Epitath

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Scott Jennings| 42 Comments

Courtesy of Kotaku, the final destination of the Allied Free Sentinels’ last best hope for peace.

rasa1

This entry was posted in NCsoft, Tabula Rasa, _. Bookmark the permalink.
  • Mercury

    That is a grisly picture. Seriously, I feel pain just looking at it. Must be a developer thing…

  • Vetarnias

    Makes me want to try it out before it’s gone. Then again… nah…

  • Fraeg

    rather brutal. Did they even break even?

  • Zuzax

    Were there any interesting goodies in the Limited Edition Collector’s Edition?

  • Vetarnias

    Based on the picture above, how “limited” is a Limited Edition if it’s still available a year after release?

  • Cedia

    Man, I’d pick up that CE just to have it as a conversation piece.

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings
  • Chas

    They were still on the Circuit City shelves on Sunday where I’m at.

    Sad.

    I really enjoyed the game mechanics (well, the low-level play I encountered in beta). Although other elements of the game meant I never even redeemed my preorder, I always thought the combat mechanics were some of the more promising I’ve seen…

  • Michael Pearson

    Ow.

    (I hope that’s being recycled)

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    WOW. about the recycle part, it should be better to buy them off the internet (i.e you don’t buy a hard copy, just buy a download), because that would be much more environmentally friendly. But that will kill the local stores.

  • Random Poster

    What gets me is that Funcom has been able to keep Anarchy Online running for YEARS and it has a tiny tiny pool of players.

    It’s a shame really, TR had some interesting stuff in it to me, though I will say I would not have spent what they were charging per month (9 a month seems about right).

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

    Let this be a warning, all who seek MMO glory.

    This could be your game.

  • http://ansonthegnome.livejournal.com/ Matthew Weigel

    @Fraeg: Are you kidding?

  • etherealwolf

    yeah, wally world still has copies on the shelf. pity the uniformed person who buys it at this point. RG, pls redeem your name before you retire, you’re breaking us old school ultima players’ hearts.

  • Queso

    I remember reading a story about the Failure that was the E.T. game for Atari 2600. Atari spent so much money on it hoping it to be hit, but the game was the biggest of failuers, that they had to go out in the middle of the desert somewhere in the middle of New Mexico to bury all the thousands of extra copies.

    It would be ironic if it was near Roswell.

  • TPRJones

    I just bought it for $5 (including shipping of $4.50). Should be worth at least that much. Hopefully.

  • Random Poster

    @TPR

    Well currently you can get the game, and play it, completely free by downloading the client and getting an activation code from the support site.

  • http://bulletpointsblog.blogspot.com Anjin

    That’s what they get for letting Sarah Morrison pose for Playboy. Honestly, what did they expect after that?

  • Freakazoid

    Almost makes you want to go dumpster diving for free games.

  • http://antipwn.wordpress.com IainC

    @Anjin
    You’re right. Gratuitous displays of flesh and videogame marketing never mix.

  • TPRJones

    @Random Poster

    Sure, but that way I don’t get the nifty dogtags.

  • Bri

    Funny, considering the EBGames nearest me is still trying to sell people Auto Assault time cards …

  • Vetarnias

    @IainC: Exhibit B for 2009: “Age of Conan”?

  • Vetarnias

    Still @IainC: And to clarify my previous post: While I think you were being tongue-in-cheek in your comment (this sort of titillation always seems to sell, unfortunately, from Firiona Vie downwards), displays of flesh alone cannot retain interest for very long when it’s the only thing to attract people to the game. I never tried TR, but it never struck me as relying on displays of flesh inside the game — which is what Conan is all about, unfortunately.

  • ErollFlynn

    All that extra marketing effort sure paid off.

  • Fraeg

    Matthew Weigel :@Fraeg: Are you kidding?

    never payed any attention to the game, press releases about it, etc. I have no idea what the development cost was, nor how long it was actually up and running (though i gather it wasn’t up long). I presume by your comment that no, they did not come close?

  • Vetarnias

    Fraeg :

    Matthew Weigel :@Fraeg: Are you kidding?

    never payed any attention to the game, press releases about it, etc. I have no idea what the development cost was, nor how long it was actually up and running (though i gather it wasn’t up long). I presume by your comment that no, they did not come close?

    You mean you haven’t paid attention to a game being made by the living legend that is Richard Garriott?

    You mean to say that if he started a new MMO called Sleep Online you’d never never bother to find out about the game created by the man then likely to call himself Morpheus British?

