Tabula Rasa Pre-Order Head Start Preview

The Tabula Rasa Pre-order Head Start began when the servers went live on Monday. I got into the game on Tuesday and have been playing quite a bit since. Here are some early impressions of the game in its current state that will launch on Friday.

After logging in and creating a character, I found myself in the tutorial area, and no offense to Captain Burba, but I didn't want to skip past this first part of the game. After running a few short missions designed to give familiarity with the controls and interface, I made my way into my first combat with the Bane. The combat in Tabula Rasa is fast and dynamic, and even though it gives the impression of FPS-style combat, it's not quite that reflex/"twitch" orientated.

See the full Pre-Order Head Start Preview on the other side of "Read More".

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Thank you much! I'm really pushing for Level 15 because a clan member found some sweet stealth armor for me and I can't wait to wear it.

The review of the game was well done however, after being in the beta for so long long, I feel that this game could stand a lot of bug fixes and updates before going live. Since the damage is done, let me say that this game has progressed kind of well since beta first started. What's missing are the following:

1. Auction House or some form of player-owned vending.
2. UI customization as you can't move any of the UI elements around nor resize them.
3. Combat is very short of a true FPS because all mobs will basically stand still once you fire on them and not use any AI. Combat is suppose to allow for the player to cover behind an object but I found that this rarely works well, lots of mobs shot through the objects...rocks, buildings, etc.
4. Quests are find and a bit updated from what we originally expect but in the end, they are nothing more than go kill this many mobs or go fetch this item for me. Regardless of what the developer says, they aren't bringing anything new to the mix. The quests for Control Points are a novel idea but I never got the sense of being apart of something bigger than myself.
5. The story, if there is one, is lost to me. The quests, control points, and instances don't give any hint to a storyline. The instances appear to be the only attempt at providing some story insight but these places are few.
6. The Quest log is an awful eye sore to use because the text is so small, you can't arrange your quests, there's no indication if a quest requires a group, and you can't tell if someone in your squad is already on a quest that you're on. Plus, when you collapse a quest section, it doesn't stay closed the next time you log into the game.

I could go on and on so lets just say that you want something to do to kill time, this game fits the bill, but I'd urge you to wait several months.

Number 3 on your list was a problem for me as well, I was getting shot through trees regularly. I did notice the AI taking evasive measures though, some Thrax would actually run toward cover and +Dodge+ would appear over their heads.

When you take cover it doesn't prevent you from being shot, but it does reduce the amount of damage you take. This is indicated on the reticle, but it can be hard to see.

Auction house/player vending would be nice, but I can live without it. For now anyway.

UI customization isn't a big deal for me. I like the current look, and the text in the chat window fades after a certain amount of time. With most recent games I almost have to run it at 1280x1024 in order to get the UI the way I like it, but with this I have never felt a need to move it up from the 1024x768 it started at.

I don't think the quest log is an eyesore, but I do agree it should have an indicator on if you need a group or not.