OnlineWelten: How would you personally describe Tabula Rasa to a person, who has never heard of the game before?

Richard Garriott: Yeah, Tabula Rasa is a near science fiction MMO. The backstory begins with the devastation of the earth, where the Bane an alien evil hord coming to overrun the Earth.And we, the players are the last survivors of humanity, which take up arms against the Bane. Mankind were assisted in their fight by other alien species, who where also overrun by the Bane. So humans are fighting for their survival. Tabula Rasa has up to four or five different key areas of innovation, which I believe takes TR to a specific step forward in the MMO gaming genre.

I describe it in the following way. The first and most important difference between TR and other MMOs is the combat system. Most MMOs have a turn based combat system, where you target an opponent and then you start hitting each other. Fighting in other MMOs is monotonous. In Tabula Rasa we made a fast-paced combat system, where you fire your weapons and use your abilities immediately. The physical environment around you is very important to the combat calculation. For example, if I am hiding behind a rock, I am much harder to hit if f.e. I am standing in the open. In Tabula Rasa players will manoeuvering in the world to find the best positions and tactics to engage to each other.

The second area TR is especially different and improved to other MMOs is the dynamic world. Again, in most MMOs creatures respawn in an area where players last killed them. This worlds are static. Players go out for hunting a monster always at the same place. In Tabula Rasa we created a game where, even without players, the bane and other NPC-Units are constantly in battle with each other. They are killing each other in random, they take and hold territory and when players come into the world there are big areas of game play space, which are sometimes under human control and sometimes under Bane control. So the setting is quite different each time you log into the game. Now the players can work together to chance the game situation.

One more difference is the way we use stories. In most MMOs you don't really pay attention to the story, they only guide you through your level or your hunting places. In Tabula Rasa we created a story that feels more like an solo playing game. You feel like your missions are important. You feel like your decision you've made along the quests are also important. If you finish a mission line you are rewarded with a very grant present that feels much more better than just solving a quest for leveling up.

The last thing that I want to mention in my intro is the way we do character class grow. In most MMOs you have decide about the character class right at the beginning. Whenever you decide to play another class you have to start over at level 1. In TR every player starts as a recruit and specialises over time. Every time you can save and clone your character anywhere along their groth path. One example, you want to test another class tree. So you can load up the last save game to test it.

We thing the features that I describe make Tabula Rasa truly to a second generation MMO. I believe in the last ten years every MMO that came out has been repeating things that we have seen in Ultima Online and EverQuest.

OnlineWelten: The beta of Tabula Rasa started some weeks ago. Did you make some good progress? And How is the feedback of the community so far?

Richard Garriott: Of course at the beta progress you have always times where you see what works and what breaks. The best news of our beta progress so far is the positiv player reaction of the features I've mentioned before. My favorite story was at the first day of the beta. Some players finished their first missions and were sitting together. They compared items, that they received during the quests. Then alarm systems go up, they hear sirens going off. They were confused about it, didn't know the reason for that alarm. A few seconds later they heard gunfire and they saw Bane forces breaking through the force fields. So the players start protecting the base and they were streamed in the battle around a place, which was a safe a second before. All of a sudden a lot of NPCs they were working with and dealing with were engaged in the fight and some die. When the battle was ever there was no idea about experience points or leveling, the players were really involved in battle, in protecting the outpost and the people in town. This players have a personally tie to the game much stronger than you have seen in MMOs before. Yes, we are very pleased with the costumer response about the fundamental game design mechanics.

OnlineWelten: You've created your own language: Logos - just for Tabula Rasa. Can you explain, what "Logos" are, what kind of language it is - and most important: How will it be used in the game?

Richard Garriott: The Logos language is one of my strongest contributions to the game. You know, you need hundreds of peoples to create a computer game today. We believe that we create much more depth of culture, history, philosophy and science in Tabula Rasa. The game world is more believable and interesting than something you have seen till today. Early on we wanted to create a language for the game. But I've you look to the language in the Ultima series, the Runic, it was a translation letter by letter of the English alphabet. The Runic works great if you speak English but it was more difficult if you spoke for example German. As a German you first have to translate it into English and then translate it again. Out target in Tabula Rasa was to find a adequate way to make it possible that the friendly aliens could leave messages behind in their art or architecture.

I wanted to create a language that was not only international but also intergalactic. The Logos are a pictographic language, which I am really proud of. It works very well, it's easy to read and in our testings so far people enjoyed it. So Logos are not only implemented in the art und architecture, which is a very important part for the story of the game. We additionally have made a collecting game in the game. To start the superpowers of your character you have to collect those symbols. By collecting them you learn something new and they become part of your dictionary, which will be locked more and more during your progress.