Lord British, whose real name is Richard Garriott, was the one who started it all in 1997 with Ultima Online. Although World of Warcraft and Everquest left UO in the cyber-dust long ago, Garriot is planning his comeback.

Garriott recently signed on with NCSoft, developers of  Lineage and City of Heroes.  He is currently working on a new MMO title, which he calls Tabula Rasa.

Garriott launched UO as the Internet began to explode, and no-one was more surprised that he when it started a phenomenon. Recalling the early days of MMO gaming, he compares it to "the Wild West," with little in the way of policing. In addition to graphics problems and frequent crashes, online player "homicide" was commonplace.

UO was apparently the origins of a practice known as "gold farming," in which gamers who obtain large amounts of "virtual" in-game currency attempt to sell it for legal currency - something of which Garriott and NCSoft disapprove.

Garriott believes that too many MMO's have fallen into a rut in which players simply kill monsters to obtain gold in sword-and- sorcery fantasy worlds. He is planning to integrate voice-chat into Tabula Rasa, which he believes will increase both the pace and the excitement.

Check out his audio interview here.