Cody: What can you (along
with the development team) do to get more players into the game? Richard
[Garriott] was quoted recently saying that players were allowed into
the Tabula Rasa
beta test too early, and many of them were scared away
because the game wasn't "fun" yet.  How do you get those
players back along with drawing more people into your player base on a
whole?



April: We
definitely know that one of our key issues is going in and getting bugs
in the game fixed. On top of that, we want to make sure our 
current players are incredibly happy, because there's nothing more
powerful than word of mouth marketing. If a huge gamer came up to me
and told me they were having a great time in a particular game and
wanted me to come play with them, I'd go try it out. As long as we can
deliver that kind of experience to the gamers that we have, we aren't
going to have any problem attracting players.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/16256"> src="/image/view/78292"
width="200">

NCsoft is planning on
having several player meet-ups throughout 2008.

And I think word of mouth marketing is completely possible. Just look
at EVE Online and
a few other games that have increased their player
base through word of mouth marketing. style="font-style: italic;">Tabula Rasa can be
a great game,
and if we just take care of our end of things, the game will grow.
Obviously we'll have marketing and promotional items that will help
increase our players base. We've already started a referral program
that allows gamers to give their friends a few free days of play. We'll
continue to do these things to make it as easy as possible for players
to reach out to each other.



Cody: Do you have any
plans to create any real life events, like a FanFaire or a BlizzCon to
give players a real life venue to meet each other?



April: Oh
sure. NCsoft has done stuff like that before and I think the last
player meet-up, which is what we call them, was in August 2007. We
typically go out to the conventions like Comic-Con and we'll do
meet-ups while we're there. We might pick a restaurant and invite
people at the convention and anyone else who might happen to be in the
area. They're allowed to come in and ask us questions and meet other
players. We did about four of those last year, and I expect us to do
the same thing next year.



We haven't done as much of the single game meet-up type events as some
other companies, but we have more games than they do. We're fortunate
in that we have several different games and we can bring players from
all of them. And it's not like our players concentrate on just one of
our games either; we have tons of CoH, style="font-style: italic;">Lineage, style="font-style: italic;"> Dungeon Runners,
and
Tabula Rasa
crossover.



Cody: How do you think
the auction house (which went live very recently) will impact the
game's economy?



April: We
think that the auction house is one of those key features that we
needed to get into the game in really short order. It originally got
delayed and player feedback told us that we needed to get this feature
into the game immediately. Players told us that to make crafting more
viable as a system that adding the capitalistic component was an
absolute necessity. Now that it's in the game, I think players are
going to see crafting really come into its own.  



We've got a contest coming up where one of the awards for the contest
is black armor dye. But - if you play style="font-style: italic;">Tabula Rasa - you
know that there
isn't ANY black armor dye in the game. It's going to be really
interesting to see that sort of thing flow out into the world and see
how it effects the overall economy.



Cody: As my second to
last question, I wanted to ask you where you thought the Ethical
Parables system was headed. I know you're planning on putting more of
them into the game, but will there ever be in-game consequences
attached to them? Perhaps like a faction system, but with more of a
dynamic end result?

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/15897"> src="/image/view/15897/thumbnail"
width="200">

Look for more
modifications to player attributes over the next few patches.

April: We
definitely want to make the parables more meaningful for the players.
Players want to feel that their choices have some sort of consequence
in the world. Whether we do that by using a faction-based type system
or some other type of system, we do want to find a way to make it more
interesting for the player.



I do think that a lot of people enjoy the Ethical Parables, but I
understand how people want to see those parables have a more visible
impact on the way they play the game, where they travel inside the game
world, or just a visible representation on their character to allow
other players to see the choices they've made in their gaming
experience.



Our guys are pretty sharp, and I know they'll find a way to add this
sort of thing onto the current system.



Cody: Finally, what's
next for Tabula Rasa?




April: The
really immediate things I think  we've already kinda hinted
at. But other than things like PAUs and Flash Points, I think our big
focus is taking a look at attribute points. Right now, the way you spec
out your character doesn't affect you nearly as much as it should.
There's a bunch of those type of changes coming in for those people
that are interested in those sort of mechanics.



There's a bunch of stuff coming in Patch 1.4, but they're right in the
middle of getting that wrapped up and I can't really look at the daily
reports and list exactly what's going or not going into the next big
patch. I can tell you that there's still lots of stuff being
implemented into the game and players shouldn't be disappointed with
things that are being developed for the game.