Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[sam, an eggplant]

Don't Richard and his brother basically run NC US? Robert is the president and CEO. Of course it's all funded by Korean won.

I guess that will change if TR fails and their attention moves to Aion.

[schild]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

[Venkman]

you'll see on the playtr site what I'm talking about.
...
You'll be pleasantly surprised when you read the amount of stuff they're planning for this game

Actually, no I won't :) You'll be the one I rely on for all the updates, in a Gutboy/SWG sorta way. It's good to hear vehicles are coming but quite honestly I finished with TR in August. Had a good six month run though, so not a fail. Just not interested in buying it. No specific reason why.

[schild]

I follow this game fairly religiously these days.

Ok. Sarcasm detector isn't broken. He's just fucking crazy.

[Ghambit]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

What other MMO has the same combat mechanics?  please enlighten me (seriously) if there's one out there.  And I'm not talking about one that's slightly similar either, but a basic knock-off.

btw, by revolutionary I dont necessarily mean GREAT.  Revolutions dont always end up so hawt.

[Venkman]

Oh no.

[Miasma]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

If you don't think pointing at enemies and holding down the left mouse button is revolutionary you're broken.  Sometimes they mix it up and you click the right mouse button, shit gets crazy man.

[schild]

Heh.

[Ghambit]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

If you don't think pointing at enemies and holding down the left mouse button is revolutionary you're broken.  Sometimes they mix it up and you click the right mouse button, shit gets crazy man.

If it were actually that simple I'd be more inclined to agree with you.  But if you feel leaving important details out proves your point somehow, so be it.  I wont bother repeating something I assume you already know.

[Venkman]

Combat-wise, it felt closest to a watered-down Planetside. I know the technology is different, this is just "feel". The problem with TR (imho) isn't how much like an FPS is, it's how much it isn't. It's basically a normal RPG where you have greater say on what hits and doesn't. I don't feel as connected to the total outcome of a fight/skirmish as I did in PS, much less real FPS. That's ok, and I'm sure it'll have it's fans. But take out the omgfunfor4days slight tweak on combat and you've got the same sort of DIKU that make people wonder why they wouldn't just play more content complete and polished ones.

It does have a different theme. Kudos to them for fleshing out a sci-fi world at least. That should have been much more of the premise though. I lamented back in March that the theme doesn't do anything for the world. When I say "immersion" I don't mean fullscreen display. I mean, does the total game have a self-consistency in which things make sense? TR does not. And dammit, it really could have, quite easily, if they'd have elevated it to the same level of importance as crafting (why) and clan v clan (yea, because the last of humanity is going to fight themselves).

Either of those things (combat that made sense or lore that made sense) would have kept me interested.

Ymmv :)

[Trippy]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

If you don't think pointing at enemies and holding down the left mouse button is revolutionary you're broken.  Sometimes they mix it up and you click the right mouse button, shit gets crazy man.

If it were actually that simple I'd be more inclined to agree with you.  But if you feel leaving important details out proves your point somehow, so be it.  I wont bother repeating something I assume you already know.

There's nothing revolutionary about the combat system. "Sticky" targeting has been around for almost as long as there has been console shooters which the TR controls were clearly patterned after. Crouching having an affect on combat has been around in shooters for ages (at least since 1998). "Overkills" were in Mortal Kombat. The only new thing in TR's combat system is the effect of cover which would've worked a lot better if their combat LoS code actually worked and that's hardly a revolutionary idea.

[Ghambit]

Did I just see "revolutionary combat system" and TR in the same post?

Please tell me my sarcasm detector is broken.

If you don't think pointing at enemies and holding down the left mouse button is revolutionary you're broken.  Sometimes they mix it up and you click the right mouse button, shit gets crazy man.

If it were actually that simple I'd be more inclined to agree with you.  But if you feel leaving important details out proves your point somehow, so be it.  I wont bother repeating something I assume you already know.

There's nothing revolutionary about the combat system. "Sticky" targeting has been around for almost as long as there has been console shooters which the TR controls were clearly patterned after. Crouching having an affect on combat has been around in shooters for ages (at least since 1998). "Overkills" were in Mortal Kombat. The only new thing in TR's combat system is the effect of cover which would've worked a lot better if their combat LoS code actually worked and that's hardly a revolutionary idea.

It'd only be that simple if we were talking about your vanilla FPS.  TR is an RPG and a quasi "turn-based" one at that.  All of what you say is correct, but you fail to connect the dots on how it relates to applying it to a traditional turn-based RPG... which is what Starr Long accomplished. 

