Gamenikki

Saying Hello to Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa is as much as saying goodbye to SOE's Planetside. Both are shooters with massive collections of guns, cert points, and extremely large maps. Both have control points that need to be held, bases that need to be taken, and enemies that need to be exterminated. However, Tabula Rasa is a Player Versus Enemy (PvE) game, while Planetside was strictly a Player Versus Player (PvP) game.

In order for PvP play to work, Verant, then SOE after Verant, had to implement a complex set of experience and health rewards in order to encourage players to fight in evenly matched numerical battles. It was entirely possible in Planetside for an army of 250 players strong to storm as base only held by 3 or 4 opposing soldiers. The balancing act never really did work. On Konried, then the merged Emerald server, the New Conglomerate were famous for having only 5 or 6 soldiers clamp down a tower in the middle of a Terran and Vanu fight. Given the one shot kills and high defense of the NC players, taking them down was probably a waste of time, but if the NC were not removed they had control of a potentially valuable spawn point and could take pot shots at anything passing by. However, since they were so few in number, any kills they got resulted in massive experience points being earned. Such actions did not really abuse the balance controls, but it sure felt like it.

As a PvE game, Tabula Rasa has it a lot simpler. A larger number of players congregated together simply means that more enemies spawn. Thus Destination Games, the developers, does not have to worry about complex mathematics and equations to get one side to equally fight the other. If sides are un-equal, the NPC spawn count can be adjusted pretty much on the fly.

Control Points in Planetside consisted of aforementioned towers, as well as bases. Planetside had 3 different types of towers; the standard gun tower with 2 turrets; the air tower with repair facilities for aircraft and two gun turrets; and the watch tower with an extra story on top. All towers allowed players to respawn, grab equipment, and deck out in powered armor. As Planetside was developed more emphasis was placed on the advantages of taking certain bases. Originally players needed to take a Tech Plant for heavy vehicles and a Dropship center for over sized aircraft. In the more recent revision taking bases results in various status buffs for players and their vehicles. A specific example is found in Bio-Labs. Capturing a Bio Lab decreases the time it takes to respawn upon death.

Control Points in Tabula Rasa are slightly different. Main bases generally cannot be taken over by the Bane forces simply because a main base has a lot of capable fighters on hand. However, weakly defended control points can be taken over. As in Planetside, a control point can be used to respawn, repair equipment, and load up on ammunition. As Tabula Rasa is a mission based game, control points are also missions with players able to gain various rewards for taking over a held control point or defending a control point under assault. Various missions can also be started in a control point, or need to be completed in a control point.

An area where Planetside does hold an advantage is in the map layout and travel arrangements. One of the standout features of Planetside is that players running the length of a continent were in for an extremely long run time, easily over 20+ minutes travel time on foot. Thus Planetside offered several vehicular combat options allowing players to get around quickly, as well as transport other players without vehicle certifications.

Tabula Rasa maps are a bit smaller than Planetside maps, which is an aid to players as there are no vehicles around to hitch a ride on. However players of Tabula Rasa will spend a lot of time running through an open combat zone while under fire from all sides in order to get from one mission location to another.City of Heroes has a similar opening sequence where players are forced to basically sprint around for the first 14 levels of the game. However, at 14 players can pick up a travel power so they can get around at a decent clip. Tabula Rasa might want to take a page out of City of Heroes playbook and add in player mobility options at the level 15 class path. I'd suggest hover boards for Rangers and Biotechs, and ATV units for Commandos and Sappers.