Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, that has to be my favorite bug by far.

[Margalis]

The kicker for me is that movies are just as "fun-oriented" and experimental (writing something good isn't always easy) as games are. And often trickier to get out the door. Yet Hollywood has it's act together and can produce on time. The gaming industry should be capable of the same thing. But there's no unified voice to say "you're pissing us off so we wont buy your games."

That's true only if you look at actual shooting schedules. Hollywood is quite good about maintaining shooting schedules but the total projects from start to finish can take more than a decade and often don't even have timelines at all if you include the scripting and pre-production phases.

Also I think people vastly underestimate how diverse games and software are in general. Most movies are the same in most ways. They use similar actors, similar cameras and lighting, similar techniques, similar shots and scenes, etc.

If you took the God of War engine and slapped in new models you could probably keep to a schedule pretty accurately. That's the right comparison - the well-scheduled parts of movies are the equivalent of content-production.

[tmp]

That assertion is entirely invalid. Could you back that up with something more than just typing? Of course this is tha InTrawebz and anyone can make up anything, but I believe we're all fairly trustworthy around these parts (though Im new so you might all be lying sacks of nuclear waste).

Windows Vista, Mac OS X Leopard.

Yes, it's merely anecdotal evidence that it's not just games that can be delayed months and years, but these are current flagships of "SERIOUS BUSINESS" software development if there's even such thing. Overall there's vague but not unfounded impression the only software that doesn't miss original projected delivery date is that which didn't get (public) one to begin with.

[Venkman]

Also I think people vastly underestimate how diverse games and software are in general. Most movies are the same in most ways. They use similar actors, similar cameras and lighting, similar techniques, similar shots and scenes, etc.

I don't really agree with that, and for the same reason on games.

Developers may need to learn new hardware and tools, but ultimately the practice of "making a game" is fairly established. There's a few different methods, and smaller companies (and autonomous divisions) are capable of more experimentation than larger places banging out sequels and/or expanding franchises. But you can't really start the actual work of development without having figured a schedule (hazy and gray maybe) beforehand. There's simply too many resources that have to click at the right times, and are most often resources scheduled to work on other projects as well.

Building characters, how they animate, what they look like with colors and textures, doing that with a bunch of them, the same with worlds, actually making stuff interact at code level, your QA process throughout, it's not like the entire process of development is reinvented for every new game. The standout games people talk about most, yea, often that is the case. But multiply what is most talked about by a few dozen to see just how many titles actually exist, are sold, are played, and it's easy to see why every single title can't be a brand new development process.

And even on those games talked about most, it's sorta easy to spot the ones that were managed well versus the seat-of-the-pants/ crap-we-said-we'd-ship-when?! versus the very few who actually get to say "we tell the publisher when we think we're done and they go get it on shelf for us".

[Johny Cee]

Report from the front lines from f13's apparent "biggest fanboi" for TR. At level 36, I'm still digging it. I've actually wanted to play enough that I catassed that far in a couple of weeks. (Ok, the missus was also out of town with her family for Thanksgiving, so I had time.) I'm casual at best after the jedi grind broke me in SWG, but I actually find myself reading the mission briefs and shit before running out to storm the castle. I haven't done that in ages. I know fuckall about the Lore of CoX and the stuff in EQ2 is mostly from stuff I gleaned from glossing over quest briefs and shit I remember from EQ. Bottom line, I actually kinda care about my toon and the worlds he inhabits. Plus, it's fucking cool to rush into a room full of alien hostiles and wax the bitches with an assortment of shit including shotguns and swords.

That said, there's shit that sucks about the game. Broken missions, obviously being right up there. The coming Rage nerf and the hue and cry it's caused among the players and the admitted grindiness of the later levels. (The last I can kinda claim as lack of high-end content, which I kinda expected. But then, like I said, I've never been one of the first to get to those places in an MMO before, so it's new to me anyway.) Will I continue to play it with the fervor I have for the past month? Who knows, but it is, for the most part, fun right now.

I hit 34 on a Grenadier around the same time you were hitting 36,  but have now gone back and I'm leveling up a ranger to have a spy/sniper at 30 just in case.

The Good:

- Instances are pretty well designed,  and fun.  Grab 6 people around the right level and go.  No real requirements for specific classes.  Some of them just made me shake my head at the pure insanity unleashed,  like the first stages of Treeback Camp where you get assaulted by waves of Bane while allies get dropped in.

- Combat is fun.  Pop rage,  get out a shottie, plow through some guys.  The shield bots and the Linker damage reflection mean you have to pay attention to angles and area effect of your weapons.

- Story is pretty solid.  Good filler and reasons for why you need to Fedex some ammo to a patrol.

- Moral choice storylines.  You're still running the same quests,  but you get to decide how they end.  Do you turn in the drug dealer?  Do you turn off the guardian bots so that they stop sterilizing humans,  or do you turn them off so that they leave the Brann alone as well?  Do you run missions for the Blackops guy killing traitors,  or help the dissenters out?

As it should be,  your choices (mostly) don't affect your reward.  They just adds flavor to how you complete the missions.

