Tabula Rasa (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa was an MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 developed by Destination Games
Destination Games
Destination Games was a computer game development company created in April 2000 by Richard Garriott, Robert Garriott and Starr Long, following their departure from Origin Systems. Destination was founded in Austin, Texas to develop massively multiplayer online role-playing games...

 and published by NCsoft
NCsoft
NCsoft is a South Korea-based online video game company, which has published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, City of Heroes, Wildstar, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.-History:...

, designed in part by some of the creators of Ultima Online
Ultima Online
Ultima Online is a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game , released on September 24, 1997, by Origin Systems. It was instrumental to the development of the genre, and is still running today...

 including Richard Garriott
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott is a British-American video game developer and entrepreneur.He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa...

. The game is an RPG that blends certain shooter
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...

 aspects into the combat system. It was officially released to retail on November 2, 2007, with customers that pre-ordered the game allowed access to the live servers from October 30, 2007. The development team released updates, called "Deployments," nearly every month since launch. The game required monthly subscription.

Tabula Rasa was about humanity's last stand against a group of aliens called the Bane. The story took place in the near future on two planets, Arieki and Foreas, which were in a state of constant conflict between the AFS (Allied Free Sentients) and the Bane. The term tabula rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...

 means scraped tablet or clean slate in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, which refers to a fresh start, or starting over.

According to the developers
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

, the game included the ability for players to influence the outcome of a war between the player characters and the NPCs
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...

.

Tabula Rasa closed on February 28, 2009, with servers slated to become free to play on January 10, 2009, but were set as three weeks earlier by the developers.

Background

There once was an advanced alien species known as the Eloh. They freely shared the knowledge of Logos, the power to convert between matter and energy with just the mind, to less advanced races. One of these less advanced races, the Thrax, used this power to wage war against the Eloh, a war which the Eloh won but at a great cost. This led to a great divide in the Eloh. One faction wanted to keep on spreading the knowledge as they had before. The other, called the Neph, sought to control the development of "lesser races" as to ensure they, the Neph, would always be the superior species. This inner conflict led the Neph faction to leave the Eloh and seek other allies, among them the defeated Thrax; this species along with others joined to form the Bane, which is controlled by the Neph.

As one of their first acts, they attacked the Eloh world; the surviving Eloh fled and were scattered among the worlds they had previously visited. The Bane attacked Earth sometime in our near future. Humanity was hopelessly outmatched and the majority was completely wiped out. Luckily, the Eloh had left behind some of their technology that had the ability to make wormholes to other worlds. There, humans found other species doing the same thing they had, fighting against the Bane to survive. They banded together to form the Army of the Allied Free Sentients to fight against the Bane.

According to information from the game's manual, it's been roughly 5 years since Earth was attacked. It was eventually discovered that Earth had not been destroyed as once thought, but had instead become a massive staging ground for the Bane. From there they strengthened their forces and increased attacks upon the AFS.

Combat

The combat mixed in some aspects from shooters to add some real time action elements to the game. It still was not an outright shooter and featured sticky targeting and dice rolling based on character stats underneath. Stickiness could be adjusted to fit the preference of the player. Some weapons like the shotgun did not use the sticky targeting. In addition to a hit-miss system, Tabula Rasa adjusted the damage based on the situation. Real-time factors like weapon type, ammo type, stance, cover, and movement were taken into account. The enemies were reported to have AI that would try to take advantage of the terrain, their numbers, and would try to flank the players. All this mix of system based combat and realtime movement and physics system created a gameplay which encouraged the player to think tactically; e.g. to take cover behind a pillar to get some time to reload the weapon while the enemies were getting into position again.

Missions & storytelling

Missions will be given out by NPCs but will not be static. What missions are available and even the access to the NPCs themselves are subject to how the battlefield is going. Some may be specific to control points that the player will need to reclaim from the Bane to gain access again.
Missions are also to have multiple options to take. One example is destroying a dam to stop Bane forces that will also demolish a local village. A player can choose to just destroy or try to warn the village beforehand risking further advances by the Bane. Referred to as "ethical parables" they are to make up about 20% of all missions. The missions the player chooses to do and the choices made during them will change the way certain NPCs treat the player's character.
Some missions will deliver the player's character to private instanced spaces. One design goal of the game is to use instanced spaces to create in-depth storytelling, with puzzles, traps, and NPCs, that would be more difficult in shared spaces.
Some missions will be ethically challenging. The players will have to choose from different points of view and it can alter their future progress. "Ethical and moral dilemmas are something we definitely wanted to incorporate into the design of Tabula Rasa from the very start. The entire goal is to give you pause and allow you to think about the choices that they make in order to accomplish a mission."

Logos

Logos is a pictographic language left behind by the Eloh to be understood by other races. As players go through the game, they will gain Logos symbols to add to their Logos tablet, a blank slate, and begin to learn the language found throughout the game and gain special powers. Logos can be considered the equivalent of magic
Magic (gaming)
Some role-playing games or game systems can include a set of rules that are used to portray magic in the paranormal sense. These rules simulate the effects that magic would have within the game context, according to how the game designer intended the magic to be portrayed...

 for Tabula Rasa, inasmuch as magic allows for incredible, otherwise unexplained acts; however, the logos are shown to be an extension of a scientific process developed by the Eloh. Players can improve these abilities and the upgraded versions can add new tactical uses. Some are universal while others are class specific. Some examples range from lightning bolt attacks, sprinting, reinforcements, and poison type powers. These are very hard to find, being hidden throughout Tabula Rasa.

