How is Tabula Rasa?

[ComradeWolf]

Well, I wasn't able to get in so far, I am staying in the beta key give away just in case, lol got to have faith. Anyways, the real reason I am putting up this post is I am wondering how the game is, game play, how well it runs, graphics, what happens in it etc. Any information would be helpful.

 

[Rat]

Tabula Rasa is Awesome

Now, it's a beta, yes, buggy, yes, lacking content, definately, but it's still awesome.

I think the third-person shooter MMO is a good sample of how the control interface of such upcoming joys as Hellgate: London might work, and I can say I'm really looking forward to it.

The crafting system has promise (needs work at the mo), and being in Australia, the lag is dreadful (not that noticable though. Great compensation. Never once rubberbanded with 900-2000ms ping).
The weapons are delightful and colourful, and the armour ranges from Unreal Tournament chunky-style to casual clothing, to spacesuits... and so far I've found that many recipes for armour dyes, it's almost silly.
The customization is wonderful in that respect.

Missions, well done enough, and the bonus XP system (rapid kills get 2x XP multiplier, up to 6x if you slay a lot of stuff really quickly) absolutely kicks butt.

The classes... I feel they need a bit more diversification, and if the customization and specialization stops when it does in the Beta... well, that'll suck, and suck hard. You get to specialise once at level 5, again at 10, and then once after that... no new spells, new skills, or nothing other than these three or so upgrades? I hope not.

Overall, it looks, plays and feels like a beta, but it's a damnsight more enjoyable than plugging away at WoW, hopelessly underdogged by the no-lifers, or missiongrinding EVE.

 

[GameMasterNick]

Buggy and beta-lagged:
I had an enemy turret spawn on me while I was standing in it's location... I couldn't move until another player came by and destroyed it. Luckily, with it only being in beta, there seemed to be 100+ players in the same initial zone, so that only took about 3 minutes.

Trying to do a world-kill quest was more difficult, though, as I had a very hard time finding enemies to kill that weren't engaged with other players or npcs, but that's just due to the number of players on one server.

Gameplay seems easy enough, and I do love the difference cover makes as well as the spread-effect for cone-based weapons. The similarities (in gameplay) to Bioshock (guns and plasmids/logos) make me wonder if it wasn't the release of that game and its initial success that made them jump the gun and announce the October release date, as this game does not yet seem ready to go gold.

 

[ComradeWolf]

Thanks for the info guys, I hope I get a key, if none claims it. If anyone would like to try it, if I do get it, just private message me and I'll see what I can do.

 

[Rat]

Dunno.
I was thinking about TR today, as I pre-ordered both it and Hellgate: London, and it hit me!

The two games are set to have a whole crap-heap of similarities.
Third-person shooter MMORPG games, dying of armours, quick-paced action, resistance bases...
Maybe Tabula's hurried launch is to counteract the torrent of awesomeness that's bound to be Hellgate, well... we'll see.

I'm just grateful to have something new to play.

 

[flashive]

Buggy and beta-lagged:
I had an enemy turret spawn on me while I was standing in it's location... I couldn't move until another player came by and destroyed it.

You should use the /stuck command when that happens. I've had to use that command over a dozen times in my limited playtime so far (only played for 4 hours so far, then it went down). Turrets are a great way of getting stuck though, when fighting melee against them I always get stuck after I kill them.


It's not an awesome game and I hope they fix a lot of stuff before launch, but seeing the tiny timeframe they should do those fixxes in I would say try it after a month or 2 so the worst bugs are out of it. Right now it plays really 'rough' for lack of a better term. It's an interesting game though.

 

[GameMasterNick]

Yeah, I tried that, it just moved me around the turret (longtime CoX player, so I use it a lot). I recently gave up on my weapons seeing that as a recruit/specialist ammo costs were annoying but unarmed did the -same- damage (albeit not in a cone or AoE)... but the cones cost more ammo.