- Nice mix of missions.  Find logos are basically explore missions,  some puzzles (which can be cheated), some kill tasks, some Fedex stuff.  Even the escort quests can be pretty entertaining based on other events happening in the world.

In Pallisades,  you get a quest to escort a scientist down the river to another base.  The first time I ran it,  I just followed the river.  Big mistake.  Ran into a boss,  who I had to run from.  Then,  when trying to duck into the base before my objective,  it gets attacked.  I'm fucking booking it around with dozens of Bane shooting up the joint while I'm just praying I can sneak behind the forcefield and my escort survives.

The Bad:

- Lag.  Some zones are borked (Mires),  some zones have occasional lag that makes it feel like you're playing with a second delay for everything.

- Class/item/skill imbalance.  Some skills are virtually worthless, others are borderline overpowered.  But may be the only thing preventing a class from falling into complete uselessness.

- Mission/instance bugs.  I don't mind a broken mission here and there, but god damn.  Some of the instances like to regularly bug out one of story missions you need to finish up.  I've done the Robotics Facility 3.5 times due to this,  or to disconnect during the end fight.

- UI.  It feels slow and unintuitive.  You have to manually enter each of a buddies alts by last name?  What?  They all have the same fucking name.  The radial menu feels clunky.

- UI: Chat.  This is just poorly done.  No respond hotkey?

[Venkman]

Interesting quote from RG:

The people who did participate in the beta, we've had to go back to and say 'look, look, we promise: we know it wasn't fun two months ago, but we fixed all that. Really, come try it again.' We've had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process.

It's just a shame we all knew this years ago.

The part I don't agree with is the magical fix for whatever people thought wasn't fun. The game did not radically change between Feb 2007 and September 2007, the period of time I was in beta. Yes, there was crafting, more worlds, more content, and a bunch of balance tweaks. But ultimately, the core concept remained the same, and it really wasn't ever truly unplayably buggy for the times they had operational.

To me that exposes the nature of TR is simply a "game", and not a full-breadth MMO world with associative properties that have proven to retain lots of players.

That's just me though. Sounds like a few here are enjoying it. I'd love to hear how many paying accounts they have.

[Trippy]

It actually got less fun for me leading up to release. First they nerfed shotty knockdown so that it became a useless knockback. Then they nerfed the exp multiplier. Then they buffed the big mobs like the Stalkers with rediculous regen levels so you could no longer solo them.

Edit: spelling

[geldonyetich2]

I knew a lot of people were hating the game from their experiences in beta, but I didn't think Richard Garriott would come right out and say it.

[KallDrexx]

How did they nerf xp multiplier?  I never played in beta but I"m playing now and even the knockback fromt he shotgun seems useful, as it means I can usually get 3-4 shots in with my shotgun (or a good 6 with my rifle) before they start attacking me again.  Don't know how it was before though.

[Trippy]

It used to be like 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x. Then they changed it to something like 1.25x, 1.5x, ... to 2.5x. Shotgun used to knock them on their asses and they took a while to stand up.

[geldonyetich2]

Shotguns still knock em' down, but you need level 3 firearms skill for it to work.

[schild]

Oh, I wonder what designer thought it was a good idea that your ability for bullets to do what they're supposed to do should be tied to your level.

Oh, innovation.

[geldonyetich2]

You see, in Tabula Rasa, gun fires you.

[Trippy]

Shotguns still knock em' down, but you need level 3 firearms skill for it to work.

Mine was up to 4 in Beta. Maybe I needed to put in the last point or they changed it right before release.

[geldonyetich2]

Must have changed it right before released, because knocking down droves of Bane with my boomstick was specifically why I took Firearms to 3.

[Falconeer]

Gamespot has a review up with a not bad score of 7.5.

Still, there's a passage in it which doesn't sound 7.5 at all to me and which killed the mild interest I was "saving for later". I thought you guys said the world was beautiful and a hoot to explore.

Exploration is not as rewarding as you would hope. Once you get past the initial freshness of a sci-fi world to explore, you discover that Tabula Rasa simply isn't much to look at. Many of the creature and soldier models are done well, but across the board, the game offers little visual respite. The color palette is a mess of browns, oranges, and other dull colors, a visual design that fits with the obvious tone the developer aimed for but weighs heavy on the eyes over time. Even areas that scream for lusher greenery or brighter tones, such as the fields of the Cumbria Research Facility, are formed without much detail or variety. The weak technology behind the graphics certainly doesn't help, so expect to see lots of sharp edges, plain textures, and a good amount of visual slowdown.

[Trippy]

I never said that.

[Venkman]

I'd be interested in finding out if anyone said that here?

There's been some praise on some of the zone designs, but not because people were sneaking around exploring the world. They were sent their to fight and happen to notice the interesting along the way.

[Miasma]

Exploring (most) instances is pretty fun, the main zones are okay but by level 27 or so the zones are so full of enemies it makes roaming around difficult until you outlevel the mobs.  There are a few beautiful areas, Eloh Valley is one, but not very many.  It definitely suffers from brown in many places.