Character creation

Tabula Rasa had a tree character class
Character class
In role-playing games, a common method of arbitrating the capabilities of different game characters is to assign each one to a character class. A character class aggregates several abilities and aptitudes, and may also sometimes detail aspects of background and social standing or impose behaviour...

 system. Everyone started out as first "tier" (branch) Recruit and as they progress they were able to branch out. The second "tier" included the Soldier and Specialist, which in turn had two subclasses of their own each. There were a total of 4 tiers.

Tabula Rasa also had a cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...

 function at each tier. It worked like a save
Saved game
A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. This saved game can be reloaded later, so the player can continue where he or she had stopped...

 function for characters at the branching point and allowed the player to try out the other branch without having to repeat the first several levels
Level (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...

.

Introduced in patch 1.4.6 were the hybrid characters. These were humans who have had their DNA blended with either Thrax, Forean or Brann DNA to produce different stats and bonuses to the character. Only full humans were available at the beginning, with the hybrid DNA becoming available via quest chains during play which in turn unlocked the ability to create hybrids on that server at the creation screen, or via cloning.

Dynamic battlefield

AFS and Bane forces are in constant battle with NPC forces warring over control points and bases. Which side controls these areas greatly impacts the players. Losing one of these to the Bane means that the respawn hospital, waypoints, shops, NPCs access, and base defenses are lost and turned to the Bane's advantage. Players were able to help NPC assaults to take over bases or defend ones under attack. Control of these points was meant to change back and forth commonly even without player involvement, although the current implementation rarely let the Bane muster enough forces to invade a control point during peak player times. The Control Point System was one of the main gameplay features. Players that are fighting to defend or capture a CP got Prestige points which they could trade in for item-upgrades, experience boosters, a reset of either their attributes or their learned abilities or the purchase of superior or rare equipment at grey market vendors. Prestige could also be earned by defeating bosses, looting rare items, getting the max XP multiplier and by completing special missions. Later in the game, Control points became more and more important to the players, as they were necessary to be either in Bane or AFS hands to accept or complete certain missions and they become the centerpoint of most of the later maps.

Wargames (PvP)

PvP (Player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...

) in Tabula Rasa was voluntary. As it stands, there were two main modes of PvP combat.
  • Wargame duels, commonly known as duels. These were initiated by challenging a player by targeting and using the radial menu. The challenged player must then consent. The wargame is over when one player dies, or when the two players are too far from each other, or one leaves the zone. These impromptu duels could be held between two players, two squads (groups), or a player against a squad.

  • Wargame feuds, commonly known as clan wars. These could only be fought by clans who have chosen to be a PvP clan (done during clan creation). Only a clan's leader could initiate or cancel a clan feud, and the request must be accepted by the challenged clan's leader. A clan war lasts 7 real-time days, during which players can fight each other without requesting consent first. During the war, kills are tallied and displayed in the players' wargame trackers. The clan with the most kills at the end of the war wins the feud. Kills are only counted if the players are within 5 levels of each other, though players of any level can fight each other.

  • Wargame maps, Edmund Range was the only implemented map that featured large scale team PvP. Using two sets of local teleporters, players could choose between the blue team or the red team. The map could be accessed via the cellar area and was only accessible to players level 45 and above. The map consisted of several Control Points which each team had to capture. At the beginning of each match there were Epic Bane inside of the Control Points to prevent rushers capturing them all, giving a team an unfair advantage at the beginning. In later patches, "Personal Armour Units" were introduced which allowed players to fight in giant robots exclusively in Edmund Range. At the end of each match the losing team were teleported back to the main entrance and the winning team were teleported to the upper floor of the staging area. On the upper floor were unique armour sets vendors that were available to buy using prestige. Portable way points were disabled in the staging area to prevent players from cheating to the upper floor.

Development history

In the works since May 2001, the game underwent a major revamp two years into the project. Conflicts between developers and the vague direction of the game were said to be the causes of this dramatic change. Twenty percent of the original team was replaced, and 75% of the code had to be redone. Some staff working on other NCsoft projects were transferred to the Tabula Rasa development team, including City of Heroes Community Coordinator April "CuppaJo" Burba. First re-shown at E3 2005, the game then transformed into the current science fiction setting and look. On Nov 11th 2008, an open letter to the players of Tabula Rasa stated that Richard Garriott
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott is a British-American video game developer and entrepreneur.He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa...

 has left NC Soft to pursue other ventures. On Dec 9th 2008, a letter was sent by NCsoft stating that all Tabula Rasa servers will be shut down on February 28 2009, and that Tabula Rasa would be discontinued.

