Tag Archives: tabula rasa

In 2008, Ultima creator Richard “Lord British” Garriott was on top of the world. Literally. He had a cushy seat atop one of the world’s largest MMO developers, and he – you know – went to outer space. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.

Until today.

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It’s the stuff of news dreams. Not only is Richard Garriott suing NCsoft for $24 million, but he’s also claiming he was fired while still in “quarantine from his space flight,” according to this GamePolitics report.

From Garriott’s complaint, filed with a US court yesterday:

In… November 2008, Chris Chung, President of NCSoft’s North American operations, informed Mr. Garriott that NCSoft has decided to “part company.” Although Mr. Garriott objected to his dismissal, Mr. Chung insisted that the decision was final – Mr. Garriott had to go.

As Mr. Garriott prepared to leave NCSoft, however, Mr. Garriott learned that NCsoft had internally re-characterized his termination by Mr. Chung as a “voluntary” resignation from the company. This mischaracterization had profound and detrimental effects on Mr. Garriott’s stock options: if NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott’s employment (which it did) then the options – worth tens of millions of dollars – would remain in effect until 2011; but if Mr. Garriott resigned voluntarily (which he did not), then NCsoft might have terminated those options… within ninety days of his departure…

NCsoft forced Mr. Garriott into a Hobson’s choice of exercising his options… and forced him to sell into one of the worst equity markets in modern history…

More through there. Lesson learned: don’t play cosmonauts if you want to keep your job.

Tabula Rasa is officially dead. We checked, and now, so can you.

After the break, you’ll find a video of the explosively decompressed MMO’s last hurrah. It has lasers, explosions, and some guy break-dancing – everything you could want from one of these things, really.

Oh, it’s also set to Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” which we assume is the sole reason humanity’s ragtag bouncer squad was able to boot the aliens back to their crummy planet.

Watch it. This is literally the last you’ll ever hear of this game. Probably.

Thanks, WarCry Network.

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Tabula Rasa will be going offline forever come tomorrow, and NCsoft plans for the MMO to go out with a bang.

Word has it that alien race the Neph has discovered wormhole technology and are invading with “wave after wave of Bane troops without rest or respite.”

If you’ve got an account, log on. Make Tabula Rasa’s last gasp a memorable one.

Thanks, Shack.

NCsoft’s reported Q4 financials, showing a 22 percent loss despite an 11 percent sales rise.

The news comes nipping at the heels of lay-offs and restructuring reports on Wednesday.

Fans wanting Guild Wars 2 will suffer because of this, with the game has been pushed into 2010/2011 to focus more on the release of MMO Aion this year.

Having proved so successful in Korea, the company plans on releasing Aion in Japan in the third quarter. The US and Europe will get the game in Q4.

More over on Massively.

NCsoft’s Tabula Rasa team has finally added the long-awaited mech suits to its flailing MMO, just in time for the game to shut down.

The time-limited mechs go live when the patch downloads. They come in five models, which are built around various character classes.

Tabula Rasa’s servers will be shut down in two weeks, but it is free to play from now until then, should you decide to give it a try.

Shacknews is reporting that soon-to-shut NCSoft MMO, Tabula Rasa, will now be free to play until it’s demise in February.

Former players can reactivate their accounts over at PlayNC.

Newbies would have to first create an account at PlayNC and then get a serial from the support page.

Interested? Download it here.

By Mike Bowden

Not a massive shock, but sad nonetheless: NCsoft’s confirmed that sci-fi MMO Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa will stop for good on February 28, 2009.

Here’s the statement in full, taken from the official site:

To the Tabula Rasa Community,

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we’ve achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn’t performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.

Before we end the service, we’ll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.

We can assure you that through the next couple of months we’ll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while. For more details about what we are doing for Tabula Rasa players, please click here.

Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we’re offering Tabula Rasa players.

The Tabula Rasa Team

MMO soon to be no longer and everyone that worked on it: we salute you.

NCsoft’s reported a profit drop of 50 percent for the quarter ending September 30, down to to 5.0 billion won ($3.7 million) on sales of 78.3 billion won ($58.0 million).

