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

A few weeks ago, the Ten Ton Hammer editorial staff had the special opportunity to ask a single question of the entire Tabula Rasa development team. While the question was basic (you can read the whole thing by clicking here), the answers we received were incredibly unique and speaks volumes about a developer’s view of a lengthy MMOG project. Spearheaded by TR’s community manager, April “CuppaJo” Burba, the Tabula Rasa developers have once again responded to a single question, this time centered around the post-launch player antics, and the developers answers are again extraordinary.

Without further extrapolation, the Ten Ton Hammer staff proudly presents “Quotes from the Field #2: The Developer Response to the Tabula Rasa Launch.”

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Question: What has it been like to watch players take their first steps into your new world?

It's been great seeing players enjoying the little personal touches, humor, and pet projects that individual developers shepherded into the world. - Dale Homburg (Art, Lead Tech/VFX: Environment)

The developers truly love seeing players interacting in their world.

Watching the players dive into the content has been really exciting.  Having worked extensively on control points, I enjoyed watching the emergent behavior and social aspects that evolved around these.  It was pretty cool seeing things like "LZ on Wilderness 4 is being overrun, we need backup!" and "We're taking back the IV CP on Wilderness 3, who's in?" in general chat, heh. - Philip Cimoch (Design, Missions)

It's been awesome.  When you work on something for so long, you tend to lose touch with how the masses will react to your product.  For me there was this near-crippling fear that we'd go live and that no one would care less.  I think it's pretty exciting to know that people are spending their valued time and money enjoying something I was part of.

I've worked on console games before and what I really like about the MMO model is that you just don't ship the game and put it somewhere out there in the ether.  You can actually pop into the game and see for yourself, right there and right now, that people are playing it. - Sean Barton (Programming Usables, & PvP)

During beta, I saw how well the players handled their character class abilities. I thought we were good in QA, but the players really know their stuff when it comes to playing the game. As I watched the chat and observed the activity, I could see that our hard work was paying off. I know we have even more work ahead of us; it never ends! But having players cheer, proclaim enjoyment, and say things like "awesome!" about our game really made me feel happy. - Dwight Spaulding (QA Tester)

I've really been interested to hear what players are responding to visually. I'll get in a group and play an instance asking people questions, of course never revealing I'm the art director, but it's really great to hear player's unedited feedback about what they like or don't like. It's so much fun to play with other players enjoying the game.  - John Mueller (Art Director)

Like a shotgun blast when rounding a corner in PvP! - Joel White (Design, Missions)

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