Tabula Rasa Code Request

After Andy posted that Tabula Rasa was free for everyone, I decided I would check the game out. I've never played a MMO game and figured this looked like a cool game to cut my teeth on. Well setting up accounts and downloading the game were the easy part. Getting the code for the game is a different story.

For several days I did as the instructions asked me to. Start an account on PlayNC: checked, download the game: checked, acquire code from support: where do I do that at.

Each time I clicked the link on their instructions page I was taken to the PlayNC sites sign in page. I would then sign in and a new page would say something about the information requested has been removed. So I did some searching around their site and couldn't find a way to acquire the code needed to actually play the game. So yesterday I decided to email their support staff and this is what they replied back:

Thank you for your interest in Tabula Rasa.

I am escalating this request to the appropriate team for further assistance. They will reply to you again as soon as possible. Because of the high volume of Tabula Rasa code requests we are receiving at this time, please be aware that it may take up to 7 business days for your request to be proceeded.

Thank you for your continued patience as we work to resolve this issue for you.

Well that stinks. I guess there are a bunch of cheap bastards out there, like me, who wanted to play this game after it was free and that tied up their system. Hopefully the game will be really good and generate a lot of buzz and cause the game to stay available. We shall see.

Tabula Rasa is Now Free

Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi MMO developed by Richard "Lord British" Garriott, the father of MMOs having helped create Ultima Online. Last month was the game's one year anniversary and the announcement that Tabula Rasa would be shutting down at the end of February. At the time, they announced the servers would go free in January. Apparently, they've moved that time up because you can now download and play the game for free.

You can click here to download the game's client. Then you need to go to the Support Page of PlayNC to request a code for Tabula Rasa. And you'll need to use that code on your PlayNC account. When making your account, they will ask for a credit card, but they say you will not be charged.

I always thought this game looked good, and if anyone could have made a good sci-fi MMO, I would think Garriott would be the one. For some reason, I've noticed sci-fi MMOs tend to do worse than others. Plus, this game had a character pose for Playboy! (Go ahead, do a Tabula Rasa Playboy image search on Google, we'll wait.)

I'm going to try to get my PC back up and running just to try out this game. (It hasn't worked since June.) Too bad there's not a Mac version...

Remember the game will go offline February 28th so get your free playing in while there's still time. Or better yet, give the file and code to someone as a Christmas gift!