Tabula Rasa's shutdown salute schedule
by Seraphina Brennan 
Feb 27th 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Events, in-game, MMO industry, News items, PvE, Tabula Rasa
*Waits to hear the chorus of "We get you, sir!" coming from the computer monitor.*
We have gotten word from AFS High Command that the Bane are preparing for an all out attack against the Allied Free Sentients in Tabula Rasa. This will be the single largest troop movement that the battlefields have seen to date. This is why all soldiers are being asked to fortify all AFS bases in preparation of an attack on Saturday at 8 PM GMT for the Centarus (EU) server and again at 8 PM CST for the Hydra server.
These attacks will be lead by the infamous Neph, cousin race to the benevolent Eloh. Neph are the most intelligent commanders that the Bane has to throw against us, but we will fight them back!
The attacks are expected to last until midnight GMT and midnight CST. If we are unsuccessful with our defense, and should we be overrun, then we will make sure that their victory will cost them everything! The Penumbra Division has been ordered to ready the last resort weapon and only fire it should we still be under attack at midnight. If we're going down, we're taking them, and the server, with us!
Hoo-rah, soldiers!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Poozle said on 1:11PM 2-27-2009
I just logged on and "the end" attacks have already started, i spent 20 minutes at howling maw (EU server) defending against wave after wave of elite monsters, absolute insanity and also great fun. A real sense of community in the game at the moment.
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torak said on 1:46PM 2-27-2009
To the players - Put up a good fight! Die with your boots on!
We will mourn your loss.
To NCSoft - Choke on it, you aren't getting a lot of peoples business ever again after this you greedy pr*cks, you coulda worked this out somehow.
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danarchy said on 2:12PM 2-27-2009
This was a fun game, hate to see it go :( too bad they put all the really good stuff (that would of probably saved the damn game...) in after they announced it was already shutting down
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JP said on 2:16PM 2-27-2009
Have fun guys. The potential this game had was immense. Had it been released now, in it's current state, I think you'd being seeing completely different sub numbers.
James Taylor said on 2:20PM 2-27-2009
The market just wasn't ready/right for Tabula Rasa to succeed. It was a niche in a bad economy.
I'm going to download and install TR just to be there when it goes down :(
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Bill said on 4:31PM 2-27-2009
No JT , that wasn't it .
James Taylor said on 4:34PM 2-27-2009
Okay, go on - inform us.
Henry said on 11:12PM 2-27-2009
I can't speak for Bill, but I can say why I personally quit the game long ago. The game just never lived up to its promises: PAUs were originally designed to include more vehicles than just mechs, the CoCPs were supposed to be more robust, and there was no incentive to play after level 30 since you'd have all the skills by then, forget endgame content. Not to mention every class is "shooter" class - you want to heal someone? Shoot them with healing discs.
The game also had no official forum - every other NCsoft title has one, including Dungeon Runners and Exteel - and I would guess that was because they (rightfully) assumed that the majority of posts would be about how terrible the game was since the "unofficial" official forum had to create a specific board just for that. The final straw for me was when my fear that there'd be no new content was confirmed when they released patch notes that advertised little more than new loading screens.
I should add that being a longtime NCsoft customer and having also been an Auto Assault subscriber, I was so sure that lightning wouldn't strike twice when I started Tabula Rasa since operating costs are minuscule compared to how much it costs to develop an MMO. If you look at their latest financial reports, you'll notice they now exclude subscriber numbers. The reason for that is because Aion is already cannibalizing Lineage subscriptions, and the upcoming Champions and DC Universe will eat away at City of Heroes'. If not for Guild Wars, I would not be surprised if the company shut its Western operations within the next five years.
UltimateQ said on 2:24PM 2-27-2009
Very very sad! I'll log on with my L50 spy and beat up some mobs.
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Psychotic Storm said on 2:31PM 2-27-2009
same here.
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Emperor said on 4:03PM 2-27-2009
I can't help wonder if the chaps over at NCsoft didn't shoot themselves on the foot with this one.
I'm sure they could have waited and maybe developed new content to see if things turned around for TR....
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Rik said on 4:08PM 2-27-2009
/Salute!!
To The End.
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Green Armadillo said on 4:39PM 2-27-2009
I don't know that anything can make up for the decision to pull the plug, but I do offer some respect for the people on the dev/live team who saw this thing through to the end. Once the decision was made to pull the plug, most companies might not have been willing to pay staff to finish the final content patch and run a real end of world event like this.
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UltimateQ said on 6:31PM 2-27-2009
As a person who's played TR, the "end of the world" even (as you called it), makes me a little more sad. WE LOST THE WAR! T_T
Lightbender said on 1:32AM 2-28-2009
I hate to see TR being shut down. While it may have had it's faults, I enjoyed my time spent from 1-30 and always considered returning once they added more content.
Honestly, it seems like a lot of work thrown in the trash to completely shut it down like that. I guess it's just not possible to merge everyone to 1 server and put it on life support with a reduced subscription fee? Or even convert it to a free to play with any other NC subscription service?
With 2 major MMO's canned by NC, I know it has to be making some people wary of jumping into their games - people invest a lot of time in MMO's and hate to see it all vanish when the plug is pulled. For marketing sake they might have wanted to just hold out even at a loss.
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slackbheep said on 4:47AM 2-28-2009
As much as I think NCsoft dropped the ball on TR, this sounds like a great sendoff and how it should be done.
RIP Tabula Rasa, you join Hellgate as a fpsmmo that just needed more love.
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