with various bon mots like "suck it, line bitches". Good times, good times.

[Mrbloodworth]

There is PvP, There is Clan VS Clan WAR. Also, the logo issue, I NEVER had that problem. The control scheme is not that hard, and very familiar to FPS fans.. I’v been in the beta for quite a while now...

Being a FPS lover, and a (mmo)RPG lover, i found the game to be a nice detraction, but the RPGer in me says..."Its not very deep", and the FPS player in me says, "Why when i aim at his head at point blank. Do I "MISS'"?.

Out of 10, i give the game a 7 1/2 in most areas... I have never been able to put my finger on what makes me not want to give it higher.

I can however tell you, i would have given it a solid 9 if they hadn't of changed things recently. Oh, and the quest system IS very compelling, and quite interisting. Multiple endings are nice, moral choices are also good, High marks in that department.

[Nonentity]

I remember when there were me and 2 other people on in early, early beta. I got in way early, for filling out one of those little Logos discs, back when it was a flippy anime game at a prior E3.

My, how times have changed.

It's fun, I just don't see myself spending money on the game, it's not good enough.

Plus, is WAY WAY BETTER. Like, leaps and bounds.

[Miasma]

i found the game to be a nice detraction

***Freudian slip detected***

[Musashi]

I spent the first five minutes trying to wrap my head around the terrible control scheme and then another five going through the clunky UI.  I thought the scripted tutorial was pretty good even if didn't completely work (which was fine, it was beta and I'm sure it's fixed by now).

...

Eventually I got out into the game and started questing and so on, it was fun for a few hours.  Then it slowly dawned on me that the entire game consisted of pointing at mobs and holding down my left mouse button.  Then I realized that was all the future held for this game.  I swear you could hear the sucking noise as all of my will to play the game dissapeared.

That.

I had high hopes for this game.  I won't say it's terrible, but it really did nothing to get my interest.  Contrary to that, it gut-punched the interest I came in with by being just plain uninspired.  I'm not talking about beta buggy wonkyness, either.  I got stuck in a rock for a while.  That I expected.  I guess I was left after a few hours of game play thinking to myself:  People are going to be playing this game in 2007-8?  I'll probably log a couple more times before beta ends, but I very seriously doubt I'd buy this game. 

[Engels]

For me its the graphics lag during combat, or maybe its just piss poor animation, can't be sure. I kill a mob, and he remains standing for a good 4 seconds before falling over despite having the 'I'm dead' icon floating above his head. What's up with that? If one part of the server knows the mob is dead, how hard is it to push the 'fall over' animation along with it?

[Mrbloodworth]

For me its the graphics lag during combat, or maybe its just piss poor animation, can't be sure. I kill a mob, and he remains standing for a good 4 seconds before falling over despite having the 'I'm dead' icon floating above his head. What's up with that? If one part of the server knows the mob is dead, how hard is it to push the 'fall over' animation along with it?

If you are talking about the red skull. You are supposed to run up, and hit the melee key to perform "Finisher". Its just a small window to do so.If you leave it, they will "Fall over". But not knowing that, does make it seem like a bug.

[shiznitz]

They should change the name to Auto Assault 2 at this rate.

[Mrbloodworth]

Oh, another area i wanted to talk about is accessibility: Mainly, tutorials and descriptions. I feel they need allot of work in this area, Things need to be explained more clearly, and more completely. Such as item descriptions on , well, items. And the noob tutorial itself is quite disorienting, as its quite the flurry of windows you are assaulted with, sometimes many at one time.. as the "first time actions", and the "tutorial windows" seem to pop up at the same time.

[Sky]

I got in fairly early, I think DQ had already burned out by then, though.

I went for Grenadier because I always take grenade launchers when possible, love 'em. Character was a lot of fun, a couple flame throwers, couple flame launchers and an EMP launcher for the paper-thin giant mechs.

It was fun, but after a while there needed to be more. Not sure what that more should have been. Normally I'm the 'if it's fun, that's enough' guy. But one day, it just wasn't enough and I never went back. I was grenading my way across the Marshes and got tired of it.

Some nice combat mechanics. The reduction of grind (not that there's much grind in the game imo) with clones is cool, but you're facing the EQ2 problem of playing for a long time as someone other than what you want to be, the game changed radically when I got launchers, then again when I got the flamer. Problem is, the combat isn't much better than CoH. There is a better variety of missions, though. Some of the instances were laid out pretty well but still could have been tweaked to be a lot better, with more character and detail.

