MMO Gaming

I’ve been playing the Tabula Rasa beta for some time. Longer than some who have given their impressions, but not quite as long as others. Tobold and Darren, I think, have the most balanced views of the game from the ones I’ve read. Now it’s my turn to try and top them.

I’ll try and work this review from the beginning to the end of the game experience. That is, from when you first load up the game and create a character all the way through the content of the game as you progress in levels. So then, on with it.

The new opening cinematic for the game that was just released a few weeks ago is probably the first thing you will see when you load up the game (aside from the PlayNC Launcher, which, by the way, I think is one of the better designed multi-game launchers around.) I like that cinematic, it is probably one of the best I have seen for a game in recent times. It easily rivals the always great intro movies that Blizzard has, which is great for them. After watching that you’ll get to the login screen and put in your account information. Then you’ll be able to create a character. Here’s the first great thing about this game, when you create a character you are stuck with one last name for all of them. Some of you may consider this a bad thing, I think it is great. Accountability for asshattery is one of the best mechanics in this game. Now I don’t just have to ignore one character on a person’s account I can just ignore their idiocy entirely.

On the whole character creation is standard fair, clocking in somewhere above World of Warcraft’s low customizability and slightly below Everquest 2’s customizability. There is a height slider so you can make your character taller or shorter (though the default actually seems to be a pretty nice height, and rarely needs adjusting unless you are trying to make your character look a bit abnormal.) Then there are some standard options; you can mess with hair, face, and some clothing options that you can mix and match and color any way you want. It is certainly not a ton of different options but there is more than enough for a gear-based game which will have you changing armor often so you probably won’t end up looking like every other character. The fact that you can color your own armor also helps this but I’ll get a bit more on that later.

So you’ve created a character, he (or she) automatically starts as a Recruit, you’ll get to choose a class later several times to specialize more but at the start you are just another grunt like everyone else. This is also a good thing. Now you’ve decided to go ahead and log in to the world and you’ll be met with a loading screen. I do enjoy the loading screens in this game. It seems an odd thing to say but they give a little bit of insight into the world and really give it a more “real” feeling if you take the time to read them. It’s a good way to introduce players to some of the lore of your world, especially since this is an original IP and doesn’t have the benefit of having a firmly established history of what has actually been happening.

We’ll assume at this point you are fully loaded into the world, this is the first real taste of the game’s graphics (aside from the character models which you’ve just seen) and, at least with my computer, the game looks good (I can play on custom settings fully maxed out with all the various shadow settings applied without any hitching problems and keeping a steady frame rate of 40-60 fps.) This first area is more of an introduction than anything else. You’ll probably spend fifteen minutes or less in the Boot Camp and then be on your way, but I’ll give a brief overview of what to expect, and I’ll also try not to spoil anything to much. The first thing to do is talk to the guy directly in front of you, the one with the yellow/gold walkie-talkie icon above his head. That means he has a mission for you. His missions are basically just to get you acquainted with the controls of the game and it works. Not original, maybe, but a necessary evil, especially when trying to introduce players to a new style of controlling characters compared to most other games on the market (at least MMOs anyway.)

Let’s take a quick break at this point and talk about the controls. First, there are two options for control set-ups, FPS style and MMO style. Neither one is significantly easier or harder to play as but I think the MMO style (and no, that doesn’t mean it is anything like the typical MMO really) is the better of the two. You can also customize which buttons do what, but the control scheme that you choose actually affects how certain things react to button presses so you’ll want to spend a bit of time with both to see which you are more comfortable with. The radial menu that can be accessed switches you into mouse pointer mode and works really well in this game. It certainly wouldn’t work in every game, but the style of this one lends itself well to this radial menu. I bring this up talking about controls only to mention that there isn’t a lot of “stuff” on your UI to click on like in EQ2 or WoW, so bringing up this radial menu is necessary (unless you use the assigned hotkeys) to get to areas like your friends list, clan, character sheet, etc.

