Richard Garriot Leaves NCSoft

Fellow Soldiers of the AFS,

I am happy to finally be able to write the players and community of Tabula Rasa. We've been on quite a journey together. First in creating a game unlike any other on the MMO market, then growing a loyal community and finally launching the game and its players into space with Operation Immortality. It has been quite an unforgettable journey, one that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I am very grateful to you loyal players for sticking around through what I think we can all honestly say was a rough launch. I thank the development team for pushing hard to get polish, updates and new content out every month since launch...a feat that I think is unusual in MMO development. They have a lot to be proud of.

Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going to space. Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests.

This news is difficult for me to deliver. I am honored to have worked with the team I've had and I'm grateful to the community who makes this game so unique and fun.

Thank you and farewell.

Richard "General British" Garriott

(From RGTR.com)

So! Another Ultima game, then, Richard?

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More like to infinity and beyond! The space station will have a General British wing added I bet.

This is extremely disappointing, especially when we're going through a rough period with Tabula Rasa. This isn't "Tabula Rasa", the game's name is "Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa", and the fact he decided to bail on us, as players, is a huge let down. It seems like we keep losing our community figureheads, and even as a Tabula Rasa veteran and enthusiast, the future is looking extremely bleak. As much as I hate to say it, I'm steadily losing faith in this title. It's a shame, too, there's so much potential to be had.

Unfortunately, EA owns the trademarks and IP for Ultima. I'd love to see Ultima X or Ultima Underworld 3, even if they're called something else to get around copyrights. Arx Fatalis was OK, but the gameplay still paled in comparison to Underworld.
(To the unenlightened, AF was regarded as the "spiritual successor" to Underworld, just like Bioshock was for System Shock 2).

He plans to build a house made of bacon.

Or something equally insane.

I think Richard Garriott's departure is more of a formality and an accomplishment of a legal obligation than anything else. Aside from having his name in the title, Tabula Rasa has been entirely carried over by its current developers, while Richard Garriott played the publicity mascot.

My hope is that he would pour the same interest he has shown for TR and Operation Immortality into developing another Ultima, something to make up for the blandness of the last one. My vote goes to using the Havok engine this time.

Tabula Rasa sucks. Richard Garriot abandons everything he creates. The Richard Garriot of UO is no more. Our only hope for the MMORPG market at the moment is Aventuine's game Darkfall, but even that is looking a bit grim. We'll see though.