Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Mrbloodworth]

Rather substantial patch over in the beta, seems quite a bit of rethinking has gone into the "Control" point game play.

[schild]

I just got an email about pre-ordering and getting ten free days of Tabula Rasa.

I think that's a new record. -30 days til Free shit.

[HaemishM]

Rather substantial patch over in the beta, seems quite a bit of rethinking has gone into the "Control" point game play.

Has any thought gone into the FUN point of game play?

Sorry, I had to. 

[Signe]

I just got an email about pre-ordering and getting ten free days of Tabula Rasa.

I think that's a new record. -30 days til Free shit.

What?

[Mrbloodworth]

Rather substantial patch over in the beta, seems quite a bit of rethinking has gone into the "Control" point game play.

Has any thought gone into the FUN point of game play?

Sorry, I had to. 

Not sure. Ill have to look.

[Trippy]

Tabula Rasa™ Patch Notes
Patch Notes and Known Issues 9/25
September 25, 2007


Patch Notes 9/24/07:

General:

• Top 3 damage dealers get XP for a Kill:
Top 1: 100% XP
Next: 50% XP
Final: 25% XP

• More ToO Missions added.

•Foreas Valverde is now open.

• On Arieki: Ligo: Thunderhead, there is a new area called “Vashtar Pass.” This cave system is on the eastern side of the map, and creates a bypass for the Eastern Rim Control Point between Outpost Aurora and Substation E-104.

• XP modifier now goes up in percentages 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, 250% (no longer 2x,3x,4x,5x,6x)

• Added an NPC that allows you to skip bootcamp.

• Polish, Polish, Polish - Art updates, area beautification and fillout, tweaks to base areas, missions/content adds.

• Bug fixes galore - over 1000 bugs fixed for this patch all over the game.

UI Updates

• Changed the Chat tab default names to General, LFG, Trade and Combat

• Overhead indicators now display for players that are in a wargame

• Added /afk and /brb slash commands. Type the command again to turn them off.

• Tons of Icon updates

• Assorted sound changes, additions and upgrades to tutorial speech.

Skills and Abilities

• Grenade Launcher damage now falls off from the center of the explosion instead of doing the same damage to all affected targets.

• Force Blast now uses 50 Power at all pump levels

• Electric weapons’ tooltips now say they do “Electric” damage instead of “Energy” damage.

• The cover modifier of paint target should properly apply now.

• You shouldn't be able to equip/unequip or change your action bars around while polymorphed now.

• Staff weapons no longer heat up when their ranged attack is used.

• Tourqueshell Rifles now take rockets and have a clip size of 4.

• Corrected the ammunition type requirements for some weapons

• Frighten ability now has higher Power costs, especially at high pump levels

Control Points

Many Control Points have been revamped and updated. Please note that some of the rewards are currently placeholder.

• When AFS controlled:
o The base’s ‘functionality’ is online:
o o Forcefield changes to AFS faction
o o Turrets change faction. If they are destroyed at the time of change, they will respawn next time in the AFS faction.
o o Waypoints are online
o o Hospital is online
o o Mission givers and vendors are online.

o AFS defenders spawn in
o o Bane defenders that are remaining stay intact.
o o Bane waves that are remaining from previous assaults attempt to run to the waypoint.


• When Bane controlled:
o The base’s ‘functionality’ is offline:
o o Forcefield changes to Bane faction
o o Turrets change faction. If they are destroyed at the time of change, they will respawn next time in the Bane faction.
o o Waypoints are offline
o o Hospital is offline
o o Mission givers and vendors attempt to escape by running to the waypoint.

o Bane defenders spawn in


• All control points have two control point base commanders – an Assault Commander and Defense Commander:

o Defense mission:
o o Turn in defense tokens to receive a choice of 4 armor modification recipes
o Assault mission:
o o Turn in assault tokens to receive a choice of 4 weapon modification recipes

o Tokens are given based on player actions:
o o Assault tokens are dropped on the Bane defenders as players assault a CP.
o o Defender tokens are dropped on the Bane assaults as players defend a CP.

