MMORPGing

Ultima Online is about to get a facelift. Its considered the start of the MMORPG's.
Actually anyone who has been online for long enough can tell you the MUDs (mutual User Dungeons) started the mess.

MMORPG's are a difficult thing to explain to the novice computer user. For the acroynm you expand it to Massivly Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. To the uninitiated its like a 3D chat room with something to do. To anyone else... Just ask someone to show you...

Game Ogre trys to track the top games of this genre and the list as of this morning is:
World of Warcraft
Eve Online
Final Fantasy XI
City of Heroes \ City of Villians
Dark Age of Camelot
Everquest 2
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Rose Online
Saga of Ryzom
Auto Assult

These are the Pay to Play list, which means you have a monthly fee. After you purchase the box set. There are a goodly number of Free ones out there as well. On top of that there are many many in development to grab a piece of the pie.

As a fan of the genre I have been in the beta tests for quite a few of them. Namely UO, AC, AC2, DAoC, AO, MxO, D&DO, Ryzoms, CoH\CoV

Of the beta's I have actually subscribed to AC, AC2 CoH\CoV, Currently I am futzing around with World of Warcraft.

WoW climbed up to the top of the heap so they must have done alot of things right.