Gamespot had the scoop of Gariott's new game - Tabula Rasa.

... Tabula Rasa will apparently feature several unique aspects in its design-- not the least of which will be the fact that getting a copy of Tabula Rasa won't cost you a cent. (ed- Hurray 1!)

That doesn't mean you'll just be able to walk into your local computer store and walk out with a copy; Tabula Rasa won't be distributed in boxes, but purely in digital form. (ed- Hurray2!) ...

The game will not have a medieval swords-and-sorcery setting, nor will it be a science fiction epic. Garriott didn't explicitly state what it actually would be. (ed- Hurray 3!)

Ok - I know Ultima 9 was "a dissapointment", but have a little faith. A lot of that was because of the poor technical implementation. This Tabula Rasa thing starts off with what seem to be very good idea's, and I for one think that with the proper team to back it up this game could be very good. It'll be 2.5 years before we'll find out though - because that's the planned development time. (Read lots more @ Gamespot)

Update: Whoah... looks like this will be a rich man's game. Richard Gariott was recently interviewed and stated the following:

One of the biggest mistakes Starr and I made with Ultima Online was only charging $10 per month, "(NCSoft) started in Korea at $30 with no resistance. We think we could have asked a lot more.... "Tabula Rosa is going to be at least $15 - maybe $20." (ed- Boooooo!)

$240 a year to play a MMORPG. That's a whole lot of money. I sure as hell aint paying that, no matter how good the game. Blame disembodied potato for any mistakes, because he sent the quote to me.