Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Surlyboi]

I'm going to laugh if Hellgate tanks.

I mean, I like it, but robot jesus it ain't.

Then again, I haven't played TR in weeks either...

[Morfiend]

I'm going to laugh if Hellgate tanks.

I mean, I like it, but robot jesus it ain't.

Gahhhhhh      

[LK]

Honestly, if you speak about the game, what are they going to do, especially if you do it anonymously?  You're not press, you're just random internet guy.  Nothing to lose, no trace to track.  Worst that will probably happen is that the post gets deleted.

[Rasix]

Honestly, if you speak about the game, what are they going to do, especially if you do it anonymously?  You're not press, you're just random internet guy.  Nothing to lose, no trace to track.  Worst that will probably happen is that the post gets deleted.

Don't do it. It's really fucking simple.

You the accept button for the NDA or you're playing on someone else's account that did.  Cavalier violation of NDA is going to land you a seat next to Mediocre (currently ban avoiding  ), Bruce and Dark Vengeance.

Don't advocate NDA violation, that's just stupid. 

[Surlyboi]

Ras totally has a point, strike my comments from the record.

Not being cavalier, just grumpy and absent-minded.

[LK]

I'm not in the Beta at all, but sort of taking a different perspective on things.  Yes, you'd probably be a Pariah in whatever internet community you decided to do this in.

[shiznitz]

Honestly, if you speak about the game, what are they going to do, especially if you do it anonymously?  You're not press, you're just random internet guy.  Nothing to lose, no trace to track.  Worst that will probably happen is that the post gets deleted.

The guys who run this site (or any gaming site) don't want their posters to break an NDA because developers will not support a site that tolerates NDA breaking. It is social enforcement.  Everyone knows that people break NDAs all the time on private forums. private messages  and person-to-person conversation, so just keep it there.

[Soukyan]

TR graphics look like DAoC at launch as far as world textures go. That's just so-so.

As to the gameplay, I have not bothered to play it yet, but I watched the gameplay videos posted on the front-page here and wow... it just looks boring.

In all honesty, I would rather test this. And that's saying something...

[Morfiend]

Honestly, if you speak about the game, what are they going to do, especially if you do it anonymously?  You're not press, you're just random internet guy.  Nothing to lose, no trace to track.  Worst that will probably happen is that the post gets deleted.

Thats just stupid. The mods here could get in trouble for shit like that, and while I may enjoy being a dick some times with borderline NSFW posts, I wouldnt blatantly spit in the faces of the guys who put their time and money in to this site.

[HaemishM]

NDA violating is really fucking stupid. You may not enjoy folks like Raph and Lum and Cuppycake coming around and talking to the plebians, but many of us do. Creating an environment that openly disrepects that relationship is the essence of being a Douchie Von Douchington.

[Grublet]

Blast off in T minus 13 months.

[WayAbvPar]

Blast off in T minus 13 months.

So, is the TR dev team footing the bill for this to get him the fuck out of their hair for awhile?

[Grublet]

Blast off in T minus 13 months.

So, is the TR dev team footing the bill for this to get him the fuck out of their hair for awhile?

Space Adventures advisory board includes Skylab/Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott, who happens to be RG's daddy. I'm sure there's a discount involved.

[Surlyboi]

Take your kid to work day?

[schild]

If I were on his staff, I would kick him directly in the motherfucking teeth for wasting money on this space shit instead of investing it in making a good game.

Truly, Mr. British, you are officially King Douchebag. Fucking top of the hill. Goddamn.

[Lucas]

News now getting beyond the usual gaming media...

http://www.space.com/news/070928_garriott_spacetourist.html

Former Astronaut's Son Signs on as Next Space Tourist
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 28 September 2007
2:55 p.m. ET

A retired NASA astronaut's son has signed on for a multimillion-dollar trek to the International Space Station (ISS) next year, a space tourism firm announced Friday.

American computer game developer Richard Garriott will pay at least $30 million to launch toward the space station aboard a Russian Soyuz spaceship in October 2008, said the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures, which brokered the flight with Russia's Federal Space Agency.

"Journeying to space has been a dream of mine since I was young," Garriott wrote on his Web site www.richardinspace.com. "This is hardly surprising since my father, Owen Garriott, is a former NASA astronaut who participated in such missions as Skylab and Spacelab-1 in the 1970s and '80s."

Garriott's father Owen, 76, joined NASA in 1965 as one of the agency's first six scientist astronauts. He spent just over 59 days in Earth orbit as part of NASA's Skylab 3 crew to the U.S. Skylab space station in 1973, then flew on the 10-day STS-9 flight aboard the Columbia space shuttle in 1983.

The younger Garriott's launch will mark the first time an American astronaut's child has reached space. If all goes according to plan, he will be greeted aboard the ISS by Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov, a Russian cosmonaut himself the son of veteran spaceflyer Alexander Volkov.

