November 2, 2007Launch Day for Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa
Today's launch day for Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa® and there's a ton of press coverage to tell you about:
- Wired's "Tabula Rasa Reinvents the MMO to Court Casual Gamers": While many MMOs require players to learn complex sets of statistics and rules to understand the on-screen combat, Tabula Rasa takes a more commonsense approach to fighting. For example, if you were unlucky enough to encounter an alien foot soldier armed with an enormous laser pistol in real life, your first instinct would likely be to find some kind of cover. That's exactly what you should do in Tabula Rasa. Crouching behind cover improves your defense; shooting from high ground improves your offense. The actual combat is similarly intuitive — just point at the bad guys and shoot.
- New York Times' "An Online-Gaming Pioneer Is Back, and This Time He’s Banking on Sci-Fi": “I’ve been doing medieval fantasy for 25 years in a row, and it was just time to do something new,” Mr. Garriott, in his customary uniform of denim shirt, jeans, white tube socks and sneakers, said here at the offices of NCsoft, the South Korean company publishing the game. “The first element we wanted to focus on was fast-paced tactical combat. No. 2 was creating a dynamic battlefield where the player feels there is action going on around them all the time. And third was creating a story line that includes ethical parables and problems.”
- IGN's "Tabula Rasa: The Women Behind Sarah Morrison": The release of a video game usually leads to some serious vacation time for the development team. But not so for makers of MMOs. While the makers of shooter and strategy games can look forward to some serious post-release downtime, the MMO development team actually gets busier once the game is released. That's particularly true for some members of the Tabula Rasa team who have agreed to play as one of the game's more significant characters, Sarah Morrison, Sergeant First Class in Allied Free Sentients.
- Kotaku's "Tabula Rasa Is Live": NCsoft was kind enough to send me a retail copy of the game yesterday, and I have to say I am really enjoying reading the game manual in the bathroom.
- Ten Ton Hammer's "Tabula Rasa First Impressions Review": For MMO gamers, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t pick up Tabula Rasa. The game runs extremely well, has a brand new combat system and takes place in a world that isn’t strung together with fairies and fur. Instead you get a place full of unfortunate situations and unending combat.
- "Lord British Visits Gamestop" in the Austin-American Statesman: Lord British, er, Richard Garriott will be at the Gamestop in the Arboretum on Friday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. signing copies of “Tabula Rasa,” his new massively multiplayer online game released in stores this week by South Korean-based NCsoft Corp.
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