Tabula Rasa only accounted for 2 percent of the cash, or 1.76 billion Korean won ($1.3 million), in the period.

Richard Garriott confirmed last night that he’s quitting the firm to pursue “other interests” after returning from his much-publicised space flight.

More on Gamespot.

According to this Tabula Rasa dev update, the MMO is going to get an FPS view.

It doesn’t say when the feature’s going to be added, but there are some screens there to prove it’s real. Astonishing. Take a look.

Thanks, MaxConsole.

In a statement published on Massively, NCsoft’s confirmed that 21 members of staff have been laid off at its Austin facility, backing up reports of trouble at the outfit.

We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development. Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time.

There’s plenty more through there, including names of those left on the Dungeon Runners team, of which only five of 18 now remain.

This Joystiq report‘s rumouring that NCsoft is to lay off all its development staff in Austin.

The site cites a “reliable source,” which also reckons Dungeon Runners is to shut down as part of the move.

Tabula Rasa, also developed at the facility, will apparently be moved to Guild Wars creator Arena.net in Seattle.

None of this is confirmed, obviously. More through the link.

Massively is reporting that NCSoft is looking for European staff.

The firm responsible for City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa and Dungeon Runners is looking for a creative services manager and a development studio technical liaison.

Apply. You never know your luck.

By Mike Bowden

Talking to Eurogamer, NCSoft has rebutted recent talk that Richard Garriot’s MMO Tabula Rasa is in dire straights.

“Tabula Rasa has a dedicated player base, which is growing month on month,” said NCsoft Europe’s David Blundell.

“Tabula Rasa offers players a different kind of MMO experience, enhancing our portfolio of game titles. The game play mechanics are very different to that of a typical MMO – those who have experienced the game have recognised these innovative features and applauded them.

“A recent European trial promotion was met with great demand; we will be doing a similar promotion later in the year.”

The comments come after the game was seen to barely feature in a Q1 financial report.

Lots more through the link.

NCSoft’s MMORPG Tabula Rasa was conspicuous by its absence in the company’s Q1 financials, writes Massively.

The game has had a rough time of it since its release. As earlier as February this year the game was labelled a financial disaster: the rumours of haven’t gone away.

Full piece of doom and gloom through the link.

By Mike Bowden

According to this, Korean journalist Cho Jin-seo has published a piece in the Korean Times about Tabula Rasa, saying that “some downsizing in Austin is inevitable” after the game has “has proven to be a financial disaster”.

“NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.

NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.

TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott’s games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game’s population.

There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn’t shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams.”

Tabula Rasa was shown in recent financials to have taken over $5 million in revenue since it launched last autumn.

NCSoft’s just reported full year 2007 results, showing sales of $355.1 million and an operating profit of $53.3 million.

Although the company saw its sales drop 3 percent year over year, operating profit, pre-tax profit, and net profit increased 14 percent, 24 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

The report reveals that Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa has grossed $5.4 million since launching last year. Lineage and Lineage II increased revenue by 35 percent and 4 percent respectively in the fourth quarter compared to the third, while City of Heroes and Guild Wars fared less well, seeing sales drop 6 percent and 29 percent respectively.

Not much forward-looking stuff in there, just confirmation that Aion, as well as some casual games, will hit in the coming year.

Look. There they are. The latest update for Richard Garriot’s sci-fi MMO was announced a few days ago, but we didn’t report it because we couldn’t get this stupid video to work. But now we can. According to the press release:

“There are three human-alien hybrids; taking the best characteristics of the Forean, Brann, Thrax and merging them with humanity. For a player to obtain a hybrid character they must follow and complete a mission chain; each race has their own distinct chain to complete. Hybrid characters have increased attribute points in certain key areas, like Mind, Body or Spirit over a normal human. These are dependent on the alien race merged with, for example a Thrax-Human has increased physical attributes (Body), which allows them to absorb more total damage. There are of course weaknesses to the joining.

“This is the first stage of development for the inclusion of Hybrid’s into Tabula Rasa. In the future, the development team will be adding hybrid-specific weaponry and armour and may also be adding hybrid specific missions.”

Watch away.