Oh dear, its that time again, and another in an increasingly long line of Exit Surveys. I like to share these with the whole internet, partly because its an interesting insight into what a game company thinks might be the problem with their own game; a set of questions that typically provide information in themselves, and partly, its an easy blog post to write!
This time its Tabula Rasa. For you, Van Hemlock, ze war is over...
Podcast listeners will have already heard about my difficulties with Maligo Base Grouping, P'reo Das Mission Troubles and my increasing fatigue with the title in general. Well, Monday saw a somewhat dissatisfying problem in the Incurables Ward instance, off Crucible. I was duoing with my longtime cross-game compatriot, and we were doing fairly well. Its another of the Underground Brann Facility type instances, fun enough in basic structure, if a little on the rambling side (much running backward and forward for keys, Doom 1 style), but not without it's bugs.
The first was annoying, but not fatal; my Engineer friend's robot pet thing managed to aggro a Brann prisoner NPC chap near the entrance, who wasn't even red to begin with - to us anyway. I'm not sure what he was there for; (flavour text?), but we were going to leave him alone, just in case we needed him alive later on. No such luck - he took one look at our Engineer's robot pet and opened fire. The robot fired back, and then he started shooting at the Engineer too, by association, and then I started shooting him back, to stop the Engineer getting killed, and then...meh. It all got a bit Reservoir Dogs, and the whole thing degenerated into a farce as we tried to run away and not kill him, in case it further broke some other quest, and he came after us with a Terminator-like tenacity that almost saw us have to leave and reset the instance entirely!
The real kicker, and as it turned out, straw that broke the camel's back, came later on. We were doing well, and had gone without bugs for so long that we were starting to get back into the spirit of it all, when I disconnected. Happens now and again, to all people on all connections, and this one was literally a blip; downtime of less than a second, and an immediate reconnection to the internet and TR. I arrive to find myself still in the instance, but now I've been kicked from the group, AND, the main quest through the place, required for the Target of Opportunity tick, has now failed. Worse still, I now 'cannot invite that player from this location', to rejoin the group, despite them actually standing three feet away, patiently waiting for me to come back. Ridiculous!
We carried on anyway; no sense both of us failing the job, but were in effect, both soloing for the remainder of the instance, competing for xp and loot, and in my case, getting nothing mission-based for my troubles. Frankly I'm amazed I even ended up back in the same place, as on previous occasions, even the slightest disconnect results in me being thrown clean out of the instance, rest of the group be damned.
All in all, a bit of a chore these days, and I find it unbelievable that a modern MMO isn't clever enough to maintain the group, and instance presence, for a couple of minutes, just in case, you know, the player didn't actually mean to lose their internet connection. Still, at least 50% of our group managed something useful for their hour or so spent in there, and afterwards, outside, it was surprising that it was them that decided to throw in the towel first. I guess I'm more of a masochist when it comes to MMOs, but I certainly didn't put up much of a fight, I must admit...
On to the survey then:
1. How would you rank your overall experience with Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™?
A loaded question; I'm quitting for a reason, afterall. I put Average. A lot of it was quite good, but some of it needs a lot of work.
2. Why did you leave? (you may select more than one)
The interesting question, with a lot of different options. I picked a few, the most pressing of which were:
Game Bugs: See previous ranting on the blog and podcast.
Level 30+ content not compelling: True enough in my own case. Everything was a blast, all the time, until I hit Plateau, and then the grind did rather start to make itself felt, despite the occasional fun and inspired map or instance. My big powerful L30 weapon, the Propellant Gun, went almost unused in favour of L15's choice, the Rocket Launcher. (I didn't pick the Lack of 50+ end game content option, mostly because I didn't get there, stopping at L43. I'd imagine it's a popular answer though.)
Lack of social gameplay/reasons to group. AND I prefer to play solo and could not: I picked both of these, which at first glance might seem a contradiction. I've elaborated a bit on this strange duality on the podcast, but all too often, I'd find myself trying to get group tasks done alone (CPs, Instances), and then sometimes within the same session, be duoing or in a small group and massively overpowering the surrounding tasks and missions. Hard to explain, and possibly just me.
