MMO Games

What's an MMO?
Massively-Multiplayer Online (MMO) games are usually virtual-reality junk with persistent-state worlds, with a player avatar that can accumulate inventory & attributes, exchange inventory freely with other player avatars, and the world-state can change even when the player isn't playing. (ie: Everquest, SecondLife, wikis...)

The list on this page will contain all "multiplayer online" games including sportslike games where there are matches of more than two people, and the world or avatars restart after each match. (ie: fantasy football, Quake, Acrophobia...) For these games, include which servers you can find your fellow /v/ bros for lulz, and mention what mods /v/ deems necessary for play.

The goal of this page is to describe well-known multiplayer online games, whether there is a /v/-related group actively playing there (and its name) and whether the game is actually worth the bullshit to play. We all know MMOs are shitty, but sometimes Anonymous has a way of making them fun.

Please, only list bro groups/guilds/servers, ones that are run by Anonymous or are very heavily populated by Anonymous. Servers or groups that are dead should be kept here for record and marked with &lt;strike&gt;strikethrough text&lt;/strike&gt; instead of deleted from that game's entry.

For now, list only PC-based games on this page. Console based MMO's do exist, but they should be on the pages for it's console, since console types don't talk to each other(*). If you wanna play with bros on your XBaWiistation3, you should try making a thread on /v/ first so you can meet up online.
 * (*:Except Phantasy Star Online and it's many variants on both handheld, console and pc. You can find /v/ bro channels but not all the time.)

Definitions
Payment plans are defined as:
 * Free: Free to play, forever, no limits on content you can use/ visit/ download.
 * Freemium: Free to play, forever, but there are some items/ skills/ areas you can only use if you pay money first. Sometimes the extra stuff is just vanity items, like hair colour or a snazzy-looking mount.
 * One-Time: You pay some cash up-front, and it's free from then on. This doesn't include software that you buy off the shelf before you start playing, because who pays for software anymore? This is more if you have to buy to register an account.
 * Subscription: You gotta pay up-front with money, every month/week/year. This includes stuff with expansion packs IF you can buy the game + packs all at once after an xpack comes out without having to pay x3 the price
 * Tiered: This is Subscription + stuff only available if you pay extra cash. If you have to buy xpacks after you buy the first game to get the new content, then it's "tiered" payment. This doesn't include cosmetic effects, pets or other vanity items you buy with real cash in the game; we mean actual useful gear or access to useful areas.

The Games
For games that were awesome, but are now dead, skip ahead to

Atlantica Online
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Nexon Released: 2008 Website: http://atlantica.nexon.net Groups: none.

A strategic, turn-based RPG MMO where you control a group of hired mercenaries and travel around EARTH doing quests and whatnot. Also has a mode that plays like an SRPG, which is really fucking fun. This game is worth playing and coming back to if only for the fact that the people who play it are ridiculously nice. Like, randomly give some fucking stranger 500k in money nice.

Champions Online
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: Atari

Released: 2009

Website: http://www.champions-online.com

Groups: Courage and Valor (Courage and Valor is deeeeead! Noir Fiction was made by members of Courage and Valor however.)

Cryptic Studios' second superhero MMORPG. No, City of Villains doesn't count, assholes, it's exactly the same as City of Heroes, only darker. As with City of Heroes, this game has an awesome character creator and tons of powers to choose from, but unlike City of Heroes, this game has a cool comic-book art style, action-styled controls, a customizable nemesis you can make, and is generally more fun. Free players can create a character with one of eight character archetypes, with like 6 more archetypes available for purchase. There's an optional subscription, that if you have, will let you make a freeform character, who can have whatever powers you want him to have. Recently received Steam integration.

Cosmic Break
Payment: Freemium Publisher: CyberStep Released: 2009 Website: http://www.cosmicbreak.com/home Groups: none.

Think Gotcha Force or Custom Robo, with a Megaman Legends-esque art style and big, 32 person robot battles. You can buy/level up/customize your robots completely, so now you too can create the ultimate loli battle machine! This game was a /v/ flavor of the month game not too far back, so you might be able to find some bros willing to play with you.

Divine Souls
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Outspark Released: 2010 Website: http://divinesouls.outspark.com/ Groups: none.