• Special notes:
o Crafting stations, footlockers, and any other player controlled interactables are online if not listed above. We are not disabling these based on control point faction at this time.



Crafting

• Reduced the variety of Item Modification recipes in crafting. Damage type specific weapon enhancement recipes no longer drop.

• There were a large number of changes scheduled to go into this patch for crafting but they have been delayed until the next patch.


Fixed Issues from last Patch:

• Fixed issue in Securing Torcastra so that you no longer have to leave the instance and come back in if you fail the mission.

• Radial and Conical Healing Discs are no longer healing self only.

• The Rez Sickness timer will no longer report the incorrect amount of Rez Sickness time left after multiple deaths.

• Logos should now all be placed in game for abilities.

• If you have more than 11 members in your clan the clan window now causes the scroll bar to become active.

• For the Tier 4 ability 'Bot Construction' after a bot is spawned it should now follow the player around.

• The Repair Bot now repairs player armor or mechanical units.

• Some doors did not allow players to enter. This should now be resolved.

• Craftable grenades of any damage type no longer all do physical damage regardless of intended damage type.

• when killed, enemies should now give the correct amount of credits.


Known Issues:

• Staff is not currently getting a bonus to melee damage with each pump level. This is a bug. Both melee and ranged damage should increase with each pump of this skill.

• All tooltips for grenades are being incorrectly listed as fragmentation grenades in the ability tray.

• If you find yourself crashing you may want to disable deferred lighting in your video options menu.

• The Rage ability description is incorrect.

• All of the Hortimunculus pump levels are working the same way. This is a bug.

• The Imperial Valley Control Point is handing out assault and defense tokens incorrectly. You get defense tokens for attacking and assault tokens for defending.

• Using Rushing Blow on a Maw may cause your character to be unable to attack. If this happens, log out and back in to correct the issue.

• If you make a character and then delete him you may be unable to create another character with that same first name for up to 30 minutes.

• If you die while under the effect of the Spy ability "Polymorph" you can get into a state where you are unable to draw your weapon. If this happens, log out and back in to correct the issue.

• If you use the Spy ability Polymorph at any pump level and you holster your weapon, you will not be able to unholster the weapon again. In order to fix this issue you have to use Polymorph again and then click it off or log out and back into the character.

• When you disable tutorial tips via the tutorial tip's dialog box they cannot be turned back on.

• At times you may appear to no longer be in your clan. If this happens, log out to character selection and back in and it should resolve the issue.

• Some crafting recipes cost the same to make an item as to purchase the item directly from an NPC. This is a bug.

• Polymorph pump level 2 is not repairing Mechs or Turrets. This is a bug.

• Rez Trama Kits I and II may not update the Rez Sickness timer correctly.

• If you complete the portion of the mission Obstruction Destruction that asks you to Blow up the Downed Dropship and then lose connection or log out, when you get back into bootcamp the detonator acceptor will be floating in midair without anything to blow up.

• If you change your graphic settings to custom and the log out when you log back in your setting will return to high.

• The Exobiologist ability Hortimonculus is not working as described in the tool tip.

• The recipe for Class VII Concussion Grenade states that it requires Crafting: Explosives level 1. This item should be listed as a level 3 or 4 crafting level.

• Ranger Reinforcements are not doing melee damage.

• Several instance areas are offline at this time.

• Some abilities/actions do not work properly in PvP Duels.

• Enemies in the Hydro Plant on Concordia Divide will not attack until attacked first.

• Some Tier 4 abilities or weapons may have bugs, fail to work or not operate as intended.


Broken Missions


Concordia Divide
• Mission: Machinations
Issue: Unable to Turn in/complete mission.

• Mission: Filching From Filchers
Issue: Unable to Turn in/complete mission.