Rather than hash this all out yet again I'll simply cut/paste from a review I did on another site:
"The TR gaming mechanic:
Fear not you number/button crunchers out there, the mechanics behind hit/dmg. ARE “turn-based” so to speak… but the modifiers to the results are MUCH MUCH more complex and happen much quicker. We’ll take a game like WoW; you cast a spell and it does “x” dmg… period, end of story. Only real modifiers to this are in place well before you fire your spell… things like armor, resistance, range, etc; creating a pretty monochromatic gaming experience rooted purely in strategy and not in fluid tactics (a lot of singular button-pushing). In TR the computer is tasked with calculating these modifiers “on-the-fly.” You still have your traditional modifiers of resistance and armor. BUT, things like range, line of sight, hit area and aiming all play a roll in real-time. Not to mention, your traditional values of armor, resistance, etc. are NOT static. That is to say, they evolve depending on the damage you take during an engagement. As you take and give damage, you’re also treated to the damage and modifiers popping up over you or your target (without fancy add-ons). So you can aptly adjust your strategy based on what you see.

For example, in WoW you have “x” value armor which washes away “x” value dmg you take to HP. In TR, you have “x” value armor which as the armor takes dmg. it loses effectiveness (armor is represented as a % of 100). The armor itself USUALLY has to be defeated even before getting to your HP (some types of damage can ignore it…. Everything has its weakness). If you’re getting wailed on in a fight, over time your armor will take a beating and be less able to soak damage. In WoW, this value is static until your armor breaks. Thereby making armor in TR EXTREMELY important to maintain even during engagements (you obviously always want it near 100%). That armor of course can have special abilities like resistances, buffs, debuffs, etc. added. Armor also recharges as health does depending on that particular skill level, so even if your armor is gone if you take cover or fall back eventually it’ll recharge, albeit usually at a less effective armor %. Once hit, the dmg. your health or your armor takes pops up over your head, along with the amount that’s soaked. Same with your target’s.

Moving on; line-of-sight plays perhaps the biggest role in the game. If you don’t have it you can’t fire at something. No more fireballs through the walls. If a creature does have a bead on you and you’ve got partial cover, they take a big reduction in To-hit and dmg. The same goes for you. This simple mechanic makes the call to “Fall Back!” something that actually works. You can’t hit what you cant see.

Aiming is PARTIALLY FPS based. Yes, you have an aiming reticule and it’s extremely important to place it on the mob and wait for the good shot (like in Ghost Recon, it helps to crouch as the aiming-reticule focuses quicker). BUT, aiming affects to-hit AND dmg. not simply if you hit or not – it’s not as cut and dry as in an FPS. There are basically 3 ways to hit a mob; tab-locking, highlighting temporarily with the cursor, and pure aiming; tab-locking being the most penalized and pure aiming the least. Once aimed, the modifiers due to how much time you spent aiming come into play. This is all do on-the-fly in real-time usually measured in split seconds, so you don’t notice any of this going on (so it FEELS like a pure FPS).

Range is also very important. Different weapons and effects have different effective ranges which also modify results on-the-fly. Rifles don’t do much dmg. close up. Shotguns don’t do much dmg. far away. All weapons have a MAX range where beyond they won’t work at all. Weapons also fire at different rates and their DOTs are NOT listed like in other games (you must figure this out by yourself). You may have a pistol that does less damage, but fires faster then that rifle. At effective range you might do more harm with that pistol. What this mechanic does is very subtle. It adds another layer of tactics in that it’s best to switch attacks based on range as the enemy advances. As a group you will want to set up your attack/defense based on where each person’s strengths lie. Put your snipers in the back, pistoleers in the front, etc.

Hit-Location is also important in this game, something usually lacking in an RPG. Basically, positioning is everything. Not only must you study the battlefield, but you must attack from angles affording you an advantage based on the weakest part of your enemy. Certain enemies are heavily armored from the front, so attack from the back. Certain enemies have weak points, so aim for those."

Name me ONE MMORPG where this has been done before (specifically the combat mechanics themselves) and I'll quietly go away with my head in my hands.  Fact is, TR is still a "dice role" system with standard to-hit and dmg type stats to go along with everything else (armor, resistance, blah blah).  Even though the elements within it arent new (like tab-locking, crouching, etc.), HOW they're implemented (together) is where the innovation lies.  Regardless of the state of the game or if this combat mechanic "wows" you, it still is something different... and likely something we'll see more of in newer RPGs.

[Trippy]

Neocron. SWG.

[Surlyboi]

Name me ONE MMORPG where this has been done before (specifically the combat mechanics themselves) and I'll quietly go away with my head in my hands.

