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.

As promised the other day, Mythic has released the big v1.83 patch for Dark Age of Camelot. Downloads range from 19-32 megs, depending if you downloaded the beta versions. Well it looks like they got smart and started listening to the players for a change, the devs of DAOC have gathered all the information from the message boards, the polls, and emailed feedback from players, everything pointed towards RvR and Class enhancements, TOA Changes, and Trade skill Improvements. From the looks of things, the patch is mostly based on those topics with Class enhancements being the center. The Valkyrie, the Paladin and the Valewalker have new abilities to make them more desirable in RvR combat. Healer classes got some nice big tweaks and over 60 structures have been graphically revamped. Check it out below:

NEW THINGS AND BUG FIXES

General Notes

 - The ability to adventure underwater is being added to the classic zones starting with Midgard. Midgard players will find that they can now dive in and explore the depths of the rivers, lakes, and oceanfront that litter their landscape. The ability to adventure underwater will be added to Albion and Hibernia in subsequent patch cycles.

 - Members of guilds with an alliance leader that belongs to a different server on the same cluster will now receive the correct alliance message of the day.

 - The yellow quest indicators will once again be visible beneath the feet of NPCs who have available quests.

 - The game help information has been updated and reorganized for easier understanding and navigation.

 - All /ASEND, /OSEND and /GSEND messages will now report player name-server name combinations.
 
 - Players will no longer lose their quickbars if they fail to zone properly and get reset to a safe spot.

 - Mousewheel support has been added to the Training window.

 - It is now possible for guilds to change their emblem as much as they wish for 100 gold per change.

 - Mentalist Heal over Time spells now print in the "Spell Pulse Message" color in the chat window and can be filtered using that setting.

 - When delving spells with sub-spells, such as the Valewalker's spell, Immolation, the delve information would be incorrect in some instances. This has been fixed.

 - Guild/House recall stones will now work across clustered servers.

Horizons has released a new lore series that will run on their website every Tuesday. This week, they give us the story's prologue. To be honest, I am very surprised that this game is still running, I personally played Horizons for about a month and found it very long and drawn out in the beginning (that may have changed by now, it was almost a year ago that I played). Enough to set me off anyways, but they keep fishing, first they cut down their servers from lack of players, and now this:

Thunder and Lightning – or The Fool and the Fair

 Book the First - Storm Rise

There is a Hall of Mirrors at Heart's Ease, Sonea Finder's plot, in Mia's Edge. Where did the Hall come from? From Sonea's building, mayhap. Or mayhap it is always with us, in this place or in that, in many places and it may be in no place at all save our hearts…

Whence came TaleSpinner? From the mountains, as draku do… from the Hall, or the Hall from her… who knows? Mayhap not Spinner herself.

And the Tale? Ah, the Tale…

Tales do not begin. Tales do not end. They wake, they sleep, they…. dance. And those who hear are as much a part as those who dance within. And now ye that gather these words… ye too are part of the Tale. The Long Tale of the Long Road.

What was Thunder? Who was Lightning? Why care?

There was a storm… and it rose.

Read on for more... if you dare...

City of Villains has released new information on their new power sets scheduled for release with Issue 7. However, we couldn't find a release date for you yet, but from the looks of the new power sets, it will be well worth the wait.

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Issue 7 - New Power Sets

Read all about the new power sets coming with Issue 7!

Thugs (Mastermind)

The body rumbling arrival of the motorcycle, the cold metal sound of chains tightening, and the guttural growls of your thugs let everyone know that you are a Mastermind to be reckoned with.  Call your gang of toughs to your side with a whistle, whip out your pistols, and let loose pure chaos onto the streets of the Rogue Isles with the new Thug Mastermind power set.

