Hello again folks,

I took this screen shot of Tabula Rasa a few days ago but I’ve been hanging out with a pal of mine, so I haven’t had the time to post it. The holiday santa hat was obtained by “using” the tree as one would any other world objects.

The Santa Clause hat has no stats on it, but it does make for a fun holiday decoration. Enjoy the view!

Note that this screen shot is VERY big and it may take a moment or ten for slower connections to download.

Technorati Tags: Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriot, mmorpg, mmofps, christmas, xmas, holiday, decorations, Christmas tree

Today’s Tabula Rasa play session was more enjoyable than the previous. My character has moved onto the next map where there are higher level characters and folks seem to be a bit more behaved. General chat was also significantly cleaner today, but I suspect that’s because today is Monday and most of the emos couldn’t get online.

The game play hasn’t really changed, but it’s become more difficult and, at times, a bit more intense. I had another moment of “wha..? cool!” today as friendly NPCs were drop-shipped into the area that I was running through. I have no idea why they came into the area. I’m sure that it’s a regular occurrence – just another scripted spawn – but it was a nice surprise.

At the time I was running through the area in an attempt to get a crate of bane goodies, but I was having a heck of a time reaching the crate. There was a small army of various bane critters in the area and running through it created a small light show as energy weapons hit me and my character’s reflective armor bounced some of it back. The view was messy, and there was really no way to get through in one piece.

So when a small army of friendlies arrived via drop ships (which teleport the NPCs down in a way significantly similar to Wraith ships in Stargate: Atlantis) and began taking on the small army of bane… well, it was a good moment. I spent several minutes taking out bane along side the NPCs. Those NPCs were not your usual weaklings either. Some of them were Rangers with net guns, which will be my character’s next weapon set.

My chara has a touch more than two levels to go before hitting level 15 for the third tier. Then it’ll be cloak armor goodness and net gun funsies for all.

Sadly, tomorrow will be spent making a few drawings for class and I don’t know if I’ll have time to work on progressing the character.

A random screenshot from today, shrunk from its original size.

I really like the style of this NPC’s clothing, especially because we players can’t have straight white or black colored armor. bah!

Yes, I should have removed the UI. Whatever. Deal with it. :-p

Later all.

Technorati Tags: mmorpg, tabula rasa, richard gariot, richard garriot, tr, rgtr, mmo, mmofps

The gist: The community is awful, but if they would drop the emo nonsense then the game would be a much more enjoyable experience.

The long version:

Tabula Rasa, on its own, is not a spectacular game, but it’s also not bad. It’s one of those titles that you can pick up for a half hour to an hour and actually do something, even if that “something” is nothing more than putting down some of the bane.

Logging in to take down some mobs is not quite as boring as it sounds thanks to the Control Points, which are potentially temporary bases that are scattered around the map. This morning was a good example of what these CPs can do for the game.

I quit the game last night with my character parked in what has to be the most heavily contested Control Point on the map: A place called The Landing Zone. This was a fairly silly thing to do and just goes to show how new I am to the game.

1. I logged in
2. I noticed that the server population was “Low” this morning and I thought of how much more difficult it was going to be to get a group
3. Once my character was in the game world I heard weapons fire and thought, “good, I have something to do right away”
4. I see the NPCs running back into the base and think that the fight is over…
5. …only to see a bane running through the base. A quick glance to the side revealed that the normal blue force field was now red.

This all happened (and was over) pretty quickly. I unholster the chain gun and begin emptying it into the closest bane, but it just wasn’t going to do any good. At least three drop shops came down inside of the base as teams of bane spawned inside, and my little, lone level 11 character couldn’t do anything against the attack force.

One person, one chain gun, and an assault force of bane may be fun, but it’s only fun for about 20 seconds before you’re respawning.

There was a brief moment when I saw some other unlucky player run out and be put down just as quickly. It was a cool but sad animation as his character fell, raised his arm as though he were pleading or trying to block some of the attack, and was promptly covered in a hail of energy and weapons fire. My own character must have been in an equally sad state.

This leads back to the community though, and sadly there’s just nothing good for me to say. I turned on general chat to report that the control point had fallen and I was immediately reminded of why I turned it off in the first place. I honestly can not think of another game in which there are so many people complaining, whining, and/or hurling as many childish insults as is seen in Tabula Rasa’s global general chat. It’s pathetic.

Imagine the Barrens chat from World of Worldcraft and replace every comment with someone complaining about the game, or how another class is so much more powerful, or cursing someone for beating them in a duel. There are no Chuck Norris jokes, there are only self-defeated emos.

I turned the general chat back off pretty quickly, but apparently someone picked up my message because a force of players did show up at the control point. My character died about three times as I tried to pitch in whatever assistance I could in retaking the landing zone, though I admit that at level 11 I may not have been terribly helpful.

General chat aside, it certainly gave me something to do immediately upon logging in this morning.

Even when the control point is not taken by the bane it is still frequently attacked, and defeating an attacker nets you a sort of “defense insignia”. Get enough of those and you can turn them in for some experience and perhaps an item reward.. can’t say that I paid too much attention to the rewards of it, I just picked it up and quickly went back to putting down the ugglies outside of the base.

