They're slowly managing to destroy UO as a fun game. One they got with a good player base and reputation from Origon Systems.
EA has always owned UO. Garriott even had to go to the head of EA to get some of the money to fund UO. I'm not defending EA - I'm not happy with how they've treated UO over the years, but EA has always owned UO.
And Tanivar, it's not a sandboxy game, not at all. It has a massive amount of content, but it's going to be a lot different if you are only used to sandbox MMOs.
There aren't that many sandbox games around - they are hard to do. If somebody needed a break from UO, Skyrim would probably be the best sandbox-style game to play, although it's single-player. And EA has Kingdom of Amalur coming up in a few months that will be sandbox-style (and turned into an MMO).
It has Todd McFarlane as one of the designers, for those of you who played UO in the early years
for those who want to try Star Wars, Massively.joystiq.com and MMORPG.com have a ton of keys to give away.