I tried to partake in a live event on the Tabula Rasa servers a few days ago. The event was something like a treasure hunt, or a hide-and-seek game where everyone on the server was looking for one person: General British. People who found General British got prizes such as a Tabula Rasa t-shirt as well as bragging rights.
Being still fairly new to the game, I wasn't successful at all at finding General British. He gave hints over global chat, such as saying he was around people who were wearing armor, or near a cave, but I had no idea where to head. Instead, I concentrated at completing a couple of quests from NPCs.
I'm sure all MMOs are like this, but quests at lower levels are brain-numbingly dumb. One quest had me fetch 8 items that were coincidentally dropped by some non-aggro animals nearby. So I and some other people who I assume were also doing the quest just camped one area and waited for the animals to spawn. While I was waiting with these people, I noticed that there's not a lot of socialization going on.
The lack of socialization in this MMO could be due to two things: I was hanging around the newbie area and everyone was more focused on learning how to play the game, and it's not overtly clear how to even talk in the game. I checked the control options and the website, but it wasn't until I asked someone on the Tabula Rasa team that I found out what keys to press to type out text messages. Maybe I'm just a newb, but pressing / and 'enter' to talk to people while in game wasn't very intuitive.
Now that I figured out how to talk, I tried to get chummy with a few players who ran by me, but they just ran on by without even stopping. I wasn't sure if they read my text or not. So far, Tabula Rasa feels like a bunch of people playing a single game who just so happen to be sharing the server together. Most of the quests I accepted were easy to do solo, so there was no need to party up. Hopefully, when I get to a higher level, quests will get harder and more people will be willing to play together. I still haven't even entered an instance yet, I think.
I did finally reach level 5, which means I get to pick some sort of specialization. The problem is, I can't find the NPCs who are supposed to train me. Some helpful players reminded me to clone my character in case I don't like the specialization I picked, so I could go back and choose a different one. Cloning a character is exactly what it sounds like. In the character selection screen, you click 'clone' and it makes a new character with the same stats as the one you're cloning, only you can choose what it looks like.
Next on the agenda: finding NPCs who can train me so I can use better guns.
