By
Garrett Fuller


Tabula Rasa is a game that everyone in the MMOG world has been
talking about for quite some time. Remember that decade called the 90s?
That was when the initial plans and ideas for Tabula Rasa were being
thought out. Now we are only a few months away from the launch of
Tabula Rasa, and the game has many unique features that really give
players a lot to think about.

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Using Logos, Garriott
and his team have found a way around common language barriers.

Last year at GDC, I spoke to Richard Garriott about the alien
language that players would allow players to communicate within the
game. Tabula Rasa’s new language system, dubbed Logos, really
sets a new standard for in game communication. After seeing the idea
blossom through my experiences in the TR beta, I thought it would be a
great first topic for our new column: The Cutting Edge.

Being that NCSoft has very strong ties in Korea and the U.S.,
they’ve had to constantly deal with the language barrier. The
teams had to find ways to communicate in ways that vaulted over the
language barrier. I remember Garriott saying that gamers are the same
all over the world, it is only our languages and cultures that set us
apart. So he undertook a journey into languages that helped him create
symbols in Tabula Rasa which could be universally interpreted. Players
from Asia, North America, and Europe could easily learn the symbols and
what they meant. The symbols would eventually become an intricate
system to the game itself and soon would become second nature to
players, just like a language.

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Tolkien used language
to open up a new genre of literatures. Perhaps Tabula Rasa will do the
same.

Let’s take a moment and look at fantasy as a genre.
In the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien drove home how we view modern
fantasy. Though there were a few others before him, Tolkien’s
stories took elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, and heroes and put them in
our hearts and minds. Remember, Tolkien himself was a linguist. He
studied language, and that was what led his interests into ancient
folklore. The Viking Sagas had stories of magic swords, gods, and
heroes. If you look back at these stories you will see where Tolkien
gained his insight.  He took ideas and tales from the 8th and
9th centuries and brought them into the 20th. The premise for the
development of fantasy, as we know it today, was an interest in
language.

So where will Garriott’s need for a universal
language take us, and how will Tabula Rasa change our way of viewing
the world? As players work their way through the game they will unlock
different Logos (symbols). These will not only help the player define
their character’s abilities and advancement but also serve as
a communication tool in the game. Garriott has taken very basic symbols
and ideas and put them together to work as phrases in telling the
story. Tabula Rasa stands for “blank slate.” This
blank slate that you start out with eventually is filled with symbols
that help give you power, tell a story, and breathe life into those
alien worlds.

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There's much more to
Tabula Rasa besides shooting.

The great thing about Tabula Rasa as a game is that the deeper
a player digs, the more they will find. Players who want to take part
in the war effort and fight it out with the Bane can do so all day long
and still have fun. Beneath that shallow surface there is an in-depth
story line that taps into a sense of universal humanity and its
willingness to survive and grow. The Logos seems to have been thought
of within the course of real human events. Now that it has become
visible in the game as a system of communication and development, it
truly shows humanity’s willingness to grow.

As we see more and more games span cultures and countries,
hopefully we will see more tools linking players together no matter
their language. I think Tabula Rasa is the first step in that
direction. Richard Garriott has said, in the past, that they are really
trying to bring something new to the table with this game. There are
many elements that make Tabula Rasa feel like a story game as well as
an MMO. You are part of something as a player, not just another member
of the population. As we have seen in the past, if you have many
players around the world who all speak in different languages, you can
still have people learn and work together using a simple system. That
Cutting Edge system can be found in Tabula Rasa’s storyline
as well as the symbols used to tell Garriott’s story.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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