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Goodbye Tabula Rasa

Sometimes, we're all a little prescient. We can see a bit into the future. The problem is, we can never predict when we're going to have one of those moments, and we never actually know we've had one until it's already come and gone.

Roy and I have been having one of those prescient moments about Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, the game we called The Best MMORPG You're Not Playing (January 27, 2008 blog entry). We went online on the game last night because we're consolidating our game accounts down to just a very few. We cancelled our Tabula Rasa accounts last night and just wanted a few screenshots for posterity, just to prove 'We Were There.'

Sure enough, this greeted us when we signed on:

"To the Tabula Rasa Community,

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.

Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.

We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while.

Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players.

--The Tabula Rasa Team"

 

Online in the game, as we gathered our final screenshots, we heard the usual misplaced griping that accompanies such sad moments, when a game that people like is about to come to an end. General chat was filled with angry comments. There was the usual claim that the game publisher and developer didn't advertise enough. And NC Soft's efforts to ease the pain a little bit were angrily rejected in more such misplaced anger.

 

The general feeling seemed to be that NC Soft was cancelling Tabula Rasa to get its players to sign up for other NC Soft games, and that truly loyal supporters of Tabula Rasa would reject such overtures and refuse to play any other NC Soft games.

 

Oh bollix. The same 'shoot yourselves in the foot' reaction we have seen over and over among the subscribers of failed games that have not generated enough active subscribers to stay alive.

 

What NC Soft is offering Tabula Rasa players is actually quite nice:

 

"On February 28, 2009, Tabula Rasa will be shutting down its servers, and as of January 10, 2009, the game will be free to play.

To thank our loyal Tabula Rasa fans we've prepared a little closing down gift. Any active paying player as of 10:00 AM Pacific Time on November 21st, 2008 will be eligible for all of the following:

• 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
• 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
• Aion beta access (coming soon)
• Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
• 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)"

All NC Soft is trying to do here is offer SOMETHING to loyal TR subscribers. CoH-CoV and especially the very popular Lineage brands are strong and successful MMORPG titles in their own rights that do not need the paltry TR subscriber list to stay alive. Granted, none of those games offer anything remotely like the sci-fi based story line of alien invasion in TR. But there isn't a lot that NC Soft can do about that. They did TRY something very different, and very fun, but flawed.

Roy and I certainly did our bit. We blogged on TR several times, wrote role-playing story lines, and we wrote one of the first well read reviews of the game that remains our single biggest blog entry in terms of hits. And there wasn't much more that could have been done to bring attention to the game.

After all, Garriott turned his entire trip into outer space into an unprecedented advertisement for the game. Do more advertising? How exactly do you top that?

If the TR users aren't foolish, they will at least get a few free months to try out some other games. They might even find something they like. We note here that WE are loyal players of, in effect TWO NC Soft games already in City of Heroes and City of Villains, and no one is offering US free time on other games. Laughing out loud.

Anyway, we're sorry to see TR go, because it opened a lot of new ground. It just didn't do it well enough to stay alive. It's not good, for example, when the TR website lists fewer hits in Google than Veronica Dunbar -- Redhead Girl Geek Chic. A single blog with more hits than an MMORPG...wow.

For our part, we're not sticking around in TR just for the freebies. TR will be even more of a ghost town as things wind down. We've noticed that the players we didn't care for much are the ones on most of the time now, and griping. And we hate griping and whining. It's like our two least favorite human interactive experiences. So, we've deleted the game from our hard drives, kept a few screenies, and now it's on to other things.

 

 

 

City of Villains: Choices, Choices, Choices

Our experience with the six MMORPGS that Roy and I have played so far is that we frequently start out sampling almost every kind of character archetype available. But somewhere along the line, usually between levels 15 and 30, one emerges rather distinctly as the most fun to play. From that point on, whether the top level of achievement was 40 to 50 or 60 or 70, that was the character we played probably 65% to 95% of the time, and then often between 95% and 100% of the time as we neared the final game levels.

The Matrix Online represents the only time that didn't play out for me, since I played one toon from start to finish there and didn't even begin a second one until ScarletWave, my karate grandmaster, had hit 50.

In City of Heroes, I played a empathy defender named Astraea and a melee scrapper named Indigo8 before Artemis the Archer, my blaster, emerged as the toon I wanted to press on ahead to level 50. Same thing with my first level 50 villain, Inflamed Artemis, the Fire Blast - Kinetics Corruptor. I tried everything except a Brute and deleted several toons as high as level 28 before I finally focused on her.

Same with Guild Wars: Factions. Same for Roy in World of Warcraft before he finally decided on the Priest, Arakhn after trying out Warriors and Palladins and Mages and Druids. It was the same for Roy in Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, where he finally focused on his Spy, Alex Stallworth after dabbling other game career paths. The Priest Arakhn and the Spy, Alex Stallworth were also like ScarletWave: one top level toon for the game, with little or no interest in doing it all over again with a second character.

What's happening now in City of Villains is a first for us. Three toons, all level 31 out of 50, all quite different, each on a different server, and all equally fun to play, so much so that I usually play one to the next level, then the other, and then the third before going back to the first one again. When I think about it, it's just about the perfect situation for an MMORPG that I really enjoy. Instead of the usual mad rush up the levels, punctuated by a few breaks, this kind of situation could be enjoyed for a LOT longer before all three were brought to the top level.

I'm not sure it's going to remain this way, but I think I'll just enjoy it while it lasts. Of course, now I also have to introduce them.

If there is one of the three that I do favor above the others, it's Vampire Vicereine, level 31 Brute, Electrical Melee and Willpower, on the Justice server. That's probably because she is one of the two punching bag, damage sponge archetypes in the game (along with the Tank archetype in City of Heroes) whose primary job is to absorb mob aggro in a small, controlled area, allowing other archetypes to work their holds and debuffs and damage.

Brutes are a little bit more fun to play because they don't have nearly as many health points as tanks, who really aren't required to do any damage at all on most teams. Because they have fewer health points, Brutes have commensurately much more damage dealing ability than any tank, and that makes them very fun to play. Brutes also have something called Fury: the more they continuously brawl, the greater their fury levels, and the more damage they are able to deal. So you literally run from one mob to the next and to the next without pause, if possible. You could think of Brutes as Scrappers, the melee Hero archetype whose primary job is to wail on whatever the tank has drawn the attention of. But they have better defense and more health points than scrappers.

