Tabula Rasa

[Furiously]

Anyone keeping up with what is happening with Tabula Rasa?

Seems like it has completely disappeared off the radar.

edit - learned to spell.

Edit- changed title spelling of Tablua as well. I thought you mispelled them both on purpose!

[d4rkj3di]

The space chick on their website showed up topless in Playboy along with other videogame characters. That's news, right?

[geldonyetich]

"We don't know if we'll ever recover from the scandalous behavior of our polygon starlet," Richard Garriot was not quoted saying.

Seriously, I betcha Tabula Rasa was delayed again.  The really ambitious ones run by big name game designers always are.  Gamestop figures a Summer 2007 release date.

[Soln]

beta ought to be announced soon then.  If not by end of Q1, I would have doubts for any Summer release. 

[Falconeer]

What strikes me is that I fail to see anything ambitious in all the stuff I read about Tabula Rosa (the soap version of Tabula Rasa, as rosa means pink in some languages...).

Wonder how much time (years) you can spend rehashing old codes and ideas...

[geldonyetich]

Wonder how much time (years) you can spend rehashing old codes and ideas...

My capacity to beat dead horses is unlimited.  Richard Gariott, however, is testing the patience of his investors.

[Furiously]

What strikes me is that I fail to see anything ambitious in all the stuff I read about Tabula Rosa (the soap version of Tabula Rasa, as rosa means pink in some languages...).

Wonder how much time (years) you can spend rehashing old codes and ideas...

ahh vino rosa... 6/1/07 is what gamestop is listing as release date. Wonder how much money is going down the drain on this?

[LC]

Anyone keeping up with what is happening with Tabula Rasa?

Seems like it has completely disappeared off the radar.

edit - learned to spell.

Last I heard, it was still a FFPS(Fake First Person Shooter) with only PVE included. So it's Neocron minus PVP with Richard Garriot's name stamped on it?

[damijin]

If you listen closely, you can hear NCSoft's wallet emptying down a drain somewhere in Austin, Texas.

[WayAbvPar]

If you listen closely, you can hear NCSoft's wallet emptying down a drain somewhere in Austin, Texas.

That is just Lum's monster salary. Best-selling authors and former ranters don't come cheap, ya know!  :-D

[Cheddar]

Thanks for fixing the title!  Though the first one was more accurate sounding.  If you said it out loud!

[damijin]

If you listen closely, you can hear NCSoft's wallet emptying down a drain somewhere in Austin, Texas.

That is just Lum's monster salary. Best-selling authors and former ranters don't come cheap, ya know!  :-D

I hope something they make turns out top notch because uh... they look to have massively expanded their operations while at the same time suffering subscriber losses. Auto Assault was a miserable failure, City of Villains was half baked, Guild Wars never caught on outside the US (but at least it caught on inside, or else they'd have NO popular North American games), and TR is not likely to make much of a splash in the Diku pool.

It completely lacks any form of recognizable IP combined with a name that I'm not sure most people can even say correctly on their first try. It's some fishy hybrid of future space shooter and RPG, but if you ask Lord British about it he'll tell you that it's designed with casual gaming in mind. You know, all the casual gamers who want to play a space shooter alien planet fake-fps. Huge market.

And it's been in development for how long now? Originally it was supposed to be developed by the top brains behind Lineage 1 and Ultima Online... yes, the ultimate MMO from the kings of the first generation! And it likely had some rock-star salaries to go with it. But of course that didn't work out and the game was scrapped.. at least twice I think?

Honestly they should have stuck with that crazy psychedelic mythical acid trip with the giant harp wielding class. This current version is a snooze. And a hard to pronounce snooze at that.

[SnakeCharmer]

I've been keeping an eye on this for about a year now, and...

/snore

I've got hope for the game, since it's not "Come hither so that I might brain thee!!!" hack and slash fantasy diku MMO number 270,981,749,857.  But I just don't see it happening.  I really really want this game to be good.  But it's bothersome that the official website for the game seems to be stratics 

[Falconeer]

Funny thing is I can't decide which one of the two incarnations (the "all star US/Korea team" or the more recent "Garriot Family only") of Tabula Rasa sounds more uninspired.

I vote for "scrap both projects now". Please.

[Venkman]

I love(d) both versions of TR, but I'm with SnakeCharmer. Even having played a few iterations of it, I give this about a 50% chance of ever coming out. They've done a lot of work, but Garriot doesn't strike me as someone who launches a game just because of inertia.

I WANT to see this come out of course, but it's got a way heck of a lot of challenges (different UI, not-usually-successful theme, warcraft-domination of AAA MMO space, newbies to genre wanting more of WoW, etc).

[Signe]

I have little hope that it's released and if it is, I have no hope that I'll like it.  I was sort of interested when I first heard of it, in it's original form, but since the idea has been changed, I've completely lost interest. 

