Paul Semel had a chance to talk with Richard Garriott about Tabula Rasa. Here is a sample of the interview.
WHAT OTHER GAMES DO YOU THINK HAVE INFLUENCED TABULA RASA, EITHER POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY?
I think all MMOs have influenced us. The whole team has played every MMO out there. We've been in the business for years. And we've basically determined that most of the ones out there are improvements upon Ultima Online and EverQuest. So we wanted to do something that is an MMO but is different, more active and more story driven.
You can read the entire interview over at RIOTTT.
http://riottt.com/user.do?uid=63&pid=2753