Tabula Rasa Video Preview

Starr Long demos the futuristic MMORPG that's the talk of the beta community.

by Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle

July 18th, 2007 - It wasn't till I sat down to edit the Tabula Rasa E3 2007 presentation that I realized that this game might be the surprise hit of 2007. Bandwidth isn't cheap when you're talking tens of thousands of viewers and multiple 10-20 minute E3 videos (this is our fifth, not including the trailers), and there's a strong impetus to keep videos slim and trim.

To be sure, the title's been long in development and there were plenty of bumps along the way, but it's here, fully playable, and looking great. Starr Long goes in-depth on storyline, user interface, character creation and development, gameplay, the class structure, "ethical paradoxes", and the game's definitive hook: cloning, or the ability to save your character's progress up to the present and continue with an entirely new appearance and first name (but a shared last name - you won't leave your reputation behind with a clone!).

I couldn't find much to cut out of the 22 minute video, ladies and gents, and you can almost hear the server guy crying in the background. For my part, it took me hours to produce the video because I kept wanting to just... watch. So hit pause, grab a drink, and settle in. I think you'll enjoy the footage as well, but I hope you'll forgive me for the slight shakey-cam- we had little downtime between the ever-efficient NCSoft briefings to do little things like set up the tripod.