News

Devs have announced a couple of neat things for the community: The latest TabulaCast is out as well as a Haiku Contest:

The Latest TabulaCast is up!

Episode 22

This week on TabulaCast, John and Matt discuss..

• Patch 1.7 goes live
• Paul Sage steps down as lead designer, welcome Tom Potter
• The Bristol Comic Expo
• NCSoft prize for an amazing competition (see more below)

Tabula Cast Haiku Competition

TabulaCast and Tabula Blogger recently announced a Tabula Rasa Haiku Competition where the winners will have their character sketched by a top artist at the next NCsoft convention. Below is a snippet from the Tabula Blogger...

Desperate to get your hands on your character portrait by a top comic book artist?

Well, here is your chance!

All you need to do is send a Tabula Rasa Haiku to me at john@tabulacast.com if we decide yours is the best we'll email you back very soon requesting you send us some screen grabs to give for Rockjaw to take with him to the Expo and they will make a donation on your behalf and get your character drawn.

Easy? We'll get cracking then!

Sharpen your nibs and get busy writing!

General British has decreed that all squad players will gain double experience between Monday, May 5th and Monday, May 12th. Here's the official communique:

To encourage teamwork with fellow AFS soldiers, General British has authorized Double XP to be awarded to those soldiers who play as part of squads between Monday, May 5, 2008 10AM CDT and Monday, May 12, 2008 at 4pm CDT. All soldiers fighting in squads will earn 2x the XP normally awarded while in a group.

Great way to move your characters along so check it out.

Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"

The May 5, 2008 version of the Weekend Wrap Report has been posted. Featuring the usual results from the Friday Night Fights, there is also a report of a fan video and an announcement of the Atrus Manus Event winners:

Atrus Manus hosted an event on Pegasus this Saturday to test the might of level 50 players. Each team of 3 fought their way through several spawns provided by Critters. Their times were averaged, and the winners received: 1000 Assault and Defense tokens, a General British beret, 10 white dye, and crafted items courtesy of YoungBlood.

It was a close race with each round getting more and more destructive. In the end, three winners prevailed.

1st Place
With an average time of 45.25 seconds
Stricnine
Oniguma
Sanz

Check out the rest at the link above.

This week's Feedback Friday has been posted and there's some suprising news from lead designer Paul Sage:

This Feedback Friday includes some bittersweet news for me. I have decided to pursue another very exciting opportunity within NCsoft, which means I will be handing the Lead Design reigns over to Tom Potter. I joined NCsoft in 2001 as a designer on a completely different game named Tabula Rasa. After seven years, and several iterations of TR, I do feel the need to stretch out a bit. It was an exciting time in my life, and I have definitely had many great experiences working with the Tabula Rasa team. I must also say that I have truly enjoyed the great people of the Tabula Rasa community. I have found them to be considerate and intelligent with their feedback. Thank you for taking the time out of your life to enjoy TR. Though my feelings are mixed about leaving, I feel the game really is going the right way now, and that this is a good time for me to pursue something new. Obviously I cannot discuss anything too early on what I am moving on to, but if things go well, I hope to do so one day in the not-too-distant future.

And speaking of the future, this is where I would like to introduce Tom. Tom has been a great addition to the team since he was hired in 2007. He came to NCsoft from Iron Lore, where he was the Lead Content Designer on Titan's Quest. Again, I would like to thank the community for their loyalty and involvement in the game, and I know you are in very good hands with Tom as Lead Designer. But, I don't want to speak for Tom, so I will let Tom speak.

-Paul Sage

Click through to read the rest.

Sean Bulger's periodic community column today looks at the concept of Open PvP (player vs. player) and what it does to games and their communities.

A while back we talked about conflict between players and what sort of a role that it can play in a game and for communities. During this, it was noted that player competition can be implemented in numerous different ways. This week, I would like to revisit this discussion and talk about one of those particular methods: the open PvP world.

Open PvP is one of the more controversial topics in MMO circles and plenty of people have fairly strong opinions one way or the other on the subject. That said, I would like to explore both the positive impacts and negative ones on the player community. Open PvP has the potential to help bond a community fairly tightly, but it also has the potential to truly tear it apart as well.