SWG, which failed miserably because they could never get CD in AND they decided to tack it on to a game that was already running for three goddamn years.

Or, for the cheap seats... DID SOMEONE SAY, "TWITCH"

heh, that never gets old.

[Trippy]

Or, for the cheap seats... DID SOMEONE SAY, "TWITCH"

heh, that never gets old.

Nope. Or is that yup?

[Ghambit]

Neocron. SWG.

Neocron is a pure vanilla FPS system.  SWG is for the most part just a sped up version of their old combat system, just with aiming involved. (albeit closer)
You could break off lists of games that have pieces of TR combat mechanic all day, but you wont find one MMO that has them all.  Which is what I asked you.

[Trippy]

Neocron. SWG.

Neocron is a pure vanilla FPS system.

Nope. There's dice rolling in the background.

[Surlyboi]

Ok Ghambit, you're at 11, we need you at about an 8.

That said, I'm totally on your side. It's a damn sight better than the NGE and I actually like it. The hurdle to 2nd tier's a bit of a pain in the ass, but it's definitely a fun game.

[Ghambit]

Neocron. SWG.

Neocron is a pure vanilla FPS system.

Nope. There's dice rolling in the background.

whaaaa???  (accesses memory banks)
I dont remember it being diceroll at all, errr.. at least not overtly so (scratches head).  And it's always described as being an FPS system.   I stand corrected then and ALMOST put my head in my hands. Regardless, you're saying it's JUST like TR's combat model??  I DEFINITELY dont remember it being like that.

[Trippy]

Neocron. SWG.

Neocron is a pure vanilla FPS system.

Nope. There's dice rolling in the background.

whaaaa???  (accesses memory banks)
I dont remember it being diceroll at all, errr.. at least not overtly so (scratches head).   I stand corrected then and ALMOST put my head in my hands. Regardless, you're saying it's JUST like TR's combat model??

No I'm not saying that. Like I said above the cover thing is unique AFAIK to the MMORPG world (cover is a common thing in turn-based tactical games and some RTSes but those aren't related to the FPS or RPG genres). But differences that minor do not make for a revolutionary combat system. In other words claiming something is "unique" does not make it revolutionary. You need to do better than that.

[Surlyboi]

Ok, so we can all agree it's neither unique or revolutionary.

It's fresh and it ain't diku and right now, that's good enough for me.

[schild]

What's not diku about it? The way I see it, it's like they took the core of diku and then dressed it up tp confuse you - a messy fucked up class and leveling system, and tacked on half-ass FPS combat routine as the gameplay. It's basically Hellgate Lite, with shitty loot and horrible hit detection. And it's uglier. And might have cost more to develop. Surly, go (pre)order Hellgate.

[Bunk]

Range is also very important. Different weapons and effects have different effective ranges which also modify results on-the-fly. Rifles don’t do much dmg. close up. Shotguns don’t do much dmg. far away. All weapons have a MAX range where beyond they won’t work at all. Weapons also fire at different rates and their DOTs are NOT listed like in other games (you must figure this out by yourself). You may have a pistol that does less damage, but fires faster then that rifle. At effective range you might do more harm with that pistol. What this mechanic does is very subtle. It adds another layer of tactics in that it’s best to switch attacks based on range as the enemy advances. As a group you will want to set up your attack/defense based on where each person’s strengths lie. Put your snipers in the back, pistoleers in the front, etc.

Anybody else notice that little gem and have sudden flashbacks of attempts to rationalize things in SWG - like that rifles hurt peoples minds becuse, um, they do.

I'm not picking on you here, I'll even admit that in glancing through what you wrote it appears to be a reasonably detailed combat system. But it just grates on me when the come up with absolutely silly mechanic ideas in the name of balance. Are they magic bullets coming out of the rifles that get faster the farther they go? Maybe they're heatseeking bullets that need time to zero in on the enemy's ass?

[CharlieMopps]

A post apocalyptic Scifi MMO without PVP? Instanced cities? No WASD?

This is the Pansy version of Anarchy Online, which was already fairly pansy.

Portal = Revolutionary
Tabula Rasa = Richard Garriott converts to Scientology.
 (How much you wanna bet the last boss is Xenu?)



edit: sp

[WindupAtheist]

Make rifles less accurate close-up (which amounts to the same thing as less damage) and it makes a lot more sense.

[shiznitz]

The periods after "dmg" in the middle of his sentences confuse me. I cry for our high school english teachers.

[Salamok]

Neocron. SWG.

Neocron is a pure vanilla FPS system.

