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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.

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. 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, Lineage, 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 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?

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.

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