• Pistols - Quickly fires a round from one of your heavy automatic pistols. Damage is average, but the fire rate is very fast. Damage: Minor, Recharge: Very Fast
• Call Thugs - Calls forth one to three Thugs (depending on your level) to do your bidding. The third Thug you gain will be an Arsonist. Thugs use Dual Pistols and can be taught additional pistol attacks. You may only have 3 Thugs under your control at any given time. If you attempt to call more Thugs, you can only replace the ones you have lost in battle. If you already have three, the power will fail. Recharge: Very Long
• Dual Wield- Fires both pistols at once at a time target. Firing both pistols at once is slower than a single shot, but deals more damage, and the target may get knocked down by the force of the impact. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Fast
• Equip Thugs- Equip your Thug Henchmen with better ammo, weapons and training. This power permanently bestows new weapons and abilities to one Thug Henchman. The powers gained are unique and dependent upon the target Thug Henchman. This power only works on your Thug Henchmen and you can only Equip any given Thug Henchman once. Recharge: Medium
• Empty Clips - You empty the clips of both your pistols in an arc of suppression fire. This attack can blast multiple foes in the affected cone area, and has a small chance of knocking some foes down. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Moderate
• Call Enforcer- Calls forth one to two Thug Enforcers (depending on your level) to do your bidding. Thug Enforcers carry a Sub-machine Gun, and possess good leadership skills. Their weapon of choice is an UZI, and can be equipped to carry up to 2 at once. You may only have 2 Thug Enforcers under your control at any given time. If you attempt to call more Enforcers, you can only replace the ones you have lost in battle. If you already have two, the power will fail. Recharge: Very Long
• Gang War - Calls a gang of 10 or so Thug Posse to come to your aid for a brief while. Posse are not like your true Henchman. They cannot be given direct commands, nor will they appear in your pet window. You must select an enemy target to attack first before calling these Thugs. Posse are many, but they are very weak, and are only equipped with the most basic weapons. Although they will follow you, they are not as loyal as your Henchmen, and they will only stick around for a few minutes before taking off. Recharge: Very Long
• Call Bruiser- Calls one massive Bruiser. He is strong, tough and has a mean temper. As a Brute, he will generate Fury and deal more damage the longer the combat lasts. His Super Strength powers means he favors hand-to-hand combat. He has resistance to Lethal and Smashing Damage and some resistance to Fire and Cold Damage. You may only have 1 Bruiser under your control at any given time. If you attempt to summon another Bruiser, the power will fail. Recharge: Very Long
• Upgrade Equipment- Permanently Upgrade the most advanced ammo, weapons and training to one Thug Henchman. The Upgraded Thug will gain new powers, weapons and abilities. The powers gained are unique and dependent upon the target Thug Henchman that is Upgraded. This power only works on your Thug Henchmen and you can only Upgrade the Equipment of any given Thug Henchman once. Recharge: Medium

This is just one of the power sets, be sure to click the link for the rest.

The guys over at MMORPG.com have another dev journal for Pirates of the Burning Sea. The journal takes an in depth look at the evolution of graphics in their upcoming MMORPG. Lead artist Bruce Sharp compares the difference between screenshots from over a year ago and the screenshots of today both in pictures and words.

When I started my first day at Flying Lab Software, I’d seen the game in screenshots on the web and once during my interview. The course was clear in terms of what was missing from the game’s artistic direction: Romance! The game looked antiseptic in its art style, as if a lot of technical issues had been solved but few artistic issues had yet been explored, at least not the big, sweeping broad strokes that ultimately define the style or “voice” of the game’s imagery. As an artist I’m a true believer in the idea that the simple but abstract parts of an image, like the color palette (derived in our 3d space from the color of the ocean, sky, ship textures, direct light, ambient light, and distance fog), are where the image’s true power is; once established in an appropriate (and hopefully exciting) way, the image can then be populated with detail and content successfully. At the school where I’ve been teaching art since the early 90’s, I’ve noticed that a lot of students have this notion exactly backwards – most think that an image’s power comes from the details, which is where they put almost all of their energy, while ignoring the larger strokes like color, contrast, soft and hard edges, etc. Sadly a lot of game companies practice this same philosophy.