Read more after the leap.

The latest installment of the Weekend Wrap Report is now available. Lots of news is covered including competitions, Friday Night Fights and other announcements. Here's a teaser:

Atrus Manus Hosted Event!

Hey everybody! This is Basketsin (if you don't know who I am you probably don't play on Pegasus Server). Anyway let's cut to the nitty gritty. I'm hosting a level 50 event in the Marshes Arena, you know the one where you had to beat up the Marshes guys? Critters is going to grace us with her presence and allow us to have a great time.

The Breakdown: Okay, this is basically what is going to happen. We are going to have teams of 3 fight spawned mobs and we're going to time them. After several rounds we'll take the average time and whoever has the fastest time is the Winner!

The Rules: Your team must consist of 3 unique classes. This will prevent 3 spy or 3 engineer teams from dominating, and promote better team dynamics. If one of you members dies you will have 30 seconds added to your time, and each member that dies after that will add another 15 seconds to your time. Turrets will not be allowed to be set up before the match begins.

The Prizes: All participants will receive white dye, and the winners will receive a Beret, 1000 assault tokens, and 1000 defense tokens, and if that wasn't enough there might be even more prizes!

The When & Where: Saturday, May 3rd 6:00 PM EST Pegasus server in Marshes Arena.

The Sign Up: Either post in the on the event thread as a group of 3 or post here lfg, and we'll take down your names. Everyone should get ready as this will be a great event! Sign ups are due Friday, May 2nd 6:00 PM EST

Check out the rest at the link above.

TR devs announced that the v1.7 patch is now live on Tabula Rasa servers. The have included a list of what they think the most interesting changes in this version are:

• Respawns: Palisades, Incline, and Plains have had their spawns significantly adjusted to better balance spawn across the full map. Divide and Wilderness have had spot adjustments to remove a few excessively tough areas.
• Aggro adjustments: Bane and other aggressive mobs on Wilderness, Divide, Plains, Mires, Plateau, and Marshes have adjustments to their aggro groups. You will no longer be able to shoot a Bane in the back and expect that his buddies won't notice. Also, higher level mobs will react smarter and more violently than their lower level counterparts.
• Pets will now receive a damage bonus from the number of points their master places in their Mind attribute.
• Enemies will now have a chance to drop rare Healing Disks and Repair Tools.
• Radial and Conical Heal and Repair tools have been combined and replaced with 'Area' heal tools.
• Spies' and rangers' abilities have undergone a few changes. The Ranger can utilize "Tactical evasion" to get themselves into and out of a fight while suffering minimal damage, while spies can use "Polarity field" to exploit holes in the target's armour allowing specific damage types access to its most vulnerable areas.
• Target Lock: the reticule has been updated to more clearly show that you have locked onto a target. Also, locked targets will now appear with a slight glow, and will appear as a lock symbol in your radar map.

Check out the 1.7 Patch Notes to see all the changes.

Last week, Jonathan Steinhauer's column looked at the design of outdoor areas in The Dangerous Wilderness, Part 1. In Part 2, he continues his thoughts on the basic challenge most every MMO faces.

The easiest solution, though it avoids the root of the problem, is to disperse the ground spawns to a more realistic population level. There are areas where one would expect to encounter monsters, and that is where the heavy concentrations should be. Hard core hunting should occur in the fortresses and camps of the various villains, monsters, and animals that are the bane of the adventurer, not every time you step off the path. This opens up the wilderness for travel and casual hunting while giving players the kind of combat that exist in epic stories: battle in the lairs.

Read more after the leap.

The week's Feedback Friday is posted today at the official site. Much news is posted about 'clan owned control points

It's been a while since we've last given an update on the progress of clan owned control points. I know a number of players have been hoping to hear more about the design and progress of this. With the 1.8 build you'll notice the addition of a new pane on your character doll called Prestige. It's the first part of a system that will be the basis for how clan owned control points will function.

Check out the rest by clicking below.