[WindupAtheist]

I want to be a Garriot fanboy, but this project reeks of meh.

[Sky]

The original design looked so crazy it might work. The new stuff indeed reeked of meh, from the little I've seen (the media they released when they scrapped the old design). And I'd probably be target audience for something like their new design, casual planetsidish action. I'd give it a chance, though.

[Stormwaltz]

I was sort of interested when I first heard of it, in it's original form, but since the idea has been changed, I've completely lost interest.

The original idea was too weird for even my taste. I can deal with either a completely unique background or radically new mechanics. Throw both at me, my eyes glaze. And when I saw screenshots of a pink unicorn with butterfly wings, I was done. I'm a heterosexual happy with the many feminine parts of his psyche. That was too "10-year-old girl with pink glitter nail polish" to stomach.

I thought the new approach had promise. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything at E3 that lived up to the promise. I haven't given up on it yet, but after such a protracted development, I fear that it will either be shoved out prematurely or cancelled.

[SnakeCharmer]

And when I saw screenshots of a pink unicorn with butterfly wings, I was done.

Um.
Yeah.
My interest just went to zero.

[caladein]

And when I saw screenshots of a pink unicorn with butterfly wings, I was done. I'm a heterosexual happy with the many feminine parts of his psyche. That was too "10-year-old girl with pink glitter nail polish" to stomach.

That may very well be one of the best things I've ever read.

[damijin]

When I saw the screenshot of that unicorn I said "sweet, I hope I can beat that thing over the head with a magical harp twice the size of my body."

Alas, this game was never meant to be.

[Morat20]

The original idea was too weird for even my taste. I can deal with either a completely unique background or radically new mechanics. Throw both at me, my eyes glaze. And when I saw screenshots of a pink unicorn with butterfly wings, I was done. I'm a heterosexual happy with the many feminine parts of his psyche. That was too "10-year-old girl with pink glitter nail polish" to stomach.

I dunno. If I was allowed to shoot the unicorn, I'd be okay with that. It's like if there was a game that was based on Saw, only the victims were hated CGI/animated/Muppet characters from movies --- I'd play that. I'd love to see Jar-Jar trying to cut his own foot off with a hacksaw.

And for the record -- fucking hated Saw. But I'm not a fan of horror or slasher flicks, and I watched that under duress.

[Margalis]

You need to watch The Thing (1985), Hellraiser and Hellraiser 2 before you say that.

[Morat20]

You need to watch The Thing (1985), Hellraiser and Hellraiser 2 before you say that.

I've seen them. I can think of only a handful of horror films I truly enjoyed, and many for reasons unrelated to horror. I was fond of the original Scream because it managed to parody horror while also BEING a quite faithful horror flick. That sort of balancing is hard (Galaxy Quest pulled of the Sci-fi version), and I applaud it. Even if I'm not fond of the genre.

I am quite fond of Alien, and that's as much horror as sci-fi.

[WindupAtheist]

The Thing was 1982, but I agree.  I don't normally like horror movies.  I thought The Exorcist was stupid and laughable.  The Thing, on the other hand, is genuinely grim and creepy.

[damijin]

Tabula Rasa would sell more copies if it was a slasher MMO.

Like FEAR, but online, with more blood. Mmmhmm.

[Sky]

I thought Hellraiser sucked. It was no House of 1000 Corpses or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I haven't seen the Thing, heard good things about it but always forget it when I'm at Blockbuster.

[Signe]

Hellraiser made me laugh.  The Thing made me cry.  The Thing is one of my favourite creepy films.

[Furiously]

Alien was definately a great horror movie.

And I can't believe no one mentioned Jaws yet.

[Signe]

I hated Jaws.  It's not horror, anyway.  It's about fish.

[Nija]

Critters > *

[shiznitz]

Classics from my childhood that I will never forget: Orca and Blood Beach!

[LC]

I was sort of interested when I first heard of it, in it's original form, but since the idea has been changed, I've completely lost interest.

The original idea was too weird for even my taste. I can deal with either a completely unique background or radically new mechanics. Throw both at me, my eyes glaze. And when I saw screenshots of a pink unicorn with butterfly wings, I was done. I'm a heterosexual happy with the many feminine parts of his psyche. That was too "10-year-old girl with pink glitter nail polish" to stomach.

I thought the new approach had promise. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything at E3 that lived up to the promise. I haven't given up on it yet, but after such a protracted development, I fear that it will either be shoved out prematurely or cancelled.

You thought the new humans vs aliens background and mostly "borrowed" mechanics had promise? I don't see anything unique in Tabula Rasa. It's like they took a blank slate and filled it back up with the same old shit.

[Sky]

I think it actually does have promise. If they are sharing IP amongst NCSoft products, does that mean it has a chance of feeling like CoV? Because CoV set in a deeper mmo world could be cool.