After what seemed to have been a period of inactivity, NCsoft has made its appearance at the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This year, they proudly shared details about the upcoming MMORPG, Tabula Rasa. Over at the GDC, more details about this title were finally revealed.

Developed by Destination Games, this MMORPG will feature elements such as an integrated voice chat system (very handy for raids and instances as it won't require the player to install a separate program just to be able to chat with his teammates), PvPs which can be prompted by clans declaring war on each other, the option to temporarily join squads or permanently swear allegiance to clans, as well as a Character Cloning system which allows players to explore different character paths without having to start over.

Besides these, the game also promises a lot of leg room for the player. There will be several planets to explore, each with its own range of continents and regions. Also, players will be able to craft items for either personal use or trade.

And then there's the Battlefield Control Points. Now, one can remember that one of the selling points of Tabula Rasa is that the players themselves will effect the ultimate outcome of the game as they battle against the Bane and master the power (and language) of the Logos. Well, the Battlefield Control Points will apparently be playing a role in realizing this point of allowing players' actions to change the game: "entrenched positions on a given battlefield can change hands over the course of a battle and affect spawn points and missions of both enemy and friendly characters."

It all sounds very promising, and we're hoping to see if we'll be able to score a beta account for this title. So, while we wait for this game to be released by Fall of this year, here's some artwork and some screenies to enjoy for the moment.

More details, screenshots and artwork after the Jump!

Since you folks are probably sick already of weekly featured screenshots, and hearing/reading about  Richard Garriott going "language this, in-game world that," finally, finally, finally, below is a new video featuring in-game footage of NCSoft's Tabula Rasa, straight from the Game Developers Conference 2007.

 

Where's the video embed you say? Why is the thing above just a lousy image. Well, when we said "below" in the previous paragraph, we meant "download link." A word of caution though: the thing's around 83 megabytes small, so you may want to consider your connection before you go download.

AFS soldiers, the Eloh, a lot of Logos, and those creepy bane await.

Download: GDC 2007 Tabula Rasa in-game footage

Richard Garriott himself will walk attendees of GDC 2007 in San Francisco through a demo of NCSoft's Tabula Rasa, NCSoft told Eurogamer recently. That hopefully should appease people who're miffed that they're not in the closed beta, with a look into massively multiplayer online frag-me-RPG. Plus the guided tour from Lord British himself.

"And if you look out your left window, you'll see this wonderful expanse of blasted battlefield filled with lots and lots of dead Bane..."

NCSoft also confirms, sort of, a release date, of sorts, for TR, mentioning that it'll be out by the end of Q3 2007 (September-October-ish?). Fits nicely with Garriott himself saying set for release "soon after" the summer beta.

Song Jae-kyung or XLGames">Jake Song is currently in an important and interesting place within the MMO universe. He was actually part of Lineage, the second most popular MMO today as well as the upcoming NCSoft creation, Tabula Rasa. Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of things have happened backstage diminishing Song's involvement with the latter.

It would be remembered that during this year's GDC, TR Executive Producer Richard Garriott made a public announcement saying that TR would be delayed. When asked for the reason why, Garriott quipped that it is because of "too many cooks in the kitchen." Song, on the other hand had been denying that this constitutes his reasons for leaving.

Furthermore, it appeared that Song no longer want to be associated with Tabula Rasa. He kind of severed his ties from it when he mentioned that his actual work on the game was limited to a few lines of code and "maybe one page in a design document." However, Song shared that he used to travel many times to Austin (NCSoft's TR hq) for meetings regarding the game.

Currently, Jake Song is heading newly started company XLGames. They are yet to release an MMORPG title, but he promised that they are "going back to basics." Many people are considering Song as one of those who spearheaded the genre. He was part of early MMOs Nexus and Ultima Online.

