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General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: Ash on November 05, 2007, 08:52:51 pm

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: Ash on November 05, 2007, 08:52:51 pm

I got access to the Beta from work, but Tabula Rasa is now Live.

Designed by Richard Garriot (Ultima Online), Tabula Rasa is basically a Sci-Fi MMO with a military theme; Earth has been captured and a small group of survivors has escaped and are attempting to form an alliance to destroy the invaders. Combat for the most part revolves around large numbers of enemies, ranged weaponry and varying degrees of strategy. Very rarely will a single enemy pose a threat to your character.

Official Website (http://www.rgtr.com/index.html)
Screenshots (http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/016/016535/imgs_1.html)
(http://www.gamingw.net/pubaccess/24455/screen5_1.jpg)

Early Game Intro (Click to reveal)

(http://www.gamingw.net/pubaccess/24455/screen0.jpg)Players begin by creating their character. Some people might not like the variety of customization compared to say, City of Heroes, but there's still a reasonable amount. Currently only Humans are the only playable race, although there is talk of other options in the future. There's around 15 different hair & face options for both male and female, as well as the ability to select and color your starting armor.
You also have to select a Last Name for the character. The last Name s bound to your account; all characters will share the last name so other players will know you if you've met before. your last Name will be used for chatting, but your full name will be displayed when just walking around.

Once your character is created, you're thrown into an interesting tutorial; the training camp has been captured shortly before your arrival. After a short introduction to the movement and combat mechanics, you are tasked with helping retake the facility. NPC soldiers tag along and do a fair bit of the work for you, your main job is to disable the force-field gate, and retake the command point at the center of the base. Reinforcements are then shuttled in (very rarely do mobs in Tabula Rasa just "spawn", usually a dropship will fly overhead to drop them off, or indigenous creatures will burrow out from underground or drop from the trees overhead) and the base becomes a functional town. The rest of the tutorial deals with you learning your first logos ability,and fighting off a counterattack on the base.

In Essence your character has two lifebars, your Armor, which is determined by all the armor you are wearing, and your actual Health. As you take damage your durability will decrease, and as such your armor bar will be smaller (losing the full armor bar doesn't mean all your armor is broken though). Armor regenerates constantly, but if the entire armor bar is depleted, it will not regenerate until you leave combat. Your actual Health Bar is really just for show; you won't take more than a few hits to your actual Health before you're killed. Virus-based damage ignores armor and damages your health directly. So basically your HP is determined by the strength and durability of the armor you're wearing. This means in certain situations you may unequip your rare armor with various stat boosts for simple trash armor with very high AC.

Personally, The main attraction to Tabula Rasa is that the combat system allows you to accomplish a lot of things yourself. You DO have the option to just run around shooting shit, but you can take advantages of nuances such as cover, damage types, range, crouching and weapon types to take out mobs much higher level than you. By the end of the beta I had managed to solo all the content up to level 25 (groups are the better option of course, but solo is an option if you take it slow). Using the right weapon and weapon type can make a fight infinitely easier, for example rifle-type weapons deal more damage at long range, EMP weapons are very effective against mechanical targets, and viral weapons bypass armor and can take out enemies very quickly.
Tabula Rasa tries to play like a 3rd-person shooter and tries to put the emphasis on action. As such there are no permanent death penalties, only resurrection sickness, which can actually be cured instantly using a mildly expensive healing item.

Skill Advancement in Tabula Rasa is tree based; when you level up you will receive points you can spend in various skills (raising a skill multiple times will require more points). As an example, raising the various firearms skills will increase damage and decrease reload times. Once you reach level 5, and then 15 and 30, you will have to make a decision of which tree path to take, ultimately settling you into one of the 8 "final" classes[/td][/table]

RECRUIT: All players begin as a recruit, and recruit skills relate to the bulk of your general actions. Recruits can use rifles, pistols and shotguns (everybody can use rifle/pistol/shotgun since skills carry from class to class) and wear Motor Assist Armor, which increases movement speed if you decide to level it up. Recruits also have all the crafting abilities; allowing you to make things like medkits or grenades at a fraction of the cost. At level 5, Recruits have to decide between Soldier or Specialist training.

SOLDIER: The Soldier tree leads moreso to Tanking and Damage Dealing classes. Soldiers can wear Graviton Armor, which has the highest defense value out of the armor types, and they can wield chainguns, which are fully automatic, but can overheat easily (overheating occurs if you use a weapon too much in a short period of time. the gun is useless until it has a few seconds to cool off. Guns are likely to jam right before they fully overheat; jammed guns have to be reloaded, which wastes precious seconds ina fight). Soldiers usually have higher damage potential than Specialists. At level 15, Soldiers have to choose between Ranger or Commando training.

SPECIALIST: The Specialist teee leads to healing and support classes. Specialists wear Hazmat Armor, which increases damage resists, and use Leech Guns, which drain targets of their health and give it to the user. The specialist tree unlocks tools, which are Tabula Rasa's equivalent of healing abilities. Because of this Specialists have more survivability than soldiers. At level 15 Specialists have to choose between Sapper or Biotechnician training.

COMMANDOS lead further down the tanking aspect of the Soldier tree. They can use Rocket Launchers, which allow for large burst damage, but slow reload times make them a poor choice for exclusive use. RANGERS trade in Graviton Armor for Stealth Armor, which allows them to sneak by enemies unnoticed. They also use the Net Gun, which immobilizes enemies, and slowly constricts around them to deal damage.

