Online gaming legend Richard Garriott – he of Ultima Online fame and, more recently, the developer behind NCSoft’s mighty sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa – spoke to the gathered horde at the Develop conference in Brighton earlier today, touching on the recent NCSoft/PlayStation deal and discussing the future of the MMO genre.

Garriott remained tight-lipped about the recently-announced PlayStation/NCSoft deal, merely stating that NCSoft should be announcing more specifics about what is in store for the future of PlayStation 3 online gaming closer to the end of this year.

SPOnG was lucky enough to catch up with Garriott for a full demo of his genuinely groundbreaking sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa at E3 recently.

Summing up why Tabula Rasa was so important for the development of the MMO genre, Garriott told SPOnG that: "Tabula Rasa is basically very different in terms of combat, dynamic battlefields and the way we utilise story. I would argue that for the last ten years almost all MMOs have been built as refinements of the Ultima Online and Everquest models. I’m a big believer that once Tabula Rasa comes out that people will use this more fast-paced type of combat, the dynamic battlefields and the in-depth storytelling – even in an MMO space – and I would argue that a lot of MMO developers will probably follow this model for the next ten years."

You can see the full Tabula Rasa E3 interview right now on SPOnG.