A 3D Arcade Action/Beat-em-up MMO. Plays just like a 3D beat-em-up, with you going through a linear stage beating the shit out of groups of monsters and juggling/grabbing/generally trying to get as high a combo meter as possible. Progression feels very nice, since your usable moveset becomes quite large relatively quickly. Unfortunately, has a "Fatigue" system that prevents the time you spend, but you can earn more Fatigue by winning in PvP, which is damn fun.

Dungeons & Dragons Online
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Atari Released: 2006(FTP started in 2009) Website: http://www.ddo.com Groups: none.

Exactly what it sounds like, it's a 3D MMO based off of D&D, specifically, 3.5. One of the better free MMO's out there, due in part to the massive amount of content for a free game, and the fact that the combat is real-time action. Also features many, many instanced dungeons full of puzzles, and even a DM, with a narrator voice!

Dungeon Fighter Online
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: NEXON

Released: Korea 2005, Japan 2006, USA 2010, USA 2010

Website: http://dungeonfighter.nexon.net/ (USA) http://www.d-fighter.com/ (Korea)

Groups: none.

(known as "Arad Senki" outside USA.) A Beat 'Em Up style game run by Nexon (OH GOD NO). BUT WAIT! The Nexon taint doesn't rear it's ugly head too much here, so come back, sit down, and listen the fuck up. You play as one of 5 Gender-Locked Classes: Slayer (The Basic Swordsman), Magician (Caster Type), Gunner (Ranged, 2 Genders), Fighter (Single Target, High Damage), and Priest (The manliest Mother Fucker this side of Arad). Each class has 4 Subclasses (3 for Priest) with a surprising amount of variety between them in most cases. RPG elements also abound, which means equips, skills using MP, and leveling. So that added on top of the great combat system makes for a hell of a game. Freemium kicks in at the Lost Treasures (they suck cock anyway), stupid special items, player run-stores, and Avatar Items, without which everyone looks the same, sadly. But if this sounds just too good to be true, slow down Sparky, because the amazingly frustrating Fatigue System (FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-) will stop you from leveling too much too soon. If this game appeals to you, you're gonna make alt. characters, ALOT. But at least you can PvP and go shopping (lol fag) after you run out of fatigue. NOPE REMOVED IN FAVOR OF BLITZ POINTS. Basically Blitz Points make it to where the longer you play, the more EXP you get, but your weapons break faster and repairs cost more (but trust me, by the time you actually need an expensive repair, you'll have loadsa money). So instead of encouraging you to quit early, it encourages you to keep playing. You know, like a video game. With the release of Rebirth, It's hardly freemium anymore. You get a few randomly generated avatar items so you don't look like everyone else and the EXP requirements have been lowered down to (as far as I know) their original levels. So yeah, if you like beat-em-ups and have a few bros (arguably even if you don't), there's really no reason to skip out on this game.

Dynasty Warriors Online
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Koei Tecmo (JP), Aeria Games (USA and EUR) Released: Japan 2006, USA 2010 Website: http://dynastywarriors.aeriagames.com/ (USA) Groups: none.

Basically the same Dynasty Warriors Chinese-slashing gameplay you've come to know and love, only now it's a free-to-play MMO game! No level grinding to be seen, but this is replaced by weapon and mission grinding. Really fun if you want a more actiony MMO. Can be played with a gamepad.

EVE Online
Payment: Subscription, but you can renew with in-game currency

Publisher: CCP (via Atari and Valve)

Released: 2003

Website: http://www.eveonline.com/

Groups: Broski Enterprises (Elite Space Guild), and message "Dirk Action"

Features Ultima Online style gameplay where several factors go into how your character 'levels up' and what happens when you die. First, there are skills which are trained in real time, meaning, while you're logged out, your character still gets better. Secondly, when you die, you lose everything you're carrying, including your priceless ship and some of that free skill points (depending on how much you spent on a backup clone). Thirdly, this game is not for soloing, although you can run missions for in-game currency and item drops, and even pilot a battleship in your first month (if you want), you'll get really bored doing this - PVP fleet combat is much more enjoyable, you will only solo mission for grinding money to upgrade or replace your ship. An interesting feature of the game is its extensive player-driven history, and there's no shards/realms -- every player is in the same shared fuckhuge galaxy. You'll loathe this or love it.

Final Fantasy XI
Payment: Subscription

Publisher: Square-Enix (via Ubisoft in Australia)

Released: 2002 (Playstation2) 2003 (PC) 2006 (Xbox360)

Website: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/ (USA) or Twitter Groups: none.

