TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor

Big guns, a feisty girl, and a little gore; what more could you ask for in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game? Upon second thought, you should expect much more than that out of your MMO game of choice. In this day and age, massively multiplayer games should include a plethora of options for the player, ranging from crafting and housing to PvP and guild warfare. Although not all of the previously mentioned elements are in the recently released Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, the game is far from as simple and shallow as the first sentence of this article would have you believe.   

A scene from Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

When Garriott first jumped onto the massively multiplayer scene back in the late 90s with Ultima Online, the marketplace was devoid of any truly successful graphical MMORPGs and any sort of trend or tradition had yet to be established. Following the original stylings of the text-based online games that went before UO, Garriott created a world that allowed players tremendous amounts of freedom, but was often harshly stringent on new players to that fantastic world. After a decade long hiatus from having any direct influence on a game's development, Richard Garriott is now trying to hop into the marketplace one more time, but this time he's diverging from the fantasy realm that he had so long followed and has instead opted to pursue the genre of science fiction.

Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa is an apocalyptic vision of a universe torn apart by an invading army of frenetically violent aliens that enjoy a good human snack between their meals. The story of Tabula Rasa begins a short time after the invasion of Earth and drops your character into their role as an official member of the Allied Free Sentients, a force that is fighting to repel the massive alien army (named the Bane) with the help of a few other alien races thrown in the mix. As your character advances within the game, you gradually work your way into a more favored position within the AFS, graduating from a Recruit to whichever path you choose for your fresh-faced character.

While I've gone over the basic details of Tabula Rasa in my initial first impressions review, I've now had an adequate amount of time in the game and talking with the player community to adequately score Richard Garriott's science fiction epic.

Finding that Perfect Face

Starting out in a fashion incredibly familiar to most roleplaying game aficionados, Tabula Rasa continues the fundamental tradition of creating a character before the game ever begins. However, Tabula Rasa uses an avenue that differs many of the other MMORPGs on the market and doesn't force players to make any crucial decisions at the beginning of the game. No classes or abilities are selected, and players simply create the gender and basic "look" of their character. However, even these things are temporary and inconsequential; many of the items you select in the beginning are replaced when you upgrade your gear, and your face and hair selections are only used so long as you don't clone your character (more on cloning later in the review). But the character creation system isn't without pitfalls.

The reviewer wasn't entirely impressed with the character models included in Tabula Rasa.

Be weary of what you decide upon for your characters last name; you'll be stuck with it throughout your life on that server (unless the folks at NCsoft allow for name changes). Instead of using a first name and last name character naming sequence, the developers at TR wanted players to feel some sort of connection to every player on a particular server, thus the last name remains the same on that particular account. So, if you want to be known as "(___) Grumpy," you'd better make sure you really want that last name.

As far as progression is concerned, Tabula Rasa follows the same titular format that is used by almost every MMORPG in the world. Character's earn experience through completing missions and killing monsters, advancing in levels as they do so. Upon reaching a new level, characters gain a set number of statistic and skill points to put into their character. A characters stats are separated into three categories - Mind, Body, and Spirit - and each of these stats correlates with either maximum health, power, or regeneration of the two. Skills are the areas that your class specializes in, like Rage for Soldiers or Swords for Spies. Although skill points can be modified through the Character Cloning System, stat points are forever permanent and cannot be modified once they've been apportioned, so take care when you're selecting your statistics.

Shoot First, Ask Question Later

From your very first steps into Tabula Rasa, you'll find that the gameplay is geared around combat. Rather than take the typical auto-attack / hot-key combat approach, the team of developers at NCsoft opted to pursue a much livelier version of hostilities in order to capture the true feeling of face-to-face gun battles. Without the restrictions of sword-and-sorcery interactions, the TR team wanted to find a way to make the player feel like they're aiming their weapon without falling into the player skill and server slowdown pitfalls that would be common with a world full manually aiming players.

Played entirely in a third-person mode (at this time a first-person option isn't even available), the combat gameplay of TR functions like a blend between a shooter and the standard functions you'd find in an MMORPG, creating a mixture as creamy and smooth as anything you'd find at your local Orange Julius. While aiming is done manually with the mouse (or through hitting the oft-used TAB button), your target is not permanently adhered to that particular enemy. By moving the mouse, you can target any of the aliens allies with a quick flick of your wrist. This sort of aiming style is necessary in Tabula Rasa because all of the weapon firing is done through clicking the left and right mouse buttons. All of your weapons are fired with the left button, and any abilities that have been selected are activated with the right button.

The combat in TR functions like a blend between traditional MMOG combat and a shooter.

Once you've engaged your enemy in mortal combat, you have several options at your fingertips. First, it's often best to find a nice piece of cover to hide behind. By finding a nice log or rock to hide behind, you'll automatically take less damage from the enemies weaponry. If you can kneel behind that cover, you're in an even better position because you'll then be issuing the full damage alloted for your particular weapon. Riflemen take note, kneeling or crouching is almost a necessity when using your weaponry because of the high percentage that is automatically taken off the top due to poor accuracy while standing. Finding cover is a decent strategic element that has been placed within the game, but I found that the most interesting aspect was trying to uncover which of my weapons would be most effective in particular situations.

As a Soldier (and eventually a Guardian), I was able to take full advantage of most of the weaponry afforded to the players, and I must say that each type of weapon has a particular type of strategy associated with it. For example, the shotguns aren't particularly useful against single opponents, especially if those opponents are at range. However, if you're able to get up close to a whole slew of enemies, you can easily slaughter the whole lot of them without blinking an eye. If I was trying to kill enemies solo, I would often start with my rifle, move to my chaingun as the enemy approached, then switch to my shotgun if they were bringing along a whole troop of friends. One more note to Soldiers, don't overlook the Rage ability. Although rumors have been spreading about an upcoming nerf to the ability, don't ignore the automatic damage increase that you can plop onto your already tremendous damage potential.

Perhaps one of the biggest concerns many players have had with the current status of aTabula Rasa is the amount of weapons and/or abilities that have yet to be tweaked into their final forms. The Soldier's Rage ability is only one example of this problem, as the current form of Rage drastically accelerates the Soldier's damage-per-second output. As another example, the Guardian's Staff wielding abilities, for the most part, have been doing less than their estimated amount of damage per swing, and the developers are still working on the issue that has caused that problem.