Follow the link to read the rest.

The guys over at mmorpg have another dev journal for the Chronicles of Spellborn. The journal takes a in depth look at character animation for Spellborn. Michael Perdieus, a twenty-eight year old born and raised in Belgium with a obsession for 3D graphics and animation explains the process.

Hi, my name is Michael Perdieus, twenty-eight years old and born and raised in Belgium. I have a Masters degree in Audio Visual Art. During my studies I became passionate for 3D modeling and animation. I gathered a lot of experience working on music videos and commercials before I started working on computer games. I have been a Lead Animator for two games previously, and in the beginning of 2005 I joined Spellborn NV as Lead Animator for The Chronicles of Spellborn. As an Animator I have the magical task of bringing characters to live. All those amazingly designed and modeled beings remain lifeless statues until they are given a skeleton and a lifecycle. Every creature, from the smallest rabbit to the biggest end boss needs its own specific set of animations to make them come to life in a believable way in the Spellborn universe.

The Chronicles of Spellborn is blessed with a very unique style. Everything that is created for the game like models, textures, sounds and animations needs to fit this style and needs to enhance the player’s experience. As a Lead animator it is my job to make sure that the animations that the Animation Team produces are a perfect fit when all the disciplines come together. Animation-wise this means that some of the animations need to be unrealistic to look real in the game world.

Read on for the full article!

Tomorrow, April 4th, there will be a Dev chat with the folks from Runestone Game Development, the Developers of the new MMO in the making, SEED! The Dev chat will take place at 3:00 pm EST or 8:00 pm GMT.

The chat will take place on the WarCry IRC network that you can connect to through irc.warcry.com and joining chat room #seedchat.

If you do not have an IRC client, you can connect through here: http://chatspike.net/?p=javairc.

The Chronicles of Spellborn web page has a news reminder that their 5th newsletter will be released tomorrow, April 4th. I personally haven't read any of them yet, but I do plan to read this one, this game is starting to look interesting.

On April 4th we will send out the 5th TCoS newsletter! Among the regular items the newsletter contains a preview of the High House emblems and some insights on the enhancements we made to the Unreal Engine 2.5 for TCoS.

If you are registered on the website make sure you opt in to receive the newsletter in your 'your details' settings!

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Game info
The Chronicles of Spellborn (TCoS) is an MMO under development by Spellborn NV using the renowned Unreal® Engine™. Players take the role of heroes in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting where a vast adventure unfolds in an authentic living world.

- Character advancement is separate from the player’s appearance so every character can look unique from the start.
- Players refine their personal attributes by imbuing items with advancement slots.
- Active skill-based combat and manual targeting allow the player full control in combat.
- 50 character levels advance the player’s statistics and extend their skill library.
- The Personal experience Points (PeP) system gives stat bonuses for staying alive and eliminates frustrating death penalties.
- Players are rewarded with statues of their characters by topping the rankings or performing great deeds.
- Ancestral quests allow players to experience the past and influence the present.
- In Shard Conquest, players fight for ownership of new Shard realms in massive PvP and PvE battles.
- Arena tournaments reward guilds with stat enhancing trophies or shop ownership.
- Game content is quest based and includes longer quest chains stretching throughout the player’s life.

Every once in a while The Sega of Ryzom team puts together some answers to the questions asked on the forums. Today there are 33 questions asked by gamers and every one of them is answered. You can also add your own comments or questions as well, be sure to check it out if your following this game. We'll give you a intro here, but you can read the whole Q&A by hitting the link below.

Q&A : Answers To Questions From The Board - 2006-04-03 by Marjo

Today I'm proposing you a Special Ring Q&A, with no less than 33 answers. More details are given here on what you are able to create with R², what you can bring or gain when playing a scenario, and some more information about the Beta.
All the questions listed below have been posted on the forum and directly answered there by Xavier, our Ring specialist. Feel free to give your opinion or ask other questions in the feedback thread!