MMOs - Past, present, future

Since World of Warcraft entered the international gaming arena back in 2004, the MMO genre has gone from a pretty niche product to a lumbering beast. When Funcom started development on Anarchy Online back in the 90's, they thought 25,000 players would be a huge success - these days, companies like EA are pumping in reportedly $100 million into their Star Wars: The Old Republic. Even indie companies, like Icarus Studios and Avatar Creations, opt to develop MMOs and what was originally seen as a pretty small market is becoming increasingly complicated.

For players, on the other hand, there has never been so many games to choose from. Millions of people go on adventures in Azeroth on a weekly basis while thousands of players fight over resources in the galaxy of New Eden. In this article, we'll take a look at the myriad of different experiences available to you - or will be available to you in the near future.

It's a huge genre out there, filled with virtual worlds waiting to be explored. The titles mentioned in this article are only the tip of the iceberg and are only meant to serve as a starting point for players who have never looked into MMOs before. So follow me while we try to make sense of it all.

M...M...O...?

The original abbreviation was MMORPG - "massively multiplayer online roleplaying game". That's simply too long and too clumsy to use on a regular basis, so these days it's more usual to simply skip the "RPG"-part. For people not familiar with the genre, the easiest way is probably to describe it as a game centered around a virtual world similar to most games - but one not only populated by computer-controlled characters, but also by players.

Most MMOs support thousands of players present in the same game world at the same time - hanging out, adventuring or fighting each other. The social part is a very important aspect of all these games in one way or another and most MMOs support some form of framework for players who want to work together - usually referred to as "guilds".

For many, the social aspect is what makes the genre interesting - the concept of living in a virtual world, together with other human players, is what keeps some of us constantly going back. It's a special feeling to hear 25 people cheer loudly on Ventrilio when the dragon finally beats the dust, or see a guild hall be decorated. And while cities in singleplayer RPGs can feel alive despite the computer controlling all the people living there, they can't beat the feeling of seeing hundreds of spaceships docking and undocking by the minute from a space station in EVE Online's Jita-system.

Subscriptions vs Free

A few years ago I worked in games retail. One thing I often encountered were parents that had been convinced by their kids to pick up World of Warcraft and many of them of were shocked when they were told that they would have to pay a subscription fee to play for more than 30 days. The concept of a subscription fee is something that divides gamers as well, but for a long time - at least here in the West - it's been more or less a fact when it comes to almost all MMOs.

These days, things are not as clear cut as "pay to play" anymore. The Free To Play model (usually abbreviated as "F2P") has seen a surge of popularity lately - instead of paying for the box and a monthly fee, the game is available for free and gets its money from selling various in-game items. This business model isn't without its controversies, but it's no longer as taboo amongst MMO-players as it once was. Finally, there's the model usually known as "freemium", which mixes subscription with F2P - you can play for free, but paying a monthly fee gives you certain perks. Lord of the Rings Online is probably one of the most famous of the freemium games, with Champions Online going for a similar solution.

The future of the business-side of MMOs are still unclear, and it remains to be seen if either of these ways of paying your way will kill off the others. But if you don't want to have to pay a monthly subscription you have many different options to choose from. Most MMOs are very up front about how they expect to get money from you.

Defining gameplay

Currently, MMOs come in two flavors - as theme parks or sandboxes. While many games mix and match features from both of these, they are commonly used to explain the rather huge difference in design between various games. Both of them come with their own set of virtues or problems, and finding a flamewar between fans is as simple as doing a Google search for the terms, and are important to know before you go shopping for a game to play.

The theme park is what is generally seen as the classic MMO, with World of Warcraft being the most famous example. In a theme park, everyone will be able (at least in theory) to ride all the attractions and see all the sights. There's popcorn and candy for all and everyone is invited to have a good time. There's usually big neon signs showing you which way to go. "Everybody gets to be the hero, everybody gets to slay the dragon," as CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson once said.

In a sandbox, on the other hand, you usually have more freedom to craft your own adventures. There's a lot of sand and you get the tools to build your own fancy sandcastles. There's also other people in the same sandbox and if you want you can build together - or simply go over to them and kick sand in their eyes. EVE Online is an example of a traditional sandbox game, where player alliances can create their own empires and wage wars against their enemies. As you'd expect, sandbox games demands more from their players - after all, if you're not very creative or good at using the tools, the sandcastles you build won't be very impressive.

As noted above, some games take inspiration from both of these genres. In Star Wars Galaxies, players can go on grand adventures together and be the heroes of the Rebellion or the Empire - but they can still band together and build entire cities. Everquest II and Lord of the Rings Online, two games which in many ways are traditional theme parks, feature player owned housing where you can spend hours decorating your own home. And in Runes of Magic, player guilds can build their own castles.