Already, at level 31, Vicereine has almost as many health points as the strongest level 50 hero I have (I don't play tanks). I just love the way she can stand in the middle of any mob, taunt them to hold their aggro, absorb an amazing amount of damage, and then hand it back out in some pretty spectacular Area of Effect damage moves on multiple victims at once. The Electrical Melee power set comes with very entertaining special effects. She has 1,335 health points.

Rippen is my level 31 Arachnos Night Widow on the Freedom server. Widows, which can come in one of two forms, are one of the two Epic villain archetypes (along with Soldiers of Arachnos) that one only gets to play after they have first taken a regular villain to level 50. In that way, they are the equivalent in terms of a reward, to the Kheldian Peacebringers and Warshades that City of Heroes players get to use once theyhave taken a character to level 50. But the similarity ends there.

While the hero Khelds are considered the symbiotic joining of a human with an alien species, granting them immediate advantages in travel powers such as flying or teleportation at level one, the villain Epic Widows and Soldiers are all blue collar. They have to hoof it on the ground just like every other beginning hero and villain until they can choose the super speed or super jump or flying or teleportation travel powers at level 14. They do, however, get the signature armor of all Widow and Soldiers, which is pretty cool.

Of these three villains, Rippen, on the Virtue server, is the biggest anomaly. She is by far the weakest and most easily killed in terms of health points, with only 756 at level 31, compared to 851 for my level 31 Stalker Razor Grrl, and 1,335 for my Brute. Widows have to wait several levels to get their stealth mode power, and their version is not nearly as good as that of stalkers. They can be seen much more easily. But Widows so far appear to be the most amazing damage dealers in the game. All but one of her offensive powers are rated as High Damage, Superior Damage, or Extreme Damage. She can take down a mob much faster than either my Stalker or my Brute, IF she manages to stay alive.

The other odd thing about Widows is that high damage dealing toons are usually required do little else. But widows are also geared toward total team support. Her tactical training power sets give teammates enhanced defense and accuracy and damage dealing capability as well as improved perception allowing them a better chance of seeing cloaked opponents. These powers also grant teammates resistance to confusion, fear, taunt, and placate powers. Another very cool power Widows have is Mind Link, which temporarily givens even more enhancement to your team's accuracy and defense. All of which make Widows very popular in terms of damage and team support.

Razor Grrl is my level 31 Claws - Regeneration Stalker on the Freedom server. If you are new to City of Villains and just trying to get a feel for the game, or if you are the type of player who loves to tour a game world and enjoy its intricacies without fear of being ganked by every mob in sight, playing a stalker would be an excellent way to start. Unlike every other archetype that has to wait at last a few levels before they can acquire a stealth or hide or cloaked power, Stalkers get theirs at level one. And it is very possibly the best stealth mode in the game. You cannot be seen by opponents even when you are standing right next to them. This is even true with opponents that are at higher levels, meaning that Stalkers are free to move about higher level game play areas almost immediately without fear of being attacked.

The knock on Stalkers is that they are Lone Wolf toons, and nothing could be farther from the truth. They can scout out missions and warn their teammates about what they are about to face. They can go directly to the end of the emission and, with the simple addition of the Teleport Friend power, they can transport their teammates there to save tremendous amounts of time.

A Stalker's other signature power is the Assassin Strike, probably the single most damaging move in the game. Striking from stealth mode, they can one hit opponents that are two to three levels higher. Even when they aren't able to kill on a single strike, they can nail a very difficult opponent for a quarter to a third of his health, making them much more manageable to teammates.

I picked Claws for my Stalker because it also includes a long range power that also comes with heavy knockback, called Total Focus. It not only hits for high damage, it allows you to strike again as your opponent is picking his butt off the sidewalk. I tried other kinds of Stalkers and found them boring by comparison

Happy dilemma, since I can't seem to decide which of them to play. And because they are bad girls, I can have a little more fun with the way they are attired. Vamp is a god example of the fact that you don't have to look like a Brute to play one.

See you in the game.

Our Next MMORPG. Here's a hint, the most common line isn't going to be "You Talkin' To Me?"

Michael Corleone: Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

Contrary to popular belief among those (like me!) who like to rail against the malaise of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, the most oft-repeated form of mmorpg repetitiveness is not the long Sword and Sorcery list of games that have some form of Elf or Dwarf or Troll to play.

The most common theme can be found in all of the Good Fellas style Mafia-based mmorpgs in which you can play some kind of gangster boss or hitman, or enforcer, or pimp, or drug dealer, or something equally as socially irresponsible. According to one list of the 50 most popular games in the genre, 19 of them are games Tony Soprano might have loved to play before he got whacked. I'm not sure I get it, but I can't argue with the fact that there are so many organized crime games out there. 

Omerta: "Set in the 1930's gangster and mafia world, the game is all about status, money and respect. Players get rank points by doing crimes, stealing cars and busting friends out of jail. You can even run you're own organised crime ring, robbing local banks and holding up cars on quiet roads. As you delve deeper into the dark gangster world, many players find other business opportunities, such as gambling clubs, reselling booze and even drug dealing..."

Mafia Returns: ""I assure you, there has been NO mistake." the man behind you growls into your ear as he presses the cold steel of the .45 deeper into the crown of your skull. "The money, I'm sorry... It was the money!" you cry back in a humiliating attempt at saving your own life. Several hours later, you are found by police with urine-soaked pants and a 50 dollar bill stuffed firmly into the back of your throat. You didn't live..."

MafiaMatrix: "This is a game about power and corruption, with the ultimate goal of becoming the most powerful player in the game! This could be from rising through the ranks of the Mafia to Godfather, or perhaps as a Judge, Commissioner of Police or any number of careers. Make friends, team up and plan your way ahead. You choose your fate and decide your own future." And I just love this part: "Players are friendly and helpful so don't be afraid to ask."

Vascogames.com offers up this trio of dark entertainment -- Mafia Family: "Steal yourself a nice shiny new Cadillac, start shipping some bootleg booze and get some buddies together to rob the local bank... a life of organized crime can be a rewarding career!"; Agent's Target: "Become a undercover agent in the world of the Gangsters and mobsters."; and Russian Maffia: "Russian Maffia is an online Mafia game like no other. You begin as an 'Starter' and progress through the ranks to the very top, (that's if the other gangsters, thugs and smug-a-lugs don't ice you first)."

Hitman's Life: "Live the life of hit man doing hit jobs for your employers until you end up with your own assassin's company."