• Mission: Careless (Formerly Taking Care of the Caretakers - Dr. Sherman)
Issue: Unable to Turn in/complete mission.

• Mission: Data Thieves
Issue: Quest items do not properly assign to squad members

• Mission: Keymaster of Torcastra
Issue: Mission npc Hamilton gets killed by friendlies if led out of the prison

Torden Plains
• Mission: Combat Ground Patrol: Plains
Issue: Unable to Turn in/complete mission.

• Mission: Speak to Colonel Franks
Issue: Players are unable to interact with Colonel Franks to get the mission

• Mission: Operation Mole Removal
Issue: “Speak to Colonel Franks” is the a pre-req for this mission

• Mission: A Brother's Message
Issue: “Speak to Colonel Franks” is the a pre-req for this mission

• Mission: Periodical of Questionable Morality
Issue: The second objective of this mission does not complete correctly

• Mission: Geyser Chimney Basin [CP]: Assault Tokens
Issue: Objective does not complete when you get 25 tokens

• Mission: LOGOS: Lightning
Issue: Objective does not complete when you add the logos to your tabula

• Mission: LOGOS: ADD
Issue: Objective does not complete when you add the logos to your tabula

Torden Incline
• Mission: Free Labbna
Issue: The second objective of this mission does not complete correctly

Torden Mires
• Mission: Miner's Apprentice
Issue: Parties cannot get the keycard for the final objective, making it incompletable for all but one player

Valverde Plateau
• Mission: Maligo Base: Coup
Issue: Some squad members may not be able to complete the mission because there are not enough corpses to loot.

Valverde Marshes
• Mission: Dogtag Detail
Issue: Players may not be able to loot dog tags off fallen AFS troops

Torden Abyss
• Mission: Styx and Stones
Issue: Cannot Plant Mission items making the mission incompletable

• Mission: Pipe Down
Issue: Targets of quest are untargetable and cannot be destroyed


Patch Notes Archive

[Soln]

Is it just me?  Where's teh hype?

No promos at the local EB's or other.  I wouldn't know about this if I didn't read f13.

Hey.  That's a good tagline for bad games.

[Trippy]

It's hard to hype a game whose server crashes at least once a day.

[Merusk]

Once a day isn't too bad for beta.  BC beta was crashing every 2 1/2 hours or so.. the wow stress test was pretty harsh as well if I remember right.  Now, if they're still doing the whole "servers are only online for testing  from noon to midnight pst" thing then yeah, I'll agree it's very bad.

[Trippy]

Once a day isn't too bad for beta.  BC beta was crashing every 2 1/2 hours or so.. the wow stress test was pretty harsh as well if I remember right.

It's less than a month from release. If you can't keep the servers running at least 22 or so hours (taking it down once a day for a couple of hours is acceptable) without crashing at this point in time it's a problem.

Now, if they're still doing the whole "servers are only online for testing  from noon to midnight pst" thing then yeah, I'll agree it's very bad.

They are doing that too. They tried switching to a 24x7 schedule but failed miserably so they are back to their limited hours testing schedule (still with regular crashes).

[Merusk]

Ow.

"Hey ma.. what's that bright light in the sky?"
"Another star going down in flames, son."

[Trippy]

And I didn't even mentioned the big problems they've been having with rollbacks and inventory resets. I haven't tried the latest patch yet (just finished downloading it) but for a couple of weeks everytime you zoned or logged in or out items in your inventory and personal storage locker would unstack and/or dup (yes dup). And then there were the rollbacks where if the server crashed you wouldn't just lose minutes of progress but *hours* of progress. As in they weren't saving any of your character state for hours at a time.

[Grublet]

Rather substantial patch over in the beta, seems quite a bit of rethinking has gone into the "Control" point game play.

Has any thought gone into the FUN point of game play?

They already have hills.

[schild]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

[Murgos]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

I was going to say Hellgate could have been named "Diablo II meets Bioshock:  The game Tabula Rasa wanted to be."

