Tabula Rasa Re-Review

Eurogamer is doing a re-review of Tabula Rasa, though they note it feels more like an autopsy of a dying MMO.

Yet it’s also, by many accounts, a commercial disaster. Server populations are low, there was talk of guilds defecting from the game within months of launch, and despite a strong denial from publishers NCsoft, a Korean newspaper piece slamming the game as an expensive failure for the firm elicited a nod-and-wink “no smoke without fire” response from many quarters.

In public, NCsoft remains completely supportive of Tabula Rasa – dedicated to a programme of ongoing improvement and upgrades, and even to an expansion pack down the line. Privately, however, the company must be asking itself where it all went wrong.

I personally think it went wrong when they decide to pay Garriott the equivalent of a mid-range game budget.