Mafia-Family: "Get into the world of mafia. Kill, steal and improve your ranks by robing banks, dealing drugs and lots more! Join existing families or make your own. Gather the crew and fight your way to the top!"

Pimp Empires: "As you walk along the waterfront after finishing your shift at the local burger place feeling like your life is going nowhere...You notice a tall gentleman dressed in a long coat wearing a Stetson type hat, smoking a pipe. As you approach he turns and looks you up and down as if to start grooming. While you seem to walk slower it may just be your discerning feeling something is different. "No money uhh" he says very calmly almost like he knew me. "What's your name?" Thinking hes from the Mob, or local Mafia. "Who are you?" you ask reluctantly. "That's not important, your the one with no money, no future, I've been blessed with great life of money and luxury. I cannot continue" he sits down leans one hand on his black and gold cain. "My car is waiting I want to leave knowing someday I will be replaced, here is my van keys it has few guns, drugs and some numbers of girls to get started, my time is short" he hands you piece of paper while you both start to walk towards his waiting black car. His bodyguards opens the car door "Take care, the road is hard, be ruthless and kind, make friends enemies will come, but above all know when which to be" the door closes and they drive off leaving you more confused than ever. You open the piece paper excluding the garage lock-up number it says 'Good luck, you have been chosen,' signed PE Crime Lord." (All the bad typos and grammar is, um, the fault of the pimp.)

The Mafia Underground: "The Mafia Underground is a free mafia based game in which you may choose to be part of a gang or to go it alone. Fight for supremacy of a city, or even a country and make your mark on the underground world of the mafia."

Trenton Made: "There are many prestigious roles in the world of organized crime. Be boss of a family and rule with absolute power. Amass a fortune in diamonds or make millions on the black market. It’s yours for the taking when you are Trenton Made!"

Extreme Mob Wars: "You want to be a real Mobster godfather like John Gotti, Al Capone and have all the little mobsters at your feet? You want to have fun? You want to make money? Then you are at the right place!"

There are several more, but you probably get the drift by now.

I'm seriously wondering who enjoys games like this. The games I've played have never been my first topic of conversation at parties among non-gamers, but I'd have to serious doubts about whether I'd mention that I spend part of my nights playing a ruthless pimp. And for parents? Wow, at least when Julian wakes up in the middle of the night and comes to see me, he won't be seeing anything like this on my computer screen.

So, our search goes on. Ruled out so far: Elves, trolls, dwarves, mafia bosses, hitmen and hit women, and, yes, pimps.

Tabula Rasa War Dispatch

Tabula Rasa Journal: Valverde Plateau

For: Allied Free Sentients High Command

Classification: Above Top Secret; Eyes Only

Item: Spy Journal recovered at (deleted for security purposes)

Excerpt as Follows:

"Name's Alex Stallworth, Unit Rank (deleted), Lvl 33 Spy, AFS Elite Shoctroops. I've been pinned down in this observation tower for the last several hours. Gonna try to make a run for it as soon as its dark. Bane patrols are pretty light around here after dark. Not that I think Crusty is sleeping. Truth be told, I think something big is coming, and I couldn't get anyone to see it.

My unit was the AFS Elite Shoctroops. There were about 70 of us at one time. We've pretty much been wiped out. Down to three others I know of, and I haven't seen or heard from those other two in several hours. Maybe, if I don't make it, someone will read this and finally start paying attention. Either that or they're gonna have another Fort Intrepid on their hands.

Last several days, my unit had been operating out of the Wedge Rock Outpost, and things weren't going well. I know the AFS line about Valverde. We're taking the fight to Crusty and all that stuff from the General: "We can't afford to rest. We can't afford to retreat. We attack. We always attack." Thing is, that's just not happening. Just some good news fluff to shore up morale. We've been pretty much operating on our own out here, and losing people everyday.

Fought with a lot of good people on the Torden Plains�and other places, men and women who really knew what they were doing. Problem is, I haven't seen any of them on Valverde. Maybe they are still on Torden, on the Mires or the Incline, but (expletive deleted) Valverde Plateu is where we need them, like NOW.

Anyway, this is how I see it. Crusty's been able to hold all four of the main control points, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and Southwest, pretty much constantly. We'd manage to take back Northwest or Northeast, but we weren't able to hold out for more than one or two counterattacks before Crusty took them back again. We're talking big enemy raiding parties, too. Bigger than anything I'd seen near the Lightning Fields on Torden Plains. They'd just overwhelm us.

You control those four locations, and you control the plateau. Don't know why no one else sees this. Just look at the (expletive deleted) map for (expletive deleted.) All we have is Fort Defiance in the north. There hasn't been any major attack on Wedge Rock yet, but that's kinda part of what is weird about all this.

We were assigned to near base patrols. That was pretty much confined to a lightly forested area just east of Wedge Rock. Nothing special about it. Not even much to look at, but Crusty has been all over it these past three days. Regular probes by teams of three coming out of the north, the east and the south. All kinds of Bane, even the big Kaels. We'd no sooner wipe out one group of them before we'd find another trying to move in. I've never seen Crusty so interested in a little piece of real estate. The first day out, I stopped counting at 150 kills. You do the math. That's at least 50 Crusty patrols in a day.

Once and awhile, we'd get this reconaissance in force out of Fort Defiance. I patrolled with them a couple of times, just waiting for Crusty to show himself like he had been, but here's the thing. They NEVER attacked the Defiance patrols, just laid low until they were gone again and then they would be back to hitting us, whittling us down. We'd take out four or five of them for every one of ours we'd lose, but still. Got pretty good at nailing them with carpet bombing, then lightning storm, and hardly ever had to do the close in work with my blades.

But today was the worst. We were down to three by then. Mostly we were just getting by through picking up people from stray units. Then we managed to take back the Northeast control point. The three of us headed up there to help defend it, try to hold onto the (expletive deleted) thing for awhile at least, you know? But we didn't even manage to hold them off once. We took out the rear control point attack�pretty easily, but that's what Crusty does: First assault on one entrance. Assault two at the other gate. Then Assault three back at the first entrance. Gets you running back and forth and it's all over when the force field comes down. I barely made it out alive. Got separated from the last two guys in my unit. Armor was almost down to nothing.

