Another One Bites The Dust
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 16 Comments Tags: age of conan, closed mmorpg, competition, layoffs, ncsoft, polish, richard garriott, tabula rasa, ultima online, warhammer online 
I am not sure how many of you may have heard of this game, but earlier this week it was announced that Tabula Rasa, a MMORPG set in an original science fiction universe, will be closing early next year. The closure of another AAA MMORPG title is never good for the market, as it scares potential publishers and other investors away from the sector. This is no exception due to the fact that the man behind the title is considered the father of modern MMORPGs, Richard Garriott.
Garriott, creator of Ultima Online, had high hopes for his latest title, which was developed by Destination Games, a company he co-founded with his brother Robert and Starr Long. After negotiating a deal with the big name in Korean MMOGs, NCSoft, to become NCSoft Austin, the company announced its first original project, Tabula Rasa. Tabula Rasa was launched in late October to slightly positive reviews, highlighting its differentiating features such as combat that involved targeting, cloning of characters, and putting players in the middle of a war.
Yet, Garriott's title failed for a myriad of reasons, although I place the blame on its initial lack of end game content upon release. Upon discovering this, players including myself left en masse upon completion of the trial. This was something that alpha/beta testers had been warning the company about.
The fact of the matter is, many MMOs are shoved out the door before they can reach that final level of polish. In my mind, World of Warcraft's initial success was due to the incredibly polished opening levels, as seen in territories like Westfall. Granted, WoW's endgame was incredibly difficult at release, but Blizzard's title had it. Age of Conan's launched product was a buggy mess, while the latest big name MMO, Warhammer Online, has receives hotfixes every few days to address remaining bugs. This is something its subscribers appreciate.
Had AoC and Tabula Rasa been given another six months of development, perhaps they would have held onto their playerbase. I know Tabula Rasa surely would have held onto me. Since launch the developers behind TR have addressed many of the main complaints, adding endgame, more PvP options and a much needed auction house. Sadly, few players ever take a second look at an MMO they left because “it sucked.”
The death of Tabula Rasa in late February will lend more credence to the genre being a very risky market, causing fewer new products, and fewer companies trying to be innovative. Competition is a good thing, and we now have one less title that was trying to be something besides a WoW-clone.
Along with the announcement, NCSoft has laid off an unnumbered amount of workers, retaining the core development team to run the game till end of life. I will be revisiting Tabula Rasa once the free play starts on January 10th. Hopefully the closing events are worth revisiting something that could have been awesome.
Reader Comments (16)
my first time.....first
seocnd :))
i played this game from the start. it was a ground breaking game but lacked in the end level content. I wish it wasnt ending but NCsoft has the habit of killing thier games. i will also be playing for the free month, i would like to see this game end witth a bang from which it started.
Crap. TR did so many little things right (cloning, waypoint navigation, control point assaults, new-style combat, etc.) It's a shame they forgot about the big picture in the process.
Warhammer and LOTRO are great, and I'm still holding out hope for AoC to get over its bugs, but one less competitor is indeed a bad thing.
well atleast wow is addicting....
Sad to see it go, never played, but still, Ultimate series (created by same guy) was some of my best RPG memories.
never played it but watched a story on it on daily planet =P sad that it's closing down though
"Ultima" I meant
well i have to say i am a bit worried abt future MMO. I mean WOW is a great game, probably the best mmorpg ever made, but it is dominating the market. Just look at all the mmo released in the past two years, none of them are very succesful, and they are droping like flies. As much as i love wow, i just hope there will be at least one game that can compete with it in the market. ( sorta like ur own OP warlock/druid/warroir arena group that wish to fight other class teams)
9th!
Did I read right? Someone thought LotR Online was a good game? I played for about 12 hours in game time and I deleted the game off my hard drive. The graphics were sub-par, the sound clipped all the time while in combat and the parts of the game I experienced were just horrible. I got a free trial with my new laptop and figured I'd give it a go because I love all things Tolkien. That game almost made me hate all the time I spent reading the books.
Other than that the only other MMO I ever tried out was Lineage 2, and boy was that a grind fest , though the graphics were beautiful .
Well, i never played Tabula Rasa but it did look interesting. I do think however, that the MMO market is about to recieve a major competitor to WoW. The Knights of the Old Republic MMO (made by Bioware) will be EPIC!!! I'm not saying I'm gonna abandon good ol azeroth, but if KOTR Online is anything like the other two in the franchise, I might just exchange my mace and shield for a Lightsaber, if only for a month or so.
did you know that 9 out of 10 MMOs don't even make it through developement. So TR did pretty well
its too bad.. i was thinking of playing this, hopefully they would release the server source code so people could at least make a free private server..., just wishfull thinking
WoW has such a grasp on people that when people get new mmo's they compare it to WoW. Doing that is like....... living in a mansion your whole life then trying out a normal house. The house is not necessarily bad, but in comparison, does not match. And all new mmo's arent trying to be a good game, they are trying to out match and out play WoW.
It leaves a lot less for us which defeats their whole purpose.
well sometimes, when you are in a mansion all by yourself, its a little overwhelming. Some people might not mind being in smaller quarters where everything is more at reach instead of spread out like some humongous mansion with hundreds of rooms.
I actually hope that the new MMOG's are not trying to be the bigger house that WOW is, it would be a fresh experience where there is something off-beat comes out, totally different from WOW, creating its own "house" to live in, that would start off small and build upon itself.