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So, Tabula Rasa’s high hopes for future development, whether or not they had already done so in private, come to a screeching halt publicly. The future cancellation is announced shortly after Richard Garriott’s resignation from game development; in four months Tabula Rasa will be just another source of bitterness and distrust for those who gave a damn. Development continues at a somewhat frantic pace over the few remaining months, and certain arrangements are made for what proposes to be a memorable death knell for the game. The actuality of that event when it comes to pass on February 28, 2009 is an indescribable travesty that not only poisons expectations but fundamentally demonstrates the resounding ineptitude of the persons responsible for allowing the game to reach the state of decrepitude it had. The blow-out, as it were, was in essence a blow-off — the final insult — unplayable due to a host of technical issues and someone’s sadistically skewed sense of what constitutes exciting gameplay therefore, perhaps, an appropriate funeral for a game that was simply the proverbial red-headed stepchild of its publisher, and visibly abhorred by its lackadaisical creative and technical staff.

I’m unable to comprehend the rationale in investing massive amounts of resources, in both man-hours and capital, over years, to create a product that was unappreciated from the start by its own creators. Minimal effort was made to publicize Tabula Rasa’s release, and almost no publisher-side effort was made to further market it after its release. In retrospect, I would have say the community did its fair part in promoting the game with fansites, community and role-playing events, not many of which were directly or enthusiastically encouraged by the game’s maintainers. I’m aware that Tabula Rasa did not meet some kind of grandiose sales projections but these were clearly in no way associated with its marketing/promotional budget and certainly not the responsibility of the gamers with whom they were not interested in building loyalty. All this amounts to a game of which I will have both fond and frustrating memories but which I feel good about in the end, as a result of having experienced from beginning to end what so very few did: a unique, innovative, engaging gaming experience that up until the very last moment had me almost delusionally entranced with what it had to offer. Tabula Rasa may very well have been profoundly neglected by Richard Garriott, Destinations Games, and NC Soft, but community-driven games of this sort yield an experience at least equal to what the players invest in them. I invested a lot and received much in return, some of which cannot be simply ‘tabulated’, so to speak. Intangible benefits and all that nonsense…

But it has to all mean something, right? Well, the principal behind relating all this is that it has been building for a long time and that Tabula Rasa is actually just one of a multitude of senseless victims in a race for burst profits that has turned content creation into little more than a series of fevered get-rich-quick schemes for the truly talentless and unimaginative. It’s not my intention to deceive anyone with some self-righteous belief that I have the resolutions to these issues, and at the heart of this is really an impotent rage-filled rant furiously trying to claw its way out, insomuch that I felt compelled to blog about it. I’m not a reviewer nor critic of anything (at least not professionally) but the time and money I spend on things entitles me to an opinion about them, and maybe even validates it to an extent, especially when coupled with my acute perceptions (Booyaka!). There’s more to it than just this game and I’ll expound upon that soon in a (hopefully briefer) follow-up. Stay riveted.

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Tags: EPIC FAIL, FAIL, MMORPG, NC SOFT, OVERVIEW EFFECT, POSTMORTEM, RANT, RICHARD GARRIOTT, SPACE, TABULA RASA, TL;DNR, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 4:41 AM and is filed under Entertainment, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.