Gamernode: News - Too many beta testers hurt Tabula Rasa game

Too many beta testers hurt Tabula Rasa game

Category: PC, Posted: 12/05/2007 at 11:59AM CST by Billy Wang, Previews Editor

tabularasa While maintaining a decent sized following, NCSoft's relatively new MMORPG, Tabula Rasa, hasn't garnered the overwhelming response the studio was looking for.

During the 2007 Independent Game Conference in Austin, Tabula Rasa creator Richard Garriott gave his opinion on what was right and wrong about his MMORPG.

First, Garriott admitted that there were too many beta testers, which may have hurt the game's potential since there wasn't enough implemented content to entertain them at the time.

"We invited too many people into the beta when the game was still too broken. We burned out some quantity of our beta-testers when the game wasn't yet fun. As we've begun to sell the game, the people who hadn't participated in the beta became our fast early-adopters."

Garriott went to praise the Guild Wars team for handling a proper beta testing system. Instead of a large beta test group, the GW team only allowed close friends and family to test the game throughout its development.

"Only about two or three weeks before launch did they do the 'open it up for pretty much anybody to play,' when the game was basically done."

But not all things are so bad; Garriott praised the game's marketing for attracting perspective players to the MMORPG.

"I think the formal marketing did fine. They let people know the game existed, and was coming out."

[Via Gamasutra]

Posted by Requiem on 12/05/2007 at 12:13PM

Damn beta-testers making the game look bad!
I played TR until lvl 20, and quit. Not enough variety. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot...

Posted by Brendon on 12/05/2007 at 01:34PM

I love Garriott, but much like Requiem, my biggest issue with TR is just doing the same things over and over and over. Maybe I was just spoiled with UO, though.

Posted by Aidblood7 on 12/05/2007 at 01:45PM

Wow Garriot thats very pathetic of him blaming beta testers for there own fault. Guess Garriot wants to be the next SOE and wants the TR game to be the next SWG. Reason the game didnt get more content as a fellow beta tester myself, for every bug they fixed 2 more bugs resurfaced, and they were too obsessed with the lowbie areas after Beta testers kept telling them to work on lv30+ stuff. YOUR A RETARD GARRIOT, go back to UO.

Posted by lskennedy on 12/05/2007 at 03:47PM

Woah man, take it easy on Garriot, hes a gaming legend. What ever UO is though, i bet its good, seeing as every1 wants it! I think Tabula Rasa looks kinda cool, idk, i played Silkroad k? n e 1 else play silkroad?

Posted by popecodex on 12/05/2007 at 07:09PM

I was really curious about TR since UO was almost the only MMO that seemed to even be TRYING to be a good game but i was really disappointed by the beta. The things I didn't like about it probably couldn't have been fixed before launch though. I mean if the whole game played something like the tutorial I'd probably be playing right now but the first mission I got once I was in the main game was "bring me 10 boar tusks!" ....CHECK PLEASE! I kept playing and there were some cool ideas here and there but it was still mostly boring ass level grinding just like every other mmo. I don't see them redoing the entire gameplay structure in the 2 months between my shot at the beta and the launch.

Posted by goatlinks on 12/05/2007 at 07:44PM

That's pretty funny. An attempt to make sure that the game was good totally back fired in their face.