Dec
5
TR…have your cake and eat it to.
Was reading Massively…if one can…during my lunch break and I came across this article. The article itself is an interview with Richard Garriott, who is of course the creative force behind Tabula Rasa. Something he said in this piece forced me to read it twice because I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Here it is, see if you can find Waldo:
The people who did participate in the beta, we’ve had to go back to and say ‘look, look, we promise: we know it wasn’t fun two months ago, but we fixed all that. Really, come try it again.’ We’ve had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process.
Did you see it? OK…I’m being cryptic because you kind of have to connect the dots just a bit from some history of the TR beta. Recall that the “gaming press” was given a special NDA lift during beta. Now go read that again. Did you see it? Apparently, when you give the “gaming press” a special lift on the NDA during the beta, that has nothing to do with marketing…that my friends, is all QA process. For those who are sarcasm deaf…yeah, that was me being sarcastic.
The article goes on to say that they invited too many people to beta when the game was still broken. No…quantity of beta testers is irrelevant because they are under NDA and can’t say “boo” about your game no matter what state it’s in. The press, however, will say ?boo? if you let them. The mistake they made was lifting the NDA for press when the game was not ready for the spotlight. You know, maybe I’m giving Michael a bit too much credit when I say this, but I know the exact date of when TR became a luke-warm hit?it was July 30th, 2007 when Michael published probably the first press beta impression of Tabula Rasa. As always, an excellent, and honest article that started the luke-warm snowball reception that Tabula Rasa got and continues to get today. Now, because of this type of move they have a reputation hole to dig out of.
The lesson taken out of this…release the hounds when the game is ready, not before. This was purely the case of someone letting marketing get ahead of testing. Yes, the beta period is for testing your game, not for marketing (?a debatable point for MMOs, I know?)….we’ve already talked about that. Just don?t pretend to play dumb on the marketing/testing question when a marketing move comes and bites you in the ass.
Regardless of that kind of statement, all reports coming in from TR is backing up what Richard is saying regarding the current state of the game. For those beta testers who where turned off, I do suggest you give it a second try.
D out.
Haha, just ribbing you a bit. I agree with you, TR is way under-rated. 
At first I didnt like it at all. Well, at least I didnt think it was all that breakthrough. I mean it isnt the messiah, but it sure is fun!
