Tabula Rasa
MMORPG, in Spaaaaaaaaace!
Tabula Rasa is nearly done, so two birds with one stone today, what with being rather more lazy than usual with the blog posting, and the last in my somewhat presumptuous What TR Did Wrong series, and another in my Many Faces of Van Hemlock one. I'd imagine my own personal tale of Tabula Rasa was not so different form everyone else's. I think gave it the old Three Month Rule, and didn't start playing until early February '08, coincidentally, during my last blog-vacation, and Episode #1 of the podcast features a few of my first impressions of...
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...
Back to rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic then, and more poking about what remains of Tabula Rasa. Right from the word go, one of the big features of the game was its Control Points. I've talked a bit about those back in April 2008, in my guise of free-faced newbie, and on paper, they seemed like a great idea. The basic setup is simple enough; a base with a flag in the middle, walls, turrets and a force-field gate, which every so often, gets rushed by the Bane. If the players don't put up a spirited enough...
In between the (once more) increasing number of online gaming appointments I now find myself with, I'm still finding time for Tabula Rasa, which has apparently gone completely free a month earlier than originally stated: TaRapedia: News Meaning that anyone who managed to recently snag a box for 97 cents or whatnot, can probably go have a poke about for the next two months gratis, right now. Have a look while you can! I'm doing just that, cutting edge front-line journo-wannabe that I am, and nitpicking as I go. I've just got...
Surprising how easy it was to get back into the swing of things in Tabula Rasa. I've picked up my dormant L43 Grenadier and am already L45. One of the first things I did on my return was cash in my big pile of Prestige Points (Gained for looting rare stuff and killing Bane during CP battles), and bought enough +50% XP Booster buffs to last me all the way to the end, in a game not noted for it's excessive grinding in the first place. Its fun, and frustrating in approximately equal measure, but I'm confident of...
I'm not quite sure why I've just gone and subbed up for what remains of Tabula Rasa. A number of reasons, I suppose. The game is effectively over; and will be gone for good at the end of February '09; leaving about three months of play left. After that, it won't be possible to play it at all. I think this is one reason. I still have an Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings box sat in my game-pile, an object with is absolutely useless now, and has been for some time. I still look wistfully at...
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...
In the dust and magma of Crucible, lies the Stall Junkyard, dumping ground of the self-liberated Brann ex-convicts, abandoned to their own devices on the harsh world of Arieki. With the destruction of the homeworld, the remaining Brann transportees rose up and tenaciously started anew, throwing off their shackles and forging a new and more gritty kind of society; functional, mechanical, and a far cry from the spiritual idyll of their original roots. Such industrialisation creates a tremendous amount of junk, and most of it ends up here. Not the most picturesque locations for a away-day holiday, but...
I do like a good desert. Despite never having been in a real one*, of all the Standard MMO Landscapes, I often find that the Desert Map is the most interesting. There often isn't a lot in a desert, hence the name, but even so, it is perhaps this very emptiness that I find so appealing. Very much an Explorer thing, I think, but a well done desert is a truly exotic place; howling winds blowing mournfully through rocky pinnacles, or over wide expansive dunes, which reach on into the distance like a solid sea. Here and...
All sorts going on Tabula Rasa at the moment, and for want of a better term, I guess this is probably my main game just now. For reasons mostly to do with altitis and accidental sociability, we find ourselves on Concordia, again. I do quite like these first three maps; Wilderness, Divide and Pallisades, you understand, but if I have to go through Torcastra Prison one more time, I may go mad.
This time, and in a bid to keep level levels with a new-person we'd met, we've started over and swapped branches, with my usual and previously Specialist friend...
On the crumbling edge of the mesa of Mires, sits brooding Iapyx. Its an ugly place, a grim place; harsh bleak steel and dusty burning air, but such is life for mankind now. Across a flimsy bridge, atop a lone pinnacle lies a glowing pillar of light, incongruous in this otherwise desolate and melting land; an Eloh Control point, a very literal line in the sand. The AFS have been driven from Earth to this wretched ball of molten slag called Arieki, and by the look of the massive fortifications on the landward side of the bridge, refuse to...
Just a quickie, and a reblog at that. Listeners to the most recent podcast may remember me grumbling about my lack of any kind of affinity for, and indeed, knowledge of, any of the nominations for EVE Online's Council of Stellar Management. I'm being on best behaviour here and most certainly not assuming that this is just a prize lottery, the winners of which will receive a free holiday in Reykjavik, and instead find myself quite fascinated by the whole experiment in online democracy that it is.
Anyway, looks like Crazykinux, the hardest working man in EVE Blogging, has it...
Meanwhile on Foreas, I've been joined by my long time Guild Wars N00b Club comrade. I thought they might like it, given that this was the person that managed to convince me, a post-Rallos Zek Traumatic Syndrome sufferer to try Planetside, all those years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold and all that, and despite having a PC that barely meets the minimum spec for Tabula Rasa, the three-day trial Refer-A-Friend thing seemed to be enough to make something of a convert of them. (Incidentally, I think I still have three of those left, so first-come...
Despite what might have sounded like a somewhat critical set of first impressions on Bruce Forsyth's Tabula Rasa yesterday, I am actually enjoying it, managing to get to level 31 in the service of the Allied Free Sentinels; so far conducting a great many missions (quests), and several Operations (Instances) along the way. I've also gunned down a quite staggering number of Bane, a fair quantity of local native wildlife, and a not insignificant number of apparently traitorous humans. Well, I was told they were traitors anyway, which being something of a burgeoning Space-Fascist, as my character is turning...