After six years of trial and error, NCsoft and Richard Garriott are finally satisfied with the quality of their ``Tabula Rasa'' project. The company opened the closed beta testing of the new sci-fi online computer game in the United States last week, with a plan to launch the final product around this fall. The start of closed beta marks the game's final development stages and NCsoft isn't hiding its high expectation on it. NC has been running out of fresh ideas after the success of the ``Lineage'' and ``Guild Wars'' series. Its ``Lineage 3'' project also looks dubious at this point after the whole developing team left the firm earlier this year amid conflict with the management.
Garriott, who oversees the ``Tabula Rasa'' project from Austin, Texas, is one of the greatest pioneers of the role-playing game genre. He is best known for creating the legendary ``Ultima'' game series, including the first commercially successful massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, ``Ultima Online.
A son of a NASA pilot, Garriott also showed special interest in the fledgling industry of zero-gravity traveling and operates his own space traveling agency, Space Adventures. Reflecting on such experiences, he tries to place players of ``Tabula Rasa'' in an epic sci-fi story where they will be challenged by dynamic and fast-paced adventures on alien worlds. Garriott even created the new language system of Logos for the game, introducing a whole set of new symbols and grammas.
In an e-mail interview with The Korea Times, Garriott said that such new ideas will be ``staples in MMOGs of the future.'' The game should be launched in the United States and Europe in fall. NC is yet to decide whether to release it in Korea.
A scene from "Tabula Rasa,'' which is due out in fall in the United States and in Europe.
Korea Times: I can imagine that how eagerly the NCsoft management in Seoul including CEO Kim Taek-jin has been waiting to see the final product of ``Tabula Rasa.'' What is his expectation on TR, and what is your expectation on it?
Richard Garriott: You'll need to ask TJ about his expectation for TR. But I can't imagine it being much different from our own, which is to develop a next generation MMORPG that appeals to a broad base of players. We are innovating on the current MMORPG model as I described above and believe our ideas will be staples in MMOGs of the future.
KT: What (who) inspired you to create TR? Is it relevant with your successful space adventuring projects?
RG: It's no secret that I have a keen interest in areas related to space and space travel. My father is a former NASA astronaut and I've collected many space-related items over the years. And just recently I've been training for a journey to space and you may have read about my flight on the Zero-G plane with Dr. Stephen Hawking taken this past week.
That being said, many of us on the TR team have a deep fantasy background. I think what you're seeing is that most every MMOG has been a retooling of the fantasy genre. We set out at the beginning to create as fresh a new reality as possible. We felt a future fantasy offered us a lot of fresh ideas! And we're extremely happy so far with the results.
KT: The pictograms you have invented look very enchanting, intriguing, and complex. Do you have any prior knowledge in linguistics?
RG: The Logos language we've created for TR was actually years in the making. I did a lot of research which involved reading many books on various symbolic languages, pictographic languages and languages from other cultures and eras. I spent months figuring out a language that could make sense for multiple cultures, not just western, but eastern as well.
I would take vacations and spend my spare time and that of my girlfriend, Kelly Miller, writing symbols on little pieces of paper and mixing them around to come up with combinations that worked. I believe that what I arrived at is certainly plausible and fits within the context of TR.
The team has been working with it for several months now and can decipher and translate with ease. I think it's something that the players will pick up on quickly and will enjoy. We've also worked the symbology of Logos into a physical science system within the game. So collecting these symbols will enable the player to acquire new powers.
KT: During your visit to Korea in 2005, you had said that TR would be released by the end of 2006. Now that the final product is yet to come, could you explain why it took another year to complete game, and what sort of changes you have made?
RG: As in most cases involving game development, you're never really certain when a game will be ready for launch until you get much closer to the date you've set as a goal and the game has been properly tested both internally and publicly.
The movement to the latter part of this year is nothing more than a need on our part to spend the proper amount of time to meet our expectations for TR and what we believe will be the expectations of our player base.
KT: Do you believe that it would be difficult for TR to appeal to both Western and Eastern audiences?
RG: The two markets are moving closer and closer together, more than they are pulling further apart. But there are still many differences in how, for instance, Korean people play online games versus how American people play online games.
There are still differences in the expectations that each culture holds for online games. In the early years of our relationship with NCsoft, we tried to create a game that would appeal to both territories at the same time, but determined that along the way, we were failing to appeal to ourselves. So we've moved to an idea where we make a game that will be first and foremost one that we would love to play, and thus we know that we will succeed in the west.
After we have that version well in hand, we will see what additions we may need to make to maximize our appeal in the east.
KT: Both FPS games and MMORPGs are already abundant (probably too abundant) in the market. Is Tabula Rasa really going to be something new and fresh?
RG: First of all, we firmly believe that there is still a lot of growth ahead in the MMOG market. In North America the MMOG market continues to grow even as more and more products come on line. What's needed is a game that really adds something different, something unique.
That's where TR comes in. Many of these innovations are things that we believe will be adopted by other MMOGs. For example, Tabula Rasa uses a real time fast action and tactical combat system, that remains an RPG (not a FPS) by giving players the immediacy of one click _ fire your weapon _ coupled with sticky targeting to avoid being an arcade game, coupled with the use of cover and position to modify the RPG probabilities of damage via the attributes and equipment of characters. This creates a real time tactical RPG game play that is fast paced, thoughtful and highly rewarding instead of the plodding DOT (damage over time) turn based combat of other MMOGs.