Richard Garriott talks more about gameplay issues this time around. Richard explains that the battlefields in Tabula Rasa will change constantly. They plan to make the players think strategy every time they enter battle, so it wont be the typical, whoever has the largest mob and biggest baddies wins. Bases will have way points, hospitals, defenses and quests that can be all quickly taken away from one side if the base is overrun. PvP will use shared space for battles, while instanced areas will be used for solo players. Travel will be done via way points or some kind of wormhole and each world will have its own unique physical goods. The first world is finished and ready to go. Each expansion will be by world. Basically players solve a world and move on to the next one.

Tabula Rasa: GDC Preview

MMORPG.com chats with Richard Garriott, the brains behind Tabula Rasa, in part two of this preview

Editor's Note Part one of this preview can be found here. It covers Garriott's public lecture on the design of his game. Part two (below) chronicles his talk with staff writer Garrett Fuller.

After the seminar on Tabula Rasa I was lucky enough to sit down with Richard Garriott to discuss the game as well as the future of MMOs in general. This story was not a direct interview as there were several of us asking questions together. I will try to go over the main points in what Richard spoke about and give further depth to what was discussed in the seminar.
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The symbolic language that is being used in Tabula Rasa was the first thing we discussed. The language is based on certain universal principles. Things like distance, connections, time, and objects are all incorporated into this language. If players are worried that this sounds too complex, there are only about a dozen archetypes which the language was created around. Basically Richard said you can almost call these root words. He views the biggest side effect of the language as simplicity, meaning that both American and Asian users will understand the game better by using the same system of symbols. The game does not require you to learn these symbols to have fun. They are there for players to get a more in depth view of the world. They will be used in puzzles and certain game play aspects for players, but are not mandatory. Richard said that they are encouraging players to learn, not forcing them.

Moving to more direct gameplay issues, the battlefields in Tabula Rasa will change constantly. They plan to have a lot of strategy for players to think about. Bases will have way points, hospitals, defenses and quests that can be all quickly taken away from one side if the base is overrun. Richard made a great point about PvP in the game which was that shared space will be used for battles, while instanced areas will be used for solo content. He also remarked that each world has its own unique physical goods. Travel will be done through way points or wormholes, not light speed. The first world is finished and ready to go. Each expansion will be by world. Basically players solve a world and move on to the next one.

A question was asked about MMOs moving to consoles from PCs. Richard gave a great response showing the difference between console and PC games. The game consoles are usually in your family room hooked up to the TV. Kids, parents, and guests often gather around to play games. Richard said he sees PC games as a much more personal experience. Richard said he believes socially active games like MMOs will always be played on a computer. Richard said that MMOs build relationships and a computer allows you to push yourself into the world. There are too many features a computer has to give players more of an immersed experience.

Richard had said that with most MMOs the developers should be looking to give players a reason to be there. Many of us would agree that developers need to really think about why players would want to jump into their game and solve puzzles or compete with others. Thanks again to Richard for taking the time to talk with us. He certainly has some wonderful ideas on where games will be going in the future.

Richard Garriott sat down on Thursday morning at GDC and gave a seminar about the history and future of Tabula Rasa, apparently his seminar was one of the more popular ones. Richard has been hard at work over the past few years working on several incarnations of Tabula Rasa. Richard is a legend in the MMO community making it nice to hear about the struggles and achievements the Tabula Rasa team has been through. Keep your eye open for part two.

GDC Panel: Designing Tabula Rasa

In the first part of our two part preview, we cover Richard Garriott's GDC talk

On Thursday morning at GDC, Richard Garriott gave a seminar about the history and future of Tabula Rasa. The seminar was one of the more popular. Richard is a legend in the MMO community so it was great to hear the struggles and triumphs the team on Tabula Rasa has gone through. Part two of this article will focus on the sit down interview I did with Richard after the seminar.

One of the main points that Tabula Rasa is trying to give individuals is the special feeling you get from solo player games. Rich’s point that MMOs are simply about numbers of players takes away from a persons individual experience. The other important element that Tabula Rasa is trying to implement is a system where both Asian and western players can join the same game with very few barriers in language or culture.

Click the jump to catch the rest.