SE's first MMO and the 11th entry in the popular Final Fantasy series. Contains all the classic FF elements like black mages, dragoons, moogles, chocobos and so on and puts them into the best and most elaborate world of the entire franchise (eat your heart out, Ivalice) AND features a very good story with a large and memorable cast of characters. Still looks pretty decent for a game that came out 2002 for the PS2 and it's still getting frequent content updates. Used to be a grindfest of legendary proportions, but the updates of recent times have made it much more accessible and fast-paced. Finding a competent party for basically everything in mandatory, though. This game is known for generating large amounts of nostalgia for every former player as soon as they hear its name. Note that this game uses international servers, so the auto-translator in the chat is important. Most people speak English, though.

Flyff
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: Gala Lab (Korea) Gala-Net (USA)

Released: 2005

Website: http://flyff.gpotato.com/ Groups: none.

3D grindfest. There are quests, most of them uncompleted or get x items from y's and you receive exp. spending money on the game enables you to get better gear, which affects you a lot. Total of 8 final classes. There is pvp although unbalanced as fuck. All you do is grind, you might pay $'s for a ticket to enter an area to grind faster. Prepare to see tons of kids begging for buffs from an Assist(class). You can also “fly” which comes down to mount that isn't taped to the ground. Grind.

FOnline 2238
Payment: Free Publisher: some ruskies, living in France? Released: 2009, in endless beta phase Website: http://fonline2238.net/ Groups: none.

Fallout 2, only with less quests and online. Very, very steep difficulty curve, but fuck me if it isn't fun. Warning: You will be killed. A lot. Mainly by ruskies. Another warning: they're still developing the server, so don't get too attached to your character as (from the developer blog): "The third time in 8 months of time, the server has been full wiped, due to client and server improvements ..."

GhostX
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: JC Entertainment (Korea) GameKiss (USA)

Released: 2009

Website: http://gx.joycity.com (KR) http://ghostx.gamekiss.com/ (EN)

Groups: none.

A cel-shaded hack-n-slash MMO set in a modern/futuristic Korean city. The main gameplay gimmick of this game is that your weapon and skills come from Nanobots, a weird floating cyclops thing that follows you around. You can level up and evolve your Nanobot for more special moves/combos, as well as combine or craft new Nanobots to use. The grind can be rough, but the style and enemy-juggling action combos make this MMO worth checking out. GhostX Ultimate is going into Open Beta. Little to no details are known about it, but it may obsolete GhostX.

Global Agenda
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: Hi-Rez Studios

Released: February 1, 2010

Website: http://globalagendagame.com/ Groups: none.

A pretty cool MMOTPS with great graphics (using Unreal Engine 3), awesome gameplay and PvE/PvP. Pretty cool, yet slightly generic story, and a good enough fanbase which calls for tons of fun to be had leveling up and getting new shit like weapons. You get a FUCKING JETPACK throughout the game, which is actually really useful. Good amount of grindan. Usually pretty fast-paced. Good character customization, too, although the UI is a tad derpy. Runs on Unreal Engine 3. Don't listen to gamespot's review, they make it sound like they've never played the game to begin with. (which isn't surprising, seeing as they do that with most of their reviews.)

Guild Wars
Payment: One-time

Publisher: ArenaNet

Released: April 28, 2005

Website: http://www.guildwars.com/ Groups: none.

A pretty old game, but still has an active community and good graphics for its age. Guild Wars 2 is the sequel to this game, and there are items that can be unlocked in GW2 by completing GW1 objectives. See here for more on that. It is being updated with content to explain what happens between GW1 and GW2. Costs about $35 in total to get all four games.

League of Legends
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: Riot Games

Released: October 27, 2009

Website: http://leagueoflegends.com/ (US) http://eu.leagueoflegends.com/ (EU)

Groups: none, but we're around. Type /v/ in the search chat field.

An awesome, free-to-play DotA clone with tons of playable champions with different strategies and a cel-shadey graphical style. Currently has a pretty strong /v/ fanbase, so you won't be hurting to find some bros online. Aside from that, most of the fanbase is shit, but there's still tons of fun to be had. Currently is now one of the largest esports in the world even though they have technical difficulties almost every tournament.

