Tabula Rasa - Beta Preview @ Stropp's World

Stropp's World previews a beta edition of Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

The problem I think is that the gameplay will turn out to be fairly one dimensional. There seems to be only one real style of play, and that is using guns with some Logos action in the mix. Games like WoW, LotRO, and the like have a number of classes which allow a player to mix it up. Mages can be Frost, Fire or Arcane. There are Tanks, Rogues, Hunters with lots of variations. Tabula Rasa does allow specialisation of your character into a Guardian, Ranger, Demolitionist, Medic and the like later in the game, so it’s hard to say for certainty on this, but I’m not sure it will really make all that much of difference to mix up the gameplay.

More information.

Did anyone else notice this is one of many negative previews of Tabula Rasa? Typically, previews are positive or neutral at worst. I am not a journalist but that has always been the trend.

Even sites who slam games in reviews give neutral previews of nearly the same builds as release.

Garriot was famous for his multi-dimensional games where you could bake bread, ride horses, flying carpets and spaceships even. Tabula rasa has none of that. Instead its a pure shooter. Pseudo-shooter to more exact because you cant even control your shooting (its handicapped/based on target locking) like in normal shooter-games.

I tried the beta, and while it was a reasonably competently made game, it had mediocrity written all over it.

I just uninstalled the beta. It bored me, more and more, the longer I played it.