I use the word semi-safe because many of these teleporter locations are control points. What does that mean? At any time you'll very likely find Bane forces trying to attack and conquer them. This will spell G-O-N-E to the base and all its amenities until you or other players successfully take it back. I had the opportunity to repel a number of assaults and even assist retaking a control point. While I can see the possibility of it getting repetitive, it definitely adds a feeling of battlefield fluidity to what would normally be a very static environment.

Character creation is fairly standard selecting skin tones, faces, and outfits but where Tabula Rasa takes a twist is class selection. You don't choose a class, you start out as a scrub recruit just like everyone else so welcome back to High School and expect wedgies. You'll have access to skills such as hand to hand and basic weaponry which include pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

When you reach level 5 you'll be able to choose between the Soldier branch which is for trigger happy people who like to smack stuff, or the Specialist branch which provides mechanical and medical support. Don't let the support role mask the significance of their abilities. While you can choose to play Arnold and blast away with your RPG, an Exobiologist's little dart gun is ignoring armor completely and going straight after their health. You'll make another class choice at level 15 and your final at level 30 (the level cap is 50 if you are wondering). Each class also receives special Logos abilities which are unlocked by finding specific Logos shrines throughout the game. Some of these are very easy to locate, and others at the end of difficult instances.

What about PvP? It's something they've added recently. Dueling has been in and there will also be opportunities to have clan (guild) warfare allowing much larger scale fights. What hasn't been mentioned is if they'll be providing battelgrounds like we see in World of Warcraft, or we'll be watching urban warfare in the large bases. All the PvP is consensual but I'm sure the opportunity to gank and defile a corpse will arise, so be patient. The UI and game mechanics make a great platform for expanding PvP, so I'm very interested to see what else they can come up with.

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We're safe, for now.

The game seems to be well put together and I'm really enjoying the semi-random feeling of varied spawns, instead of the usual snorefest requiring "Pull...rest...Pull...rest." There are however, stil a few outstanding issues I think they'll need to address shortly and hopefully before launch next month.

I have yet to see anything regarding an Auction House/Broker; how are we going to support the secondary market without it? Essentially at this point you are depending entirely on drops for your weapons and armor. While it works out for those of us who aren't anti-social, if you don't have a good clan you'll end up with a lot of crap to sell to the merchants for peanuts.

The UI is also still daunting and a little rigid. I know they are going for an FPS feel to keep things simple and it's very refreshing, but customization limited only to remapping keys can't replace the robust systems MMOG players are used to. I personally ended up memorizing keyboard shortcuts, which helps, but being taken out of the action because you opened up your backpack seems like a bad thing.

While still being polished and in need of a little finish, Tabula Rasa is shaping up to be an amazing game. Action packed, military based, and science fiction themed, this looks to have everything we're
missing in the market except personal love slaves, but we'll just have to wait for Funcom to release Age of Conan I can't stand here and tell you Tabula Rasa is going to change your life, but I can tell you if you are a science fiction or FPS fan, you'd be a fool not to try it. Look for this NCSoft product to hit stores October 19th.

Make sure you stop by our forums for plenty of Tabula Rasa discussion!


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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