  • Ashendarei

    “You mean you haven’t paid attention to a game being made by the living legend that is Richard Garriott?”

    *cough*

  • Toastrider

    But was he born with the galloping crazies or was it just a lack of proper social contact?

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

    I’m just dismayed that anyone who didn’t pay attention to something would somehow assume it could be a success. Ever think that’s part of the problem, if they couldn’t make you care enough about it? Who was supposed to care about it?

    Answer: Not enough other folks.

  • Klaitu

    Hey look, they’re ready to be buried in the desert next to all those ET cartridges!

    I like Richard Garriott, but Tabula Rasa sucked butt. I wanted it to be good, but it wasn’t.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that Richard Garriott without Ultima is like J. Michael Straczynski without Babylon 5.

  • Eduin

    The reason they haven’t tried to keep it going is really due to the investment required. Anarchy Online was the company’s only product and it was their business.

    To NC, Tabula Rasa is one of a load of products and one with a significant investment. By canning the product they can immediately write the development costs off against tax. When the tax write off value exceeds future earnings, then it makes sense.

    Regards,
    Eduin

  • http://www.gawaintheblind.com GTB

    This makes me sad. Not because im still playing TR. I’m not. The balance issues were TERRIBLE. In the end, my spy could dance through everything like some kind of prancing nancy, and not take a scratch while he slaughtered everything, but other classes couldn’t get past dude #1 at the same level. It made playing with my non-spy friends hard, because I didn’t want to kill everything and leave them picking up loot for me.

    That aside though, i really liked the game. I liked that it was scifi, i’m tired of sword and sorcery mmos. And I liked that combat was somewhat realtime. That was cool. It had a good story too. If the balance mechanics hadn’t made the end game only fun for ME and the other people who made spies, I would probably still be playing it.

    I think i remember reading an article somewhere with RG saying the end game wasn’t at all what he had originally envisioned, but I’m not 100% sure.

  • http://www.gawaintheblind.com GTB

    further note: I would pick up one of those collectors editions just to have it. I still have my CE of autoassault (which I liked too).

  • UnSub

    When I make a MMO, Prancing Nancy will be a class. It’ll be so overpowered that all MMO hardcore will have to take it. Then they will list “Lvl 90 Prancing Nancy” in their forum sigs to show how leet they are.

  • Viz

    I knew I wouldn’t play TR from the moment I saw that trailer with the voiceover saying how they didn’t see the alien invasion coming because they were too busy being consumer whores.

  • Hatch

    The house that playboy wrecked!

    No, not really.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    Reminds me of the time my dad found a pallet of Anarchy Online boxes dumped in a parking garage…one year after release.

  • Belsameth

    GTB :
    further note: I would pick up one of those collectors editions just to have it. I still have my CE of autoassault (which I liked too).

    Such a shame that was. I loved it too. *fluffles collectors edition*
    it was just such shameless fun, wrecking everything…

    Aah well. Guess it’s getting harder and harder to keep a non fantasy MMO alive… (Here’s hoping Champions Online will do well)

  • Aufero

    That’s a sad picture. I played it for a while, and liked some of what I saw. It had some innovative gameplay, (for an MMO, anyway) and parts of it were a lot of fun. Of course, those parts were often obscured by giant balance issues and buggy, unfinished content, which is why I stopped playing.

    I read somewhere that they asked for extra development time and didn’t get it. I wonder if things would have turned out differently if they had?

  • http://www.muckbeast.com Muckbeast

    Speaking of Playboy… Someone should do a followup. The games from that old story have not done well.

    Hellgate London: out of business
    Tabula Rasa: closing in Feb
    Age of Conan: a hot mess

  • TylerDurden

    So did the execs at NCSoft just cast one giant firewall after they saw TR losing money?

    A few days ago, after my gf was given a decent desktop pc, she asked me if I wanted to play TR with her (she’d never played or even heard of it, just found the box). I told her we’d be better off getting COH because there’s probably more people playing that game, which is years and years older.

    TR had potential but there were things missing that I couldn’t get over. I remember looking for a waypoint for hours because it was up in the hills and hard to get there if you didn’t take a certain path. Stuff like that just makes games like City of Heroes look like pure gold (which COH really is).

    The best thing about TR was that it was sci-fi and not the same old fantasy crap that’s constantly overused. Other than that, it wasn’t fun enough to justify $15 a month.

    RIP TR and thanks anyway Mr. Garriott.