Tabula Rasa crafting: What didn't work then, and what works now

by Shawn Schuster Dec 10th 2008 at 3:30PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Crafting, Tips and tricks, Tabula Rasa

Several times I've wanted to just sit myself down and write an in-depth article explaining the original crafting system in Tabula Rasa (before it was announced to close), but it's just one of those things where the explanation would not make much sense unless you've frustrated yourself with it firsthand. It was complicated, time consuming and you would only need to kill 3 or 4 more Bane to get a better item anyway. Yet in Deployment 13, the crafting system was completely overhauled, simplified, and caused players to actually craft again. But was it just too late?

Over at Van Hemlock's blog, he takes a practical look at the past and present of TR crafting, explaining what we once dealt with versus the new and improved system. For anyone who has simply ignored the crafting in TR based on previous bad experiences, this post if worth a read.

Tags: crafting, crafting-system, destination-games, ncsoft, tabula-rasa, tr, van-hemlock

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JP said on 3:49PM 12-10-2008

Great article, and spot on.

Like a lot of things that have been added in TR, it's literally, w/out a belittling tone, to little to late. There was to much desgin flaw that needed to be improved long before it's 9 month mark.

Eric Rice said on 6:08PM 12-10-2008

Man, I LOVE crafting in TR, it's like engineering + enchanting (for my fellow WoW nerds). Being able to extract some upgrade (like resist fire) from a weapon that my class can't use, and upgrade it to maximum and stick it in my own weapons is fantastic.

Side note: do any MMOs the same tier-based system that TR does? I like the idea of being able to rollback *a little* instead of having to re-roll and start from scratch (like WoW, etc).

NeuroMan42 said on 6:24PM 12-10-2008

Great article, but a little too late for a soon to be dead MMO.

CJ said on 5:53AM 12-11-2008

I played TR from Beta, Headstart, Launch, and off and on.. and one thing that the DevTeam promised was Operations 1 slotted for Jan 08 would significantly improve the crafting system. Well.. TR is OR was the land of broken promises.. they never rolled out an improved or real crafting system. Nor did they stick to their promises about "Operations" updates... so it is easy to see why they game died. Everything that was "added" to the game was cosmetic and nothing of substance. I primarily blame RG for the game and how crappy it was at release missing many components from real PvP zones to simple thing like icons for the simplistic crafting system other than glowing balls.