[Sky]

• XP modifier now goes up in percentages 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, 250% (no longer 2x,3x,4x,5x,6x) Exp nerf
• Grenade Launcher damage now falls off from the center of the explosion instead of doing the same damage to all affected targets. Combat nerf

Lot of known issues and broken mission. Inventory problems and roll-backs have been around since the alpha. I was always losing skills and items, that was actually what made me stop playing originally.

So all in all, right on target for typical mmo launch. And good job nerfing the one thing I enjoyed in the game, thanks for making sure I never consider playing!

[CharlieMopps]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

I'm sorry, but Hellgates premise sucks. I'm not going to even read reviews about it... much less buy it. A vampire/demon slaying SciFi game? No thanks.
Tabula Rasa's premise is good, well... at least "ok" but it sounds like they fubard the game itself. Why a new control system? WASD rocks and I don't want anything new.
Neocron has an awesome premise... to bad it has so many horrible bugs. If I could get a Neocron like game with WoW's stability and polish I'd be happy.

[schild]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

I'm sorry, but Hellgates premise sucks. I'm not going to even read reviews about it... much less buy it. A vampire/demon slaying SciFi game? No thanks.

Man, wouldn't it be great if you knew what Hellgate: London was?

(Didn't mean to follow you in here and rag on you again, heh.)

[Slayerik]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

WASD rocks and I don't want anything new.
Neocron has an awesome premise... to bad it has so many horrible bugs. If I could get a Neocron like game with WoW's stability and polish I'd be happy.

I know man. That game, even with the bugs and shitty initial combat, was some of the best PVP I've ever experienced and had some great systems in it.

[Murgos]

I'm sorry, but Hellgates premise sucks.

It's basically the same premise as Shadowrun (minus elves and orcs and such).  Maybe Shadowrun vs The Omega Man.  Heck, it's the same premise as DOOM.  'Sucks' as regards the premise isn't going to win you any credit for rationality.

I'm not going to even read reviews about it...

That way, in your own mind, you can never be wrong.  Clever.

[Ragnoros]

WTF is with backspace making you go back in your browser. Whose bright idea was that? May I slap them?

Anyway as far as reviews go just look at all the gushing 9-10/10 reviews of Halo 3 and tell me they are good for anything other than feeding the hype and doing what their bosses tell them to do and/or whomever paid them off.

Me and my brother played the campaign through yesterday. I don't like FPS unless I'm playing with him, he lives and breaths it. We both said it was crap.

Ending especially. They basically just did the Halo 1 ending again. Right down to the last level. Hell not even a good boss fight in the whole thing. Basically they just threw a asston of enemies at you and said ok good luck, kill em all.

Multi Player might be somewhat redeeming but why fucking give a game 9-10/10 when all you have played is a shitty campaign and probably a handful of multi matches.

Edit. I give it Two Epic Fails out of Five.

One for not being that good. And another for supposed to have being good and all the hype.

[Musashi]

You know, I think you expect some server suckage in beta and even early launch.  Rollbacks are way worse of course, but as long as it's not carrying over into live, I guess it's to be expected in beta, even if probably not this late in beta.  I admittedly haven't logged into TR recently, so I don't know how bad it still is.    Even if it carries over into live, I guess I've just been conditioned to expect it at an MMO launch.  Usually, these kinds of things are what is fixed.  Hopefully they're done as quickly as possible.  But shit like that doesn't really bother me if the game is worth it.

That's the problem with TR.  It's not worth it.  Why?  I've been thinking about what I thought sucked and to be honest I've confused myself.  On one hand, on a fundamental level I think games that are basically third person shooters are fun.  We can probably all point to a third person shooter that we like.  But somehow, with the way TR does its targeting 'lock-on' thingey it takes away that freedom from a normal shooter to switch targets fluidly by simply putting reticle on target.  In TR, you tab onto your target and it really doesn't matter where your gun is pointing.  Now that probably doesn't sound like a tremendous flaw, but in practice it somehow is.  It makes you feel like you're just standing there clicking mindlessly as a mob's health bar diminishes in varying ways depending on which button I've mashed. 

