| Post - Tabula Rasa MMORPG beta evaluation
My 3rd MMORPG this month. After LOTRO and DDO.
I got one of the last beta keys to Tebula Rasa. The keys are still available on Fileplanet.com but you better hurry as the beta closes soon. The game goes live in November. I started playing last night.
Tebula Rasa is by Richard Garriot (a.k.a Lord British). Probably the founder of both CRPG and of MMORPG. He is best known for the Ultima series.
Quick plot: Earth was invaded by a hostile alien force known as the Bane. The last survivors retreat off with the help of another Alien race also in a war with Bane. The form the AEF (Allied Earth Forces) and continue the war against bane. There is also a long lost alien race who artificats grant the players new powers (magic) from lightning attacks to force fields. You must uncover these lost artifacts to gain these abilities.
One key changes about Tebula Rasa is that it ISNT a fantasy game. Its a Sc-Fi game. There is melee combat but most combat is by firearms
which makes the game a refreshing change. Pistols, rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, various other types of balltic and laser weapons. Like any shooter, You will need to carry ammo for these guns.
There are now classes per se in TR. Everybody starts as a 'recruit' but have lvl 5 you can choose between soldier and specialist. These base classes further branch out at lvl 10 and 20 becoming more and more specialized. For example Recruit to Soldier to Ranger to Sniper etc. There are hidden ranks and badges for completeing secret missions. I have yet to see what bonus these unlock yet aside from a title.
The quests are in the form of missions. Destory a Bane Base of operations, recon an area. There is also some of the standard fair such as kill 40x monster 'Y'. These will earn you traits, much like LOTRO. The quest system is the same as LOTRO and WOW, it lacks the depth and uniqueness of DDO.
Like DDO it doesn't use a autotarget lock (although certain weapons and gear will do so automatically). Therefore, unloading your shotgun into a group of monsters will damage all of them. You can even crouch and fire behind cover like in a 3rd person shooter.
As this is a war, there are tons of NPCs that will fight for you. You can capture control points like in the Battlefield series, once captured more NPCs will continue to deploy from drop ships. The whole game as a very "Starship Troopers" feeling to it. These NPC will attack any monster that gets too close, they will also patrol the maps regulary so you will regularly come across full firefights between NPC and Bane.
Enemy Spawn points are totally at random, to prevent farming.
Thats it for Day 1. I will write again later as I get deeper into the game. | 