Beta test

NCsoft began offering invitations to sign up for a limited beta test of Tabula Rasa on January 5, 2007 which began running on May 2, 2007. Invitations were initially given out only as contest prizes, but beginning on August 8 several thousand additional invitations were distributed via the websites FilePlanet
FilePlanet
FilePlanet is a video game download service that provides demos, patches, mods and other gaming media and other gaming media downloads to its users. FilePlanet was launched, and is run by, GameSpy, which is now a subsidiary of IGN, and is one of the most used video game download sites on the...

 and Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...

. The non-disclosure agreement
Non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...

 for the beta test was lifted on September 5, 2007 and the test ended on October 26, 2007 with a themed event in which players were invited to attempt to kill the character General British, played by game creator Richard Garriott.

Bonus items

Two pre-order bonus packs were available on NCsoft
NCsoft
NCsoft is a South Korea-based online video game company, which has published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, City of Heroes, Wildstar, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.-History:...

's PlayNC website, one for Europe and one for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The European pack is sold for EUR
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

€4.99, the US pack for USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

$4.99 in addition to buying the full retail version of the game for $49.99. Other than currency and which pack goes with which retail version (the European preorder will only be valid with the European release of the game, similarly for the US version), the packs are functionally identical, containing:
  • A serial code for unlocking bonus in-game content and beta access (once pre-order customers are able to enter into the beta)
  • Exclusive Shell Bot or Pine-Ock non-combat pets, one per character
  • Two exclusive character emotes
  • Three day head-start on the live servers


For the retail release, a standard version and a collector's edition were released. Both contain the client and an account key with 30 days of included playtime, however the Collector's edition shipped with a number of bonus items including:
  • A full colour game manual containing concept art
  • A letter briefing from General British
  • A map pack displaying the various game regions
  • An AFS Challenge Coin and set of Tabula Rasa Dog Tags
  • Fold out "Black Ops" poster
  • "Making of" Tabula Rasa DVD
  • 3 exclusive in-game items granted by the Collector's edition key only: The Boo Bot, a summonable non-combat pet; a set of 4 unique amour paints; and a unique character emote.

Reception

Publications started to release reviews mainly after 15 November 2007, 2 weeks after the game's launch, although over a dozen wrote previews based on betas and the 3-day head start
Head start (positioning)
In positioning, a head start is a start in advance of the starting position of others in competition, or simply toward the finish line or desired outcome...

 for those who pre-ordered.

GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...

 gave the game 4 stars out of 5, outlining that the game's innovative combat system succeeded in redefining MMO combat, and regarded it as one of the most appealing features. Negatives were the obscure and often counterproductive crafting system, a lack of a central trading hub at the initial release and bugs involving general gameplay and reports of memory leaks.

Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...

 gave the game 8 out of 10, praising the daring to be different approach to combat and to the class/cloning system, allowing players the opportunity for experimenting easily with which career path they choose. On the negative side, the crafting system and lack of an auction house were singled out. Though technical problems were also mentioned, the review notes that a recent patch corrected many of the problems they experienced with the game in that regards.

Closing

Richard Garriott
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott is a British-American video game developer and entrepreneur.He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa...

 announced that he was leaving NCAustin and Tabula Rasa in an open letter to the community, though he now claims this letter was in fact written by NCsoft as a means of forcing him out. The announcement was made while Garriott was in quarantine after returning from his spaceflight in October, and the announcement claimed he was inspired by the space travel experience to pursue other interests.

Tabula Rasa's Development Team on 21 November 2008, weeks after Richard's announcement, also released an open letter that the game will end public service on 28 February 2009, citing a lower than expected in-game population as the major factor for the decision. Developers also announced that any active paying player as of 10:00 AM Pacific Time on November 21, 2008 will be eligible for some rewards, including paid time on other NCsoft titles (any paying subscribers joining after that point are ineligible). On 27 February 2009, a message posted on the official website requested that players participate in a final assault, culminating with mutual destruction of AFS and Bane forces.

Ever since the closure of the game, there have been several attempts to emulate the game onto a private server
Private server
Private server is a server machine that is privately owned by individual. As servers need adequate internet connection, power and are also noisy, they are often allocated in the colocation centre. Some centers also offer rack space for the single machine for $99 per month or about...

 by different user groups.

Litigation

Richard Garriott sued NCsoft for $24,000,000 USD. Garriott sued for damages relative to his termination from the parent company NCsoft. Garriott's allegation states that NC Soft terminated his employment, then fraudulently reported his termination as willful resignation in order to preserve the right to terminate Garriot's stock options unless he exercised them himself within 90 days of termination, forcing Garriott into a decision to purchase stock with which a loss was incurred worth dozens of millions in profit for Mr. Garriott. Additionally, the news of the termination was issued while Mr. Garriott was confined to quarantine from the space flight, which was originally intended to be a publicity move to further promote the game and increase revenue. In July 2010, an Austin District Court awarded Garriott USD$28 million in his lawsuit against NCsoft, finding that the company did not appropriately handle his departure in 2008. NCsoft stated that it intend to appeal the decision.

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External links

  • Official Tabula Rasa website
  • Tabula Rasa at NCsoft
    NCsoft
    NCsoft is a South Korea-based online video game company, which has published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, City of Heroes, Wildstar, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.-History:...

    's main website
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