News
By: Joe Topolnisky Nov 22, 2008
Tabula Rasa Shutting Down In February
Delivering the sad news today, NCsoft has announced that they've decided to pull the plug on their troubled MMORPG, Tabula Rasa, due to an underperforming subscriber base. Servers will officially shut down on February 28, 2009, but before the game goes offline, players can expect some special in-game events and other bonuses. Here's the scoop:
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.
NCsoft spokesman David Swofford has confirmed to Kotaku that the closure will result in layoffs. How many people affected by this is still to be determined. Sad news indeed! :(
Comments
Unregistered users are required to complete an image verification.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Dibrom
|
2008-11-22
#1
|
| Whoa, I thought Hellgate's closure was sudden. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
majomo
|
2008-11-22
#2
|
| thats very sad news. a very tough time for games like this unless your names wow. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Jarnis
|
2008-11-22
#3
|
| Morale of the story; If you publish a crappy MMO, it's not going to make money. Tabula Rasa was a crappy MMO even by the standards of the day when it's development started. These days... I thought it was unexpected that they didn't drop it earlier. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dibrom
|
2008-11-22
#4
|
| It makes me wonder how guild wars continues to survive by not having a monthly fee yet these games with fees are failing at an exceedingly quick rate. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
snowcrash512
|
2008-11-22
#5
|
| Because Guild Wars is a good game and people like games they dont have to pay every month for... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
EsPeHil85
|
2008-11-22
#6
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dibrom
It makes me wonder how guild wars continues to survive by not having a monthly fee yet these games with fees are failing at an exceedingly quick rate.
|
Over 1 million players * the price of the game + ~400.000-800.000 players in all add-on's (x3)
Makes 40.000.000 to 80.000.000 dollars maybe more. Not bad if you ask from me... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Unregistered
|
2008-12-02
#7
|
It's funny how there's always one out of 6 people who have bad things to say about Tabula Rasa.
Well a few of us who love the game and are not interested in fantasy want to save it, and we're trying to get enough people to moblized and gain an interest.
The game wasn't marketed well, it's not "crappy" but by the standard of "it's not fantasy."
No question they tried to appeal to a small market segment and alienated the average player, but it's worth saving and hopefully with enough people we can do it.
http://changingwind.org/savetr is the news and forum we set up. Our idea is that gaming companies don't treat us very well anyway, so let's do something about that. We figure if we save this one by owning an interest in it and being a grassroots marketing effort, that maybe the gaming industry will take us more seriously as consumers. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
otomoton
|
2008-12-02
#8
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
It's funny how there's always one out of 6 people who have bad things to say about Tabula Rasa.
Well a few of us who love the game and are not interested in fantasy want to save it, and we're trying to get enough people to moblized and gain an interest.
The game wasn't marketed well, it's not "crappy" but by the standard of "it's not fantasy."
|
It wasn't crappy due to not being fantasy, it was crappy because it was crappy. The graphics were bland and uninspired, it was glitchy, and it was just not really any fun to play.
As far as getting enough people mobilized to save it good luck, but since they have announced it's shutting down that means their publisher has likely already cut funding and won't resume. The only possible way to save an mmo that is dying this way would be to get the same 11 Million subscriber base that wow has...in less than a month or so... which it won't.
WoW is monolithic due to it's high level of polish and subscriber base. All publishers are going to base their performance against the measuring stick that WoW has become, and sadly they will all fall short in their own eyes. The only way to catch up to it would be to launch a game with the same level of content and quality as blizzard, a hard feat at best. Publishers would be smart to realize they should not measure themselves against WoW, but against every other mmo. They need to realise that 1 million box sales is a great number for such a niche market.
I'm not saying that they should "lower their standards" and just resort to mediocre shovel-ware style mmo design. They should surely aim for the moon, but realize that WoW is out of the solar system as far as goals go. If they are not realistic about their goals they will destroy their own chances at getting a piece of the proverbial pie. Unless of course this is what they want. They may be content to push a game to retail at $50 a box, sell a million of em, collect 15 million worth of monthly fees for a couple months and call it quits, only to put another shovel-ware mmo out and repeat the cycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
NeoAnti57
|
2008-12-02
#9
|
Making MMO's is not an industry its more like good luck or a privilege. Tabula Rasa is just one failure among many and if anyone here is surprised at this, well you should have seen it coming, I expect AOC to be gone by next year also, and WoW will be eaten alive by its own audience by 2011, to go play the next big mmo or blizzards own diabloIII/SCII multiplayer.This is due to a multitude of factors, not one.
