Well, I’m very sad to see this title go. With NC Soft’s announcement that it is shutting down TR in February, I think the MMO genre has just lost one of it’s more original offerings. Say what you will about it’s flaws and shortcomings, you can’t say it wasn’t different and innovative in many regards. With it’s porting of FPS style play into the Massively Online world, it’s character cloning system and it’s setting based on a completely original IP ( yes I know, very much influenced by a slew of others, but still…), I think TR could not be considered as ”just another MMO”. It definitely had it’s own distinctiveness.
Strangely enough, if I have to think of one thing that I will miss about this game, I’d have to say it is base defenses. In TR, the Bane ( the Bad GuysTM ), would constantly be mounting attacks on various forts and outposts throughout the game zones, and you as a player would have the option of joining others ( or try to do it solo ) in repelling these incursions. Often in general chat calls would go out that such and such a place needed defenders because it was about to fall, or that a given place needed to be retaken. It gave me quite a rush to speed off to one of these hot points and fend off the alien raiders, standing on a parapet and emptying magazine after magazine of machine gun ammo into the oncoming Bane waves, only to eventually lose my head and jump down into the fray, pouring shell after shell of shotgun ammo up close and personal style !
Oh yes those were indeed exciting times!
Few MMOs have given such visceral and sustained adrenaline rushes and I think that this intense action-trip was a feature that set TR very much apart from all other MMOs.
It’s too bad all this will enter the realm of pure memories come February, I believe it deserved a better fate, eventoday’s highly competitive MMO niche market.
Farewell Tabula Rasa
November 22, 2008
Well, I’m very sad to see this title go. With NC Soft’s announcement that it is shutting down TR in February, I think the MMO genre has just lost one of it’s more original offerings. Say what you will about it’s flaws and shortcomings, you can’t say it wasn’t different and innovative in many regards. With it’s porting of FPS style play into the Massively Online world, it’s character cloning system and it’s setting based on a completely original IP ( yes I know, very much influenced by a slew of others, but still…), I think TR could not be considered as ”just another MMO”. It definitely had it’s own distinctiveness.
Strangely enough, if I have to think of one thing that I will miss about this game, I’d have to say it is base defenses. In TR, the Bane ( the Bad GuysTM ), would constantly be mounting attacks on various forts and outposts throughout the game zones, and you as a player would have the option of joining others ( or try to do it solo ) in repelling these incursions. Often in general chat calls would go out that such and such a place needed defenders because it was about to fall, or that a given place needed to be retaken. It gave me quite a rush to speed off to one of these hot points and fend off the alien raiders, standing on a parapet and emptying magazine after magazine of machine gun ammo into the oncoming Bane waves, only to eventually lose my head and jump down into the fray, pouring shell after shell of shotgun ammo up close and personal style !
Oh yes those were indeed exciting times!
Few MMOs have given such visceral and sustained adrenaline rushes and I think that this intense action-trip was a feature that set TR very much apart from all other MMOs.
It’s too bad all this will enter the realm of pure memories come February, I believe it deserved a better fate, eventoday’s highly competitive MMO niche market.
/Salute Tabula Rasa
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