The game has potential, and I'm a big NCsoft fanboy (though even I hated Auto Assault) and have had a good relationship with them since the release of CoH. Here's to the future (but unless they add a OnePass type deal, I'll likely pass on this game)!

 

[Rob Williams]

What kind of strikes me is the fact that the game is due out in just a month and it seems there are still a huge slew of bugs for ironing out. Also, at this point there shouldn't be any lack of content really, unless they are deliberately holding back, but I'm not sure why a company would do such a thing.

The game has potential, and I'm a big NCsoft fanboy (though even I hated Auto Assault) and have had a good relationship with them since the release of CoH.

Hah, amen. I played a far amount of Lineage 2, but could never really get into CoH/CoV. They were fun games, but I found that it got very repetitive after a while. Part of this could be due to the fact that I never grouped though. I also enjoyed Auto Assault quite a bit. It was different, but had some cool redeeming qualities.

 

[GameMasterNick]

I never got past the beta for Auto Assault... I was hoping for a OnePass type deal at that time and if they'd released it, I might have bought AA, but the beta was underwhelming. Once you got over the fact that it was cars fighting instead of "toons", the bugginess and broken quests just turned me right off.

City of Heroes has been my on-again/off-again love since its release. I play WoW with the other office drones at work, and am in a PvP guild for that game (the guild started on EQ and will probably move on to Age of Conan or Warhammer soon), but for playing by myself or in pick-up groups, I love City of Villains (Heroes second, I'm an overlord-type player at heart).

 

[Rob Williams]

I never did play the AA beta despite having access, so I am not sure about those issues. I played immediately after retail and didn't find things that buggy. I was actually impressed that I had so much fun solo. Got to level 30 or around there solo, which I liked. Too many MMO's force you into groups from the get go (Lineage 2, FFXI).

I hear you about CoV... I actually found both games to be extremely similar, but I enjoyed the world of CoV far more. It just came off as being far more interesting.

 

[ComradeWolf]

Thanks. ^ ^ I just pre-ordered it today, now I finally can play. Thanks for you info guys.

 

[Promethious]

Just a quick question... has anyone figured out the down times for TR yet? cause they seem awful sporadic to me.

 

[Rob Williams]

That might be in part to it being a beta. Maybe NCsoft doesn't know how to handle betas. The Lineage 2 beta was absolutely awful... it was down every half-hour. Sometimes the game would work, but there were no mobs, heh.

 

[santb]

The down times are meant to be posted on the website, ncsoft or tabula rasa

 

[Rat]

Yeah, use the Beta Forums. The playsession times are there, even translated into various major playzones (US Central, Australia, Europe).

I'm finding more depth in Tabula than I had originally seen.
Lord (General) British even appeared in the server and fielded a few quick questions, and offered information and goodies in the next build.

Apparently the Crafting system they've got in place at the moment is pure and utter placeholder, and they've got the real system ready to roll into the Open Beta this week. Can't wait. Pretty much the biggest gripe I've got so far.

Either way, I'm keen to see how the Beta goes along for the next four weeks... who knows, they may just scrape through with a complete (enough for an MMO) game that is both fun, AND interesting.

Of course, the next challenge is KEEPING it fun and interesting. Blizzard lost track of that stage, will Lord British?

 

[flashive]

I started out with my chaingun and soon became very disappointed by the cost and damage dealt by it. So I reached the same conclusion as you GameMaster and just knock the guys on the head with my chaingun (highest melee damage on a weapon so far), they're good for that...

 

[Rat]

I started out with my chaingun and soon became very disappointed by the cost and damage dealt by it...

It's true. The chain and Leech guns are completely useless with regards to damage/cost. (Leech gun is worse in both aspects, too)
I imagine it won't take long for that to be addressed, as the imbal there is just too obvious. When it is, boy... chaingun here I come, since even though they're expensive as sin, they're a riot to use! I blew an easy 1000 creds just for kicks, and never looked back.

At the moment, the only weapon used by players seems to be the Shotgun until tier 3 class weapons are available, and even then the Post-Specialist side lacks power. (Decay is terrible, fyi)