Interview conducted by Peter "Who_Knows" Gracar

Gaming Heaven: Player versus Enemy/Environment - NCsoft is largely a Korean-MMO style MMO company. What this means is that there is a lot of emphasis on hardcore grinding to advance your character. There is very little detail also about how characters will advance in the game be it killing aliens (grinding) or questing or perhaps alternate advancement (ie advancement via PvP). How is Tabula Rasa implementing character development, group vs solo play, and end game content? Will there be the issue that every MMO has faced when it comes to gear gaps a la risk vs reward balancing for casual players versus hardcore players?

Christofer: Grinding is something that we have tried to keep at a minumum with Tabula Rasa. Having enough content to achieve this is a Hurculean task at times. Interestingly enough though, some of the most successful games in the market are those that do have some aspect of grinding but handle it in such a way that the player never really notices since it's core mechanics are fun (Diablo is one such title that comes to mind).

Before we even approached content creation, we wanted to ensure that the player progression itself was rewarding. Much of this is attributed to the combat system. The designers of that system did a fantastic job of making it engaging with the different weapon styles, abilities and cover system. It makes the simple task of taking down an enemy that much more enjoyable and I've found myself more often than not having fun just killing enemies and leveling without even realizing it.

With that said, we have tried some new approaches towards making character progression more enjoyable for the player. In addition to our missions that run throughout the course of the game, players are able to participate in capturing and defending Control Points. These territories are constantly in flux with ownership changing between the Bane and AFS. Ownership provides new mission availability as well as experience gain while participating in these large scale battles.

We also have a concept of kill streaks which really makes the battles that much more rewarding. The more enemies you kill in succession, the higher your rate of experience gain. It's a nice balance of risk versus reward since you can gain a good deal of experience in this way, but you do have to be careful not to put yourself in a compromising situation where you're surrounded  by enemies with only a sliver of health.

Finally, we've focused on providing skill diversity the further you progress rather than solely on character creation. This allows players to really experiment as they level up and see what the different classes feel like. We encourage exploration of these classes through a cloning system we have which essentially serves as 'Save Points' for your character. Not happy with your path down the soldier tier? No problem – just load up one of your clones and try focusing on a the specialist instead.

Gaming Heaven: Game Story - Tabula Rasa is pretty much a fictional world that is being invented on the fly as it goes along. Is there a writing team with experience that is carrying along the persistent storyline? Will the individual players feel as though they are contributing to the furthering of it or will it be standard examples of 10,000 people "assassinating" the same NPC over and over to advance the story individually rather than on a global scale? Will gameplay be affected by the story or will the story be affected by gameplay a la World of Warcraft's "LORELOL" issue?

Christofer: Much of the fiction is a collaborative effort that is handled by the designers as a whole. We have a diverse and talented group that have experiences working on other titles' fiction as well as screenplays for movies. It goes without saying that Richard is the vision for a lot of our fiction and I think that as a group we've crafted a cohesive and engaging world to have the story told in.

With Tabula Rasa, one of the approaches we've taken to how we deliver this story is in the form of what we call Ethical Parables. Traditionally, quests are delivered linearly to a player. We wanted to provide choice for the player where their actions influence the outcome of missions. With Ethical Parables, players face moral decisions at key points in the game which can have dramatic effects in the way the story unfolds around them.

Additionally, we use our instances to focus on providing a very narrative and choreographed experience based on the missions the player accepts. You will find events that unfold in these instances that are reminescent of what you'd see in a single player title, so it's a very different experience for the player compared to some of the more traditional quests you'd find in an MMO.

Gaming Heaven: As a long time MMO fan, I have found that some of the most enjoyable aspects of the MMO for myself are the vibrant economies and auctions. Many MMOs tend to have fairly rudimentary auction UI's which leave much to be desired. Will Tabula Rasa bring anything new to the table in terms of auction hall functionality (i.e. more powerful search, user history, historical data)?

Christofer: We're still in development with the Military Surplus (our term for Auctioning). With that said, we've done some research into what we've found enjoyable in other titles' Auction systems and have tried to iterate and improve on areas we've felt were lacking. We have a lot of developers that are pretty heavily involved with auctioning items on their characters in other titles, so I think this experience gave us a lot of insight into how we wanted to implement it for TR.

The Military Surplus is robust with a good deal of searching capability and tools to make the process easy for the player. With that said, we'll definitely be looking at player feedback and adding features once it's online.

Gaming Heaven: When condoned by developers, player made mods can add a great deal of refinement to a game when it comes to interacting with the game world and it's various UI's (WOW for example). Where does the Tabula Rasa team stand on the issue of allowing community made mods to be incorporated within the game UI?

Christofer: At this time we do not support UI customization. However, the UI is an area of the game which we will continually be adding new features and configuration options to. We understand that players have different play styles and want to provide options for them to enjoy the game the way they'd like.

Gaming Heaven: Upon release, what methods are expected to be available to players for getting from one landscape to another? Obviously foot travel...what else do we have to look forward to in terms of increased travel rate and/or alternative methods of travel?

Christofer: When we began development of TR, we spent some time analyzing our past experiences with other MMOs. One area that continually came up as a complaint for the team was time lost due to travelling around worlds.

It was important for us to provide the players with the means to get to the action as quickly as possible. We have a few different systems that I think address a lot of the travel time concerns that players have brought up previously.

Our waypoint system allows players to save key locations on a map and quickly teleport from one location to another on the same map. Our dropships allow players to reach other continents quickly without having to travel by foot through the normal stretches of land. Finally, the wormhole technology that can be found in some of the AFS installations provide a way for interplanetary travel for the player.

Of course, players can travel by foot if they so wish and there are rewards for doing so including discovery of new treasure, Logos elements and enemies to fight.

Gaming Heaven: Can you share any details about VOIP in Tabula Rasa?

Christofer: Our integrated voice chat technology was developed by NCsoft's Core Team and is easy to pick up and use. Currently, our voice chat is implemented for squad communication so that those with connected microphones can communicate with one another in this way.

Gaming Heaven: As the Logos will be a key element of the game, is there a scientific and logical explaination as to how the Logos are harvested and used?

Christofer: There is a lot of mystery behind the Logos element and how they are acquired by receptives in the universe. Our Lead Designer, Paul Sage, explains what is known thus far:

Logos are beamed into mind, through Logos terminals. Each symbol seems to reawaken different genetic memories in the Logos receptive. The exact process for how it works is something of a mystery. It is generally agreed that acquiring Logos reawakens dormant gene pairs allowing your thoughts to control external forces. However, what is not understood is how it works or what it does over long periods of time. Psychological analysis of Logos receptive humans would indicate an aloofness that concerns many »normal« AFS soldiers. It is argued by some in the psychological community that any kind of superhuman power would cause this. Therefore there is still a large amount of debate on exactly what it is doing to receptives.

Gaming Heaven would like to thank Christofer for taking the time to talk to us, also we are giving away several copies of Tabula Rasa on Gaming Heaven soon, so be sure to keep checking the front page !

We would like to point out that the lack of any PvP questions/answers is due the fact that the Tabula Rasa developers felt it would spoil the surprise if it was discussed. We have been assured however that PvP will be an integral part of the game experience and players who want to fight each other shouldn't be worried.