Tagged News: tabula rasa

This week's Feedback Friday has been posted and there's some suprising news from lead designer Paul Sage:

This Feedback Friday includes some bittersweet news for me. I have decided to pursue another very exciting opportunity within NCsoft, which means I will be handing the Lead Design reigns over to Tom Potter. I joined NCsoft in 2001 as a designer on a completely different game named Tabula Rasa. After seven years, and several iterations of TR, I do feel the need to stretch out a bit. It was an exciting time in my life, and I have definitely had many great experiences working with the Tabula Rasa team. I must also say that I have truly enjoyed the great people of the Tabula Rasa community. I have found them to be considerate and intelligent with their feedback. Thank you for taking the time out of your life to enjoy TR. Though my feelings are mixed about leaving, I feel the game really is going the right way now, and that this is a good time for me to pursue something new. Obviously I cannot discuss anything too early on what I am moving on to, but if things go well, I hope to do so one day in the not-too-distant future.

And speaking of the future, this is where I would like to introduce Tom. Tom has been a great addition to the team since he was hired in 2007. He came to NCsoft from Iron Lore, where he was the Lead Content Designer on Titan's Quest. Again, I would like to thank the community for their loyalty and involvement in the game, and I know you are in very good hands with Tom as Lead Designer. But, I don't want to speak for Tom, so I will let Tom speak.

-Paul Sage

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The latest installment of the Weekend Wrap Report is now available. Lots of news is covered including competitions, Friday Night Fights and other announcements. Here's a teaser:

Atrus Manus Hosted Event!

Hey everybody! This is Basketsin (if you don't know who I am you probably don't play on Pegasus Server). Anyway let's cut to the nitty gritty. I'm hosting a level 50 event in the Marshes Arena, you know the one where you had to beat up the Marshes guys? Critters is going to grace us with her presence and allow us to have a great time.

The Breakdown: Okay, this is basically what is going to happen. We are going to have teams of 3 fight spawned mobs and we're going to time them. After several rounds we'll take the average time and whoever has the fastest time is the Winner!

The Rules: Your team must consist of 3 unique classes. This will prevent 3 spy or 3 engineer teams from dominating, and promote better team dynamics. If one of you members dies you will have 30 seconds added to your time, and each member that dies after that will add another 15 seconds to your time. Turrets will not be allowed to be set up before the match begins.

The Prizes: All participants will receive white dye, and the winners will receive a Beret, 1000 assault tokens, and 1000 defense tokens, and if that wasn't enough there might be even more prizes!

The When & Where: Saturday, May 3rd 6:00 PM EST Pegasus server in Marshes Arena.

The Sign Up: Either post in the on the event thread as a group of 3 or post here lfg, and we'll take down your names. Everyone should get ready as this will be a great event! Sign ups are due Friday, May 2nd 6:00 PM EST

Check out the rest at the link above.

TR devs announced that the v1.7 patch is now live on Tabula Rasa servers. The have included a list of what they think the most interesting changes in this version are:

• Respawns: Palisades, Incline, and Plains have had their spawns significantly adjusted to better balance spawn across the full map. Divide and Wilderness have had spot adjustments to remove a few excessively tough areas.
• Aggro adjustments: Bane and other aggressive mobs on Wilderness, Divide, Plains, Mires, Plateau, and Marshes have adjustments to their aggro groups. You will no longer be able to shoot a Bane in the back and expect that his buddies won't notice. Also, higher level mobs will react smarter and more violently than their lower level counterparts.
• Pets will now receive a damage bonus from the number of points their master places in their Mind attribute.
• Enemies will now have a chance to drop rare Healing Disks and Repair Tools.
• Radial and Conical Heal and Repair tools have been combined and replaced with 'Area' heal tools.
• Spies' and rangers' abilities have undergone a few changes. The Ranger can utilize "Tactical evasion" to get themselves into and out of a fight while suffering minimal damage, while spies can use "Polarity field" to exploit holes in the target's armour allowing specific damage types access to its most vulnerable areas.
• Target Lock: the reticule has been updated to more clearly show that you have locked onto a target. Also, locked targets will now appear with a slight glow, and will appear as a lock symbol in your radar map.

Check out the 1.7 Patch Notes to see all the changes.

