Pants's Tabula Rasa Diary

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » February 12th, 2008, 22:41

Dog Pants wrote:The three day thing is daft, as you only start getting a feel for the game once you get to the tnstances and second area. I think more people will be put off by the trial.

Pants is right on the mark, I've just hit level 15 and am farting around the second area (which has more varied quests and objectives), it's much much much more enjoyable.

Edit: We got a 5punk clan on TR yet?

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 12th, 2008, 22:43

Yep, it's called 5punk Corps. Poke me and I'll log on and invite you.

Fear · Post by **Fear** » February 13th, 2008, 1:52

FatherJack wrote: Thanks, I'll be careful with it in that case. Probably save it for the weekend as it's only a 3-dayer.

I'm fairly sure mine started from when Pants generated it, not when I 'installed' it. I installed it about 6 hours later and 6 hours seemed to be missing from when I expected it to expire.

Post by **FatherJack** » February 13th, 2008, 13:28

Fear wrote:I'm fairly sure mine started from when Pants generated it, not when I 'installed' it. I installed it about 6 hours later and 6 hours seemed to be missing from when I expected it to expire.

I thought it operated like the other PlayNC ones, starting from when you type the code into their website, if not - well I'll try it Thurday and see.

Fear · Post by **Fear** » February 14th, 2008, 10:09

Oh fuck.

This email is only an acknowledgement of receipt of your order which has been passed to our dispatch department to be processed.

Thank you for ordering with www.play.com

Please check the following order information:

Order Reference(s) : 55378008

Item : Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa
Price : GBP 17.99
Quantity : 1
Delivery Cost : Free
Delivery Cost : Free
Payment : Credit Card

Congrats Pants, looks like you're getting a free month out of me...

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » February 14th, 2008, 11:09

no digital lisence?

Fear · Post by **Fear** » February 14th, 2008, 11:10

Hehulk wrote:no digital lisence?

Costs about a tenner more buying from plaync.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » February 14th, 2008, 11:21

No digital liscence for me either then

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 14th, 2008, 14:41

Fear wrote:Congrats Pants, looks like you're getting a free month out of me...

Woo!

Although I read the small print recently and I think I only get my free month once four of my trials have been signed up. Halfway there (maybe) though

Also, will it count if you didn't buy it over PlayNC? Hopefully they'll just tie the accounts together.

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 14th, 2008, 15:26

Just remembered too: I found a garage in the big base on the second area. There's a mechanic stood outside who says she can offer you off-roaders, transports, tanks and mechs. Looks like they've put it there for the option of adding vehicle content later. I'd love to get my hands on one of those stompy mechs.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » February 14th, 2008, 18:47

Dog Pants wrote:Just remembered too: I found a garage in the big base on the second area. There's a mechanic stood outside who says she can offer you off-roaders, transports, tanks and mechs. Looks like they've put it there for the option of adding vehicle content later. I'd love to get my hands on one of those stompy mechs.

Forean base, just got there the other day, and by the looks of it I'd say it's a feature that exists but isn't finished, or did exist but has been removed for now.

And is it me or are pretty much all the allied NPC's absolutly useless in combat?

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 14th, 2008, 19:00

They're just nerfed. I watched a mech try to defend a CP against a bunch of Thrax infantry once and it was making hardly any impact with its minigun and rocketsm then I came along and minced them in seconds with my chaingun. If it could do accurate levels of damage (same goes for the friendly NPCs) it would have minced them up in no time.

I also noticed about Forean base that there's lots of rooms underground that are just empty. I get the feeling that they're there so that they can fill them at a later date, but maybe that's just me and my way of seeing unrealised potential in the game.

Post by **FatherJack** » February 16th, 2008, 6:13

I'll be honest, I expected to hate this. The beta had left a bad taste, and after Hellgate being pretty much as crap and annoying as it was in beta, I didn't see how they could change so many fundamental annoyances so quickly.

I was wrong. I'm at level six, have played for four hours and am rather enjoying it.

The movement is fairly simple once you get used to it - I'm using the FPS controls with A remapped to autorun, and Z and X for the seemingly superfluous left and right - and I can get about well enough. It's annoying the camera freezes when you open a menu or talk, as I often manage to spin a random amount just as I press talk and end up staring at some NPC's bottom for a whole conversation, but since a lot of the quest-givers can't even be arsed to face you when you activate them, I'm not missing much.

The difficulties I had with the tutorial were also mostly gone, as I wrote down the keypresses as I was told them. There was an instruction to use the CTRL rose as well, which I'm sure I missed in the beta. Still it would be nice to not have to close the log window to do some of the objectives, and it still took me an age to find the stupid chest I was supposed to open (er..shoot).

The bugs seemed to be largely squished though, and the memory leak is certainly gone - my PC had been on all day downloading, which can sometimes trigger instability, but it didn't crash once, even when ALT+TABing.

I really like the setting - while the familiar trappings are quite obviously there, it's some new places to run around in - it remains to be seen how much they vary as the game progresses.

The quests given are the usual fare - kill five of these, get ten badger skins, etc - but at least 100% of the badgers seem to have skins, which was always a silly annoyance in other games, although this may drop later on as seen elsewhere. I don't actually mind them - after all, how imaginative can you be?: because there are plenty of quests you can get at once, rather than being stuck with one or two you don't want to do. The dropships are a little frequent at times on the road, though.

