by Garrett Fuller
With the release of Tabula
Rasa delayed for another few weeks, the Ten
Ton Hammer editorial team extended a Q&A invitation to the
Tabula Rasa
developers to explain exactly how they're handling these
last few weeks of polish and what's been happening in the NCsoft
studio. Tabula Rasa's Community Manager, April Burba, accepted our invitation and spent a few moments jotting down her thoughts concerning these last few weeks of beta testing. After you've read through the
interview, make sure you check out our
href="http://tr.tentonhammer.com/">
style="font-style: italic;">Tabula Rasa
Community Site
for your detailed guides and previews!
Ten Ton Hammer: How is
the game shaping up now that launch is only a few weeks away? What can
players look forward to?
April Burba: We are getting pretty excited. We are smoothing out the
rough edges, balancing and bug-fixing as we get ready for release. We
are also ramping up for the end of beta event, and some Halloween fun
during our 3-day headstart. It’s been pretty busy!
border="1">
width="200">
style="font-style: italic;">The developers
behind Tabula Rasa are really trying to put the story back into the
game.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-style: italic;">Tabula
Rasa is really making an effort to put the story back into
the MMOG
genre. Can you tell us about the story-driven journey players will take
as they go through the game?
April: Well, we like to leave the bulk of the story for the player to
discover, but in general terms players will go through stages of
understanding, like many people do as they enter a large organization
as a fresh-faced noob and then advance through the ranks. Choices
become less black and white, good and evil blur and you find out things
just aren’t always as they seem. It is war after all.
Ten Ton Hammer: The team
must be working very hard in these final few weeks. Can you give us a
short blurb on what the developers have been going through now that
it's crunch time?
April: Sleep is in short supply. Empty food cartons and tipped over
coffee urns litter the breakrooms and hallways. Silliness has reached
an all-time high. Seriously, it’s been a crazy time around
here and we are all excited about shipping the game and moving to the
next stage of the game’s life.
Ten Ton Hammer: With
launch around the corner, is there anything you would like to say to
the players?
April: Just that we are really excited about release. Once you cut a
Gold Master there are restrictions on what you can add to the final
shipping product due to patch size and other issues, we are ready just
to be on the other side and getting back to adding more things to the
game. Since development is a few weeks ahead of what the player sees,
this means we are already working on things we can’t wait for
you to see.
Ten Ton Hammer:
What are your plans once the game is launched? Do you have patches and
expansions planned?
April: We do. We have had an information-filled week here and you can
check out the
href="http://www.rgtr.com/community/community_news/index.html">Community
News section of our website to see announcements about
“Operations” and plans for Elder Game content.
There will be information coming out about Operation 1 pretty soon
after launch.
Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source
for Tabula Rasa
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/32">news and
articles!
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Tabula Rasa Game Page.