Back to Boot Camp though. After doing the first quest you’ll head down, use your knowledge so far to get around an obstacle and head on to your first enemy encounter. These beginning enemies aren’t brilliant, but that’s to be expected. You don’t want to kill people in the first few minutes of gameplay if you can help it. After mowing down that wave of enemies you’ll head through the encampment up to where the Bane have control of a base and you’ll take that over. The entire feel of the combat is a lot of fun, the running and gunning, the ducking behind cover, it really does feel like you need to keep your eye on things to avoid death. I compare this to WoW, and most other games really, where you can leave your computer in the middle of a battle if you choose. There isn’t anything like that in TR and it’s great. If you stand in the middle of an enemy controlled area they will slaughter you and probably stomp on your body afterward.

You’ll learn a bit about capping control points here and then watch as your AFS buddies run in and set up shop. Then you’ll move on to your first encounter with obtaining a Logos. I won’t spoil that for you but it’s a lot of fun after you have the power to start using Logos abilities. Not long after that you’ll ship out of Boot Camp and be dropped into the Foreas Wilderness.

Now, I went into quite a bit of detail there with what to expect from the Boot Camp for a reason. It really is a lot of fun. It is an excellent introduction to the game and makes you want to play it more.

Unfortunately the rest of the game is worrisome. Where is this going? What am I going to be doing when I reach max level? What’s the point of poor mechanics like “Cloning Points” and a huge lack of vital skill points to make a fun and interesting character to play? Why does crafting use my skill points, forcing me to create a crafting alt in order to make use of that mechanic?

All of those questions, and many more I have no answer to and have not seen a satisfactory answer from the developers. At max level I want there to be high-end content to do. Though I am not a huge fan of massive raiding I do enjoy raiding with realistically sized groups (to me, 24 is the most people I would ever want in a raid of any kind, regardless of game.) If there is no “end-game” for players to participate in than I have no reason to play the game past the first month or maybe two. If the only end-game that there is going to be is PvP that’s fine, but if that is the case why is the only PvP currently in the game a weak clan vs clan battle system? I’ve heard there are plans for various other facets to expand the PvP, such as a “battleground” like mechanic among others but nothing seems to be set in stone yet, nor will any of this be in upon release.

From my perspective it looks like horrible communication from the developers to the player base. These types of questions have not been answered, apparently because there is no answer. This to me means the game isn’t ready for a release date. What it tells me is that they are going to answer these questions post-release based on their customers. Anyone else see the glaring problem with that? All I see is that they are going to be finding a target demographic after release. That’s now how things work. They should know their target audience and design with them in mind, right now it’s “put in enough content to establish an audience so we can see what they want.” I’m not sure I can live with that.

Technically speaking this game has every element there. The gameplay is solid, the graphics are high quality, the sound and music are great and really fit in with the world. Every element for massive success is there but there is no real cohesion to them. The cohesion is faith in the developers. Right now the only philosophy I see them using is “we can add it later” and that is not where it should be.

Every piece of me wants to say that this is going to be the next big game but I can’t say that with any real conviction at this point. Like so many I am clinging on to that shred of hope that in the next few weeks, especially with the NDA being dropped and their still being more time to patch before live, that they will start answering these questions, reassuring their playerbase that they do know where they are going with this thing but if that doesn’t start until after release it will be to little to late.

All that having been said I am still going to buy this game and will support it for a time with a subscription, but I won’t be going for the six month at a time option, or even the three month at a time option. I will pay month to month so I can cancel at any time and not lose out.

So, what is my final score on the game at this point? I have to give two different scores to make things clear. First my score for what the game is at this point is a 93%. That’s pretty damn good. My score for the possibility of retaining my subscription past the first paid month? 50%. And that’s because I so badly want their to be a reason.

In all honesty this game has the ability to be great, it just doesn’t look like it has the drive.