The fighting I kind of like - but have the nagging sense that I'm probably doing it wrong - mainly because in games like this, I usually do. I basically just point the gun and shoot away - a process made much more enjoyable by gaining a proper chaingun (ie: not an EMP-firing one). The TAB to lock the target I was taught in the tutorial seems to have little effect on the outcome and I'm a bit confused about what it does. I'm playing it like it's an FPS almost - and taking on five enemies at once, rather than the usual MMO thing of only daring to pull one or two at a time and generally boring myself stupid waiting for them to hurry up and die.

I've died quite a lot though, and think it's rather too fiddly to heal yourself as my RMB action sits on the Lightning power most of the time. I haven't actually spent any of the character/skill points though, other than to use specific items - so I may be nerfing my character somewhat.

The clone option was nice, to create a backup You just before you make a crucial decision about your path down the skill tree, but I was a bit disappointed to discover that the "clone" analogy had been taken to its full, logical conclusion. My clone had the abilities I'd learned, but no money, no weapons and only basic armour. I guess it's to stop people duplicating powerful characters with unique items, but it's unnecessarily hard to have to start your item stockpiling over without a bean and only your fists and wits.

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 16th, 2008, 10:22

Glad you're enjoying it. I'm at level 16 or 17 (why can I never remember my levels in MMONGS?) and the quests are similar. There was one I did recently when I had to collect five of something and not every critter dropped one, but there were enough of them for it to only slow me down by a few minutes. The quests in the Divide (second area) seem to be more war focussed too, and seem a little more interesting.

You're probably not doing the combat wrong - I get a chaingun and just trigger lock until everything's dead. It's true that you can take on groups of enemies, and I never find myself pausing to weigh up a combat before diving in. The only thing that annoys me there is that once they lock on to you they often keep shooting you regardless of distance or cover. It'd be nice to be able to hide or run away.

I agree with the UI not being particularly good, but the way the combat system works I can't think of another way. The mission objectives are still there in the top right of your screen though.

I also agree with the heal thing. I've never healed in combat, but I suppose if I'd thought to put my healy things in an item slot I might have. Armour seems more important though, and I haven't worked out how to heal that yet (although I get the impression you can). The death penalty isn't too harsh though, so I'm not too concerned.

You might want to spend your character skills. Putting them into weapons increases damage, armour increases armour. The crafting skills aren't that useful, but you can strip weapons down like in Guild Wars. I don't use the Logos skills much, but apparently each level does something slightly different rather than just making the effects more powerful. Now I just need to work out how to use the Logos recipies - apparently you can make phrases with them to get effects.

I've not taken a clone into combat, but equipment drops are so plentiful I would have thought it would be easy just to have one character dump a load of kit into the footlocker (which is sometimes bugged) for them.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » February 16th, 2008, 13:00

Healing is hmm, I've done it once or twice in combat, but it's not an instant health boost, it's more like a fast charge, same when you use an armour pump to repair armour, sometimes it's easier to run and hide around a rock/crate/sandbag before you open up your inventory.

@FJ, footlockers are global for your account, not characters, just transfer stuff to it, and the other character can use it.

I went down the Specalist route, and now at level 16 I'm a Sapper, the Polarity Gun is awesome, makes you feel like a Ghost Buster

My characters name is Mercutio Resch if you feel like dropping an invite that way Pantsu

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 16th, 2008, 14:14

Will do. I've gone the grenadier route, so I'm a Commando at the moment. I've just got the launcher skill and I have a sonic launcher, but I've not had chance to use it. I will soon though, because I've got to take down two walkers.

Post by **FatherJack** » February 17th, 2008, 21:59

Cheers for the tip on the footlockers - I'd seen them but thought it was single-character storage. Guild Wars kind of made me think that - as some are and some aren't in that.

Still not really sure what TAB does at all, as when I start shooting I get the enemy info popping up of the one I'm hurting.

Last night was an experiment in alts, and I really do need to spend some points on my main as she can't do any missions at the moment. Using the alts I understand a bit more about what is affected by the bind/body/spirit points spending.

I hadn't noticed, but yes - armour is much more important. Unlike what I'd observed with the baddies armour/health, once your armour is gone you die pretty quickly. I have an armour-mender in a quick slot now and intend to use it before it becomes critical.

What is the death penalty, other than having to walk back to where you were? - I haven't spotted any clues in the UI showing I'm operating at less-than normal.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » February 17th, 2008, 22:18

FatherJack wrote: Still not really sure what TAB does at all, as when I start shooting I get the enemy info popping up of the one I'm hurting.

What is the death penalty, other than having to walk back to where you were? - I haven't spotted any clues in the UI showing I'm operating at less-than normal.

Tab is lock on, I use it occasionally for the polarity gun for landing the all important charged up shot, and when I'm using rifles.
It just keeps you locked on target so you don't have to aim as much, they still have to be in your view though.

As for death, spot the very bottom left hand corner, it'll be a 5/10/15 minute timer counting down after death. It modifies your Body/Mind/Spirit stats, you can see how much by pressing P and bring up your Personal page and hovering over the said stats, it'll tell you the modifier, which if you die 3 times very quickly goes negative to something chronic (as much as 60% it can take off I think).

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » February 28th, 2008, 21:46

Hmmm, dilema. Do I spend £20 and have Tabula Rasa tommorow, or £18 and have it tuesday

And are people still playing TR?

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 28th, 2008, 22:10

I'm still subscribed and just waiting to find some time. I'm on leave soon though so I'll be playing it then.