I'd barely recharged it before I stumbled onto a firefight at the base of that huge Eloh bridge over Valverde Chasm. I was the only one to make it out. I made my way back toward Wedge Rock and couldn't believe what I found. Not one but TWO Bane patrols at the (expletive deleted) base of the hill below Wedge Rock Outpost. The laser turrets weren't even firing on them. I just don't get it. Three days we're dropping loot we took off dead Bane soldiers, and I can't even get the outpost commander (name deleted) to look up from his (expletive deleted) paperwork.

I managed to take down both patrols. Got down to hand to hand and my prototype ChiTech incendiary blade. Let me put it this way: those Benihana chefs ain't got nothing on me.

Standing up on that hill leading down from the outpost, it finally dawned on me. You control that little patch of ground we've been bloodying each other over these past three days, and you control a chokepoint that covers the entrance to the Valverde Chasm, the main route to the Trinity Bridge, the main route to the Northeast control point, and the route back to Fort Defiance. See where I'm going with this now? They gotta been planning a massive hit on Fort Defiance out of those four control points, just like they did on Ligo with Fort Intrepid.

I just picked up the Polymorph ability. So it's finally time to do some spying. I'll have two minutes before I have to recharged the thing again to look like a Bane foot soldier. About to head out now. I figure the disguise will let me reconoiter the control point�a little before I make a run for it. Gotta see what I can find out. Wish me luck. Shoctroopers rock!"

(Excerpt ends here)

World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade: The Best MMORPG You're Probably Playing Too Much

My fiance's toon on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, is a priest named Arakhn on the Terenas server who just recently reached level 70. He's at the top level, at the pinnacle of his powers, right? Time to either move onto the next MMORPG or maybe think about leveling up another archetype, right?

WRONG YOU MAGGOTS!

(Insert R. Lee "Now Drop and Give me 25" Ermey or Lou Gossett Jr. or your favorite drill sergeant voice of choice here)

This isn't just any MMORPG here, you nooblets. This is World of Warcraft. It's the United States Marine Corps of gaming. Hoorah! If you're one of us, you can look down your nose at everyone else. If, you're not, we are at least very fun to hate.

And reaching level 70? Phhftt. In this game, it means NOTHING, you maggot. This is the one MMORPG where hitting the top level merely gives you the right to bust your little butt even more just to get ready for the next war...er game expansion, Wrath of The Lich King, which may be out as early as (*shudder*) November. You Will Not Be Prepared!

Okay, exiting the Gunny voice now.

Poor Roy. He has so little time for gaming that he did this mostly solo and without a guild. In other words, he worked really hard for this. But is he done? ZOMG, no! He did this predominantly on the Shadow talent tree, with a little help from the Discipline tree mixed in. He had NO Holy talents, which is the Uber Healer of the game. Forget Pallies, Shamans (sorry Capt. Kirk) or Druids. Nothing comes close to keeping you from having a long run back to your corpse than a properly outfitted Holy Priest. I mean, seriously, they can heal WHILE THEY ARE DEAD! End of argument.

So, Roy dutifully paid his 45 gold to the cute Night Elf Priest Trainer in Darnassus to redo his talents. Made himself a Holy Priest (40 talent points), plus Discipline (21 points) and settled back to wait for all of the Instance and Raid invites.

He's still waiting. After two weeks of absolutely NO love, he came to me. Well, gaming is a living for me after all. And after I let him buy my little Mage, Indigeau, a Lovely Black Dress (very hot little number and  such a bargain at just 200 gold...lol), I settled in to work.

The first thing we did was hit The Armory online, and we started hanging out in the main Auction Houses. He figured I just wanted to shop. Sigh. No, no, no! We were checking out EVERY Holy Priest build we could find to see what they had that he didn't have. After a relatively short while, it was painfully obvious.

The Uber Holy Priests had this much in common: healing bonuses of as much as 2,000+ points (Arakhn, pre-Veronica help, was around 750+ bonus healing); as much as 11,000+ total mana (In WoW, this is your priest energy or endurance level). They also had uber amounts of companion Spirit (also in WoW jargon, this is what helps you regenerate your Mana more quickly), and they were all completely decked out in Purple gear (In WoW, this is the Epic level armor, weaponry, trinkets, etc.) that come with the highest bonuses in those oh so essential Holy Priest areas such as +healing, Intellect and Spirit.)

The Second Tier priests were half to more than half Epic gear, filled out with what generally appeared to be the best level 70 Blue (Rare) gear for priests. No green gear (Uncommon...the hierarchy here is Purple-Epic, Blue-Rare, Green-Uncommon, and so forth. In WoW, green gear is so frowned upon by level 70s that you might get reported for spamming if you advertise any of it for sale on the Trade Channel.)

Roy had (gasp) less than 8,800 mana, had way too much Stamina, Strength and Agility AND (are you sitting down?) he still had Green level gear...a LOT of green level gear. Okay, HALF his gear was green. Even the one bit of Epic Gear he had was still low range epic for this class, the three-piece Soulcloth Embrace set. NOT the best Epic for priests, but it was a start. The rest were Blues, and not all level 70 Blues at that. Some were mid-sixties level stuff that he hadn't bothered replacing yet.

So, we've been slowly improving him. Arakhn makes a ton of gold just skinning and mining as he has both professions at the top level 375. (Like I said, this game is a time soak monster. You have to have a job in it. You COULD have TWO jobs--two primary professions--and still have more secondary jobs you can also build to 375, like fishing, cooking, first aid, etc. The level 70 quests are all good for collecting more gold fairly quickly, too.

So far, we have his heal bonus up to about 1,100 although, oddly enough, we've dropped his mana back from a nearly adequate 9,850 to 9,150. This is Roy/Arakhn's other problem in building a top flight Holy Priest. Sure, we've replaced all but three of the green items and gotten some very cool and appropriately priestly Purples, but the guy is still a microbiologist and helping research a book on the side. This means zip time for long instances, having to drop things at a second's notice to answer a question from an editor, and if there is ONE GAME where the crowds tend to be a bit youthful and removed from Real Life Responsibilities, it's World of Warcraft. That is one of the game's serious drawbacks. I actually left a dungeon mission because my little Julian was having a nightmare that woke him up. When I got back online after soothing him and reading him a story and getting him back to sleep, I ran into some of the guys on the instance. One of them actually said he DID NOT understand why my son's nightmare was more important than the game. Perma Ignore for that butthead.

Some guilds will actually insist that you fill out applications explaining in detail why they ought to accept you. Some guilds promise confidentiality. How sweet. They won't tell everyone if they think you are a joke toon.