Mabinogi
Payment: Freemium Publisher: NEXON Released: 2004 Korea, 2008 USA, 2010 Europe Website: http://mabinogi.nexon.net/ (USA) http://mabinogi.nexoneu.com/ (EU) Groups: none.

Not your dad's Korean grindfest. The usual Korean grind is offset by a rebirthing system. Unique rock-paper-scissors combat system where every combat skill has a counter. Classless system - meaning the skills you choose to invest into define you. I.E. If you want to a magic user and an archer you can, if you want to be a melee and an alchemist you can; but the more skills you invest into means the more you'll have to level up in order to gain more skill points to invest, so it's not a good idea to spread yourself out too thin and invest into every skill.

Mafia - EpicMafia
Payment: Free

Publisher: some guy named 'Lucidrains'

Released: original version: 1970s or earlier. web version: 2010

Website: http://epicmafia.com/ Groups: ''that guy in your group being a retard? Yeah, that's us.''

The latest cancer to infect /v/, as threads get buried under "JOIN MAFIA NOW! GAME #OICU812 PASS HERPDERP" messages spamming the fuck out of what passes for normal. It's a party game where some of the players are secretly evil, and during the 'night' phase vote to kick one of the not-evil players out of the game. During the 'day' phase, all the players (including the secret evil ones) vote to kick any one player out. The evils win if they outnumber the not-evil players left in the game; the not-evils win if all the evil players were kicked out. The lulz happen because the not-evil players outnumber the evils, but there is NO WAY AT ALL for them to know who's evil, so it's guesswork and wild accusations. Epic mafia makes it even more psychotic by giving some players (evil or not) special powers they can use during the night phase. If you want to play the game properly do not join a /v/ game, 99% /v/ games consist of people randomly voting people out and trolling everywhere.

MapleStory
Payment: Freemium Publisher: NEXON Released: 2003 Korea, 2005 USA, 2007 Europe Groups: none.

2D sidescroller, Community infested with weaboos, Game itself is a humongous grindfest.

Quests involve getting items, Killing stuff or delivery. The time it takes to gain a level is insane after reaching a decent level. Since killing stuff is the most important in this game, it's very damage oriented. If you fuck up your stat build your damage will suffer and you ruined your character. At the time of writing maplestory has 6 base classes, and a around 18 (semi)unique classes. Although the balance between them isn't that great. It isn't really an issue because there is no pvp (but coming soon) in maplestory. The fun aspects are great amounts of content, variety in classes and the party quests.

If you have some friends to play this with it's gold. If you don't it will get boring after you reach a point where the fun party quests are unpopulated, because there a faster ways to get exp in other party quests. It's already time consuming to progress in the game, it generally seems that gaining exp fast but boring appeals the crowd more then playing the fun parts. It's a shame.

Game economic is stable, and has a lot of money sinks. Inflation is not a problem. You have a huge advantage as a high level character and money becomes less a problem. You'll have to cope with being poor until you can farm the popular items, which takes about 800 hours of game time.

Summary: 2d sidescrolling grindfest. Fun with friends, time consuming. Nexon keeps releasing patches every six months that "fixes class balance for real this time, we promise!"

MicroVolts
Payment: Freemium Publisher: SKi Media (Korea), Rock Hippo (USA) Released: 2009 (Taiwan, Thailand), god only knows (USA, Japan, Korea) Website: http://www.haveol.com.tw/ (Taiwan) http://www.microvolts.com/ (USA) Groups: none

Originally called H.A.V.E. Online. Still not "out" yet, running as "open beta." A fun combination of Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 in third person. You play as a bunch of toys (Kawaii uguu animegirl Naomi, fatass Knox, demon animegirl Pandora and a weird robot looking guy named C.H.I.P.) brought to life for some reason, with only one goal: beat the everloving fuck out of the other toys. Currently, the avalabile gamemodes are free-for-all, team deathmatch, item match (just team deathmatch where every kill drops a random powerup), capture the battery, close combat (melee only) and elimination (players don't respawn until the end of the round). You start off with a set of crappy weapons and a lot of money. You recieve some trial weapons by completing the tutorial at the beginning, but you can purchase better weapons and apparel in the in-game store using an in-game currency for a limited amount of time. The more time, the more money spent, Battlefield Heroes style, and you earn money by playing (though not a lot). You can join the open beta at http://www.microvolts.com/

Minecraft
Payment: One-time

Publisher: Mojang Specifications

Released: 2010

Website: http://minecraft.net/ Servers: vminecraft.com, chaos.nerd.nu

You got autism? We got cubes for you to stack! Seriously, there's no goals to this game, except maybe surviving the night when spiders come out, but there's already like 3,000,000 people who've bought it and it's NOT EVEN FINISHED YET. When we're not griefing other servers by dumping lava in forests, you'll find us building huge sculptures. Of dongs. Out of solid iron. Learn more about Minecraft

Mythos
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Frogster Online Released: 2011 Website: http://www.mythos-europe.com/ Groups: none.