I agree with Bloodworth. The quest system is nice, there is way more flexibility than most mmo allow, like smuggling drugs to help troops or reporting the smugglers and getting cursed out by troops. That's the kind of thing that kept my interest for a while, but eventually it devovled into me and a couple guys finding the best hunting spots for orange drops (good gear), which is out of character for me. I'm a questing fooliac. As MBW said, the rpg is very light and the fps is ultimately not satisfying. Not as bad with the grenade launcher as with the sniper rifle (snipers didn't get sniper rifles when I left, which is another thing...).

Just seemed kind of generic and meh. Sucked me in for a while but left me cold not too long after. Definitely worth checking out, as it could be good if you like action-rpg that's not too deep. Never got to see any PvP action, haven't played since Springtime. Left right at the patch where they put in the big floaty damage numbers, didn't really need that imo, though it's not why I left.

[Slayerik]

I made it to like level 5 and didn't have the slightest urge to log back in.

Who is gonna pay monthly for it?

[Merusk]

 I dunno, I couldn't make it to level 6.  It just generated a huge "BLAH" from me.  For as long as it's been in dev and as hyped as people have been about, "OOOH RICHARD," the game certainly felt bland.

I didn't see any of the quest "choices" you people are talking about.  They come later, I guess.  All I saw was a bunch of "go here, kill x, bring me their spleens" and "run this message over yonder, past the level 12 mobs that'll eat your face."  Logos were way too powerful at low level, as well.  I could empty my clip (as a soldier) into a monster, reload and fire another few rounds or just cast one spell and kill the mob.  Mmmmm k.

The newbie experience was awful.  Absolutly horrible.  A bunch of NPCs standing around that give you the meat and potatoes any long-time gamer wants to know, while while you're forced to complete a mission for the dumbfucks who don't know wsad and 'click the mouse to fire'.

 Completing the first scripted mission sucked, too, because I didn't do any actual combat.  The NPC spawns they sent-in with me killed everything while I was plink-plink-plinking on the first guy I targeted.  Also, I know I've got an undersized vid card for my rig  (Nvidia 7300; it's meant to be a media center, not a game machine) but crap the fire effects pwnd it so bad I was getting 2-3fps when near them.

There's probably a market out there for this game -there is for any game- and I don't see it hitting VG levels of FAIL, but it's certainly not the 2nd coming, and shows that RG was just lucky with Ultima and should have stopped years ago.

[Mrbloodworth]

I made it to like level 5 and didn't have the slightest urge to log back in.

Who is gonna pay monthly for it?

Not me, i don't think, unless they add something really cool after launch...

I think about all the crap talk Mr.British was talking about the MMO genre..., then i play the game.... *shutter*.

My money as far as games of this ..err.."Type" is on Fallen Earth, at least there skills have nothing to do with AIM, only damage (developer statement). I think the setting is more compelling than generic Si-fi #235 also.

@Merusk - There are quite a few "moral" Choices in quest lines in the game, im going to take a stab and say i think it was around, maybe level 8-10 (Depending on area and other quest lines) when they becomes available, and that system is one of the best things about the game.

Eg: Do you give the medical supply's to the dying solders? or sell them fro a profit? It is war after all.

[Ragnoros]

Plus, is WAY WAY BETTER. Like, leaps and bounds.

 

EDIT: I won't. Also as to TR. It was fun. Nothing amazing. I expect to pick it up sometime in the gaming drought of next summer. Assuming WAR/AoC has not sucked me in by then, and/or I'm already burnt out on them.

[schild]

Plus, is WAY WAY BETTER. Like, leaps and bounds.

Starts with Hell, ends with Gate. And that's just guessing from non-NDA violating posts. Don't ask questions.

[Miasma]

When people say stuff like that I keep assuming they mean Warhammer, didn't think about Hellgate.

[Murgos]

I can sum up my TR experience in 1 word:  Confused.

I was confused and disorientated at nearly every point in my play experience.  The UI confused me, the controls confused me, the upgrade path confused me and the character creation confused me (that's it?  Pick what pants I like and match colors? Um, OK.).  Standing under a turret with a HUGE freaking gun and watching it's beams fire out of the barrel at me at a 110 degree angle was just embarrassing.