TR also has dynamic play environments. NPCs and players will take and hold territory, such that creature spawning and NPC availability change significantly over the hours and days of game play. TR allows players to save and clone their characters at any time, thus players can easily explore all the options of character development without starting over to try new classes and roles.
Finally TR has a far deeper and relevant story line, where decisions players make along their quests are more important and lead to more relevant wins than in previous MMOs.
KT: Do you have plans to transplant TR to video game consoles, or making it a Hollywood movie?
RG: Not at this time.
KT: There was a small turbulence in the Korean stock market in March when you sold some of your NCsoft shares, since other investors thought it as a bad omen for the company.
RG: That was nothing more than me converting some shares for personal reasons. People should not read any more into it than that.
Richard Garriott: You'll need to ask TJ about his expectation for TR. But I can't imagine it being much different from our own, which is to develop a next generation MMORPG that appeals to a broad base of players. We are innovating on the current MMORPG model as I described above and believe our ideas will be staples in MMOGs of the future.
KT: What (who) inspired you to create TR? Is it relevant with your successful space adventuring projects?
RG: It's no secret that I have a keen interest in areas related to space and space travel. My father is a former NASA astronaut and I've collected many space-related items over the years. And just recently I've been training for a journey to space and you may have read about my flight on the Zero-G plane with Dr. Stephen Hawking taken this past week.
That being said, many of us on the TR team have a deep fantasy background. I think what you're seeing is that most every MMOG has been a retooling of the fantasy genre. We set out at the beginning to create as fresh a new reality as possible. We felt a future fantasy offered us a lot of fresh ideas! And we're extremely happy so far with the results.
KT: The pictograms you have invented look very enchanting, intriguing, and complex. Do you have any prior knowledge in linguistics?
RG: The Logos language we've created for TR was actually years in the making. I did a lot of research which involved reading many books on various symbolic languages, pictographic languages and languages from other cultures and eras. I spent months figuring out a language that could make sense for multiple cultures, not just western, but eastern as well.
I would take vacations and spend my spare time and that of my girlfriend, Kelly Miller, writing symbols on little pieces of paper and mixing them around to come up with combinations that worked. I believe that what I arrived at is certainly plausible and fits within the context of TR.
The team has been working with it for several months now and can decipher and translate with ease. I think it's something that the players will pick up on quickly and will enjoy. We've also worked the symbology of Logos into a physical science system within the game. So collecting these symbols will enable the player to acquire new powers.
KT: During your visit to Korea in 2005, you had said that TR would be released by the end of 2006. Now that the final product is yet to come, could you explain why it took another year to complete game, and what sort of changes you have made?
RG: As in most cases involving game development, you're never really certain when a game will be ready for launch until you get much closer to the date you've set as a goal and the game has been properly tested both internally and publicly.
The movement to the latter part of this year is nothing more than a need on our part to spend the proper amount of time to meet our expectations for TR and what we believe will be the expectations of our player base.
KT: Do you believe that it would be difficult for TR to appeal to both Western and Eastern audiences?
RG: The two markets are moving closer and closer together, more than they are pulling further apart. But there are still many differences in how, for instance, Korean people play online games versus how American people play online games.
There are still differences in the expectations that each culture holds for online games. In the early years of our relationship with NCsoft, we tried to create a game that would appeal to both territories at the same time, but determined that along the way, we were failing to appeal to ourselves. So we've moved to an idea where we make a game that will be first and foremost one that we would love to play, and thus we know that we will succeed in the west.
After we have that version well in hand, we will see what additions we may need to make to maximize our appeal in the east.
KT: Both FPS games and MMORPGs are already abundant (probably too abundant) in the market. Is Tabula Rasa really going to be something new and fresh?
RG: First of all, we firmly believe that there is still a lot of growth ahead in the MMOG market. In North America the MMOG market continues to grow even as more and more products come on line. What's needed is a game that really adds something different, something unique.
That's where TR comes in. Many of these innovations are things that we believe will be adopted by other MMOGs. For example, Tabula Rasa uses a real time fast action and tactical combat system, that remains an RPG (not a FPS) by giving players the immediacy of one click _ fire your weapon _ coupled with sticky targeting to avoid being an arcade game, coupled with the use of cover and position to modify the RPG probabilities of damage via the attributes and equipment of characters. This creates a real time tactical RPG game play that is fast paced, thoughtful and highly rewarding instead of the plodding DOT (damage over time) turn based combat of other MMOGs.
TR also has dynamic play environments. NPCs and players will take and hold territory, such that creature spawning and NPC availability change significantly over the hours and days of game play. TR allows players to save and clone their characters at any time, thus players can easily explore all the options of character development without starting over to try new classes and roles.
Finally TR has a far deeper and relevant story line, where decisions players make along their quests are more important and lead to more relevant wins than in previous MMOs.
KT: Do you have plans to transplant TR to video game consoles, or making it a Hollywood movie?
RG: Not at this time.
KT: There was a small turbulence in the Korean stock market in March when you sold some of your NCsoft shares, since other investors thought it as a bad omen for the company.
RG: That was nothing more than me converting some shares for personal reasons. People should not read any more into it than that.