What some people in this game do not realize is that it IS a game. None of this skillfully rendered universe actually exists, and most adults who play, like Roy and I, play it to ESCAPE all the RL stuff for awhile, like job applications. For a game guild. I asked one guy how many words he wrote for his guild application. He said he wrote 2,000 words and had to stop himself. Since I knew this guy was also applying for college, I asked him what was his longest application essay on why he ought to be accepted at a university. He said he stretched one to 900 words once. He saw nothing odd about this at all. Creepy.

Anyone who tends toward an obsessive compulsive personality complex that avoids real life interactions and real life responsibilities and relationships probably should NEVER play WoW. It can be so immersive that the game can take over.

Roy still has no time to instance or raid, and all of the uber 70 level gear comes as "bind when picked up." It is soulbound to whoever picks it up or wins the roll for it. Meaning that the game, which made a HUGE point of the fact that you can play as you wish and solo all the way up if you don't have time to group, is now insisting at the top level that you do all of these instances and quests and dungeons in order to get the gear you need. Not going to happen in this lifetime.

And for someone with little time to play, completing an event and losing the roll for the equipment you need gets old VERY fast. Any other priests in your group will be going after the same armor and weaponry. The Mage might roll for both, if the weapons or equipment have enough Intellect and Spirit attached. The Druid might compete for the weapons, if they carry enough stamina. You see his dilemma.

So, this morning, Roy was back to Plan B on his level 70 priest. Frack the heals. Frack being Holy. Besides, after putting himself through all this, he mostly feels like killing lots of things anyway. He's going back to being a Shadow Priest for the massive DPS he can dish out, and the Uber Gear he will go for is the kind he can get as his leisure, at his own pace. He's going for the gladiator gear and he's already worked out how much he needs. It is rather unreal how much he needs. I needed a fricking calculator to add it all up. To get all the gear he wants, he'll need just under 300,000 honor points total and 410 badges from various battlegrounds.

I'm suggesting he take a break from the game and think about it. By the time he earns all that, the Lich King expansion will be out, and all of that Uber expensive and time consuming Epic gear will be worth nothing more than a quick trip to the vendors for silvers and coppers on the massive amounts of gold and effort it took to get them. Then, the target will be the new Uber level 80 gear.

Like I said, this game is voracious in what it demands. No wonder it's the MMORPG you probably play too much.

Depth: Nothing compares. Capes are the least important piece of armor. There are 300 green or uncommon capes to choose from in the game, and that does count the poor capes (gray), or the common capes (white), or the rare capes (blue, as stated before) or the Epics. The time and care taken to render each of the regions on all three continents (yes, I said continents) is something to sit back and enjoy on its own. When you are in the desert in Tanaris, it feels like you are in the desert. When the sand storms begin, you can watch individual grains of sand blow past you. When you are in Un'Goro Crater, it feels like you've materialized in the Age of the Dinosaurs. And ya, that booming and ground shaking you feel is that one that looks a lot like a huge T-Rex looking for a snack.

PVP: Rich amounts even on the PVE servers with constant duels  being fought everywhere. There are raids and Arena teams and  and lots of other opportunities for Alliance vs. Horde battles. A favored pastime seems to be taking your new level 70 over into the newbie zones of the opposing faction and ganking everything in sight. You are safe from ganking on the PVP servers only in the major cities; you are on your own and a target everywhere else.

Role Playing: the biggest disappointment. The only RP even on the RP servers, which Blizzard virtually ignores in terms of policing behavior, is ERP or, more accurately, JERP, for Juvenile Erotic Role Playing and some even more truly sicko stuff than that. These were probably the kids who had the naked G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls around the house. True arrested development.

Story Line: Very original. Sure, there are elves and orcs, which hardly seems original, but get into it a bit, and you're see the thought put into the arcs: the Horde coerced into an alliance with the Burning Legion. The plague released to wipe out the humans of Lordaeron, the Elves losing their immortality and splitting into factions, one good, one evil, the Night and the Blood, trying in vain to recover their lost powers. It's good stuff, and because it is a story unto itself, it is virtually open ended, unline Star Wars, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings and even the upcoming Conan, where the stories have existed, with endings, for years with no new material. If they ever do a Narnia MMORPG, it will have the same problem.

Servers: A rather ridiculous number. There are more than 200 in the U.S. alone. I haven't even bothered to count them all. The bad news is, you may meet a lot of people who play WoW, but they will never be on your server. The good news is, you can pull a Leeroy Jenkins dozens and dozens of times and still find a place to play where no one knows what a sorry excuse for a Marine...er player you really are.

'Basically we f*** with peoples' minds, Sir!'

Ok, I think that was the line from the movie 'The General's Daughter,' but I have to check... Hang one a minute. Well, the Internet Movie Database has never failed me before on a memorable movie quote, but there is a first time for everything. No worries, the quote as I recall it comes from the daughter who has been murdered, the entire plot devoted to figuring out who did it and why while unraveling a rather amazing number of interrelated cover-ups.

The daughter worked in Psy-Ops for the military: psychological operations...hence the line, 'Basically, we f*** with peoples' minds, Sir!'

The new Psychic Blast - Mental Manipulation Blaster on City of Heroes does the same thing, rather spectacularly. It's an irresistable combination. Basically, you can't even get close to them without getting bounced on your butt with the most severe knockback I've seen. They are going to be a LOT of fun to play.

Haven't had time to post many action shots, but here are a few of the new Blood Widow (top toon, melee fighting with claws and secondary poison effect), the new Blaster for Heroes (middle toon, psychic blast and mind manipulation effects...and that knockback), and a new Arachnos Soldier (with her compact, multifunction assault weapon on short burst).

I've tried to make mine a bit more stylish than most I've seen. Heh, why is it that young guys ALWAYS have to go for tall, big and ugly? I am sooooo tired of having to maneuver around ludicrously big and clumsy eight foot tall, 600 pound numbnalls in missions that are impossible to see around. Like you have to waste a lot of pixels to be a good tank. The Incredible Bulks...lol. Ridiculous...

So, all of the guys have gone for the crab look for the soldiers and, what a surprise, they are all eight feet tall and as huge as possible. Julian just walked into my home office and announced importantly that my computer monitor was bigger than his computer monitor. Boys...

Sadly, I just don't have the free time and energy that I did before Mom died and I took over care for little Julian, who is seven. So, forgive me for falling behind here on any game play reviews yet. I still have to write about the new archetypes in CoV, the new heroes in CoH and Roy did make 70 (!!!) and I have some screenshots of him flying his mount in Outland.

