Another MMO Down - Tabula Rasa

[WarBlade]

Source

November 21, 2008 12:05 PM
Message from the Tabula Rasa Team
To the Tabula Rasa Community,

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.

Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.

We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while. For more details about what we are doing for Tabula Rasa players, please click here.

Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players.

The Tabula Rasa Team

So, following Hellgate: London we see another MMO struggle and wink out. Granted, this particular title was a bit off the radar to the RB community, but news is news and there are upcoming titles (of big interest to us) and widespread financial troubles going on.

Not good. Not good at all.

[Dr.Disaster]

Even more astonishing that this happens to a Garriott project.

[KingOfPain]

Not sure about TR, but HGL for example, failed for me mainly because the devs keep trying to make it hard for the players to have fun. Oh, there is fun to be had but I would end up swearing at the game as often as I do @Windows.

I think GW2 and DII will both do good. GW2 probably has a tougher job competing with DIII if the timing isn't right. Anet has got to release a polished GW2 months ahead before people swarm to DIII, or maybe a year after DIII if they want a decent release sales figure.

KoP

[Roland]

Granted, this particular title was a bit off the radar to the RB community, but news is news and there are upcoming titles (of big interest to us) and widespread financial troubles going on.

Even more astonishing that this happens to a Garriott project.

I beta tested this game. There is no "news" about its demise. It was doomed to failure from day one.

I beta tested this game in... oh, I'd say around July of 07. It was due for launch in November. HALF THE GAME, if not more, was not finished.

Let that sink in for a minute: over half of the game was not in, 4 months before it was due to go live. They had JUST added the next "tier" of classes to the game when I had began participating. It's the functional equivalent of them adding the "Hunter" caste to HG:L 3 months before its launch.

That's to say nothing about the game-breaking bugs that plagued the entirety of the system (the /stuck command was used more often than the /dance command in Guild Wars, if that gives you any indication; also, their "solution" to 95% of the bugs was "just relog". . . Some people spent more time "relogging" then they did playing). Invisible barriers (including entrances to buildings and towns)? Check. Giant holes in the earth? Check. Getting stuck permanently, where the /stuck command won't fix it? Check.

Oh, and the crafting system was so convoluted, no one knew how to use it. As I recall, though, the confusion was fed by the fact that IT WASN'T EVEN IN THE GAME!

The game was Hellgate: London with aliens instead of demons. Period. It was hella fun to play WHEN IT WORKED, but there were so many problems with that game I'm amazed it made it this long. Honestly, when the "patch notes" had more space dedicated to "Bugs we know about and are working on (and have been for the last six months) so stop bothering us about them and just relog already" then they did actual UPDATES, it makes you think.

Honestly, this game was doomed from the start. It was rushed out the door even moreso than Hellgate was (trust me, I've played both). People were leaving the beta in DROVES because of the problems. Even I quit after about a month. It just wasn't worth my time. After weeks of seeing the same bugs on the patch notes (and they patched pretty constantly; at least weekly), all the content that was missing from the game, all the new bugs that got introduced everytime they tried to "fix" something, and just everything else, I got out. I had better things to do with my time than nail both my feet to the Titanic. I'm sorry two see that genre having so many problems (first Hellgate, not Tabula Rasa), but unlike Hellgate, I'm not really sorry to see it go. It was probably some grand vision of Garriott's, but where he was I have no idea. Whatever he concocted, he did NOT see it through. Period. The game flopped for pure Darwinian reasons.

Look on the bright side: if you played Hellgate, you got the same gameplay that you would have from Tabula Rasa - for free.

[WarBlade]

Well, I never did get to play Hellgate. One of the two files needed for the beta test kept reaching ~80%, then the download would restart. I woke up in the morning and discovered that I was $10NZD poorer from blowing through to my second lot of 10GB data for the month, so that stuck one nail in HG:L's coffin from the outset.

It did sound interesting though... Except for the Cabalist.

*waits for Guild Wars 2*

[Lurker Wyrm]

The game actually looked pretty interesting and I was considering trying it out, but left it due to the whole monthly fee thing. Now that it'll be F2P (granted, for a month and a half or so) I might give it a try to see what it was like.

Is there any talk of the company making stuff available to people that want to run private servers? I would guess not, but you never know.

[Deceptus]

Meh. Good riddance. There are too many MMOs out there anyway.

[Jester]

It was probably some grand vision of Garriott's, but where he was I have no idea.

Seriously? Outer space.

-Jester

[FoxBat]

Seriously? Outer space.

-Jester

That was after Tabula Rasa came out - he resigned after "demotion" upon returning from the space station. Hopefully he has some new ideas though.

[FoxBat]

Age of Conan is next?

Age of Conan developer Funcom had laid off up to 70 percent of its US workforce as of last week, with the cuts primarily coming from the customer-service and quality-assurance teams.