Grouping in the game requires dealing with the above described emo community and it’s about as enjoyable as it sounds. You’re flat out ignored in local /say, nobody wants to group, and everyone attacks the same mob and hopes to out damage it to get credit.. it’s a real mess.

The only reason that people group in Tabula Rasa is to accomplish a very specific goal. The concept of grouping to adventure together simply does not exist; not that I’ve seen thus far. Once the goal (or goals) is accomplished then the group immediately breaks apart and everyone goes their own way.

That’s disappointing, because I don’t doubt that TR could be a fairly enjoyable game if people would just start treating each other like people. The game itself isn’t bad at all. The worse part about Tabula Rasa, thus far, are the people who populate it.

Edit: Here’s a screen shot from some extra play time today. The bane nearly recaptured the same point, getting so far (not shown in the ss) of taking down the blue forcefield. That was one of the few times of genuine fun, “woohoo more!” moments that I’ve had in TR up to this point.

Note that anti-aliasing is not enabled in the game. It’s not needed at that resolution, but it becomes obvious in a screen shot.

Technorati Tags: Richard Garriot, Tabula Rasa, TR, MMO, MMORPG, MMOFPS

Over at Joystiq.com you can read over Square Enix’s list of remakes set to launch. The one fact that stands out to me above all others is that this company is re-re-remaking the same games that they have remade in the past. I grew up with, and still love, the Final Fantasy titles on the NES & SNES, but you reach a point where you just sort of groan, or at least I do.

Conversely, Square Enix’s new Final Fantasy titles leave much to be desired. . . or not, depending on your definition of “desire”. Each new Final Fantasy title seems to show more skin (or sexier clothing) on ever ditsier female characters with each new release.

In any case, the amazing stories of the Final Fantasy games have slowly (but noticeably) been losing ground to what are almost certainly the final fantasies of the dirty’ol men who now run Square Enix. It seems like they think that their fans who have supported them all these years will continue to be happy with an endless regurgitation of their original titles.

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A few days ago I decided to buy my lvl 10 Shadow Knight some armor. It’s nothing particularly fancy, but the class is supposed to soak damage and he could barely fight a mob his own level. Now I remember why I stopped playing the class to begin with…

So anyway, I was a bit dismayed to find that the gauntlets are pink. Unfortunately, unlike World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2 does not have the option of previewing the clothing or armor. So you have no idea what it’s going to look like until you put it onto your character: Read the rest of this entry »

My EverQuest 2 character is finally able to use the mist form that I picked up awhile ago, so I snapped a few quick screen shots. Go figure that I didn’t think to grab one with the demon looking skelly, but I’ll see about getting one of those later.

New Robe + Rogue Scout

This shot shows off the new robe, something called Caliginous Folds. I had to hit a dictionary and I found that “caliginous” means “Dark, misty, and gloomy.” [link] Knowing that, I can’t help but wonder if it was opposite day when they named this item. The so-called “Caliginous Folds” is so bright and pretty… and pink… that it’s uncomfortable to have on my male character.

At any rate, that dark blob is the scout pet.

 

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

This title is the first that came to mind as I was naming these images. It seemed fitting for this shot, which is taken from the pet conjuring animation.

The arms move in circles with the tracers while the cloud animates at the feet. It’s not too bad.

 
More images follow.

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This is what happens when you try to game on Windows Vista when you have an NVidia card. My system has the latest drivers installed as of this post’s date.

What a headache… my next card is going to be an ATi, I don’t care if they fix this issue before I buy another card. I’m fed up with it. >.<

My DxDiag.txt for those who are interested.

EDIT: A little more info. What happens is the game freezes up, the screen goes all black and the system remains in this state for a minute or two. Sometimes the game will completely crash, other times it will resume. Either way it’s a huge pain in the arse.

~Steph

Technorati Tags: Gaming, Windows, Vista, NVidia, dxdiag

The most recent free update to EQ2 added the dark elf city of Neriak to the game. In addition to the city they’ve added a not-so-new race, the evil faye. This just means that a player can now start a faye character and make them evil from the get go, and they also have the benefit of starting in the Neriak area.

All of this means that I had to resub for a month to see the new sights… of course!

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Yes, I am going to play jumping jacks out on a limb and say that a MMO bubble is in the works. Also, I’m going to blame it on World of Warcraft. Er… sort of. Well, perhaps not really..

The situation that we see in the MMO genre is one of every development studio attempting to copy WoW. They do this by copying WoW’s style of game play, and they succeed by lesser or greater amounts. Depending on the individual game, of course.

So you have all of these games trying desperately to be World of Warcraft, yet of course those who are playing WoW will continue to do so. After all, why are they going to leave WoW when those other games offer game play so similar to what they already receive? With their accomplished characters, on game servers with friends that they have known for quite some time…

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MMORPG.com is saying that Age of Conan is now in Open Beta, yet the beta process claims that adventurers must be selected from the pool. Hmm, this does not sound like an “open beta” to me, but none the less, such is how it’s being worded.

This is what I said on my beta application form. You know what? I meant every word of it:

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