Diablo: The MMO. Flagship, a development company formed from former Blizzard employees, decided that they wanted to make Diablo in free MMO format, and after that didn't work for them, Hanbitsoft acquired all the assets and continued working on it. Has four playable races with three classes to choose from. Definitely check it out if you're a fan of Diablo, Torchlight, Dungeon Seige, or Titan Quest.

Realm of the Mad God
Payment: Freemium, very generous (max level, all classes, all dungeons free)

Developer: Wild Shadow Studios

Released: 2010

Website: http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/

Groups: n/a

(Flash-based) Fantasy-themed arena shooter from an indie publisher. Very 8-bit retro feel with creative-commons sprites and music, on top of very simple and rock-solid design. There is permadeath, but it's no fuss rolling a new character, and you can store items in your bank for your next character, and you keep your 'fame points' for buying some of the premium items and unlocking new classes.

Ruins of the Lost Kingdom Online
Payment: Freemium; You may play without the Addons and it won't impact you seriously. (Unlike in WoW)

Publisher:Tomoshibi

Released: 2008 Japan

Website: http://www.tomoshibi.net/guide/rolo (Japanese)

Groups: none listed

(called 'Rolo' for short) Lesser known game, has rather small Community (compared to WoW), mostly consisting of Asians (60% Japanese, 30% Chinese, 10% etc). The Game itself is of very good quality, it is approx. 200 mb and has Graphical Quality equal to .//hack on the Playstation2. The Gameplay is similar to Phantasy Star Online and .//hack Series, it uses a No-Target System, you can freely move around, Jumping is essential part of Combat, Air-Combos are included. Your Skills/Spells are defined by your Weapons (very .//hack like). Also Skills/Spells act differently if used in Air. The Game Style is Room-Based (similar to PSO), so there is no One Single World for everyone. The Major drawback of the game is that it is fully and entirely in Japanese, the Community is rather nice and helpful, so you won't be playing alone too long. All in all you won't regret playing it. (If no one Joins your Room, check your Ports, your Firewall Setting might block people from doing so.) You might also want to check on the in-progress English Wiki (http://rotlko.wikia.com)

S4 League
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: Alaplaya (Europe), Pmang (Korea)

Released: 2006 Korea, 2008 Europe, 2010 USA

Website: http://s4.en.alaplaya.net/ (USA)

Groups: the "S4Chan Trolls"

A ridiculously fun, stylized Third-Person Shooter which plays similarly to a mix between GunZ: The Duel and Jet Set Radio. Has tons of weapons, skills, and character clothing, as well as a large selection of playable maps, and several gameplay modes, including Team Deathmatch, Touchdown(A Football-esque mode where you have to take the ball to the opponent's goal without dying), Reaper(One randomly selected player is the Reaper, and the rest of the players have to either survive a certain amount of time, or kill the Reaper), Arcade(Think Horde mode), etc. Go download it now!

Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Atlus (Japan), Aeria (USA) Released: 2007 Japan, 2009 USA Website: http://megaten.aeriagames.com/ (USA) http://www.megatenonline.com/ (Japan) Groups: none

Fatlus, the MMO. Play with other fat, pathetic virgins in a pretty decent MMO. Uses a skill system similar to Morrowind (Grind each skill by doing shit). Also brings along other staples of the Shin Megami Tensei series, such as recruiting demons to fight at your side, fusing said demons together to make even stronger demons, and the good 'ol SMT weakness system. Shares the Attack/Counter/Dodge battle system that Mabinogi has, as well as randomized instance dungeons similar to Mabinogi as well.

Prepare for a long-ass tutorial.