It's really confusing why the seemingly simple difference between targeting styles can make such a huge difference to me.  It feels like it shouldn't, but it just does.  I think, and this opinion is solely mine, that this is the single biggest thing that will ultimately sink this game.  There are other things that are horribly wrong for sure.  But this one is the crowned prince of what's wrong with TR.

So, yea, I know there is probably some technical limitation that prevented them from doing it another way, or something.  But as it is, it's no different from being a mage in WoW.  You have a target, and you 'nuke' it with your gun.  There are special powers and whatnot, but they just feel sort of ancillary.  Even that wouldn't be so bad if there were different types of classes that did things differently.  But there's not.  Unless you call tossing a grenade to do damage different from shooting a gun to do damage.  But you don't.  'Cause you're not retarded.

[HaemishM]

If they can't get past the server crashing daily with less than a month left in beta, then don't expect that to get fixed soon after release. History is not kind to MMOG's that have server crashes this late in beta.

But yes, TR has bigger problems than server crashes, problems that should have been fixed in the alpha stage. If the fun isn't in beta, it won't be ever.

[Mrbloodworth]

You know, I think you expect some server suckage in beta and even early launch.  Rollbacks are way worse of course, but as long as it's not carrying over into live, I guess it's to be expected in beta, even if probably not this late in beta.  I admittedly haven't logged into TR recently, so I don't know how bad it still is.    Even if it carries over into live, I guess I've just been conditioned to expect it at an MMO launch.  Usually, these kinds of things are what is fixed.  Hopefully they're done as quickly as possible.  But shit like that doesn't really bother me if the game is worth it.

That's the problem with TR.  It's not worth it.  Why?  I've been thinking about what I thought sucked and to be honest I've confused myself.  On one hand, on a fundamental level I think games that are basically third person shooters are fun.  We can probably all point to a third person shooter that we like.  But somehow, with the way TR does its targeting 'lock-on' thingey it takes away that freedom from a normal shooter to switch targets fluidly by simply putting reticle on target.  In TR, you tab onto your target and it really doesn't matter where your gun is pointing.  Now that probably doesn't sound like a tremendous flaw, but in practice it somehow is.  It makes you feel like you're just standing there clicking mindlessly as a mob's health bar diminishes in varying ways depending on which button I've mashed. 

It's really confusing why the seemingly simple difference between targeting styles can make such a huge difference to me.  It feels like it shouldn't, but it just does.  I think, and this opinion is solely mine, that this is the single biggest thing that will ultimately sink this game.  There are other things that are horribly wrong for sure.  But this one is the crowned prince of what's wrong with TR.

So, yea, I know there is probably some technical limitation that prevented them from doing it another way, or something.  But as it is, it's no different from being a mage in WoW.  You have a target, and you 'nuke' it with your gun.  There are special powers and whatnot, but they just feel sort of ancillary.  Even that wouldn't be so bad if there were different types of classes that did things differently.  But there's not.  Unless you call tossing a grenade to do damage different from shooting a gun to do damage.  But you don't.  'Cause you're not retarded.

I think it was done for accessibility. They are after the RPG people, not the FPS people, and they think that RPG people,..well, Can't or wont like to "Fully" have to aim.

[CharlieMopps]

Hellgate is going to wipe its ass with unsold boxes of Tabula Rasa.

I'm sorry, but Hellgates premise sucks. I'm not going to even read reviews about it... much less buy it. A vampire/demon slaying SciFi game? No thanks.

Man, wouldn't it be great if you knew what Hellgate: London was?

(Didn't mean to follow you in here and rag on you again, heh.)