I'll be back as soon as I can.

Open Beta Testing

for Issue 12 of City of Heroes and City of Villains. On the Training Room server, and I just realized that it was one of the folders that got wiped when Roy and the other book researchers were walloped by that trojan horse attack on their files (and mine.)

The folder doesn't exist on my Quad Core, so I have to download the whole training room server file again. Grrrrr. Used to take hours with the 1.5 mbps. We'll see how long it takes with the new Fiber Optic connection.

You can access the procedure for setting up the test server here.

I might have it up and running by tonight...If any of you are looking for me in game there late tonight or tomorrow, I'll likely be in the training room with one of my level 50s, probably Dragonblade my scrapper. Or I might make one of the new epics, if I can. I probably won't be on any of the regular servers.

Trying to decide whether to level a SEVENTH CoH/CoV toon to 50.

It might be one of the three shown here, or it might be of the new epic class villains. We'll see.

I think Roy is going to hit level 70 with his Shadow Priest on WoW tonight after Jules is asleep or tomorrow at the latest. After that, we're both back to Tabula Rasa.

Frag on!

In case you were wondering, that 'About Me' photo is a couple of years old now, during a brief consideration of a modeling career. Very brief. The people at the modeling agency looked at me and told me I needed to lose 30 pounds. I went out and bought a cheeseburger and never went back...

My Online Life, Part One

It was March 22, 2005. I was a month and a half away from my 23rd birthday and already almost two years out of college after graduating from The Ohio State University in three years. I was living in a warehouse loft apartment with a T1 broadband connection in SoMa, the South of Market section of San Francisco. I actually remember the day quite well for several reasons. My boyfriend Roy, who is a microbiologist, was ecstatic about the fact that the United Nations had just declared it the first World Day for Water, or so my diary said at the time. The night before, I had also just finished the last in a long run of first person shooter games with the completion of Eidos Interactive's badly flawed and bug-ridden Project Snowblind. (tangent: I'm really hoping Eido's new Montreal studios can return the company to its former glory with Deus Ex III)

Project Snowblind, which I enjoyed immensely in spite of its flaws, was an experience that drove me in two directions. The first was deciding to apply my computer programming skills to writing patches to fix flaws in video games. The second was to seek out an entirely different form of visual-virtual entertainment that was open ended, changed from day to day, and could be influenced not only by me, but by thousands or perhaps millions of other people around the world.

I'd had a nice long run of FPS style games: Half Life, Deus Ex, Halo Combat Evolved, Battlefield 2 (strictly offline, although I DID host games on one of my servers), Far Cry, Deus Ex Invisible War, Half Life 2, and finally, Snowblind, to name just a few. The latter had started out as the third in the Deus Ex series, and went sharply downhill from there in terms of development. Eidos finally decided to release an error ridden version as a standalone game in Feb. 2005. It took me a month to finish it because it crashed so often and a patch was never written to fix the game.

But on March 22, 2005, something completely new and different was about to begin for me as I downloaded a new game and then waited for a few patches to load, online, in real time. Neat trick that.

By 2005, online computer games had already become immensely popular. In another month, April, Sony would launch the modern predecessor of World of Warcraft's auction houses and the Wentworth shops in City of Heroes. It would begin the first in-game item trading service for the massively multiplayer online role playing game or mmorpg called Everquest II, which turned into a near disaster when a counterfeiting scheme resulted in massive in-game inflation. Also that year, a real life man was arrested by real life police, in real life Japan, for stealing other peoples' virtual (as in not really real) possessions, during a virtually violent crime spree (so, it wasn't ACTUALLY  a crime spree in a pure technical sense) in another popular mmorpg called Lineage II.

Crazy, unpredictable. A kind of "We're going to try this and we have NO fricking idea of where it's going to lead" gaming entertainment that reminded me of the time that Richard Garriott finally decided to leave one of his Ultima Online creations alone and let it evolve. A player bandit had repeatedly waylayed a newbie in the game and stolen all of her possessions. Once, twice, thrice, Richard (the creator of Tabula Rasa) actually went online, tracked down the bandit, retrieved the stolen virtual goods, returned them to the newbie, until he finally clue-ed in. He had created a bandit class for the game, so why the frack wasn't he letting the bandits BE bandits?!?

This mmorpg thing was something I was going to have to try. Prime time television no longer interested me, unless it was some kind of documentary. I was no longer entertained by 44 minutes and 44 seconds (that's how much time your hour-long broadcast actually gives you after all the of the commercials) of television "drama" that always ended with the bad guys losing and the good guys winning. I wanted something more immersive and open-ended than novels that did offer much more depth, but still had a hard beginning and a hard end. And the better the novel, the more quickly you read it, and the more quickly it was over.

In the end, great novels suffered from the same entertainment problems as great first person shooters. You played them with relish and fascination once. Maybe you did it all again a second time, perhaps even a third time, and then it was over.

I wanted something new and different. I wanted an mmorpg, but which one?

Next up: Neo: I know kung fu.
Morpheus: [eyeing him, hand on chin] Show me.

City of Heroes / City of Villains: The Best MMORPG You're Not Playing Enough

#3 The Best MMORPG You're Not Playing Enough: City of Heroes and City of Villains.

$8.8 billion.

Still a remarkable sum of money by any standard. It represents the total worldwide box office tickets sales of the 21 movies on the list of the 325 top grossing films of all time that are about comic book heroes or superheroes. This according to The Internet Movie Database.

The three Spiderman movies alone raked in $2.5 billion. The five Batman movies brought in another $1.5 billion of disposable entertainment income. The X-Men movies: nearly another $1 billion. Two of the four modern Superman movies notched another $680 million. Even the fairly low budget movie about the cult comic book hero Constantine (hadn't a clue who he was until I started researching this review), played by Keanu Reeves, earned nearly $230 million. 

Even the dumbest possible superhero ideas brought in huge crowds. Turtles. Fast turtles. Fast turtles who can hold swords and are trained Ninjas. Right...Darn thing sold $201,900,000 worth of tickets. The Incredibles, a movie about a group of superheroes who were not even allowed to be super anymore brought in more than $624 million, ranking it right behind the three Spiderman films and those weird super..er..truck...Jeep Cherokees on steroids things called Transformers, which was fourth with more than $700 million.

