This is a truly epic week for Massive games … and in a good way , for flipping once! Hellgate, Tabula Rasa, Pirates of the Caribbean, EVE Fan Fest, and FFXI Fan Fest are all packed into these seven days. Go MMOGdom.

This week was a great one for MMOGs, as not one but three online games went live. Probably the highest profile is the much-awaited sci-fi experience from Richard Garriott, Tabula Rasa. General British has a thank you to everyone who has played the Beta so far. Last Friday, players got a chance to try to kill him (in-game, of course) and there’s a lengthy write up of the end-of-beta event at IGN. Next Generation has an interview with the man himself on what it took to get TR released.

“Tabula Rasa was very different from how I approached Ultima. In Ultima I came up with a series of virtues and tried to explore those. I wasn’t aiming for a system that was “the truth” or the truth of ultimate reality (though I think they make pretty good guides to live by) but they allowed for exploration and that was the key. So (when making Tabula Rasa) I took a step back and said to myself, ‘what was the point of that system, why did I do it in the first place?’.”

Meanwhile, Producer Starr Long has chat with Gamespot that tackles what the future might hold for the game.

“We plan to do yearly large expansions with other planets and all the creatures, missions, etc., associated with that. Between those times, we will be adding content to existing systems, like player-versus-player and military surplus every few months.”

Lead Designer Paul Sage has a few words about the game’s development from a more technical standpoint.