"I am so pleased that he is able to embrace this himself and that he is dedicating his flight to research," Owen Garriott said of his son in a statement. "I am very proud of him."

Richard Garriott, 46, is expected to spend about a week aboard the ISS during a 10-day spaceflight. He plans to perform science experiments as part of commercial agreements with private firms, including a series of protein crystallization experiments for the biotechnology firm ExtremoZyme, Inc. founded by his father. 

"I am dedicating my spaceflight to science," Garriott said in a statement. "We need to be adventurous in mind and stimulate our intellects to answer today's most daunting scientific questions and to invent tomorrow's technological marvels."

Residing in Austin, Texas, Garriott developed the Ultima computer game series and co-founded the Origins Systems computer game company with his brother Robert. He also co-founded the North American branch of the online game developer NCsoft.

Garriott's 2008 spaceflight will mark the sixth to the ISS by a paying visitor. Space Adventures has brokered the flights of all five previous space tourists, beginning with American entrepreneur Dennis Tito in 2001.

The most recent private spaceflyer, American Charles Simonyi - a Microsoft co-founder - paid up to $25 million for a 14-day flight to the ISS last April.
---------------

30 million bucks...not bad.

[Venkman]

I completely agree with you and almost everyone else here about NDAs. You want to respect the concept of the NDA. However:

NDA violating is really fucking stupid. You may not enjoy folks like Raph and Lum and Cuppycake coming around and talking to the plebians, but many of us do. Creating an environment that openly disrepects that relationship is the essence of being a Douchie Von Douchington.

Agreed. But I think more damage is done with disrepectful crap like this:

Truly, Mr. British, you are officially King Douchebag. Fucking top of the hill. Goddamn.

Schild, you know I love ya man, in a macho fraternity guy comrade sorta way. But I also know you don't want this place to be a bunch of sideline sitting stone-throwing sig-writers either, no matter what you might feel for certain games.

[schild]

Agreed. But I think more damage is done with disrepectful crap like this:

Truly, Mr. British, you are officially King Douchebag. Fucking top of the hill. Goddamn.

Schild, you know I love ya man, in a macho fraternity guy comrade sorta way. But I also know you don't want this place to be a bunch of sideline sitting stone-throwing sig-writers either, no matter what you might feel for certain games.

To be fair, this is about him throwing money at being a SPACE TOURIST.

Seriously, if I were sitting in a chair higher than him in Korea right now, I'd kick him right off the hill. It's not about sitting on the sideline throwing stones. It's about wasted potential. Though, at this point, even calling it potential is going a bit far. As a game designer, I think Mr. British has bought the farm.

Of course, he might be going into space to scream.

[Grublet]

To be fair, this is about him throwing money at being a SPACE TOURIST.

To be fair, according to Mr. British it's about SCIENCE.

[tmp]

Of course, he might be going into space to scream.

Hell hath no fury like investors duped. Perhaps for some game developers Earth is becoming vice-tight place?

[CharlieMopps]

Honestly, if you speak about the game, what are they going to do, especially if you do it anonymously?  You're not press, you're just random internet guy.  Nothing to lose, no trace to track.  Worst that will probably happen is that the post gets deleted.

Thats just stupid. The mods here could get in trouble for shit like that, and while I may enjoy being a dick some times with borderline NSFW posts, I wouldnt blatantly spit in the faces of the guys who put their time and money in to this site.

I've been in a bunch of beta's, never broken an NDA and would almost always see it as wrong. But in certain circumstances I think I would condone it if done in a forum that was ok with that sort of thing (Fires of heaven for example) By certain circumstances, I mean like when Sigil started selling pre-orders for Vanguard when the game literally wouldn't even boot for a large percentage of us and an entire continent was missing from the game. It was clear that what they were doing was wrong an immoral. They were trying to sell the game they told the world they had... but it didn't exist. Basically bait and switch. I didn't breach the NDA because there were already hoards of people doing it, and my help wasn't needed, but I didn't shun those that did. It was the right thing to do.

[Falwell]

I can only bust RG's balls so much on this one. Going into space is a once in a lifetime opportunity that few would pass on if they had the means and the methods.

Now, promoting this when you're getting ready to ship what the public seems to view as a lukewarm product at best, well, that's not sound PR.

[Soukyan]

Agreed. But I think more damage is done with disrepectful crap like this:

Truly, Mr. British, you are officially King Douchebag. Fucking top of the hill. Goddamn.

Schild, you know I love ya man, in a macho fraternity guy comrade sorta way. But I also know you don't want this place to be a bunch of sideline sitting stone-throwing sig-writers either, no matter what you might feel for certain games.

To be fair, this is about him throwing money at being a SPACE TOURIST.

