A working merry-go-round is on the front lawn. The dungeon—yes, there’s a dungeon—has a real human skeleton in a coffin and a vampire killing kit complete with silver-bullet shooting cross on a shelf. It’s the work of a man who’s never quite grown up, and, perhaps more importantly, who never has to. It is impossible to walk through the halls of Britannia Manor without coveting the contents of entire rooms.
We’re led into the back yard for dinner, drinks, and socializing. The air is sticky and once the barbeque comes out, so are we. We ponder the etiquette of the barbeque buffet, deciding that it’s a bit unseemly to have more than three kinds of meat on your plate at the same time. We discuss the weather, using our combined brain power to come to the brilliant conclusion that “it’s hot.” We dissect the regional differences in potato salad preparation. We are sagely observing that, like everything else in Texas, the bugs here are really big when Richard Garriott takes the stage and asks for our attention and finally lets us know just what the hell is going on. With a PowerPoint presentation, no less.
Garriott tells us that while laying the foundation for his new house (Britannia Manor 3, for those keeping score at home), he found several strange objects including a sphere that looks like one of those reflecting balls folks had on their lawns in the 70s, a towerlike structure vaguely reminiscent of bowling pins, and (Next slide, please) the “Rosetta Disk.” Ah, now we get it. The Rosetta Disk is the Tabula Rasa logo surrounded by Logos symbols. Those of us who saw Tabula Rasa at GDC received a challenge coin that was a smaller of what we’re seeing on the screen now. Sure, it’s corny, but we, as audience, make the unspoken contract with our host, as performer, to put logic aside and go along with the gag.
We’re then told that we’re not really here for a party, but rather to attend Logos Academy, where three of Richard’s friends—who also happen to be experts in parapsychology and UFOs, remarkably enough—will be helping us access the untapped power of our minds. The concept of awakening latent powers is one of the core themes of Tabula Rasa —without their newly-discovered Logos abilities, the humans in the game wouldn’t stand a chance against the technologically superior Bane. Some folks are rolling their eyes, and the phrase “dog and pony show” gets tossed around more than once, but we dutifully divide into groups and head off to meet the first of our instructors.
The next several hours are a kind of lather-rinse-repeat of boredom and awkwardness punctuated by moments of entertainment. First step: lead our group of twenty or so into a room that is just big enough to hold us all uncomfortably. Second step: listen to our tour guide explain said room and its contents. This is where we get a bit more info on Richard’s various and sundry cool swag. Third step: watch the instructor of the moment perform some up-close magic while uttering some mystical mumbo jumbo about the power of the mind. Fourth step: wait for an indeterminate amount of time until we’re given the signal that it’s ok for us to move on to the next instructor. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Not everything goes quite as planned, however. After taking a secret passage down to a room in Richard’s study, our tour guide discovered that we were, heh heh, sorry folks, trapped. A few frantic shouts later and Richard literally came running to our rescue, but not before a loud drunk in a louder shirt informed us all that Watson was tripping on LSD when he discovered the structure of DNA. “It’s a fact, look it up!” Yeah, we’ll get right on that, buddy.
Our last instructor is outside, and despite the fact that the sun has been down for hours, it’s still suffocatingly hot. His performance is largely wasted on us, because we’re far too tired, uncomfortable, and sick of listening to the drunken loudmouth to really give his act much attention. He soldiers on, and so do we, shuffling out of his tent to enter the tent next door where finally, finally, we’re going to get to see the game.
Star Long (who has one of the best porn names ever), the producer on Tabula Rasa, takes the stage to tell us a bit about the game. In the future, an alien race called the Bane attack Earth and most of the human race is wiped out. Those of us who escape find ourselves on the front lines in a war, allied with other races whose home worlds had met similar fates at the hands…claws….whatever of the Bane. Technologically, we’re screwed, but the pictographic language of Logos saves our collective butts. Learning and combining different Logos lets us use different force-like powers—in a fantasy MMO, they’d be magic, but Tabula Rasa has space ships and laser guns, not orcs and trolls.
