Tabula Rasa?

When did this game come out and why isn't it still around, it looks awesome!? LB's outfit...not so much...

 

Here is some background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rasa_(video_game)

Loved some of the ideas in this game. Lots of potential.

 

Wasn't a fan of it myself

 

Did you play it? It looks really fun!

 

Yep, but fairly casually. I enjoyed the combat and dynamic battlefields. The way the Bane attacked, it really felt like it was possible to join NPCs in the defense of a fort and make a difference. The logos was somewhat non-intuitive in where it was heading to me, but seemed interesting (something to mess with more down the road). That's about what I remember.

 

Hated the backstory.. loved the gameplay. and devs weren't afraid to make major changes.

 

The best mechanic in Tabula Rasa in my opinion wasn't the universal language that could be read and understood by aliens, it was the way NPC Monsters were designed, to have a cycle, defeat cities if they were strong enough, retreat if they were beaten, monsters in Tabula Rasa Garriott explained didn't just stand around waiting to be slaughtered like mindless cattle, they actively moved, did things, prepared to siege towns, moved around, had pre-programmed battle plans, were smarter than the non-moving spawning NPC Monsters in other MMOs. Which is why it's sad such a mechanic doesn't exist in SotA, Garriott helped create the amazing mechanic for Tabula Rasa, talked about how it was superior to other MMOs, so why not implement it here in SotA? Perhaps it's too complex, too much work, too hard. In such cases I'd have to bring up a famous quote by JFK.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

Making the NPC Monster mechanics and AI like they were in Tabula Rasa, not standing there like cattle but actively doing things, going places, moving, planning sieges, attacking when strong, retreating when weak. Such a mechanics was thought of, it was done, the game was shortly cancelled, but the amazing element with NPC Monsters was worth keeping. I'm no game developer, but if I were, I'd seek to do that which was hard, not that which was easy, as inspired by JFK, I'd seek to reach the moon, despite the hardships faced. The original placeholder name for Shroud of the Avatar was "Ultimate RPG", because it was to be the best of the best of next generation RPGs. Similarly to Chris Robert's goal of building the "Best Damn Space Sim Ever", I believe the "Ultimate" didn't only refer to "Ultima", but also referred to being the best, as in BDSSE, or in this case BDRPGE.

 

Or perhaps they just haven't gotten to it yet.. we are still in pre-alpha after all.

 

Just takes time and money.

 

Tabula Rasa was a large budget, large team effort funded by a major publisher.
Shroud of the Avatar is not.

I think they're doing incredible work with the resources they have. Would it be Nice to have all these cool features from Tabula Rasa? Of course.

 

That mechanic did sound really awesome, where NPC monsters could take over a town. Would have loved to see that mechanic in action.

 

From various articles on the matter (and Wikipedia): "Tabula Rasa's development team also released an open letter indicating that the game would end public service on 28 February 2009, citing a lower than expected in-game population as the major factor for the decision."

Things of note:

- Game began development in 2001
- Game released in 2007
- Game closed 2009 for reasons cited

Frankly, it's very unusual for a game to continue if/when they cannot make a reasonably confident projection that number of players will grow over time. Regardless, that wasn't happening for TB.... and many of the same factors seem to be at play in SOTA's offering. I've moved from "mildly concerned" to "sadly pessimistic" since the May release. We'll see.

 

Technically they weren't towns.. nothing so grand.. but small forts. These were control points. If player's held them there were merchants and stuff that came in and you had to hold off waves of bane until they finally took over.. just like our current control points in SotA.

 

Do we even know what those factors actually were in TR's case? Which at that point was fully developed and launched.. I never saw a shortage of players for the first year I was playing and the way NCSoft went about things I find fairly suspicious. I'm not sure I even trust their rather simple explanation. They didn't THINK they'd have the future growth they wanted so they pull a bunch of crap on Richard and try to bail? I don't know if we'll ever know all the details.

 

and it's now a skill in the Chaos tree

 

It almost sounds like Shroud's initial gameplay concept was very close to Tabula Rasa's, but changed into something else over time.

 

i was playing tabula rasa beta, good time. Better feelins than sota.

 

That beta had something like 6 years of development behind it with a huge team and massive budget. Compared to SotA's small team, small budget and half the development time.

 

Folks need to understand that Tabula Rasa was an NC Soft game, I.e. a major publisher. It had a much, much higher budget.

Further, with a traditional publisher model the expectations on rate of return are different. If NC Soft saw a "moderate" hit, it still may shut down a game because it may think moving those resources to another project would provide a higher return. So, TR could have positive cash flow and return yet still get closed. It's a very different model than SotA, so comparing the two is not particularly relevant.

 

The game also was based on a subscription model, wasn't it? So when there aren't enough subscribers, it doesn't meet its funding model.

I'm looking forward to the cover system coming to SotA.