Having Richard Garriott's name attached to a game could either be a blessing or a curse. The father of the Ultima Online series has such a strong name in the MMO community that when people hear that he is involved, they immediate sit up and at the very least, take notice. That's what I did when I heard that he was involved with another MMO, and my anticipation grew the more and more I read about the game. In numerous interviews, Richard Garriott said that fans would get something new, and since MMO's had not really evolved much past what was accomplished years ago, this would be a ground breaking experience.

I spend over 20 hours playing a few different characters, and never really found a groove with the game. There was nothing that seemed new, or overly interesting in the game, and several things that came as being "much hyped" really fell flat for me. What is worse, is that I'm still MMO-less, and have been really for months, and there was definitely a window for Tabula Rasa to capture my attention.

Garriott suggested that there are moral choices to make in the game, that can have an impact on the game world. My first moral choice was perhaps around level six, I was presented with the choice between delivering some drugs to various NPC's, or to turn in the NPC who propositioned me to a captain. My friend and I approached it from both sides, I delivered the drugs which ended with a reward of 10,000 credits. My friend got a pat on the back, and 100 cartridges, of course I could have purchased 5,000 cartridges with my reward. There was never a change in the game world that I saw based upon our choices, and frankly, the 10,000 credit reward is a massive advantage for a new character, I really cant see people taking a harder path, if there is no distinct reason for making that choice.

The UI was one of the most simplified that I've seen in quite a while, queue up a skill and then right click to use it. The game play was fairly fast, but the first 11 or 12 levels saw quests that reminded me of any other MMO. Collection, patrol, visit certain points, and so on. Of course just because you kill a beast, doesn't mean that it will drop the item that you need, so keep right on killing. That's something that I thought had been eliminated, but with TR's hype of being "new" it's just magnified.

By the time I had to just phone it in, TR was just implementing crafting and some other needed features, but it was a case of too little, too late for me. While it might present some new takes on MMO's, when you compare it to other MMO's on the market, there is very little that separates it from the existing choices I have, the ones that I'm also choosing not to play. While I'm mildly disappointed, I cant feel all that much, as the hype never really connected with me, despite my being a UO player since about launch.