GH Review: Tabula Rasa (PC)

***Zardon*** · Dec 7, 2007, 07:39 PM

Read The Review Here
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Tabula Rasa (Latin, stands for clean slate or chance to start anew) was supposed to be another game on the long list of fantasy MMOs, but during development Richard Garriott and his team decided to scrap that idea and start from scratch (a clean slate indeed, heh), this time going with a more Sci-Fi theme. If you saw the cinematic trailer for the game (which also acts as the intro sequence), you know that humanity no longer calls earth its home. After a brutal invasion that pretty much ensured nothing more than single cell organisms survived, Earth was left behind, forcing humanity to start rebuilding their lives on alien planets. The interesting thing is that at the time of the invasion humans weren’t yet a spacefaring species, so the question arises how they escaped the catastrophe? Well, unknown to most of the population, governments discovered portals left on earth by an ancient civilization. They used these portals to evacuate a limited number of people, all handpicked in order to ensure humanity lives on.

|2A|N · Dec 8, 2007, 07:48 AM

I played the beta and I wasn't really all that impressed with the game to be honest. The graphics are great but the game play itself just felt a little off but then again that was the beta so I'm sure it has improved since its release. I actually pre purchased the bonus pack because I had intended on buying this game but for a monthly fee the game just didn't seem up to task and worth it.

Judas · Dec 8, 2007, 01:23 PM

the graphics aren't bad all for a MMO... much better then WoW...

I played for quite some time on it ..

But there are alot of issues..

gameplay wise, it's excellent system for fighting ..... but the people in the game.. the community and the issues with quests and landmarks and actually information related to the quests is ungodly horrid.....

It's pretty sad when before the actual full release happened, that there were already "cliche"s forming that would turn around and bite your head off if you so much as asked for assistance, or group/party or accidently killed one of thier monsters....

Skull · Dec 8, 2007, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

but the people in the game.. the community and the issues with quests and landmarks and actually information related to the quests is ungodly horrid.....

can you elaborate on that?

Judas · Dec 8, 2007, 11:37 PM

i thought i did with the next sentence somewhat...

Community within the tebula rasa:

more often then not, you'll run into people that seem to have a instant dislike for anyone.. specially if they have "noobish" questions.... Everyone has questions, specially at the start of such a new game... there is NO reason, even when the game gets older, that a new player should ever have to deal with constant verbal abuse and finding no help anywhere you run around to.

Quests are fine and dandy in some cases, and in others, specially the higher lvl ones, tend to get much more teadious, The information for the quest is so uninformative that you have to completely guess everything on your way.... run around a kill a bunch of things hopeing you'll either kill what you need to, or stuble across the item/area you need to find. Some of the "location" information pertaining to the quest to locate the area, are irritatingly wrong beyond all reason.... So when you figured "well ah, i don't know where i had to go, but this little thing on my map appears to know, if i run to it i should be able to figure it out from there".... apparently not the case.

I spent several hours.... The game no doubt has promise, but i think it's going to be a considerable amount of time before they iron out the clitches/bugs and problems associated with the game...

WhO_KnOwS · Dec 9, 2007, 04:50 AM

My experience with the community wasn't as bad as you describe. Whenever I had a question (and I had many, especially related to crafting) I always got a nice, polite answer. Now, I might have been just lucky, but I'm thinking the proverbial European politeness made the difference (no offense meant to any US people).

Judas · Dec 9, 2007, 11:25 AM

That may be..

seeing as at the time, there were only 3 servers.. and i had only joined 2 and experienced the issues first hand..

One of the servers had a much higher ping.. which would likely be the case if it were euro based....

But there are a number of people i had talked to that tried it and experienced the same thing or similare things... maybe not to such a degree or perhaps to a higher degree..

But MMO's, the GAME thrives when there is an excellent community, it's unfortuneate that quite often these games turn some people into elitests.. and expect you to be able to figure it out in the same fashion they did..

Which from a casual or even "more then casual" players standpoint, you just WANT TO PLAY, not have to do a whole HELL of alot of researching, googling, and whatnot to get simple game mechanic tasks completed.....