Feature: 'GDC: Designing Tabula Rasa: Lessons From the World of MMOs'

In this write-up of his GDC session, Richard Garriott chronicles the lessons learned from his attempt to create the "dream" MMO, Tabula Rasa. This extract explains some of the issues surrounding the original version of Tabula Rasa, which was largely scrapped in late 2004: "Garriott assembled what he calls a ‘Dream Team' of MMO developers; senior staff recruited from Ultima Online and the Wing Commander series were joined by key members of NCsoft's Korean studios, including Lineage creator Jake Song. Almost immediately, cracks began to appear in the Dream Team dynamic. Nearly everyone working on Tabula Rasa was at the top of their field, meaning that nearly everyone was over-qualified for the work they were doing. Supremely confident, the team looked to innovate on every front, making an already ambitious design even more challenging. True to the adage of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” a clash of egos slowed the development process. On top of that, the combining of East-West expertise that was meant to deliver a worldwide hit came burdened with communications issues – both linguistic and cultural. Design subtleties didn't cross borders, and content by compromise to suit both Asian and US audiences was not compelling to anyone. With Tabula Rasa floundering, Jake Song left the project." You can now read the full Gamasutra coverage on the matter, including detailed information on this fascinating lecture (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).