Tabula Rasa news
I hadn’t checked in on any Tabula Rasa news in a while and I decided to pay the website a visit and saw a couple of things of interest. The first surprised me, and I shall quote a small section of it to highlight the surprising part, but you can go to the linky to see the whole thing.
“Join us as we undertake an ambitious Roleplaying Event that will lay the groundwork for many more to come”
Why I’m surprised is because I didn’t consider Tabula Rasa to be a roleplaying game, not from the developers’ perspective in any case. It doesn’t have a roleplaying server for starters, not officially anyway. It does have an abundance of great emotes though.
The other thing doesn’t surprise me, and that’s the letter from Richard Garriott in which he informs us that he’s leaving NCsoft to pursue other interests. He hasn’t been around much since the release and flop of the game and there was talk about whether he was even still with NCsoft and contributing in any way to the game. Here’s the letter in full.
Fellow Soldiers of the AFS,
I am happy to finally be able to write the players and community of Tabula Rasa. We’ve been on quite a journey together. First in creating a game unlike any other on the MMO market, then growing a loyal community and finally launching the game and its players into space with Operation Immortality. It has been quite an unforgettable journey, one that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
I am very grateful to you loyal players for sticking around through what I think we can all honestly say was a rough launch. I thank the development team for pushing hard to get polish, updates and new content out every month since launch…a feat that I think is unusual in MMO development. They have a lot to be proud of.
Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going to space. Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests.
This news is difficult for me to deliver. I am honored to have worked with the team I’ve had and I’m grateful to the community who makes this game so unique and fun.
Thank you and farewell.
Richard “General British” Garriott
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Comments
Comment from 
caliga
Time: November 22, 2008, 5:33 am
I was in an officer in an RP guild on Cassiopiea during the first month of launch and sadly that guild folded after the 30 days included play. I moved to another RP guild and had a great time during the second month, before giving the game away. When I tried it again a few months later, that guild was also gone and I couldn’t find any RP no matter how hard I tried.
I hadn’t heard the news that TR was shutting down, and it makes me sad because there was a lot I liked about the game, and always intended to go back for another look. I won’t bother with the free-2-play, it sounds like more heartache. I really wish that game had succeeded. I know what I thought was wrong with it, and have posted on this blog about it.
Comment from Kyrana
Time: November 23, 2008, 12:01 am
I only played it for a very brief time, and the feeling that I got was one of unfulfilled potential. I’d never dabbled in a sci-fi based game, and I was very keen to try it out. However, I didn’t see much rp, the style of the game seemed a bit…off…to me, and I wound up not bothering to subscribe to it. It’s a shame, because it seemed like such a neat concept for a game. I’d still be interested in playing a sci-fi game if one came out that looked appealing. Ah well, I”m sure someone will do a study on the effects of a “doomsday” scenario on the economy, etc., as has been done before in other MMO’s. 
Comment from websites to play free slot machine online
Time: April 24, 2009, 1:38 am
I am very grateful to you loyal players for sticking around through what I think we can all honestly say was a rough launch. I thank the development team for pushing hard to get polish, updates and new content out every month since launch…a feat that I think is unusual in MMO development.There was a huge RP event that took place the December after launch that was planned by players from TRRP and had full dev support and presence both in game and on the web. I personally had many forum PM conversation with their lead writer about lore and background.I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article.
Comment from
caliga
Time: April 24, 2009, 6:22 am
The launch itself wasn’t rough so much as the lack of fun things to do and no reason to group up with anyone to do any thing. Developers look at World of Warcraft and see that you can solo to the level cap and try to emulate that, but WoW is a bit of a freak and evidence of how much a well funded marketing program can achieve. MMOG’s are exactly that; Massively Multiplayer. When you start talking about soloing to cap and end-game content you’re missing a huge area of the game; all the rest. That’s what I found lacking, little reason to group.
Comment from Ainilome
Time: November 22, 2008, 5:08 am
Actaully, TR was quite a roleplaying game at the start. I was in beta and created tabularasaroleplayers.com which had 700+ members within it’s first few months. The developers were absolutely amazing with RP support. One of them even came to our site to RP one of the key NPCs (Sarah … forget her last name. The poster girl) and showed up at several tavern nights as her. There was a huge RP event that took place the December after launch that was planned by players from TRRP and had full dev support and presence both in game and on the web. I personally had many forum PM conversation with their lead writer about lore and background and like to think that my petition for /sit was a factor in finally see that emote added
They helped us organize Friday Night Fights that took place during beta and shortly after, one even ended with the winner getting to fight General British. They were really, really stellar about it for a while.
The unnoficial RP server was rife with it during beta and shortly after launch, you couldn’t go to a capture point without running into people RPing openly. It was probably my second best RP experience in a game, very close to what I saw in my EQ2 days and it beat the pants of EQ2 in the open RP department. Sadly, the game itself wasn’t so great and couldn’t keep me after a few key friends quit. (Oddly, Khadath. The same one that drew me to Arha Khaladh and then disappeared. He has a habit of that.)
I’m not sure if you’ve caught it but, the game goes free to play in January for a few months before they close down the servers on Feburary 28th. I’m still kind of reeling. I’ve never had a game I played shut down. It’s odd, I always like to imagine my characters continueing to live on even after I quit. That whole world, my character I spent so much time one. Though it can’t contend with the feelings of those still playing it.
http://www.rgtr.com/news/latest_news/message_from_the_tabula_rasa_t.html