You ragged on me somewhere else? Doh! I better check my other posts... lol

If I have it wrong about Hellgate London, please correct me... but seriously, I checked out the website and all I see is SciFi+Vampire+Anime... I like the scifi part... but thats about it.
---
Ok, I just re-looked at the site... maybe more daemons than vampires... but whatever. I'd still not want to play it.

[Arrrgh]

Zero vampires, and I'm not seeing much that's anime about it. Which anime is it suppose to resemble?

[Signe]

Which anime?  I don't know what that means.   

[schild]

Charlie knows absolutely nothing about Hellgate and has decided to continue to know nothing. There's no reason to respond.

[LK]

It seems to me that he has been doing this in several threads.

[Falwell]

Charlie my man, I seriously want to help you. I want to spread the goodness that is Hellgate, but I fear you may be too far gone.

[Grublet]

Well, we are still working out some server issues, but in the meantime, since the issue is related to load we are going to bring up another US server to try and spread out the load a bit and hopefully allow for a bit more stability while we work on the problem. Again, we apologize for the problems but appreciate the community still testing and helping us try to resolve the issues. You guys rock.

There's no cause for alarm. Everything will be fine. Drink the Kool-Aid.

[Venkman]

I think it was done for accessibility. They are after the RPG people, not the FPS people, and they think that RPG people,..well, Can't or wont like to "Fully" have to aim.

Sorta defeats the point of aiming at all though, don't it?

[BigBlack]

Are the grenades actually "aimed"?  If so, wouldn't that just be where the 'twitch skill' part moves to, especially with the damage now being based on proximity?

[Trippy]

That's the problem with TR.  It's not worth it.  Why?  I've been thinking about what I thought sucked and to be honest I've confused myself.  On one hand, on a fundamental level I think games that are basically third person shooters are fun.  We can probably all point to a third person shooter that we like.  But somehow, with the way TR does its targeting 'lock-on' thingey it takes away that freedom from a normal shooter to switch targets fluidly by simply putting reticle on target.  In TR, you tab onto your target and it really doesn't matter where your gun is pointing.  Now that probably doesn't sound like a tremendous flaw, but in practice it somehow is.  It makes you feel like you're just standing there clicking mindlessly as a mob's health bar diminishes in varying ways depending on which button I've mashed. 

It's really confusing why the seemingly simple difference between targeting styles can make such a huge difference to me.  It feels like it shouldn't, but it just does.  I think, and this opinion is solely mine, that this is the single biggest thing that will ultimately sink this game.  There are other things that are horribly wrong for sure.  But this one is the crowned prince of what's wrong with TR.

That's not how TR's targeting/aiming system works. TR uses a "sticky aiming" system where your reticle will "snap to" a target if it's close enough to one. Think of it like a console-style aiming assist mechanic. If you turn and move the reticle far enough away from the target you lose that "lock". So it's a "soft locking" system not a hard locking one like in typical MMORPGs. Note that where your gun is pointing is not important -- it's where your reticle is that matters as the game will autoface you to shoot where your reticle is pointing when you fire (watch my controls video for an explanation of this).

Where the Tab key comes into play is if you are shooting into a crowd of possible targets. With the snap to system your target will switch around as your reticle moves around making it very difficult to focus your fire on a single target. If you use the Tab key it'll prevent that from happening but again if you move the reticle far enough away you'll lose the target.

If you are standng still and your target is standing still then it does work and feel like a typical MMORPG where you just stand there and press the mouse buttons over and over till the creature is dead. If either of you are moving then you do have to aim to be able to hit your target, just not nearly as much as in an real shooter.

If you want to pretend you are playing a shooter use the shotgun which has no tab locking or snap to aiming at all -- you just point and shoot like you do in a normal shooter.

[tmp]

Which anime?  I don't know what that means.   

Saying "it's like anime" is like saying "it's like comic book" or "it's like movie". It's just medium, there's metric fuckton of both visual styles and genres (SciFi being one of them) contained in either of these.