Combat was point and click and then watch -8, -8, -4, -8, -13, -8, switch guns, -7, -7, -2, -12, -7, health pack, wait for cool down, -8, -8 etc... until dead.  I never made it as far as Sky as it was just sooo pointless.

I was one of the few who liked Auto-Assault (just not enough to pay for it) I don't like TR at all.

[Falwell]

I must be a glutton for punishment I suppose, because I have, and still do enjoy the game.

I'm not really sure what it is that makes it appealing to me. The non fantasy setting is certainly part of it. The quicker fast paced combat is sure as hell nice, but many of the concerns are valid that the previous gents are posting.

I've made level twenty...four? I believe it is. Been through most of Foreas and it's instances. Was just starting on Areki. I will say this, Areki is just god damn insanity. You walk out of the first base and not more than a few hundred yards away is a full on throw down. 3 - 4 Stalkers. Literally 75+ bane soldiers constantly, Predators, and 5 - 6 Striders all just laying into an AFS entrenchment. AFS mechs cutting loose like nobodies business, dropships coming down for both sides constantly. Sorry, but I enjoy it.

TR isn't the second coming. The end game is extremely iffy, the crafting is pretty much tacked on, and the mob variety could use some serious work. But I do enjoy it none the less and it'll be a nice moonlight MMO till the next heavy hitter comes along.


EDIT: Tack this on as well. I will say the starter zone has a serious problem of not getting people into that "I'm in the middle of a war" feeling like it conveys in late divide through Areki. I think if people didn't go cold on it early (mostly design flaws being the cause) people would probably look at it a bit more favorably.

[Kitsune]

'Asstastic' is my NDA-free review; the game manages a truly epic degree of suck.  The degree of lag was truly epic, with loads of shooting at an already-dead alien, or an alien that randomly disappears, or being shot by invisible aliens.  Once you get into the game, you're treated to shooting at an alien.  For an encore, you shoot at another alien.  To top THAT off, you shoot yourself in the face, because you've figured out the trend and death's sweet embrace is the only escape.

About halfway through the beta cycle, they got the ingenious idea of making it take twice as long to level and ramping up the death penalty.  Oh boy!  So now instead of shooting at 10,000 aliens to get the class features you want, you get to shoot at 20,000 aliens!  The starting class unsurprisingly rather blows; you only get basic weapon use and a lightning bolt attack.  In fairness, the lightning bolt is more useful than any other magic I've ever seen, but that doesn't change just how much it sucks to have no options other than running around lightning bolting aliens.

As you level, you get points to spend on your skills, to be better with shooting your pistol, or have better lightning bolts.  But if you progress along the class tree and find a weapon that you like better than your standard weapon, no refunds, sucker!  You're never ever getting those points back.  The same goes double for armor, which also requires a skill to equip.  More advanced classes get access to armors with extra features, but if you don't put any points into the basic newbie armor use you'll be taking assloads of damage while waiting to be able to buy the skill to use the better armor, leaving you with the unpalatable choice of making the grind that much harder, or wasting points on equipment you'll never use again.

They talk about the cloning system being a boon to players, and to an extent it is.  If you clone your character before choosing a branch to follow, you can fire up the clone and then take the other branch.    That only helps if you're only interested in the two sub-branches from where your character currently exists; if you want to go and take a completely different limb of the tree, you have to start from scratch, or at best load a clone ten or so levels lower than your character and head in that direction.

If you want an MMOFPS, get Planetside, which is a better game in every respect.  Even with the Fanta ads.

[Murgos]

Plus, is WAY WAY BETTER. Like, leaps and bounds.

Starts with Hell, ends with Gate. And that's just guessing from non-NDA violating posts. Don't ask questions.

I was thinking they meant WAR but your answer would be even better from my POV.

[Miasma]

Additionally:

As a soldier you know you've joined a shitty army if they make you buy your own bullets.

[Sky]

I made it to lvl 40 or so. As I said, I haven't played in months, when I last played the crafting system was just a stand-in for when they actually implemented one, and there were only a couple maps available. There also wasn't a death penalty, and I did my bit to argue that against the usual gang of mmo penaltards, car battery to the balls reference and all.

The lightning bolt could use a nerf, once you get the ae version, it's pretty uber forever, though I rarely used it once I got my launchers and flamer. I was playing around with a few different powers and they were good, just not as good as ye olde bolte. So that's actually a pretty easy fix if they can ignore the 'zomg u nrfed litenin' bullshit that would ensue (in a beta). DEFINITELY need a respec option, for some reasons Kitsune mentions, and also so you can try a few builds out before deciding on one, since you have no clue what it will play like beforehand.

