I criticize him, but Garriott has always been into sci-fi, and you gotta give him credit for not trying to stick in the same fantasy rut that others have, and his views that the two can co-exist within the same game.
He's pretty bitter over how Tabula Rasa played out, maybe he wants to show that he can do sci-fi and never had a decent chance with TR due to corporate mucking around. That and he knows he burned quite a few bridges with EA, contrary to what he maybe telling gaming websites, and that his chances of getting the Ultima license are slim and none.
Him trying to play nice with EA is like a battered housewife who can't leave. The drama that was involved with Pagan, UO, Ultima IX, UO2, and Garriot leaving would be worthy of a length book.
Ironically, EA is reviving Syndicate, there are rumors of Origin's Crusader being revived, and we know Chris Roberts is quietly trying to get Wing Commander off the ground.
And guess what?
BioWare is taking over Command & Conquer. I don't know what that means, other than BioWare seems to be growing rapidly and EA is working on either reviving certain games or relaunching them/rebooting them.
I noticed that when Garriott talked about his "talks" with EA, this was already after hints started being dropped that EA was going to bring back the non-UO Ultimas in some form. Garriott didn't even seem to realize that somebody within BioWare was working on a new Ultima property.
Actually maybe he was aware and is trying to create the impression that he should be the one to do so.
Either way, he's been floating a helluva lot of trial balloons.