Announcing Susan Kath as Lead Designer

We have an exciting piece of news to announce, and a not-so exciting one. The gist of it is you’ll get to hear a lot more about and from Susan Kath from now on, since she has become our brand new Lead Designer!

Greetings TR fans,

Although it’s been a difficult decision, after much thought I have decided to leave Destination Games and pursue another opportunity in the industry. My time at Destination Games has been a phenomenal experience. Since joining the team I’ve witnessed TR get better and better with each Deployment, and I can truly say that the game is better than it has ever been. And that would not be possible without the amazing talent here at DG. I feel fortunate for having been part of that. I would also like to thank the players for being the most positive and supportive community out there. Your feedback is essential for our success, so please keep it coming!

Looking forward at what is in the development pipeline, I’m very excited for the future of TR. This seems like the perfect opportunity to introduce Susan Kath as the new Lead Designer. Susan has been on the team for four and a half years, was previously the Lead Mission Designer, and knows the game inside and out. I’ve worked closely with Susan and know she has great ideas about the future of TR, and know she will be an excellent Lead Designer. I can’t wait to experience the game from a new perspective: as a player. (Doctor Whom: Orion). See you on the frontlines!

Tom Potter

Thanks for the intro, Tom. Tom has been an invaluable presence on TR in the last months, and we all hate to see him go. Fortunately, he’s letting us make him work on new content up until the last possible moment.

So, hello, everyone! My name is Susan and I’m the new Lead Designer of Tabula Rasa. I’ve been working on Tabula Rasa for the last four and a half years. I originally joined the project as the fiction writer, and then worked in early systems design, then as a mission designer and eventually Lead Mission Designer. I’ve worn many hats around here and acquired a good bit of knowledge about the game over the years. In fact, there’s a megaphone sitting beside me emblazoned with the words, “Hey, Susan!” given to me as a joke about the number of people who are in my office on a daily basis asking, “Hey, Susan… do you know how to do that thing with the stuff?” types of questions.

Prior to joining the Tabula Rasa team, I started the Community Relations department here at NC Austin and led that for several years. I also spent a few years in Community Relations at Origin, and before that got my start as a game designer at a company called Simutronics. Over the years, I’ve worked in both game development and publishing, on ‘live’ games and games in development. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with many smart, creative, people - and I hope to bring everything I’ve learned to this new role on Tabula Rasa.

But enough about me! I’m boring compared to the future of TR! I’m going to cover a few of the favorite topics of discussion around here, and will cover these in more detail as they get closer to the live game.

Clan-Owned Control Points/PvP CPs

The team working on Clan-Owned Control Points have put together some fantastic new additions to the overall TR gameplay. You’ve already seen some of these features - prestige and the PvP Rumble Show - making their way to PTS and to the live game. We’ve recently made some major changes to the Clan-Owned Control Point design so that it fits in better with the systems in place and combats some of the hurdles we ran into throughout COCP development.  The ‘Clan-Owned’ aspect of the original design has been put on hold, and we are not adding the Clan-Owned Control Point tech on existing overland maps.  Instead, we have created a new instanced map, in which players (with or without clans) can battle over control points in order to win exclusive rewards.  This new (and we think, better!) design incorporates the best of the new CP tech, the Rumble Show updates, and a few other elements you’ve seen on PTS - as well as some cool changes that will be entirely new.

PAU’s/Mechs

I was just watching these walking around in the game the other day. Need I say more?

We’ve got prototypes up and running and the systems designers have been working up a cool new system to allow you to customize your mechs through a type of alternative advancement. Curious? Intrigued? Have I mentioned we have a test server? I think I may have…

Dynamic Content/Epic Content

This one is near and dear to me. I want you to have a reason to log into the game every day, and I strongly believe that having a dynamic, changing world figures into that. We’re at war, people! And in a war, you win some, you lose some, and things don’t always play out the way you expect. 

If you participated in the recent Battle for Cumbria on Palisades, you encountered a few of those ideas in action. In addition to the changes the battle brought to Cumbria, you may have also encountered a few of our new epic mobs - uber-versions of some of the Bane you know and hate.

Expect to see more of this coming along in the future: dynamic changes to the maps you know and love (and sometimes when you aren’t expecting it), new mobs, new epic mobs, new themed mini-bosses, and more. We’re also cranking up the difficulty and bringing you epic versions of some of the existing operations maps - with new bosses, new loot, and mind-bogglingly tough Bane.

Finally, and most important, let me say that it’s been a long, tough war, soldiers. You’ve fought hard and given your lives over and over—and the AFS thanks you for that endless effort. You’ve battled on strange planets, saved thousands of alien and Human lives, and curbed the Bane invasion in galaxies far from your own. Now don’t you think it’s time we go kick those Bane bastards off our own planet?

I know I do. Are you with me? 

Susan Kath
Lead Designer
Tabula Rasa