Seriously, if I were sitting in a chair higher than him in Korea right now, I'd kick him right off the hill. It's not about sitting on the sideline throwing stones. It's about wasted potential. Though, at this point, even calling it potential is going a bit far. As a game designer, I think Mr. British has bought the farm.

Of course, he might be going into space to scream.

Perhaps I missed something, but if I had the money to do so, I would be a space tourist in a heartbeat. Perhaps you just aren't as into it, but the dream of going into space is a powerful one and if someone has that dream and gets the opportunity, I can honestly understand why they would not pass it up. Living out a dream vs. tweaking a game for a bunch of whiny players? Surely you can see why space wins for him. I think he made his mark a long time ago and could have retired, but his love of games is what prompted him to continue making a new one, even if it does seem to be a lousy one. I won't fault him for trying. As for the timing, well, it's not like you can just pick your flight departure time for these space missions... yet.

[sam, an eggplant]

I completely agree with you and almost everyone else here about NDAs. You want to respect the concept of the NDA. However:

I don't give a single shit nugget about developers' feelings. That's pandering bullshit, and entirely contrary to the concept of a rant site. Rants aren't vaultnetwork bootlicking back of the book blurb bullshit, they're funny, concise, correct, and most importantly direct criticism. Now all that said, I can't see Lum calling anyone a douchebag for their activities outside of gaming either.

Back on topic, I don't break NDAs because I gave my word. Not because I want to make friends with developers, or because I'm afraid of legal action. I told them I wouldn't do it, so I don't.

[Venkman]

Maybe I'm in the wrong place, but I thought we left behind hate for hate's sake long ago. I'm not advocating anyone bend over just so they can get a beta invite or align themselves with a "red name". I just mentioned what I did (which is a closed issue as far as I'm concerned) because these are real people with real jobs paying real bills and could stand to lose real money by wonton abuse of NDA-provided privileges. If you want to be an ass, that's your (and my, and most anyone ehre) right as Anonymous_Ranter_01. But the head of a fairly well-traveled and watched site is a bit different. But again, a non-issue. I have a lot of respect for the community here and what management's been able to achieve*. I only mention it to clarify my earlier statement.

As an aside, I applaud RG for taking this opportunity. I'd do it in a heartbeat with little care on how I got the cash :)

* Colors and contents may vary. Consult your local retailer. Not available in all territories. Not a flying toy.

[schild]

Darniaq, there's a whole SLEW of reasons this project (which I used to be UBER excited about) pissed me. Shit, it could be an entire article.

It's not hate for hates sake, and I could make one of those bulleted lists you love to point it all out. Hell, I could make a graph. You know what, screw it, I'm passing out when I get home and then I'm writing that article, making the list, and making the graph. >_>

[Venkman]

Well, as long as it's got the graph!   :-D

[schild]

Well, as long as it's got the graph!   :-D

It will be the first graph I've ever made for f13.

One of the axes will not be "LOLs" I promise.

[Soukyan]

Well, as long as it's got the graph!   :-D

It will be the first graph I've ever made for f13.

One of the axes will not be "LOLs" I promise.

Could you make a separate graph with a "LOLs" axis for the rest of us. ;)

[Xanthippe]

Is this baby going to be frontpaged?

[schild]

Yes.

[Surlyboi]

If there's no LOL factor, I'm buying two copies and sending you both.

[schild]

So, I'm about 3 pages into an article that doesn't really say anything. Mostly because there isn't anything to say. It has a pretty sweet timeline and I've got two graphs sketched out. But short of that, it's mostly just rehash and me calling Garriott an Astrolarper.

[raydeen]

Agreed. But I think more damage is done with disrepectful crap like this:

Truly, Mr. British, you are officially King Douchebag. Fucking top of the hill. Goddamn.

Schild, you know I love ya man, in a macho fraternity guy comrade sorta way. But I also know you don't want this place to be a bunch of sideline sitting stone-throwing sig-writers either, no matter what you might feel for certain games.

To be fair, this is about him throwing money at being a SPACE TOURIST.

Seriously, if I were sitting in a chair higher than him in Korea right now, I'd kick him right off the hill. It's not about sitting on the sideline throwing stones. It's about wasted potential. Though, at this point, even calling it potential is going a bit far. As a game designer, I think Mr. British has bought the farm.

Of course, he might be going into space to scream.

If Hollywood has taught us anything it's that in space, no one can hear you scream. Pity. As for Hellgate, a buddy tried to show me the beta last Thursday but the NDA gods must've been watching. He couldn't get it patched to get in. He said he really likes it though. I don't think that breaks any NDAs.

[Falwell]

Heh, Starr Long just came out and announced that TR is delayed another 2 weeks. New official launch date is 11/2. Pre order start is 10/30.