Space Station 13 - SS13
Payment: Free? Publisher: BYOND Released: 2003? Website: http://www.byond.com/games/Exadv1/SpaceStation13 Servers: this space unfortunately left blank.

Kinda like Mafia/Werewolf, only everyone has a job to do on the station, and you don't have to be the bad guy to do things like start a fire in the life support system or throw someone into a locker and wield it shut. There's a handful of scenarios, from assasination conspiracy, saboteurs with a mission to destroy the station, shapeshifter alien trying to eat everyone, to repelling boarding parties... or multiple bad things at once! Or none, just people killing each other from being suspicious. It's a played on a space station with enough crunchy simulation stuff you can get some serious LULZ going.

Spiral Knights
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Three Rings Released: 2010 Website: http://spiralknights.com/ Groups: guild "No Fun Allowed"

From the people that made Puzzle Pirates (aka casual games, the MMO-ing), comes an action-based MMO. Go dungeon delving with up to four other people, swing swords or switch to handguns in a clockwork world. It'll remind you of Zelda, or if you're an old fart, Gauntlet. Crafting is dead simple, as are status effects & resistances. Game time is meted out with 'energy' units, which you can buy or sell for game currency or purchase with real money, or wait for a small storage tank to recharge every 22 hours. This is like a kid's "My First MMO Game," but very slick production values.

Sword2 / Granado Espada
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Gamersfirst (USA) Released: 2007 Website: http://ge.iahgames.com/site/ Groups: none.

Was called "Sword of the New World before 2010. Something of a cross between an MMO and an RTS. Instead of controlling one character, you control three at a time. Character customization is severely limited. The appeal is mostly graphical eyecandy, really.

Team Fortress 2
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Valve Released: 2007 Website: [http://teamfortress.com/ ...really? You don't know?] Servers: 173.193.205.81:27015 "4Chan Party Van" and 66.55.149.11:27015 "Jesuscholy's House of RE/v/IVING"

How the fuck do you not know about TF2? Go watch the [http://www.teamfortress.com/movies.htm "Meet The..." videos]. Hell, 1/4 of YouTube is probably TF2 machinima.

Vindictus
Payment: Freemium

Publisher: NEXON

Released: 2010

Website: http://vindictus.nexon.net/ Groups: No Fun Allowed (East)

The best fucking MMO you will never need to pay for. Amazing combat, amazing graphics, Source Engine, which means fuckawesome physics, you actually need a team to be effective, and you need to utilize the environment to make your life not hell. Bosses require more thought than "auto attack and pop off skills", auxiliary items actually mean something, and you can get caught in traps and ambushes, although not made by the AI, just pre-determined. Standard MMO fair otherwise, with instance-based dungeons, crafting of equips, loot, grinding, and leveling skills. Still in its infancy, but look out for this game. Go to the official forums and check the threads there for keys. There are several dedicated to begging and receiving them.

P.S. Eurofags/Oceaniafags/other non-US fags, you can play with Proxifier and a good proxy, but for the love of fuck, DO NOT HOST OR JOIN OTHER BOATS.

Wakfu
Payment: ???

Publisher: Ankama (world), Square-Enix (NA)

Released: 2011 in "open beta" for Europe

Website: http://www.wakfu.com/na/mmorpg

Groups: none, it's not out yet!

This is a French sandbox MMO that's probably more widely known for its popular cartoon adaption and the sequel to Dofus, which is stupid popular in France. It's sort of unique as there are almost no NPCs to be found after the tutorial: everything is managed by the players. It's up to you if you want to be an adventurer, monster hunter, farmer, crafter, criminal scum or even governor of your nation! There is a limited amount of living beings (including plants and monsters) in the world, so players have to take care to keep a balance between overpopulation and extinction of all species. Luckily many people hoard stacks of seeds and monster essences to prevent that from happening. You might think this game plays like an MMO version of Harvest Moon and you'd be half-right. The battle system is turned-based and isometric like Tactics Ogre, Disgaea and such, while rewarding taking your turns quickly with bonuses. The European beta is open, the North American beta is still closed. NA beta is open now.

World of Warcraft
Payment: Tiered; if you don't buy the 3 expansions, you'll be playing alone.

Publisher: Blizzard

Released: 2004 USA, 2005 Europe, 2009 China

Website: http://us.battle.net/wow/ US http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/ Europe

Groups: no guilds listed.

