Richard Garriott leaving NCSoft late last year came as a bit of a surprise to some, but surely not to others. He certainly didn't sound pissed about it all after coming back from his trip into space, but he's clearly pissed about it now, because he's decided to sue NCSoft for 24 million dollars.

According to GamesIndustry.Biz, the case was filed in Texas and is classified as "Torts – Property – Other Fraud". I was not familiar with the word tort, but apparently it means "a wrongful act or an infringement of a right outside of contractual obligations".

There's not much else to go on right now, but we're sure to find out more information soon enough. I wonder what happened?

[Update -- Gamasutra has come forward with more details. It seems Garriott may not have left NCSoft of his own accord. The suit claims that the president of NCsoft's North American operations, Chris Chung, informed Garriott that NCsoft had decided to "part company" with him and that Garriott objected to this dismissal. Garriott claims that Chung re-characterized Garriott's departure as a voluntary one, which wouldmajorly impact his stock options. The plot thickens...]