Tabula Rasa Revealed in Guild Wars booklet

[schild]

And I quote: "Gun Based Combat and modernized weapons on the front line of a galactic battlefield."

GUN.

BASED.

COMBAT.

Edit: Less stupid, crotchpheasants.

[HaemishM]

Long as  it isn't auto attack, we're all good.

[Trippy]

Is it twitch?

[schild]

Is it twitch?

If there's a god.

[Merusk]

Planetside a'la Garrot?  It sounds interesting now. The previous incarnation didn't do it for me.

[Paelos]

Is it twitch?

If there's a god.

Oh there is, but the God of Gaming is a vengeful God who feasts on our sweet sweet tears.

[Sky]

Remember, Stevie Case is a Gaming God, according to some 'authorities'. Watch who you're praying to...

[HaemishM]

I'm just praying it isn't like AO, or Face of Mankind.

[El Gallo]

Remember, Stevie Case is a Gaming God, according to some 'authorities'. Watch who you're praying to...

If Gariott dropped a few grand on a new rack, I'd consider it.

[Signe]

Oh, it'll be crap.  You know it'll be crap.  I can hardly remember when anything wasn't crap.

I'd like to play some good crap for a change, though. 

[Shockeye]

Oh, it'll be crap.  You know it'll be crap.  I can hardly remember when anything wasn't crap.

I'd like to play some good crap for a change, though. 

Guild Wars not as great as you imagined it would be? Pity.

[Signe]

So, GW isn't total crap.  It's ok.  WoW is ok.  CoH is ok.  Everything else is either old and tatty looking or crap.  I really would settle for good.

[Strazos]

Somebody needs to slap the hate out of Shockeye.

Release the Good!

[HaemishM]

From the recent press release detailing NCSoft's E3 Lineup:

Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online action game that takes you into the heat of battle at the front lines of an epic war between a xenophobic alien race bent on galactic conquest and the coalition of rebel soldiers who've traveled across the galaxy to stop them. Combining the action of a first person shooter, the immersion of a role-playing game, and Richard Garriott's signature creative vision, Tabula Rasa takes the player on an intergalactic adventure where the individual has an opportunity to significantly impact the pace of battle on a global scale.

Emphasis mine. As well as a hearty FUCK YEAH.

[schild]

They should just change the name to: Tabula Rasa - the last Game you'll Ever need to Play.

[Krakrok]

A Planetside clone designed by Garriot? Should be interesting.

[schild]

A Planetside clone designed by Garriot? Should be interesting.

Don't even go there. The "Virtual World" in Planetside is non-existant. Zero. None. Tabula Rasa will probably have more in common with virtual worlds like SW:G and UO.

[AcidCat]

From the recent press release detailing NCSoft's E3 Lineup:

Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online action game that takes you into the heat of battle at the front lines of an epic war between a xenophobic alien race bent on galactic conquest and the coalition of rebel soldiers who've traveled across the galaxy to stop them. Combining the action of a first person shooter, the immersion of a role-playing game, and Richard Garriott's signature creative vision, Tabula Rasa takes the player on an intergalactic adventure where the individual has an opportunity to significantly impact the pace of battle on a global scale.

Emphasis mine. As well as a hearty FUCK YEAH.

This sounds too good to be true. When does the other shoe drop?

[HaemishM]

Just like in all other MMOG's. Release day.

[Hoax]

Fucking release day... perhaps Mourning was on to something, have a long beta and then just start charging people for it.  Dont release anything just one day say "now you have to pay -but we're still improving/testing/patching the game".  That way two years down the line the fanbois can still say "duh man its beta, this is how beta's work!".

[chinslim]

Just like in all other MMOG's. Release day.

But it's the ANTICIPATION BABY


I'm hoping they can pull it off because it does sound like alot of fun.

[HaemishM]

Well, it can't possibly be any WORSE than other MMOG's can it? I mean, haven't we hit the nadir on shitty MMOG releases? Am I just being too uncharacteristically optimistic?

