Between desperate battles against the Bane, about all anyone can talk about in Tabula Rasa right now is the impending shutdown of the game service. Website efforts are being touted to solicit ideas for rescuing the game from shutdown, people are discussing the operating costs for the game, some are hoping that Richard Garriott might rescue the game from NCsoft, while others blame him personally for the game's shutdown.

Some are hoping that a player consortium can raise enough capital to buy the game assets from NCsoft itself, much as was attempted with Ryzom (and very nearly worked, until they were outbid by another company which resurrected that game anyway).

Low signup rates have largely been balanced out by attrition from a lack of ongoing endgame content. The focus on trying to improve early and midlevel experience, which caused uncertain, multiple rebalancings of the game six to eight months ago left top tier players, well, falling off the end a bit. "People had done it all," says level 50 player Paddy Oshea, "I know I was one of them."

Continue reading Tabula Rasa: Saving the game

Tabula Rasa: Saving the game originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Saga of Ryzom (or just Ryzom for marketing purposes), has had a pretty rocky time in the market, struggling and never quite taking off. Poor Ryzom, even spiffy advertising on Penny Arcade could not save you.

As we posted back in early February, things were starting to fall apart, and servers beginning to close. The last of them finally did in mid-February. Game over, right? Well, maybe not.

Continue reading The saga of the Saga of Ryzom: Not over yet

The saga of the Saga of Ryzom: Not over yet originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.