To date, Tabula Rasa WAS my favorite MMO experience… the gameplay and immersion have been unmatched.

I had played Asheron’s Call for years before I found Tabula Rasa in open beta a few days from launch. I had received a random beta invite email from a gaming website and took a shot… it was something different from the “wizards, swords, fantasy model” of MMOs at the time. I will talk about the beta and retail experience below, but I will never forget the experience of buying the Limited Edition in the store. There was no marketing… no promotion… when I finally found my “Tabula Rasa: Limited Collector’s Edition” on the bottom shelf, I felt like I was buying the best kept secret in years. I never remember seeing any of the traditional Tabula Rasa marketing in Gamestop, Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart, etc. When anything else is released, they have massive displays, posters, character cut-outs in the windows, entrance blocking displays, isle cap promotional signs, etc. I don’t remember seeing it… I just remember having to get my RGTR : Limited Edition from the bottom shelf of a best buy.

Agreed, the game was not polished… but you could definitely feel the game’s potential. The detail spent on the environment, audio, storyline,and AI of NPCs really created an immersive environment that I’ve been unable to find in other games. My single favorite element of TR were the assaults/defenses of Military Bases. You could be stopping by briefly to cash out your loot and suddenly BANE dropships arrive at the front of the base to start dropping various BANE troops. It’s then on you,any other friends nearby, and the few NPC defenders to protect the base from being overrun… the fight might last 5 minutes, it might last 30.

As for PvP, it was there from launch but unless you were a fan of 1vs1 dueling, the only way to get your pvp fix on a large scale was to join a clan. TR had introduced an amazingly fun PvP format of clan wars… two clans agree to terms and engage war on each other, continuously for up to 7 days or until one guild surrenders. For each player killed within 4 levels of your own ( killer level 40, victim could be 36 – 44), you would earn 1 clan war point for your clan. The winner at the of the 7 days was the clan with the most kills. It was a fantastic element and in the brief time that TR was open, my guild had engaged in 60 – 70 clan wars. During the free to play period, the dev team completed many original promises of the game… including a “PvP Battlefield with Capturable Control Bases…. and included the ability to operate PAUs (Personal Assault Units or Mechwarriors) while on the map”. They also opened up an exclusive zone that was all open PvP.

I played from Beta until th game’s close, the saddest part for me is that during the final months of the F2P period, the game really felt like it had finally met all those promises from launch. Tons of new people were trying it out because various articles of praise had come out about just how good TR had become in the last few months prior to shutdown. I remember one article was called, “Tabula Rasa: The best MMO you’re not playing”… while others were even more blunt, “You should go play TR before is gone forever”. In my humble opinion, you could launch that final build of TR as a persistent game and make a profit… or launch it as a F2P to promote other titles, I think far more people would play an ad-supported TR before they ever sniffed at Dungeon Runners.

I really miss the game… I’ve been watching old gameplay videos on YouTube and listening to my Tabula Rasa soundtrack that I found on another website about “Saving TR”. With other MMOFPS out like Fallen Earth, Global Agenda, etc…it really seems like Tabula Rasa was ahead of its time. Thank you to Richard Garriott, Destination Games, and NC Austiin staff for a fabulous game and amazing memories. I’ll cherish my Limited Edition Tabula Rasa “Challenge coin”… and hope that some day a single server of TR gets reopened.

Vandevious of Pegasus Server
Clan Templum Assassinorum

Being a PvP-only game with purely player-character driven gameplay it’s curious to me that it’s popped up in conversation here a few times being compared to or grouped with RPGs.

I still haven’t heard of a reasonably successful commercial MMO that has shipped on a third party “MMO engine”. Or have I missed a press release?

It’s not like you have so stick with the software you initially decided to use all the way through the process of developing your product; unless you’ve designed some monolithic monument, where no part can be exchanged.