Still going with Tabula Rasa, although possibly not giving it quite as much time as I should, what with the other three MMOs I have on the go too. Gotten myself to Level 48 now though, which is surprising considering how little time I've given it. Maybe one three hour session a week (with +50% Boosters), since early January, and more than three levels under my belt, levels at the very top end.
The game always felt fast; a constant flow of action, and to begin with, that did seem awesome. Pewpew lazors! Gogogogogo! Boot Camp (The original tutorial, now modified somewhat) threw you right into it, and Alia Das (The first non-instanced starting town), and its attendant missions kept the flow moving nicely along, with the Lower Eloh Creek area, a veritable 'Saving Private Ryan' Warscape, and the Divide map after that. Landing Zone, the first CP you meet, was always busy, and on the whole, worked as intended, simply because it was adequately staffed. (See elsewhere for ramblings on CPs in general - they weren't all like that.)
It was very much a game where the emphasis was on the action, not least of all due to its pseudo-FPS gunplay. No standing there, watching special attack cooldown timers here, and if you ignored the possibly unnecessary Super-Lightning-Magic-Logos-Spells, (and I did, respeccing myself entirely out of Logos Powers and maxing out all the weapon and armour skills instead) the game could be played very well without any hotkey intervention at all, aside from the occasional weapon change when facing immune enemies. The very fact I couldn't cope with the twitch-based gunplay AND the micromanagement of the weird Sci-fi Magic Powers at the same time, and so tried to spec one side of that gameplay out entirely, hints at a problem I had with the game, which others may have had too. FPS or Button Mashing - not both please!
The game straddles that awkward no-mans land where few other titles dare to tread, the Skill-Based MMOFPS, where its about the aiming, and yet is still cluttered down with stats and levels and gear. Not many other people have tried this, and those that do generally come to grief. Planetside, a game I have an enormous personal fondness for, needs you to be AIMING PERFECTLY ALL THE TIME for four or more hours a night. Auto Assault was about driving cars about at very high speeds, itself requiring sharp concentration, and in addition, all cars had a roof-mounted swivelling gun, aimed by the mouse, which also required you to be quite focused, as a player, the whole time, to use effectively. Wearying over long spells.
For many MMO players, which presumably was the core market for all three for these titles, the sudden shift of mental gears was probably a bit jarring and unexpected. I'm not suggesting that MMO players are untrainable slugs with geological reflexes; not at all! I am one, you know! But what I do wonder, is if FPS gameplay is meant to be a thing any players of any games can stay sharp at for the sorts of spans MMOs are typically played for? Many nights, I'd come away after three hours in any of these three titles, feeling phsically drained and mentally shattered. In many ways, it was like trying to sprint a marathon.
At this point, I'd like to direct you to this excellent post on downtime:
Raph's Website: Ways to make your virtual space more social
...which I, peanut gallery chimp that I am, happen to think holds a lot of water, and is essentially saying that a game like Tabula Rasa, where its all go, all the time, is probably heading for troubles.
Out of all the jibes I've made in this little 'Half-Arsed Guesses Why Tabula Rasa Went Wrong' series, this one worries me the most, as it suggests, like the low numbers for Planetside, and the canning of Auto Assault, that the average MMO player is quite happy where they are, and doesn't really want anyone to start mucking about with the format. Which in turn means dubious things for The Agency, among other upcoming titles. I suspect the future is in little tweaks, not huge genre-busting, but we shall see.
So far I've not yet posted what I think was the main reason, for me, that TR didn't work. Look out for the last instalment soon, and congratulations to anyone who got a gun named after them in the recent and probably last, TR patch. You deserve it.