The Daily Grind: A farewell to Tabula Rasa

by Krystalle Voecks Mar 1st 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Events, real-world, News items, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, The Daily Grind

As this morning dawns across the world, the ranks of MMO communities are down by one. Tabula Rasa, started on the same day that Massively opened its doors, has closed down after one final, epic battle. As MMO players, just about all of us can relate as to how much it would suck to lose the game our community is in, thereby sending that community to the four corners of the gaming world. It's always a hard thing to see any MMO sunsetted.

This morning, we wanted to give those players a chance to reflect on what they loved about Tabula Rasa - the community, the graphics, the story line, the dev interaction. Also, we'd love to hear what your plans are now; other AFS alumni may decide to join you in new gaming pastures! Will there be another MMO, or are you off to play games like Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead?

Tags: mmo, mmofps, ncsoft, rgtr, richard-garriott, sunset, sunsetted, tabula-rasa

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Psychotic Storm said on 8:16AM 3-01-2009

Its sad to see it go, at least it went with a bang, lots of action, the DEVs and GMs made sure everyone had an enjoyable last day in the game.

I would wish NCsoft had decided to keep it up, but since that was not meant to be at least the developers gave us a great swan song.

one more saddening thought is with all the stuff that became available it is obvious how much the developers had thought in depth of the games development and how many surprises we would get in the future if the game stayed.

bunglerm00se said on 8:48AM 3-01-2009

Despite its lack of content (which, in my opinion, was really the only lingering valid gripe), Tabula Rasa is one of the best MMORPGs I've played in ten years. I'm sad to see it go. It was ahead of its time in some areas -- combat, non-fantasy storyline -- and yet behind the curve in others... namely content. I hope the MMO dev community learns a lesson from TRs missteps.

I had already kind of moved on -- it was a little painful to log in and play a "dead game walking" for those last few months. I met some great folks playing TR, and had some incredible gaming *and* roleplaying experiences.

As Kurt Vonnegut once wrote about death: "So it goes."

John P said on 9:38AM 3-01-2009

I logged in last night for the first time in a while. I also lost the desire to play when it was announced to close.

It was laggy, but lots of action. I helped kill one of the nephs and spend my last minutes logged in trying to force back the bane in NYC.

I'll miss you TR. You deserved better.

Chris Mayer said on 10:19AM 3-01-2009

Played the game since beta. I think it had one of the best and most unique combat systems of any mmo. Definitely going to miss it, but its back to FFXI for me, at least in the foreseeable future. After that...who knows?

moo said on 10:50AM 3-01-2009

It failed because it wasn't good, simple as.

The Platypus said on 11:11AM 3-01-2009

In your opinion, which doesn't factor in boneheaded business decisions and office politics.

Hardy said on 11:07AM 3-01-2009

It was good, you clearly didn't play it enough, and it was probably idiots like you that killed it.

It lacked content but was far from being a bad game.

Troll is fail.

moo said on 11:11AM 3-01-2009

Yes I KILLED TR!

I like how when TR was running noone gave a shit and as soon as they said they were closing the servers, all of a sudden it was the best game EVAR! No the game wasn't interesting and it wasn't good so noone played it.

I failed to see what it offered that other games didn't that were better and more popular and you didn't need to pay for before they announced it was closing and made it free.

I mean TR was good and thats why it's shut lol..........

UltimateQ said on 1:45PM 3-01-2009

moo is just a troll. He doesn't have any valid opinions, he just trolls for the sake of making people angry. Just ignore him.

moo said on 1:47PM 3-01-2009

Funny how the truth is now called trolling.

All these games suck and thats why noone plays them but people who think its kool to like unpopular things. I just tlel it how it is.

WoW is popualr cause it is good

EQ2 isnt popular cus it sucks

simple.

Conquests said on 2:28PM 3-01-2009

I entirely agree with moo.

How curious, TROLL and TRUTH share the first 2 letters.

Pigeon-ko said on 2:30PM 3-01-2009

Moo, quit putting down every other MMO while drooling over WoW all the time. :|

Anyway, too bad for TR. I never played it but it looked kind of cool when I saw screenshots. Hopefully there will be good sci-fi MMORPG with a similar playing style (i.e. not EVE, not saying EVE sucks but it's different than TR's type of game!)

Psychotic Storm said on 4:10AM 3-02-2009

@Conquests

I disagree in that, CP's were fun and the game could be played in many ways beyond quests and it changed it moved its time line forward the maps were actively changing because of activities both players and npcs, the only thing I didn't like it the main quests was that they were centred around the player making him or her "the hero" something not as good in sci fi as is in fantasy.

Conquests said on 11:09AM 3-01-2009

Not a moment too soon for a WoW with lasers.

The Platypus said on 11:12AM 3-01-2009

And what was WoW? Everquest with character models based on the Flintstones.

MMO with character classes, quests, grouping and loot =/= WoW clone.

moo said on 11:15AM 3-01-2009

Actually the character models were based on Warcraft 3.

Punkrockdiva said on 1:11PM 3-01-2009

Nope, definitely modeled from Flinstones, Tonka, and Romperroom. Little boys love it!

Conquests said on 2:38PM 3-01-2009

Platypus> Let's be honest now. WoW copied from many games, not only online, but also created its own crisms (and bad ones at that cause it's dumb babysitting playstyle), and every single MMO after WoW copied it.

(except Darkfall, finally)
...and because i hate empty banter, i provide an example: WoW was the first MMO to introduce the levelling system with quests from level 1 to level cap, and leading you thru the maps programmers wanted you to go to.

Now, please tell me an MMO that didn't repeat this drill.

UltimateQ said on 6:14PM 3-01-2009

I can honestly say. You have no idea what you're talking about, "Wow with lasers".

The game is nothing like it. Nothing like it. The only thing I can think of that they have in common is you can level by doing quests. Everything else is very different.

conquests said on 6:56PM 3-01-2009

UltimateQ:
Well thank god now you have to say "TRWAS nothing like it".

Also, you said you "can" level thru quests, but rather you were FORCED to level thru quests, and lastly yes it was the only copied part (along with instanced dungeons, aand a forced sequence of maps)because there was nothing else to do... control points were... pointless.

I'm glad this game is gone, now Mr. Garriott understood that MMO's need original ideas to survive.

I renew my trust and faith on him, please only remember that MMO's are multi-layered virtual worlds, in that a player needs many diverse occupations, not just boring missions for the XP.