Tabula Rasa - Preview Interview Part 2 @ WarCry

The second half of WarCry's hands on Tabula Rasa preview and interview with Richard Garriott is now available.

"Each time someone starts at level one is an opportunity to exit [the game]," Garriott explained. Most MMOs (now I'm doing it!) ask players to start from scratch if they don't like the choice they made with the character. In Tabula Rasa, players can simply retreat to a previous clone (a brother or sister as the game casts them) and pick the opposite branch of the tree. The advantage to the player is that he is never forced to play huge chunks of content over and over just to experience the game in a slightly different way, while the advantage to the developer is that players are more likely to experience the full breadth of content created for the game. As Garriott's quote alludes to, the sense of investment in the game is maintained. If a player needs to start at level one to try something new, they could just as easily start at level one in a competing game. If he can start at exactly the point where his path diverged in a way he did not enjoy, then he's more likely to stick with the product.