Tabula Rasa to shut down in February 2009

by Shawn Schuster Nov 21st 2008 at 1:45PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Endgame, Tabula Rasa

It's been a fairly good run for Tabula Rasa, but the inevitable has now been announced. As of February 28, 2009, Tabula Rasa will be shutting down its servers for good. We've feared an Auto-Assault-like fate for the game for a while now, but confirmation of this event truly saddens everyone in the MMO community.

According to the announcement, the folks at TR plan on going out in style, though. Not only will they continue to pump out some new, quality content in the remaining months, but the game will actually go free-to-play for its final month and a half. You can check out more of their upcoming final plans with the game, as well as the official announcement at their website.

Tags: breaking, breaking news, breakingnews, destination-games, end, ncsoft, richard-garriott, shutting-down, tabula-rasa, tr

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

BaronJuJu said on 1:58PM 11-21-2008

A shame to see the game go, though you could see the writing on the wall. They need to stop collecting subs from their players now though. Seems to be a bit of a kick in the teeth to their fan base to expect folks to continue to pay for a game thats closing.

Celestial Lord said on 1:56PM 11-21-2008

It's a shame that such a promising MMOG ended this way. :(

Tony said on 2:03PM 11-21-2008

I really wish that in these situations they'd just release some ability to let people run these games on their own servers. There's obviously people capable of doing so.

MeowCat said on 3:30PM 11-21-2008

I agree. It's a fantastic way to keep the game alive and community/fan development can do amazing things.

Leshrac said on 2:10PM 11-21-2008

I guess Garriott leaving NC Soft to go play spaceman was a total sham. He should be ashamed of himself.

koehler83 said on 2:16PM 11-21-2008

Why is everyone pretending to be sad? Obviously no one gave a shit about the game enough to, you know, play it, subscribe to it, keep it alive.

Personally I thought the concept was stupid the moment I saw it in action. A third person shooter MMO? Thats retarded. Do you hear that SOE? RETARDED!

Its a shame that NCSoft got suckered into believing that just because Garriot copied Ultima a hundred times, that he was Will Wright or something.

Hardy said on 2:57PM 11-21-2008

I agree with you on the first part....but.

1. There was a first person mode.

2. SoE wasn't in charge of this game. If you're commenting on another game clarify.

3. Just because YOU don't like something doesn't make it a horrible concept.

4. Garriot wasn't in charge of the game at beginning. He came in somewhere in the middle of development.
NCSoft wasn't "suckered"

5. You're an idiot, but that's the norm when it comes to MMO posting. lol

The game wasn't bad by any means, it just had some severe issues at the start and it never was able to pick itself up, even after the nice changes recently made.

On a personal opinion note. I don't see how it wouldn't be possible to make this game f2p with 1 or 2 servers, or add an asian style pricing plan where you buy items.

Either way, the game wasn't horrible, it just never took off because of several issues.

koehler83 said on 9:00AM 11-22-2008

SOE is making The Agency, which will basically be Tabula Rasa based in present day.

And it will fail. It will fail hard.

Mr. Pickles said on 2:28PM 11-21-2008

It's sad that another potentially great MMO dies out...I have to blame WoW for this, of course. That game has practically ruined the genre for any other games out there. Stealing any new ideas from others and implementing them into theirs; using massive corporate espionage in other games to both steal ideas AND to spread misinformation/hate (particularly on forums and news sites through comments)....that game is nothing more then a plague

P.S. Must say, Age of Conan looks to be the next up to bat (and, after the sham that Funcom did, I welcome that game's death with a shovel ready to bury it).

censorman said on 3:31PM 11-21-2008

I will mourn AoC more than this game. This game had a lot of great ideas, sure, but AoC's combat is the best in any MMO. PvP was fantastic.

...at 35 the game ended. You just grinded mobs.
...at 70 there was one zone. FFA PVP + 1 zone = bad news.
...at 80, I had nothing to do.

I won't weep at the funeral, just /le sigh.

Kyoji said on 3:09PM 11-21-2008

The only possible way WoW is responsible for the death of this MMO is if WoW is more fun than TR, and as a consequence more deserving of $15 a month. For me, and countless others, this was the case. Perhaps if NCsoft would've given it a better go, or done -something- to make the game better it wouldn't have gotten to this point.

I also don't understand how a game spreads hate through "forums and news sites through comments," does WoW have some sort of bot that trolls the internet? Or maybe the people who play it actually like the game and say good things about it. Couldn't be!

MeowCat said on 3:36PM 11-21-2008

I'm not sure it's ruined the genre but it has set a high bar. I understand what you're saying but its very easy to re-frame it so you understand that WoW has inflated expectations. It's a good game. I quit it 2 yrs ago due to the grind & time factor at end-game but it was a fantastic experience while it lasted.

DanPez said on 7:19PM 11-21-2008

Just a thought here but...

Maybe if they had put this game on consoles as well as PC, like was originally stated, they would have had a better population. PC's are so oversaturated with MMO's, and WoW still rules them all in terms of subscribers. The style of Tabula Rasa, as well as the non-fantasy setting, had me interested from day one. This game would have been a perfect MMO to put on 360 or PS3, but whatever...

WoW kills another one; wanna place bets on who's next?

Wjowski said on 9:36AM 11-22-2008

It's not WoW's fault that shitty MMOs are getting their just due.

xslipperyx said on 3:12PM 11-21-2008

I'm so glad I just won the Soldier Pack from the Massively giveaway last week :)

/sarcasm off

Sad to see this go actually.

John said on 3:16PM 11-21-2008

I played for a while when it first came out and it never really hooked me. I am sad to see it end though. I considered joining again a few months ago and asked on the forums how the game was doing. Someone replied telling me "stop wasting Forum space with stupid questions and just play the game again to find out"....

That was all I needed to know about the community and I chose not to rejoin.

Tom said on 3:22PM 11-21-2008

If the basic game could be repackaged as a single-player RPG, I'd give it a try. It seems a shame to have all that work and design just go down the tubes.

There was no way I was going to pay a subscription for TR, but if it had marketed along the lines of the Guild Wars model and/or if it could be restructured in some way, I would have been more interested in playing it.

Darkdust said on 3:33PM 11-21-2008

Very disappointed in this news, but I suspected the jig was up when Garriott left.

This should provide yet another reminder to game makers that, in today's competitive environment, having a quality, polished, solid game at launch is a sine qua non for that game to succeed.