Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa exclusive(Made by NCSoft)

Lunitari

Folks,

Got done reading a Computer Games magazine exclusive on Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriot's new game that he is developing under the NCSoft banner.  It had plenty of exclusive screenshots and a heck of a lot of sweet stuff on how it's going to make it's own mark on the MMORPG market.

Among it's interesting features---

1) The ability to give any PC you encounter a "Positive" or a "Negative" rating based on your interaction with them.  This means if you want to know if someone is honest, someone who would be cool to talk to, to team with, or otherwise, this will tell you their "rating" based on how many people have rated them positive or negative.  This means you can spot the idiot/cheater/arsehole teammates BEFORE you team with them. This means you get ripped off less because the guy is basically going to have the proverbial "Red flag" hanging over his head.

2) The ability to go to any zone you've been before, at your leisure.  Or go to any friend of yours immediately, no special teleport spells, no bindings will you need for this.

3) Skill trees that make it so that everyone starts with a name and gender, and that's it.  The concept of the specialization/skill trees they use was taken from Diablo II.

4) The disciplines they have for specialization are Mind, Body, Spirit.  To clue you in, Body discipline is for tank types.  Mind is for mage types.  Spirit is for bard types.

5) "Bookmarks" The ability to save your character and different points in their development so that you cannot make any bad choices that you can't undue later on.  It has I believe FIVE bookmarks that enable you to go back in your characters development if there was something you didn' t like.

6) FIFTEEN characters per account.

7) Missions and mission areas are unique to the individual/team (much like the standard now) However, death in a mission area is handled one of four ways.

1.  Brought back at point of death, with 10% of mission xp reward deducted as penalty.

2.  Can be resurrected by teammate as long as they have the ability to do so.

3. End mission completely, without character penalty.

4. Start at beginning of mission, no penalty to mission xp.

No release date has been set yet, the game is well under way though, screenshots contained the usual variety you see in fantasy online gaming, in regards to weapons and armor. Spell effects are the most impressive out of it, and definitely rival EQII.

The game has a very solid storyline that's going to be put into it, although the exclusive didn't get far into that.  It's going to fix some sci-fi, with fantasy, as well as martial arts.

It's also going to have a variety of tradeskills for those type of players that like that kind off stuff.

While Richard Garriot is mostly over his bitterness with his departure from Origin, many of the developers for Tabula Rasa have come from Origin, and a few from the development of the cancelled "So-called" UO2, Also known as Ultima Online: Origin.  This includes Starr Long and a few other personalities.

Richard Garriot is definitely departing somewhat from the fantasy genre, as he put it "I've been doing that for what, 20 freaking years now?"

Well, some of you are also wondering, what about PvP? There will be PvP in the game, and some form of PvP rating system, but further details have not been released.

I, for one, would hype this game to the MAX once it hits MMORPG.com's lists.

Lunitari

The games going to be featured at E3 this year as well, so that will add to the excitement.

Oh btw, add on a fully integrated voice chat system.

TaskyZZ

1) This concept has been long in coming. I thought this up 3 years ago...

2) This is dumb...

3, 4, 5, 6) We will see, sounds like a diferent sort of system. Hopefully it will work.

7) Too much like a single player game. If you fail, go back to your last save point and try again. Yuck!

Seems like they are trying to make it more like a single player game. We will see, but some of these ideas don't seem like they will work well for a MMORPG.

Lunitari

The idea was to take out travel time, and throw you into the game as quickly as possible.

The idea was to throw someone into the game as quickly as possible...possibly geared more towards the casual gamer who logs on for say...an hour a day, but they can still progress their character, nonetheless.

BTW, Team size was about 4-6 people, they were toying around with that particular idea.

Guess we'll be waiting for E3, then.

CupONoodles

Im searching around the web for some Screens. If you find any can you post them here?

Thanks in advance.

Lunitari

Sure, can do on that.

Naizaf

This game sounds very interesting. I hope this game adds a new element to the huge list of MMORPS out on the market. I look forward to hearing more about this game.

BabyJesus

Hmm yes well #1 sounds great, but what safeguards will be in place to prevent people from being assholes and giving everyone they encounter a negative rating?

Lunitari

That wasn't explained in the exclusive in Computer Games magazine.  However, there will be a lot revealed at E3 next week, according to what the article said.  Who knows, maybe something better?

I sure hope so...

Maximane

There will be a lot to see at this year's E3. However if it is of any consolation MMORPG.COM will be covering E3 extensively.

By all means Lunitari if you see something and we do not have it in our news room, feel free to "write your own article" just like your last one over the forums for all to see! The only thing we ask is that you give credit to material where it is due.

--------------------
Alex "Maximane" De Line
- MMORPG.COM Staff -

Lunitari

I've got subscriptions to more than one gaming magazine and I look over other ones on a regular basis.  I've followed the idea of Tabula Rasa since Richard Garriot first left origin and his "no-compete" clause ran out.  I for one hope Tabula Rasa is incredibly well made and has an awesome launch, and overshadow anything else that might be in development:)