SAPPERS are the next step in support. They use Mech armor, which boasts a high regen rate. They use the Polarity gun, which fires a constant stream of energy at the target. BIOTECHNICIANS are the first real step towards healing. Their Bio armor regenerates their health faster, and their injector guns have a tendency to bypass enemy armor altogether.

At 30 you gain access to classes like (Click to reveal)

The Sword-wielding Spy
The Engineer, which can build Robots to assist the party.
The Exobiologist who can reanimate corpses to help fight.
The Guardian, who is the closest thing to an actual tank.
The Sniper, who has the longest range attacks and highest crit rates in the game.
The Grenadier, who can use flamethrowers and other close-range, high damage weaponry.
The Medic, who specializes in damage-resisting auras and group buffs.
The Demolitionist, who can turn himself into a walking bomb.

Another High point for Tabula Rasa is that every instance has an NPC presence. Early on you'll have small towns to launch your attacks from, and later on they'll be little more than field hospitals. What this means however, is you will respawn INSIDE the instance when you are killed, and can purchase supplies inside the instance. This is a major plus in my book. The instances are very fun, from the ones I've played. At lower levels you'll be sneaking into installations to rescue prisoners or destroy sensitive equipment, while NPCs will engage the enemies as a distraction. Later on you're more often finding yourself working with less and less NPCs and doing more important missions.

As an MMO, the quests can be dull sometimes, but that's hard to avoid. Tabula Rasa has various quests that contain ethical dilemmas, and choosing a certain path can alter how the quest chain will work. An example is that after a fairly long chain to develop a cure for a local virus, you're told to distribute it to each town's Medic, but then right before you head off you receive an order for HQ to hand the vaccine over to an officer over in another area of the zone. In actuality, the officer is a double agent, and wants you to hand the cure over to the enemy because it is also affecting them. You can give them the cure, or refuse and fight them off. It was a neat little extra when I reported in back at base and the commander commented that HQ doesn't actually send orders over open channels like that. From what I can tell there's no lasting impact on which ethical choices you make.

Frankly this is getting too long so I'll just try to summarize the rest.

• Certain towns in each zone can be captured by the enemy. This forces all the friendly NPCs to evacuate and fills the town with enemies. You can team up with other players to retake the town, or take the initiative and defend the town so that never happens. You are given rewards for defeating a certain number of enemies on offense and defense (better rewards for killing enemies while recapturing a town)
• Cloning. You can clone your character, which creates another character of the same level for you to play as. This is effectively the only way to respec, as all their Stat points and Skill poiints get to be redistributed. You can also clone yourself if you are unsure which class choice to make, but don't want to re-roll your character to try both.
  
• Robot Mount. Instead of an actual Mount, you can get a mechanized robot suit to move around in. Nobody has actually achieved the level for one yet, but the art in the manual would imply that they're suits about twice your size, which will look different depending on your class. At 50, you gain access to a squad of NPCs that will follow you around and assist you. There's even less information avilable on this though.
  
• Crafting. In addition to crafting items from scratch, you can find recipes for enhancements, like increased critical chance, or letting weapons reduce resistance every time they connect. To make the enhancements stronger, you find another recipe and put it on again. You acquire crafting ingredients by finding equipment with the same enhancement, and stripping it down for parts. There's a chance the enhancement won't take, and a small chance you'll destroy the item in the process, both of which increase the more enhancements you stack on.
  
• Logos Language. The Logos language is a pictographic language of an ancient race and it's important to the game's storyline. Players are capable of understanding and interacting with the language and technology, which is the reasoning of how your abilities have magic-like effects. Every zone has several shrines devoted to a single Logos character. You are given a quest to track every one of them down, which basically translates into exp for exploring the map. You need to know certain Logos to use your abilities, but each class needs only a little over a dozen to use all their powers. There are also interesting quests revolving around translating the logos Language.
• Combat Multiplier and OverKill. In a fight, if you can keep a killing spree going, that is, keep killing enemies while remaining in combat, you'll receive a combat multiplier. Depending on how long you keep the spree, you can get a high as a 250% exp multiplier. Coupled with this is the overkill mechanic; if you can bring an enemy to low health, then deal a large amount of damage, you'll receive an overkill, which is worth double exp. This means if you plan it correctly, you can gain over 4x the experience for a kill. Combining multipliers and overkill is the most effective way to grind, otherwise quests are a better option.
  

Feel free to ask any questions.

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: Vesper on November 05, 2007, 09:00:07 pm

me&sarevok are playing this at the euro server. He's leveling way faster than me though :(​. fucking school.

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: Killface on November 05, 2007, 09:04:21 pm

I would play, but my computer would catch fire from the high requirements... Looks fun, though.

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: The_Emugator on November 05, 2007, 10:30:32 pm

I'd try this, but it would kill and bury my computer. Its nice to see another Sci Fi MMO added to pretty small list(only other ones I can name off hand are Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies)

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: NightBlade on November 06, 2007, 12:48:38 am

I played this in beta briefly, It was interesting; but I was concerned about lack of content as the game went on.

Do these complaints I've read about have any merit?

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: alphasmart on November 06, 2007, 10:13:39 am

THIS (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa) complaint certainly does!

Title: Tabula Rasa MMORPG: Kill 10 Space-Boars and bring me their tusks [Long+Images]
Post by: NightBlade on November 06, 2007, 06:31:46 pm

Quote from: alphasmart on November 06, 2007, 10:13:39 am

THIS (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa) complaint certainly does!

Why am I finding out about this website only now?