The most popular MMO in existence, you might dislike it or you might lose your soul to it. Has both pretty good PVE and PVP and a shitload of content. The game's been made more accessible as time went on and the new Cataclysm expansion either sucks or kicks more ass than ever, depending on how much you enjoy the game as is.

Yohoho Puzzle Pirates
Payment: Freemium Publisher: Three Rings Design Released: 2003 Website: http://puzzlepirates.com/ Groups: none

Casual games, the MMO. Your little Playmobil pirate can get a job grinding and skilling up gambling in a pub or doing crafting work by playing tetris or sudoku-type games. Teamwork is when you and some friends crew a ship, each doing a puzzle game to give the captain pieces for his navigation or ship-to-ship combat metagame.

The Dead Games
These are the multiplayer online games that were cool, once upon a time. Maybe someone will hack them and ressurrect them; it's happened before.

APB: All Points Bulletin
Publisher: Realtime Worlds Released: 2010 Finished: 2010

Record holder for fastest MMO death. Shut down a little over eight weeks after release due to only selling about 1,400 copies after spending 100 million dollars on development. Was unique for being a PvP-only MMO third person shooter with free roaming and gained some popularity on /v/ because of the massive trolling potential from the ability to ruin other people's missions by destroying their vechiles and parking cars over objectives while they can do literally nothing to stop you.

In addition to the amazing trolling posibilities, due to the game's horrible failure when it came to sales, it took a full four weeks for layoffs to start happening. First to go was the support staff, meaning no bans for any behavior. You could literally troll the game to death.

The game suffered from many problems that caused it's extremely fast demise, including glaring game imbalances, no anti-hack protection, a retarded real-life currency trading post, a single employee from the entire company being allowed to post on the forums and rewarding top players with unique, more powerful weapons making it nearly impossible to place in the top 10 without having already placed in the top 10.

Currently being brought back by GamersFirst as a F2P title called APB: Reloaded after Realtime Worlds was liquidated, but since GamersFirst is actually competent it's likely many of the bugs that allowed griefing and trolling will be removed and the game will return to being shit.

Final Fantasy XIV
Publisher: Square-Enix

Released: 2010

Finished: 2010

Dead on arrival sequel to FFXI. The developers notoriously didn't listen to any of the alpha and beta feedback and tried to rush it out to compete with WoW: Cataclysm. After release, the dev team and director had been replaced with a different team made up of more experienced devs from XI which is slowly working on trying to fix it. As of now there is no subscription fee as SE feels it doesn't deserve one (but it's coming by the end of the year). On the plus side it can be bought really cheap and it probably features enough hot catgirls to be entertaining for a month or so and the graphics are pretty amazing for an MMO. Maybe it will get good at one point, at least the plans for the updates sound promising.
 * A major revamp is planned for version 2.0 which will come out with the PS3 release. Date is TBA; still considered dead until they get their shit together.

Gameplay demo on YouTube

The Matrix Online
Publisher: Sega/WB Games Released: 2005

Finished: 2009

It was the matrix, as an MMO. A large selection of branching in game purchased or created classes, a part by part based story with many community events and interesting players. Had 3 servers by the end including a pure pvp server (basically sit by the phone booths to either escape or spawnkill players.) Died due to dwindling subscription base.

Valkyrie Sky
Publisher: GameKiss

Released: 2009

Finished: 2010

A Touhou-esque SHMUP MMO. I shit you not. This game has a few playable classes, all of which play differently from one another, and have branching skill/class trees. Also has a crafting and marketplace system for those weapons and armor that you just can't seem to find. One of the few free MMOs that is even fun to play completely solo, just for how tough it gets.

Gameplay Video on YouTube

WonderKing Online
Publisher: Ryu&amp;Soft

Released: 2006 Korea, 2010 USA, 2010 Europe

Finished: 2010 Website: http://wonderking.ndoorsgames.com/ (USA) http://wonderking.de/ (Europe)

A Maplestory-clone with some extra features. Leveling is faster, Getting gold is less important. All classes can “dash” by double tapping directional buttons. All characters can double jump. It's maps are more plat-former gameplay. The biggest addition is that there is pvp. Which results in better balanced classes. Although some classes have an easier early game. Cons are that there are only 8 final classes, the lack of content because of easy leveling and the game still feels like it's in beta.

Shut down at the end of 2010 due to "constant unresolved issues with the developers."