Nope. There's dice rolling in the background.

whaaaa???  (accesses memory banks)
I dont remember it being diceroll at all, errr.. at least not overtly so (scratches head).   I stand corrected then and ALMOST put my head in my hands. Regardless, you're saying it's JUST like TR's combat model??

No I'm not saying that. Like I said above the cover thing is unique AFAIK to the MMORPG world (cover is a common thing in turn-based tactical games and some RTSes but those aren't related to the FPS or RPG genres). But differences that minor do not make for a revolutionary combat system. In other words claiming something is "unique" does not make it revolutionary. You need to do better than that.

I haven't played TR but how does the cover in TR differ from LoS stuff that has been there since EQ?  I seem to remember rooting Centaurs in SK and hiding behind a tree to avoid arrows while I nuked em. 

[Venkman]

Did the Centaurs do that on purpose? :)

LoS is overblown in TR. You see and can hit or you can't see and can't hit. Even WoW has that to a degree. TR mobs try and take advantage of it, as they do in other games.

What's not diku about it? The way I see it, it's like they took the core of diku and then dressed it up tp confuse you - a messy fucked up class and leveling system, and tacked on half-ass FPS combat routine as the gameplay. It's basically Hellgate Lite, with shitty loot and horrible hit detection. And it's uglier. And might have cost more to develop. Surly, go (pre)order Hellgate.

I think the graphics at least are self-consistent with the intent of the lore, even if I find a lot of holes in that lore and no clear plan to fill them. But I definitely agree this is more DIKU-like (as interpreted by the genre) than not. Classes, XP, level-unlocked abilities, loot-affected stats, advancements to various level-appropriate content-dense areas, everything you expect from a polished DIKU ala WoW with a slightly different combat system.

It's fine really. This is a competent game in the context of the genre. It's just not the omgawesomethankgodRGisback that's been hyped. And that's fine too, as long is it continues to make business sense for NC.

[Trippy]

I haven't played TR but how does the cover in TR differ from LoS stuff that has been there since EQ?  I seem to remember rooting Centaurs in SK and hiding behind a tree to avoid arrows while I nuked em. 

If you are "behind/in cover" you take less damage. Conversely if you are crouched you do more damage. The problem with cover and crouching in TR is that the "what you can hit" LoS code does not match the "what you can see" LoS code so you constantly get messages saying "I can't see that" when in fact you are hitting your target fine. So you have to constantly watch the hit point bar of your target if you try to use cover or crouch on a regular basis.

Just to clarify "cover" in this context does not mean out of LoS. It means you are behind a low wall or rock or whatever where you are still visible but your body is partially covered.

[Trippy]

LoS is overblown in TR. You see and can hit or you can't see and can't hit.

Actually that's not true. See above.

[schild]

It's fine really. This is a competent game in the context of the genre. It's just not the omgawesomethankgodRGisback that's been hyped. And that's fine too, as long is it continues to make business sense for NC.

Wake me up when merely competent games deserve funding and marketing like this one got.

[Salamok]

Did the Centaurs do that on purpose? :)

LoS is overblown in TR. You see and can hit or you can't see and can't hit. Even WoW has that to a degree. TR mobs try and take advantage of it, as they do in other games.

Point taken, if mobs are actually ducking for cover when and where appropriate then that is revolutionary for a mmo.  mob ai is definately an area that needs improvement in todays mmogs. 

[Trippy]

Mobs do not try and use LoS to their advantage in TR.

[Salamok]

It's fine really. This is a competent game in the context of the genre. It's just not the omgawesomethankgodRGisback that's been hyped. And that's fine too, as long is it continues to make business sense for NC.

Wake me up when merely competent games deserve funding and marketing like this one got.

I agree from what I have read TR won't ever make a profit, Richard Garriott went off the deep end long ago but if you had his cash and influence you'd probably be long gone as well (I know I would).

I really think the guy is a genius but he probably shouldn't be let out of the think tank or too close to the production team.  I'm not privy to who was responsable for what in UO but it still has quite a few brilliant things in it that the mainstream mmogs have overlooked.  

[HaemishM]

Ok, so we can all agree it's neither unique or revolutionary.

Correct.

It's fresh and it ain't diku and right now, that's good enough for me.

It's not really fresh, and it most certainly IS a diku. It has all the bits that make Diku, from classes, to gated by level content, to levels, hitpoints, etc. etc. etc. The only difference between it and a fantasy diku is how you attack. They removed the auto-attack from diku and grafted on an NGE style aiming interface, but other than how you point your mouse, it's so diku it hurts.