We all grew up with them. Many of us read about their exploits in comic books. We all had our favorites. Mine was Green Lantern, the guy with the magic ring that could do almost anything. My dad had every Green Lantern comic ever written. They were so cool to me because there wasn't just one Green Lantern. There was one for every world. The Green Lantern Corps was an Order. They were the Jedi Knights before George Lucas ever thought of light sabers and The Force.

Comic book superheroes are so popular that I can't help but wonder why a very well rendered mmorpg that enables you to create your own superheroes (and super villains!) isn't one of the most popular offerings in the genre. I'm talking about NCsoft's City of Heroes and City of Villains. In January, 2006, CoH hit its high mark with about 200,000 active subscribers, according to an excellent site called mmogchart.com, "Charting the Future of the MMOG Industry." It's currently hovering right around 150,000. Not bad, but nowhere near the top of the mmorpg ladder and the likes of World of Warcraft, Lineage and Lineage II and Runescape at one million subscribers or many, many more. It makes even less sense if you consider the fact that each of the above fall into the Swords and Sorcery routine and CoH-CoV, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft, offer a fresh alternative.

But while you can only make so many Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves and Elves, I have played CoH and CoV since September, 2005 and I have yet to make the same hero twice. They are all unique in terms of their appearance, their super suits, their primary and secondary powers, their temporary and epic or patron powers, and in the way those powers are improved through a unique variety of add-ons called enhancements or specializations.

The game starts with what I not so humbly regard as the best character customization page in the business. The Create Character page is where you begin. Just tap one of the slots to begin by choosing to make your hero or villain. You have five initial choices: long range damage Blaster; specialists at locking down opponents called Controllers; toons that enhance the health and powers of teammates called Defenders; high damage close-in fighting melee specialists called scrappers; and those built to absorb damage and hold the aggro of opposing mobs that are called Tanks. Once you level a toon up to 50, there are two more choices you can make, called Peacebringers and Warshades.

Next you will be asked to pick an Origin. You're already in the fun part. Are your hero's powers the result of magic? Some kind of mutation? Technological enhancements? Scientific experiments? Or is he or she naturally gifted and honed to a fine edge through rigorous training and self discipline? You get to decide. Your choice decides the story lines your superhero will follow and influences the contacts he or she meets. Those are the non-player toons that give you missions. Please note that the choice of seven kinds of characters and the five Origins already give you 35 distinct options for your hero, but the choices you have have only just begun.

City of Villains begins in exactly the same way. But one big difference is that is the younger of the two games and does not yet have its own equivalent of Peacebringers and Warshades. But it still gives you 25 more initial character options. And here's another thing that impresses me. The games' architects could have easily been lazy and simply offered villain equivalents of the hero archetypes. They did not. Big kudos for putting that kind of extra work in.

CoV Brutes can take the most damage, but they are nothing like Tanks. Their damage output is more like a Scrapper. Stalkers are the other villain melee form, and they are totally unique, able to hit with enormous power from a stealthy mode. Corruptors are the long range damage villains, but they also have powers similar to Defenders. Dominators bear some similarities to Controllers, but they are unique as well, able to build up an energy that briefly doubles their secondary powers for a short time. CoV Masterminds are a class of their own. As you level up, you build your own street gang. You send them into battle and stand back and watch the fun.

Let's say you chose to build a scrapper. Now you get to choose the type of fighter he or she will be: broadsword, claws, dual blades (my favorite!) , dark melee, katana, martial arts or spines. Five initial hero choices. Six Origins. Seven different choices of abilities for each of the hero types. Do the math. You could play this game for five years and still be creating new heroes to level up. Next up is the list of powers your hero will gain as they level up. You get to choose the first two. Again, character uniqueness is huge. You can take all of the available powers or skip some of them.

At level six, TEN more power pools open up as options: concealment, fighting, fitness, leadership, medicine, presence, in addition to four travel power pools (reached at level 14): Flight (yes, no running, no mounts, no earthbound vehicles. You fricking get to FLY); Leaping (Think Neo in the Matrix in that 'Whoa' moment when Morpheus effortlessly jumps over to the building a block away. But this is better. You can TURN in mid-air); Speed (70 miles per hour, 10 mph faster than the Bionic Man. Yes, you can tell Steve Austin to eat your goddam dust);  and Teleportation (teleport friends to your position, teleport foes into the middle of an ambush by you and your teammates, teleport yourself, anywhere.)

At level 40, heroes get to choose their epic power pools and villains get to pick their patron power pools. You no doubt see what I mean when I say that no two toons I've made are exactly alike.

You next move to the Chose Your Body Type screen. Pick your hero's sex, height within a range of four feet to eight feet, their physical build in terms of slim, average, athletic or heavy. Then customize even more with physique, shoulders, chest, waist, hips, and legs.

Next: Choose Your Costume. There's no Edna Moe deciding what you're going to wear. You decide. Again, the range of choices is enormous, as is the best color pallet I've ever seen in a mmorpg. There's a "random" icon that will cycle you through a seemingly infinite panoply of super suit choices. but its mainly designed to show you the range of options.

Next up is your Paragon City identification card (for heroes) or your Mercy Isles threat identification card (for villains). Pick your name here. Your hero or villain also gets a generous amount of space for a bio, helping you further refine the originality of your character.

Now, it's time to play. Choose the tutorial your first time out. Villains get to break out of the main prison, the 'Zig.' Heroes go to Outbreak, where they get their first crime fighting mission. It's one of the easiest screen interfaces to master. Once you are done with this initial mission, you already know how to play the game. It's much more user friendly than most other mmorpg interfaces, where you sometimes have to grope around until it finally becomes clear.

You can buy the games separately, or together.

The graphics of the game are quite good for both the heroes and villains, even though they are not demanding in terms of hardware requirements. You COULD play the game on a Pentium III 800 or first generation Athlon, but I wouldn't recommend it. The games run easily on a 2.0MHz era Pentium 4 or similar Athlon xp+ and an ATi radeon 9600-9800 or GeForce 5600-5900.

The story arcs are very imaginative and entertaining. You'll actually have fun following them, and you won't want to skip many, if any. The mobs and gangs you will confront are as good as anything DC Comics or Marvel Comics could muster. The minions, bosses, elite bosses and arch-villains are very well developed and carry their own story lines. Perhaps because being 'bad' is a harder sell, some extra care seems to have gone into the Villain side missions and story arcs, which are exceptionally entertaining.

Look for a gallery of heroes and villains made by me and some of my best friends in the game. It should be up in a couple of days. It's taking longer because people forgot to list their favorite powers.

