Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa will officially end its live services on February 28. Can't say I wasn't expecting this, especially after Richard Garriott announced his plans to leave NCSoft earlier this month.

After a troubled two years of development and a rocky launch, perhaps the MMO was doomed from the start. The MMO finally succumbed to lack of players. According to the Tabula Rasa team:

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there.

Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

As a way of goodbye, the game's servers will be free to play starting January 10 until they are shut down. Players who pre-paid for subscription past January 1 will get a refund. Active paying players as of 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time on November 21 will be eligible for the following:

• 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
• 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
• Aion beta access (coming soon)
• Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
• 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)

Thanks to misthero for the tip!

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