I suppose you could call this the silver lining for Tabula Rasa players.

Shortly after they announced that they were pulling the plug on the Richard Garriott led massively multiplayer online game and that people who worked on the title were losing their jobs, NCsoft broke down some of the things they are going to try and alleviate the sting of playing on a soon to be dead MMO.

Starting January 10, the game will be free to play. Any active player as of 10 a.m. this morning (pacific) will also get:

* 3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
* 3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
* Aion beta access (coming soon)
* Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
* 1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)

If you’re a player who pre-paid for TR time past when it gets shuttered, you’re going to get your money back. Pretty nice, though I’m guessing there are still some hardcore fans of the game out there who would much rather keep their virtual world.