My friends/clanmates left: Well, I only really had one friend in there, but they did leave that very night, and so I went with them.
Items I did not pick include; World not visually pleasing (It was a very nice world, with a good backstory and design), No compelling story (Ditto), Did not like the game interface and control (Takes a little getting used to, but the basic shooting is a lot of fun, fresh and novel), and Character classes and skills not compelling (I liked the Grenadier - gutsy and powerful, although the flamethrowers are a bit rubbish.) I also didn't pick any of the subscription related options - a game is either good or bad; the fee, or lack of, rarely comes into it for me.
There was no 'I paid for RICHARD GARRIOTT'S Tabula Rasa, and never saw the guy once!' option, which was a shame. I do feel cheated in that regard!
3. For approximately how many months have you subscribed to Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™?
I'm glad I keep a blog now - I can look this stuff up, and not have to remember! 4-5 months, which I don't regret in the slightest. All things have their time however...
4. What best describes your involvement with other players within the Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™ community?
I went with 'I teamed up with others but not on a regular basis'. I've ranted lots on the podcast about the general lack of ambient grouping in general. With the exception of my long time existing Friend of Many MMOs, I learnt to solo early and well, a habit that has probably stuck with a lot of players. Apparently, there is a community there, with a number of players on the EU server going out of their way to run events and such, and of course John and Matt's excellent work on TabulaCast. Just never quite found myself connecting at that sort of level.
5. How many characters did you create from level 1?
Two - The cloning means that any more are entirely unnecessary.
6. How many characters did you create by cloning a character?
Eight - you'd be silly not to make a clone just before each career choice - the alternative is to do the last thirty levels over again. I also made a Crafting Clone, because for some reason, crafting skills uses the same points as combat skills. I think I actually used this clone twice, if that.
7. What level is your highest level character?
Level 40-50. 43 to be precise. So close! I didn't see a need or reason to alt much at all.
8. What would bring you back? Please rank the following options
I skipped this one entirely, as it was presented in a ridiculous Sudoku-like format, where you have to rank fifteen items from Slightly Quite Important to Partially Rather Not Important, and also you aren't allowed to give two items the same preference. There are many items there about which I have no preference at all, but it won't let you set those all to Average. Couldn't be arsed to master this minigame... next!
No free-text here, so I'll put my own few here instead:
- Sidekick/Mentor Mechanic (See CoH/V, EQ2, etc, and I believe an absolute requirement for any future MMO that has levels in the first place.)
- More robust group handling (Disconnects, Instances, etc - give me a few minutes...I'm reconnecting as fast as I can!)
- More intelligent CP force scaling (If only one guy is there, don't still send 50 Bane, two waves, and a boss three levels higher than the rest of the map!)
I'd add Improved Crafting and LFG, but they're already on DG's To-Do list, apparently.
A thing that Wouldn't Bring Me Back, is PAUs (Player Exosuit Mecha thingies), as frankly, there are a lot more pressing things to attend to than a fluff player-mount that the maps are too small to accommodate anyway.
9. Please check the box next to the games that you have played. (you may select more than one)
See sidebar.
10. Please check the box next to the games that you are currently playing. (you may select more than one)
Also see sidebar.
11. Where did you buy your copy of Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™?
A Shop. Couldn't see any examples that matched UK outlets, so just ticked 'Speciality Store', mostly for its delicious undertones... nudge nudge, wink, 'Know what I mean?'
I never pre-order, out of principle (It sends the wrong message), and only ever buy Collector's Editions by accident!
12. How do you usually learn about games? (you may select more than one)
Shockingly, no option for Virgin Worlds or Massively here, so just ticked 'Genre specific sites (MMORPG.com, TenTonHammer.com)'. Disappointed not to see my own blog listed as an example of 'Major blogs'.
And finally...
13. If you are leaving to play another MMO, which one are you going to play next?
Age of Conan. More on that to come...
Number 14 was the usual freeform textbox, in which I left, what I hope was an encouraging few remarks, critical, but constructively so! I have enjoyed my time there, and will almost certainly be back in six months, a year. Looking forward to seeing how much better it will no doubt be. Right now though, the frustrations don't quite outweigh the enjoyments, but when you add fatigue, well, probably high time to move on, once again...