The past

One impressive thing about many MMOs is that they tend to run for a long, long time. While the history of the genre is filled with many games that didn't live up to the financial investment and closed down, Tabula Rasa and Acheron's Call 2 probably being two of the more spectacular examples, many games are still going strong despite their age. The original Everquest, which launched in 1999, is celebrating its 12th birthday this year. Ultima Online was released in 1997 and is played to this day. Acheron's Call, despite its aging graphics, is still around. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, might have been close to dropping dead almost as soon as it launched - yet it's still available, even if the player base has dwindled to close to nothing.

There are many reasons why this happens, most of them economical in nature. For the players, the reasons are not as important as the fact that you have a ton of games to choose from - many of which has been in development for many years and will offer up an amount of content that more recent games can't even dream of competing with. Since its release in 2004, World of Warcraft has received three expansions - Everquest got its 17th last year. Even Everquest II, which launched the same year as World of Warcraft, has seen seven expansion packs released over the years.

When looking at what the genre is like today, it's easy to forget those older games as they are not featured in the mainstream gaming media as often anymore. But they create a backdrop, a living history of gaming still available to us. Most of them are quite cheap to pick up these days, and many of them are worthy of your attention - if you can live with the old graphics, of course.

The present

In a sense, World of Warcraft could be counted as one of the older MMOs on the block, considering that its now seven years old. But when its third expansion - Cataclysm - sold 3,3 million copies in its first 24 hours last year, and a reported player base of 12 million players around the world, it's hard not to place it firmly in the present. To this day, companies and MMO-players alike still use Blizzard's behemoth as a kind of benchmark whenever a new game is released. It might have taken much of it inspiration from the MMOs that came before it, but with its success it created a new standard of what people expect from an online RPG these days.

As noted above, World of Warcraft took what had been a rather niche genre and gave it mainstream appeal. Much of that success is of course based on the fact that it was Blizzard that developed it - with games like Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo on their roster. But the game also streamlined what had gone before it and made the genre more accessible to a wider audience. It also made gaming executives all over the world salivate wildly and dream about millions of players of their own, seeing World of Warcraft as proof that the genre - and the market - suddenly had exploded in popularity.

Over the years, that has proven to not be 100% correct. Many players don't play it because it's a MMO, they play it because it's World of Warcraft - the interest simply isn't there. While the market learned that lesson the hard way, several games were launched that were dismissed by many as simple "WoW-clones". Some games sold impressive amounts of boxes during their first month - only to see the subscription numbers drop off sharply after the free time included in the box ran out.

A recent contender, that has received a lot of attention, is Trion World's Rift. Many MMOs are known to be terribly buggy when they launched, but Rift proved to be incredibly stable and (relatively) bug free. It has a lot in common with World of Warcraft when it comes to its basic gameplay, in fact the "WoW-clone" stamp has been thrown at it more than once, but it has captured the imagination of many players by now. How bright its future looks remains to be seen, but for now it looks as if though Trion might have one of the more successful MMOs in recent history on their hands.

Other theme park games worth mentioning include Age of Conan, which despite its initial issues and exodus of players have seen many updates and one expansion since release. Cryptic's Star Trek Online was also slammed by many fans when it was released, but has since received a lot of love and has changed remarkably since its first couple of months. If you're looking for a post-apocalyptic fix, there's always Fallen Earth. And the market for F2P-games keep growing, with games like Allods Online and Forsaken World offering up their worlds for free.

EVE Online has been around since before World of Warcraft, but with some remarkable updates to its graphics engine it very much feels and plays like a modern MMO. It is also the most popular sandbox MMO available right now, with a reported playerbase of 360,000 subscribers. Darkfall Online, which is much smaller, takes up the rear with its unforgiving and brutal fantasy sandbox.

The future

One of the major shadows hanging over the MMO-genre right now is, without a doubt, Bioware and EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic. EA has pumped in vast amounts of money into the project, hoping that Bioware - known for their amazing singleplayer RPGs - will be able to produce an incredible success. The pressure is absolutely on the developer right now, as fans and critics are nit-picking over any little detail, trying to figure out if it will be able to snag as big a piece of the market as the investors hope.

Another big name on the horizon is ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2. The original Guild Wars has to date sold in more than six million copies and while it's not a MMO in the traditional sense it still has a large enough following to turn a sequel into a very profitable affair. Guild Wars 2, like its predecessor, won't have a subscription fee, something that is bound to attract plenty of gamers by default. The title has a lot of promise and if ArenaNet can deliver a quality product, its success is almost a given.

Just like Everquest turned 12, the current crop of MMOs will grow older and grow in content as well. World of Warcraft will surely get another expansion pack, with Blizzard working on a brand new MMO in parallel with it. The Incarna-expansion, where players will finally be able to leave their ships and walk around in the space stations, is supposed to come to EVE Online at some point this year. Trion will surely announce an expansion for Rift.

And Everquest will get its 18th expansion pack.