My guild is leaving the game now so I have to decide wether or not to try and go it alone to see the other instances.  I'm actually a bit worried that the instance quality is going downhill as I level up, lately most of them have been indoors and just repeat the same walls and rooms... Oh, and they're all puke green, it's killing me.

[Surlyboi]

I think the guys at gamespot needed to use a better vid card. Just Sayin' Trinity bridge is pretty damned impressive and the first sunrise you see over the Torden plains will make you stop for a second while mobs wail on you.

Are there lots of browns and greens? Sure. But I'm pretty sure that most natural environments aren't day-glo. The indoor environments? Eh. I'm hoping they get better, but Bane architecture is kinda assy so I'm not holding out hope. Eloh ruins? Those scream Halo unfortunately.

As for the shotgun, yeah, it's kinda silly that you've gotta have firearms 3 or better to get the knockback effect from all shotguns, but you could always just cheat and pick up a sonic shotgun (or sonic anything, for that matter) which gives a knockback effect about 25% of the time anyway.

[Johny Cee]

Oh, I wonder what designer thought it was a good idea that your ability for bullets to do what they're supposed to do should be tied to your level.

Oh, innovation.

A firearms skill is just a game-aiding abstraction.  You know,  just like the aim smoothing employed by most FPS games.  Or games that use "cone of fire" dealies to simulate the natural vagaries of real-life aim and shoot.

[Hoax]

A firearms skill is just a game-aiding abstraction.  You know,  just like the aim smoothing employed by most FPS games.  Or games that use "cone of fire" dealies to simulate the natural vagaries of real-life aim and shoot.

<insert rant about how ghey2k "tactical" shooters are here>

[Johny Cee]

Gamespot has a review up with a not bad score of 7.5.

Still, there's a passage in it which doesn't sound 7.5 at all to me and which killed the mild interest I was "saving for later". I thought you guys said the world was beautiful and a hoot to explore.

Exploration is not as rewarding as you would hope. Once you get past the initial freshness of a sci-fi world to explore, you discover that Tabula Rasa simply isn't much to look at. Many of the creature and soldier models are done well, but across the board, the game offers little visual respite. The color palette is a mess of browns, oranges, and other dull colors, a visual design that fits with the obvious tone the developer aimed for but weighs heavy on the eyes over time. Even areas that scream for lusher greenery or brighter tones, such as the fields of the Cumbria Research Facility, are formed without much detail or variety. The weak technology behind the graphics certainly doesn't help, so expect to see lots of sharp edges, plain textures, and a good amount of visual slowdown.

The graphics/visuals aren't going to win any awards, but they're fine. 

The design of how mobs spawn, numbers, where they congregate, and what they do is pretty top notch.  The first time I hit Plains,  I spent a couple nights just screwing around in the big trench that's constantly being fought over by sqauds of mobs and allied mechs.  But you don't really see much of that before lvl 20.

[Chinchilla]

I wonder if this game has a trail offer yet.  I will try it for a trail offer.  See if I maybe like it.

[WayAbvPar]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Ratman_tf]

[geldonyetich2]

I loled.

[Ghambit]

hmmm... an Oregon Trail MMO
Might actually work!   

[Draegan]

hmmm... an Oregon Trail MMO
Might actually work!   

For you sure, there's permadeath.

[DarkSign]

hmmm... an Oregon Trail MMO
Might actually work!   

Well as much as people loathe eating and drinking in games, I definitely think an MMO that made survival part of the game would be great.

[UnSub]

hmmm... an Oregon Trail MMO
Might actually work!   

Well as much as people loathe eating and drinking in games, I definitely think an MMO that made survival part of the game would be great.

You know, I remember my whole party dying of starvation several times in Ultima II. I never played that game to completion. There is a correlation there.

[Kageru]

Tabula Rasa has a very well done "Tavern" in Foreas Base (Divides Zone), full of off duty soldiers just sitting around having a drink while a barmaid serves. I couldn't help feeling it was a missed opportunity that the bartender isn't interactive, it just cries out for players to be able to buy a pleasant stat/perception degrading drink.

.... then again, since few people group in TR and most are busy grinding/exploiting a couple of spots with fast respawn I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

[geldonyetich2]

You forgot to mention the excellent hick music.

[Ghambit]

My feeling is the Devs arent going to fall into the trap of populating the lower lvl areas with meaningless stuff to do (i.e. buying drinks, building a house, etc.)  What's the point really?  In a few more weeks time those zones will be ghost-towns because everyone will be 40+.

Just get the damned end-game in place dangit!  And with that end-game should come all the frilly stuff we love like interactable taverns, housing, yada yada.

p.s.
I'm pretty sure a modern MMO-version of "Oregon Trail" would ALWAYS have at least ONE survivor.  Your partymembers are a good source of protein.  So hey, in a way there's no permadeath. 

[Ratman_tf]

Just get the damned end-game in place dangit!  And with that end-game should come all the frilly stuff we love like interactable taverns, housing, yada yada.

End games have always been disappointing to me, and the mediocraty of Tabula Rasa leads me to believe that it's end game will be more of the same. And so not worth it.