1. There are SOOO many games out right now, there simply isnt enough time to even play non-mmo games, and each are between 50-60$. Not enough time or money to play both non mmo and mmo games. Also the quality of games these days is getting better per AAA title.
2. An mmo cant be marketed or thought of as a "game." I think these companies just view it as another game and they realize this this is wrong as the ship is sinking around them. An mmo takes up TIME, I started playing wow again 2 weeks before WOTLK and ive been averaging 30hours a week. Ive only played Crysis Warhead along with it, and thats a few hours at a time at best. I simply dont have time to go to work, live my life, take care of responsibilities, play wow and then....play another mmo? huh? Fortunately and Unfortunately I honestly think that there can only be a handfull of mmo's out at a time and be successful. Also, look what happens when a new mmo comes out I.E. LOTR , AOC, Warhammer. People flock from wow or lineage or guild wars or Everquest to the new titles, then stream back to the game they had been playing. Its because you invest SOOOOOOO much time into an mmo and you cant justify giving it all up and starting over again.
3. Thinking of an mmo as a steady montly stream of money. No. You cant do this, I believe that they predict there next quater earnings by taking how many boxes are sold and assuming they will be getting ~15/mo or whatever, well, people are constantly bailing out. Theres no where to even have a clue how much you will actually be making. So you need to make what you make off of the box sales support the game and pay the bills THEN use the montly earnings for more content and expansion development. More players on= the need for more content, but if more players are on= more money. See what Im saying? People complain about WoW's financial success, but look what they have done with thier montlhy earnings= constant incredible patch/bug support, constant add ons and content and expansions that are quite simply whole other mmorpgs themselves. Not to mention the explosion of them throwing out DiabloIII and scII.
4. Making a game that people will play ALOT and not providing content and not making the game work. People are smart and its true that at first you game companies can trick us because we dont know any better, but after a week or so we are going to figure out that your class balancing and ecomony are comletely flawed and effed up. And people are just like sheep, if they see people starting to quit the game and saying that they are going back to guild wars or wow, people will be squimish and run away. Fix the bugs first and foremost and make sure that people will stay playing the game. If you want a quick 50$ make a cheap crap rail shooter, most people will buy it and then never play it again, you win. Cant do that with an mmo.
5. I remember the days when MMO was kinda getting started, games like Ultima Online, EverQuest, Diablo's multiplayer were intriuging ideas and a small community lifted those games up on pedestals and said: " THATS what we want our fantasy games to be like from now on." In a rush to respond to this demand countless companies started dumping garbage onto store shelves over the next several years. Everquest was the only one to truly survive and stay successful( Wheres Asherons call? wheres lineage2? wheres Star wars galaxies?) Then WoW came along, at about the same time as lineage2 and EQ2. It was kind of like the battle of the titans. Most people thought WoW would be a joke, well we know now that it had the stamina to outlast and destroy everyone else. It was easy for new people to adopt mmo's, but old school everquest players had to give up YEARS of work, so dont think that they will easily make that change again. Based on this history there is ALWAYS a king mmo and then a couple that are succesful and the rest are canceled shortly after release. Either blizzard has to make a new mmo, or someone else will sweep the title away around 2011 or so.
The whole point to this: DO NOT make an MMO unless you can have it hit the shelves with a graphics engine that can last for almost 8 years and be upgraded as it goes. Make sure when it shelves there is content available to those who will be max level in a matter of days and make sure the ENTIRE thing is polished front to back. Make sure you offering something better than the current king. Which means you need have better quests than wows quests, better raids than wows raids so on and so forth.
Pretty tall order huh? well mmo's are kind of like anamoly's, its almost impossible to make one, but whoever does manage to make all the peices come together under the time crunch, the rewards are endless. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
