Robert Garriott Interview
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Q: It's been hinted that Tabula Rasa will be doing away with (or at least overhauling) the traditional leveling system. Can you please provide some more details on what your approach will be?
A: We've worked on reducing some of the grind of other MMOs. What I've found is that the game style is so easy to get into, it's easy to group with other people. The thing that gets me excited about Tabula Rasa is that, normally with MMPs, I think they're somewhat boring. So, compare that to a shooter; I'm horrible at playing any shooter but when I'm walking through the office at night, most of our people are playing shooters. So I'll stand over their shoulder and what I'm watching is exciting; I'm horrible at it, but it's so fun to watch. Tabula Rasa is a game where you get the excitement of the shooter, with things happening all the time, lots of stuff blowing up, and there's whole teams of good guys on your side going out on missions. You can team up with NPCs who can help you to do missions, and there's teams of bad guys doing missions, and all these things are happening right around you and you can be a part of that. So even when you're by yourself, it feels like a shooter but the interface is easy and so the interface and the story development is much more like an MMP. So it has a lot of the depth, it has the missions, it has the team play and with easy ways to group together.
From my standpoint, it brings together the good aspects of the shooters, which to me is the excitement, intensity, and feel along with the depth and style of play of an MMP. Instead of a typical MMP, where you stand in front of something and go "I'm going to hit you and you're going to hit me," the combat in Tabula Rasa features much more of an ability to hide behind things; the enemy uses different tactics against you, and depending on if they're close together or spread apart, there's different sorts of weapons you can use. There are things called shield drones wandering around the map, and if they're close to some enemies the drones will protect them, so you'll have to destroy the shield drone to get at the enemies and you might sacrifice one of your players in order to do that. So the tactics of the gameplay are much different than games we or our competitors have done... So, relating to your original question, the "experience" you would get from killing bad guy isn't that much. It's really about completing missions, doing team things, and getting through the storyline of the game; that's really what advances you.