If you haven't tried these games, you don't know how much fun you're missing.

Tabula Rasa: The Best New MMORPG You're Not Playing

Tabula Rasa is number two on my slowly evolving 'games of the year' list. (Hey, this gal has to work for a living, too, you know, and this doesn't pay the bills.)

Richard Garriott probably ought to be the most famous name in mmorpg gaming. He was the founder of one of the first serious gaming companies, Origin Systems, and he was also the creator of the Ultima series of online role playing games, which were the real groundbreakers of the genre. If you want to find a really good quick and dirty write up on Richard and his career, you'll find one here at Moby Games, which offers an extensive developer's bio on him.

Richard's biggest problem probably stems from the fact that most gamers today do zip in terms of research and studying history (probably sounds way too much like homework) and likely have no clue that every mmorpg on the market owes some serious homage to this man. Simply put, he started it all. You can fault the game industry moguls of today for this lack of appreciation as well. The definitive History of Computer Gaming has not be written and the related web site that ought to offer little playable bits of each of the greatest games in history has not been created. (Now, THAT would be fun to do...hmmm) Both would require lengthy entries on Richard.

So, practically by default, when a gaming company realizes it has a chance to produce Richard Garriott's Next Big Game, it kind of has to roll those dice, and kudos to NCsoft for doing it with Tabula Rasa (hint, hint: NCsoft also produces #3 on my list: City of Heroes and City of Villains: The Best MMORPG You're Not Playing Enough).

First, to give you a sense of what Tabula Rasa is, here's a link to the game trailer on Gametrailers.com (Forgive the obligatory 16 second 'Wow' he's cool cuz he's wearing that great new anti-perspirant!' commercial...Don't be naive people, the Internet is NOT free).

So how is the game play? Let me put it this way. We (Roy and I) allow ourselves two active MMORPG accounts, and Tabula Rasa has become our second game. The heroine in the trailer and on the game box even has red hair. Like I wasn't going to notice that?? For the pc gamers out there who are sooo tired of being dissed by Microsoft on the Halo franchise (they finally come out with Halo 2 for the pc, and make it Vista operating system only. I swear these people would steal the candles off a child's birthday cake), they can now cast Halo and the Master Chief to the bit rot bin of gaming history. Tabula Rasa is just like playing Halo, but not alongside 16 other players or even 32 players. It's an mmorpg, so you are playing alongside hundreds of other players at a time. The aliens, known as the Bane, are every bit as exciting to play against as the Covenant, and they appear to regard us humans with equivalent disdain.

The premise of the story is that earth has been invaded, and very possibly wiped out, but our governments had apparently known about the threat for years. The handpicked survivors of the human race have been transported to another world, where the fight against these maurading aliens has been going on for eons.  The weaponry far exceeds anything available on any fps. The characterization tree offers a wide range of options. Even better are the so-called Logos powers, left behind by a benign race known as the Eloh, which are accessed through the discovery of various shrines hidden all over the game play area.

In case you hadn't noticed, the game has a lot of respectful nods to the science fiction of the recent and distant past. The Bane were also alien villains in a British science fiction television series called The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the Eloh name is almost a match for the Eloi, the naive, peaceful surface dwellers raised for slaughter by the Morlocks in H.G. Wells' classic, The Time Machine.

In fact, this game manages to do what another yet to be released game (Huxley) promised us, but never finished. It could arguably be called the first Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter. Like Huxley was supposed to, it offers clan-based teaming for missions and instances, but Tabula Rasa beat them to the punch. YES, there is also a thriving PVP component as well.

The missions are fun, but Roy and I are usually pretty fragged after work, so we like to keep our gaming fairly simple. We have a riotous fun time just defending the various bases from coordinated Bane attacks. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, and what happens is the acting out of spontaneous tactics by a bunch of strangers who suddenly find themselves having to work together to fight off an assault.

Travel is on foot, (but at least the guys and gals actually RUN, not that insipidly stupid slow jog thing you find on World of Warcraft). The one thing that seems lacking is a range of assault vehicles, transports, earthbound or aerial, that WE as players can drive.

In all honesty, there are some flaws. Little things that a careful programmer like me finds annoying, like my feet sunk a few inches down below the surface when what I am standing on is supposed to be solid rock. The personal footlocker storage areas can be glitchy. You have to try the next one down the row of bunks in the barracks when that happens. 

But there are also some groundbreaking innovations, such as Clones. You level up a series of trees where, as you might imagine, specialty abilities branch off. Normally, to find out what the other branches are like, you start over with a new player at level one. Not in Tabula Rasa. If the next branch is at level 30, you can make a clone who is ALSO level 30 (pretty goddam neat, that) without having to do the low level grunt work again. We have used the clones as character respecializations, correcting mistakes we made with our original toons.

One of the coolest things about this game, as a girl geek gamer, is that it seemlessly blends the sexes in a way no other game has yet for me. There is NO girls' wardrobe, so to speak. Nothing glamorous here. Even the gal hair styles are what you would expect for fighting a war, as in all of them are short cuts and out of the goddam way for when you have to shoot. EVERYTHING in terms of the uniforms is unisex and virtually identical to what the guys have, except for the fact that us gals get to bare our six packs with bare bellies! Makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever as, personally, I want my entrails as well protected as every other part of my body, but they had to make SOME nod to sex appeal for the guy players, I suppose. But the overall result is still a game that is relatively free of the obligatory awful fumbling pickup lines by male gamer geeks who have never been on a real date before.

One other thing of note. This is not like any other MMORPG in that there are few places where you character is NOT under constant threat of attack. If something  isn't dropping out of the trees to ambush you, it's likely sneaking up behind you. This is, after all, supposed to be a war zone, against an alien race dedicated to your extermination, and they have done a very good job of creating that atmosphere. You can't run ANYWHERE in the countryside without something coming after you. All but the largest human bases are under constant threat of being overrun, and often are and have to be retaken. This all makes it VERY DIFFICULT to stop and type in the midst of the game. So, our conversations with others have mostly be limited to lulls between assaults or those large base areas. If there was EVER a game that could use a better embedded voice chat, Tabula Rasa is it. Again, that is NOT a complaint, I would imagine there is very little time for small talk in most real active war zones, but yelling out warnings would be important.

Roy and I play on the Cassiopeia server, one of four currently available, under the name STALLWORTH. If you see us, between major Bane assaults, we'd be more than happy to talk to you.