Considering that of the 3 MMOG's released by NCSoft in the past year in America (COH, Lineage 2 and now Guild Wars), only Lineage 2 had any sort of problematic issues, which never made much noise at all? Perhaps there finally is one publisher who knows how to treat developers well enough that they don't rush out fucked up shit?

I may hate publishers, but if anyone is going to get my thimblefull of faith, it'll be NCSoft.

[lamaros]

I must be missing something here, so I'll apologize in advance. But how can a FPS twitch based game work as a MMOG? Surely the infrastructure isn't there.

(especialy for suckers like me who live in Australia.)

[schild]

Maybe the infrastructure is there and quite simply, no one had the balls to do it. I do worry that when they say FPS action they mean "guns." Which makes me think of SW:G. Which in turn makes me crawl into the corner in a fetal position and shake uncontrollably.

[HaemishM]

Ask the developers of Planetside, who by most accounts, have made a reasonably fun FPS MMOG, with little grind (some), and very lag-tolerant.

It's certainly not perfect, nor popular, but it's workable.

[shiznitz]

For those not familiar with Planetside, they have 2 systems to help with lag issues:

1) Cone of Fire: Your shot does not go exactly where you aim. The farther away your target, the more likely you will miss, even if your reticle is on your target when you shot. In statistical terms, the standard deviation increases with range. Weapons have varying cone sizes and distance degradations over distance. A gun's cone of fire also expands when moving and when fired. This dynamic favors short bursts over just holding down the trigger and spraying.

2) Client hit detection: If your client says you hit, then you hit. It can be frustrating to die to a tank explosion that you see as 10 meters to your left, but it works both ways.

Writing as a purely average FPS player, I found the system quite balanced. There are one-shot kills, but they take some skill and can be neutralized (e.g. do not close when your enemy has a shotgun and you have a gauss rifle.) Skill still plays a role, but squad/platoon tactics are what really win the day.

[AOFanboi]

I must be missing something here, so I'll apologize in advance. But how can a FPS twitch based game work as a MMOG? Surely the infrastructure isn't there.

Ask these guys. Well, it's mostly twitch anyway.

[Strazos]

Speaking of which, anyone have a quick and dirty appraisal of it? The idea of a MMOFPS really appeals to me, but PS didn't work for shit when I was in the closed beta.

[AcidCat]

The idea of a MMOFPS really appeals to me, but PS didn't work for shit when I was in the closed beta.

Well, the game performance has improved slowly but surely, even if it has been by the "two steps forward, one step back" method. Overall my experience was highly playable even in crowded battles, and my PC is hardly top of the line. The concept can definitely work.

[Kageru]

Excellent. Twitch based with American servers means I don't even have to consider it.

[Surlyboi]

There was a lot PS had (and probably still has) going for it. For a SOE MMO, they got a lot of shit right. They also got a lot of shit wrong and are slow to fix it. Then, of course, come the dynamics of the players. The command structure still tends to favor the catasses. And when they're in charge, hard-fought but winnable battles are sometimes abandoned for the easy zerg rush on some continent manned by only three or four enemy players. I can't remember how many times I had to pull squads back from fights we could have won because some CR5 decided that he needed to make some more easy base captures to up his outfit's point total.

My greatest fear, as it always is, is not for the system itself, but for the dumbass players that inevitably rise to the top of that system.

[AcidCat]

Well, you're never forced to listen to any commanders in the game, so I never saw that as an issue. If I was playing solo, I went where I wanted. When I played with my group, we pretty much avoided the zerg and did our own thing. Of course there were the sheep that would follow along with what CR5s ordered, but in my experience they were ignored by a large number of players as well.

[Surlyboi]

Well, you're never forced to listen to any commanders in the game, so I never saw that as an issue. If I was playing solo, I went where I wanted. When I played with my group, we pretty much avoided the zerg and did our own thing. Of course there were the sheep that would follow along with what CR5s ordered, but in my experience they were ignored by a large number of players as well.

Yeah, but the problem is, my squads are usually left high and dry by the sheep that follow the CR5s. When the 75 or so people at your back suddenly shrinks to a couple of fireteams and the TR are pressing hard while the Vanu kibbitz on the side, it can get discouraging.