Tabula Rasa.
Concentrating on a fluctuating battlefield that altered gameplay focus, the game was pretty ambitious, so much so that it released in a pretty rough state. It all went to pieces once Garriott went to actual space. Yup. While on that journey, publisher NCsoft terminated their services, seemingly spurned by this otherworldly side quest. This led to a huge lawsuit where Garriott ended up receiving over $20 million in damages.
Here's a cinematic:
But looking at the supposed gameplay videos these days, it was probably bog-standard MMORPG "stand in place and unload 20 different quick bar abilities at a similarly static enemy" combat that would, decades later, make play freshly-F2P The Old Republic all of one time.
Granted, back then I wouldn't have been as a jaded to the concept, but I also didn't have money. Similar reason as to why I never played Warhammer Online despite that being the next best thing to a Warhammer Fantasy cRPG.
I can't quite say whether I remember the marketing push to put naked video game babes in adult magazines, especially since I wasn't an adult and PlayBoy wasn't on sale around these parts. May remember it being reported on as this novelty thing tho.
God, imagine an adult magazine interview with a video game character written back in those dark days. Ugh.
