Comments on: NCSoft is Cleaning Tabula Rasa’s Slate

By: Oakstout

Oakstout — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:06:02 +0000

Last year at this time, Amazon had the game on sale for half price and I begged my wife to let me pick it up, but we had to wait till after Xmas to do it. The day after Xmas, the game was back to full price, bummer. So, I managed to download the demo and try it, but found the game lacking in some aspects that would make it a competitive MMO. The game would certainly play better as a free on line shooter or at a lower sub price similar to Hell Gate.

I do agree Scott that more companies with multiple titles need to have something similar to the Station Pass, which has been successful over at Sony to keep a large assortment of less successful game a float. Maybe Sony will try to buy the title and at it to it’s stable like it did with The Matrix and Vanguard. It’s really crazy that NCSoft doesn’t provide this already but maybe they’re company is so divided internally that that isn’t not possible to offer one sub price for all their stable of on line games.

Either way, as a free title or one that had a cheaper online cost, Tabula Rasa would be something I would consider playing again. The action was fun, but after playing Gears of Wars last night, I realized that both games aren’t that different. Well except GoW is much better. lol

By: Tesh

Tesh — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:32:08 +0000

It may be lower on the totem pole, but if it’s profitable, and has a four year plus staying power, that to me indicates that it’s stronger business for sustainable profit. It’s not a cash cow like WoW, but not every company can expect that.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:26:24 +0000

On the other hand, I recall NCSoft saying while the total sales of Guild Wars is impressive over four years, I think it’s lower on the financial totem pole because of the one-time purchase.

I’d agree, but the game wasn’t designed at its core to go that way and it would likely take a lot of development funds to retrofit it. I think the game was highly instanced, which makes me wonder why it wasn’t designed like Guild Wars to seem like a single server to players.

Guess I’ll find out next month…

By: Tesh

Tesh — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:05:29 +0000

I wouldn’t have gone with station access, I’d ditch the sub model. Guild Wars works, and can stand on its solid game design without having to monetize via a drip IV of sub money.

Of course, I’ve not played TR, but if its game design is solid, and the business model amenable to purchasing (not leasing) it’ll find an audience. If the game design itself stinks, well… there’s not much that can be done for it.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:22:22 +0000

Openedge1 brought up a good point on his blog: get a TR account on December 10 or so, because you have a free month anyway, then January 10 it goes free. So 60 days for free…

By: GlielhryofEldar

GlielhryofEldar — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:20:08 +0000

I was interested in this game a while back. Not sure if I will take the plunge in January only to get hooked and disappointed in February.

By: Lars

Lars — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:31:59 +0000

Re: Station Access, I agree. The game wasn’t worth $15/mo, but they might have been able to keep it afloat with a Station Access like plan that would allow someone like me who might pay for CoH/CoV and be willing to pay a little extra to dabble with TR on the side, helping keep population numbers up, and bringing in extra revenue they otherwise would not have received.