The week's Feedback Friday is posted today at the official site. Much news is posted about 'clan owned control points

It's been a while since we've last given an update on the progress of clan owned control points. I know a number of players have been hoping to hear more about the design and progress of this. With the 1.8 build you'll notice the addition of a new pane on your character doll called Prestige. It's the first part of a system that will be the basis for how clan owned control points will function.

Check out the rest by clicking below.

The Weekend Wrap Report for April 21, 2008 is now available. Included in this 'issue' is a list of 6-month veteran awards:

Veteran Rewards

The AFS would like to thank you for standing strong and sticking with us as we continue to battle the Bane forces. Because of your valiant efforts, we'd like to honor you with a veteran reward.

6 Month Reward

• General British Mask
• Green Beret
• Brass Knuckles
• /YMCA emote
• /Ballet emote
• /Breakdance emote

Hop on through to read the rest.

Eurogamer has posted a re-review of Tabula Rasa. Now that TR has been out for awhile and been through several patches, editors assigned the game 7/10. There is, they say, much to like...and dislike:

This being a re-review, we're called upon to provide a score - a tricky proposition, since we really like Tabula Rasa as a game, but now find it extremely hard to recommend that anyone actually pick it up and play it. The improvements since launch certainly bump up the game somewhat, but the drop in player population is a massive negative. In the end, we're scoring this as we now perceive its quality. But we can't honestly suggest that you play Tabula Rasa at this point, except as a curiosity.

What's your assessment? Let us know on the forums.

The most current edition of Feedback Friday is available. Focusing on questions about the TR backstory, readers will find a host of answers.

In this Feedback Friday we discuss some commonly asked questions about the Tabula Rasa backstory. Stay tuned to next week's Feedback Friday where we will will reveal more information about the 1.8 build.

We've seen the battle lines on the surface of two small planets. But, where are those planets in correlation to one another?

o Arieki and its sister planet Erdas (the Brann homeworld, which has completely fallen to the Bane) orbit HD 162020, a type K2V (Main Sequence) dwarf orange star located approximately 102 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. Foreas is much closer to Earth, orbiting Epsilon Indi, a main sequence star approximately 12 light years away, in the constellation Indus.

How are the battle lines drawn out on a galactic level?

o The AFS Forces as we know them were transported to Areiki and Foreas. It is possible that some humans were transported to other star systems via different wormhole connections, but the AFS currently has no way to communicate with them. There are almost certainly other non-human races fighting the Bane as well. To date, the full scope of the war, and the true size of the Bane forces on a galactic scale, is unknown.

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John Erskine, Director of Studio Services for NCsoft North America, takes a look at the overlooked and oft abused support personnel at NC Soft. Using Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa as his example, he walks readers through the world of tech support:

One of the most overlooked and underestimated tasks of launching a successful online game is the support aspect of the live service. After launch, MMOs are as much a "service" as a "game," yet many do not often consider the service aspect until shortly before launch. Here at NCsoft, we have a long history of providing excellent service for our products. Since we are a multi-product publisher of online games, we've learned a few tricks that help us successfully support the games that we publish. We house our entire support process in a department we call "Studio Services," which includes Quality Assurance, Customer Service, Game Support, and Localization. Each of these teams plays a critical role in the live support and operation of our games.

Click below to read the rest.

Tabula Rasa's Weekend Wrap Report is now available. The Weekend Wrap Report features news from the previous couple of days.

New Fan Art and Video

We wanted to take some time out a recognize two recently shared fan-created pieces.

The first fan art entry is from player Eva Evok from Pegasus. Eva shares her striking rendition of Sarah Morrison on a logos background.

Next, player Kaczmanchoy depicts some in-game footage in his video - Tabula Rasa - Now/Here.

Have any fan art, fan fiction, or fan videos you'd like to share? We'd love to see them. Just mail us your entry at trsubmissions@ncsoft.com.

There is also some fansite news to head on over.

Focusing on the squad system and clan controlled points, this week's Feedback Friday starts off with on a bit of a dour note:

Spring is in the air, the treemites are coming out to play and it feels like update time again. As stated in Starr's update, the team has gotten smaller. With a smaller post production group, you have to concentrate on the things that will make the product better and prioritize features that will make the game enjoyable for the players. So the team got together, and talked about what that would make the project better in the short term based on their thoughts of the game and player feedback. We came away with two big features that we felt would really make a large amount of difference.

The article goes on in a much more positive vein so click below to read the rest.