Tabula Rasa was an innovative sci-fi MMO created by Richard Garriott. With a huge budget and a long development cycle, it was expected to become a big time MMO. Sadly, it lasted barely more than a year, and closed its doors permanently on February 28, 2009. This article discusses the how and why.
Tabula Rasa was a sci-fi FPS/RPG hybrid MMO created by Richard "Lord British" Garriott. Development began in May of 2001, and it finally released on November 2, 2007. One of the main causes of the long development time was an almost complete redesign of the game a few years into the project. It completely changes settings and themes, 25% of the staff was replaced, and 75% of the code was rewritten.
Tabula Rasa included many of the classic elements of an MMORPG: classes, levels, gear, questing, stat/skill based calculations that affected combat, and more. But there were some shooter/action elements as well: guns had to be aimed (though there were sticky targeting options), cover and flanking affected damage and to-hit calculations, kneeling affected critical hits, and weapons had to be reloaded in real time to name a few.
One of the most unique aspects of the game was what the developers called the Dynamic Battlefield. Many of the game zones were in a constant state of warfare. They had multiple bases or control points that could change ownership between the AFS (the side players were on) and the Bane (the NPC enemy forces). Control of such locations opened up teleporters, missions (the quests of Tabula Rasa), and vendors. Attacking and defending these control points in order to affect the overall battlefield was one of the core gameplay elements of the game.
On November 11, 2008, Richard Garriott announced in an open letter to the players of Tabula Rasa that he was leaving NC Soft (the publisher of the game) to pursue other endeavors. Shortly thereafter, on November 21st, 2008, the Tabula Rasa development team announced the game would cease operation on February 28, 2009. Lower than expected subscriber population was cited as the primary reason.
Active subscribers as of the date of the announcement were given free months of playtime in other NC Soft games. Starting January 10, 2009, the Tabula Rasa servers were made free to play so former or new players could return to the game for its final month and a half.
The development team continued to add new content to the game throughout their final few months. Near the end, 2000% experience point booster items and powerful high end gear were made available to everyone. This allowed all players to reach the level cap in a few hours of play, and experience any parts of the game they had ever wanted to. It also ensured that they could participate in the final end game event.
In total, the amount of new content added by the development team in the final months was impressive. It is extremely evident that this development team took enormous pride in their work, and really wanted to make sure their customers got to see everything they had worked on.
The final end game event itself was quite spectacular. You can read about it here: The End of Tabula Rasa - Server Shutdown Event.