As a soldier you know you've joined a shitty army if they make you buy your own bullets.

You're in what amounts to a guerrilla army on the run with your home planet decimated. So...there's that to consider. Or you could use Forean arrows. I was kind of hoping Forean Rangers would be playable, they're nifty.

If you want an MMOFPS, get Planetside, which is a better game in every respect.

Yeah, I love the quests and PvE and itemization in PS. Two completely different games with very little overlap.

Falwell mentions the big set battlefields, they are great. In many zones you can shift the control of the area, though in Alpha that wasn't working much of the time. So you take out a bunch of enemies and your buddies land in a dropship and back you up, fun VOs, if a bit repetetive. They never really had base capture working back then, not sure about now.

Speaking of VOs, the writing and voice acting was great. I like that they went with a grittier adult theme and hope it doesn't wither under the pressure to make it AFA/Congress friendly.

[shiznitz]

I've made level twenty...four? I believe it is. Been through most of Foreas and it's instances. Was just starting on Areki. I will say this, Areki is just god damn insanity. You walk out of the first base and not more than a few hundred yards away is a full on throw down. 3 - 4 Stalkers. Literally 75+ bane soldiers constantly, Predators, and 5 - 6 Striders all just laying into an AFS entrenchment. AFS mechs cutting loose like nobodies business, dropships coming down for both sides constantly. Sorry, but I enjoy it.

Once again you have to grind to get to the "fun." Wonderful. Why the fuck isn't "insanity" the first thing you see as you log in? That might actually be gripping.

No thanks.

[Rasix]

Once again you have to grind to get to the "fun." Wonderful. Why the fuck isn't "insanity" the first thing you see as you log in?

The rat and bat over population problem isn't going to take care of itself.

[Surlyboi]

Once again you have to grind to get to the "fun." Wonderful. Why the fuck isn't "insanity" the first thing you see as you log in?

The rat and bat over population problem isn't going to take care of itself.

Damn skippy, you maggots! Do you think those soldiers on D-Day were just thrown into that? Hell no, many bothan...err foozles got whacked in places like Wisconsin and Oklahoma before those boys were sent in to that madness.

Ok, bad sarcasm aside, throwing people into the madness straight off kinda defeats the purpose of the game. How can you ramp up from insanity? Will you need the game to come to your house and sodomize your dog? It's a game mechanic and were it to go straight to said insanity, people would be bitching about it "being too hard" or worse, "not keeping up the intensity as one progresses" or "It's all the same after a while"

Not that I'm defending the game. It's certainly not the robot jesus and it won't win too many awards for ground breaking game design, but it is a nice change of pace from elves and orcs and fucking undead with butt-rock dance moves.

[Amaron]

Hmm I guess NDA is down?

My view on this game is probably somewhat biased by my love of the setting.   I think the game has some flaws.  The initial tutorial and newbie area are somewhat dull in comparison to the rest of the game.  You have to get to the equivalent of like say WoW level 12 before you start seeing the kind of insanity the outdoor area's in this game can have so the hook isn't really up to snuff compared to the rest of the game.  The other big flaw is the end game hasn't really been discussed.  It might only be good for playing till the end then quitting ala WoW.

The instances are amazing and easily a cut above anything else out there in terms of creativity.   One of them has puzzles for opening doors to free prisoners for instance.  Some of the area's are so jaw dropping awesome looking it's stunning.   In the dungeon instance you fight a big ass robot at the end that could nearly oneshot us.  It was only killable by running around it from behind since it turned so slow.   To me at least that was pretty interesting and something I felt I'd never see in WoW.  This game has a lot of little things also where the environment feels a part of the game instead of like WoW where it's just a location for mobs to spawn.  For me the fact that they didn't go to far into the FPS stuff is a good thing but I'm sure others will feel the opposite.  It's incredibly fast paced but I can't really form a final opinion on it.  I don't get tired of it while I'm having fun doing other stuff is probably the most I can say about it.

They've been adding content really fast compared to only a month and a half ago but the question is whether or not they'll finish in time.  I suspect if they finish it though that it'll go over better with less jaded people due them going past the bad hook.   They'll get past the first area at least and find out the game is really fun.