Tabula Rasa to close doors

NCsoft's MMO, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, is set to close down its servers and end all service on February 28.

In an open message to the title's community, the Tabula Rasa team cited poor uptake as the reason for its closure but said the MMO would go free-to-play from January 10 and that they still had certain in-game events planned.

"Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO," explained the company in a statement. "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."

"So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009," the company added. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009."

"We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while... We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players."

By way of compensation to Tabula Rasa fans, the company has gifted all active users with three free months of City of Heroes and Lineage II, Aion beta access and one free month of Aion when it comes out.

Earlier this month Richard Garriott announced his plans to leave NCsoft in order to pursue "new interests"