On the Subject of Tabula Rasa

Kelly Brook

So it appears that Tabula Rasa is the latest casualty in the Great WoW War, where armies of hapless developers attempt to bring down the almighty King of the MMO scene and are ultimately crushed. I did buy TR, tempted by promises of sci-fi goodness in the face of countless, interchangeable, medieval, dungeons and dragons, swords and sorcery grind fests. Of course really it was just the same as every other MMO, except with pew pew gun animations instead of swordplay, and its own take on magic that was no different to anyone else's.

Another casualty of the war is the reputation of Richard "Lord/General British" Garriott. Once-revered for the Ultima games which I never played, or at least some of them, Garriott looks set to follow Brad McQuaid into the MMO history books with his erstwhile genius reputation in tatters. It doesn't help that he recently bailed on TR, citing "new interests" following his trip into space. Of course the gaming world saw that as abandoning a sinking ship because that's obviously what it was. Even more so than when AoC's chief of staff quit his own ship. At least AoC is still running. For how much longer is anyone's guess.

It's sad in a way, though, because at least TR was an attempt at something different, without being as overwhelmingly different as Eve. It just suffered from being a dull idea and from mediocre execution. It wasn't at all fun when I played it. It wasn't a compelling world in which to spend time, there was nothing interesting to do there, the class tree system was interesting, and certainly had potential, but was just one-dimensional and tedious in practice. I like the idea that you develop your character into a specialised role over time rather than picking it up-front like in most games. There just wasn't any depth to the system, and it was basically just a long-winded way of getting to the class you pretty much knew you wanted from the start.

But at least the Collector's Edition was good. In fact, it still ranks as my favourite to date and was a very satisfying, well-presented package which I shall hold on to. And when I look at it in the future I will shake my head and sigh and lament the passing of another game which could have been special, but wasn't nearly special enough.