1. I'm interested in trying out a MMORPG to see what all the fuss is about. I am currently downloading Anarchy Online, a game that recently became free to play it seems. Can anybody else suggest other MMORPGs I might try out to make an opinion of my own? Note: I'm not going to pay for them, neither to get them or to play them. Pay to Play is a pestilent boil upon the arse of online gaming.

2. What are your thoughts on virtual worlds? They're becoming so large they're now a factor in economics with lots of money being spent to buy in-game items.

1: IF I were to try a MMO, it would be EVE Online. Then again, since you're asking for RPG, I'd wait for Funcom's (makers of Anarchy) upcoming take on Conan. From what I can see, and their excellent experience with Anarchy, I think it will be smashing. That being said, most people I know that play MMORPGs are addicting to WoW.

As for free, EVE has a 14 day trial I believe, as well as free download.

2: Well, one of my flatmates are playing Project Entropia. This one is free to download and play, but you can buy items and the likes with real money. It's the game where some guy bought a SpaceStation recently for $100 000. My flatmate and his friends are addicting to it, and spending a LOT of money (he's spent at least $3000), but I think it looks boring as hell. You can find very valuable items when hunting and mining, and thus in fact earn money there though. I think it's insane to spend as much money as he does on it, but he claims he can sell his items and get the money back at the least, so... (he did get $500 the other day for an item he owned that they were going to remove from the game).

Well, I played Anarchy Online last night. Was quite an exercise in tedium, even more than Diablo was, with added craptastic interface to boot. Add to that a lot of the usual "STFU n00b" and "Fcuk y00! I pwnz y00 all" business and you have the kind of experience I'm not eager to repeat.

As an oldschool mudder (as of 1994) I've spend my fair share of time in 'virtual worlds' even if it was textbased at first. My last couple of visits to virtual multiverse has been with Final Fantasy XI and Matrix Online (yeah I know they cost money to buy and play).
They both showed great promise but I found them wanting when I played them because they focused very much on 'Get beat up till an inch from death and get some lame treasure, that just wasn't worth the effort of the work that you put in it'.

Even if I have had some so-so experiences with MMORPGs I do enjoy exploring the virtual multiverse. And I am especially looking forward for Dungeons & Dragons Online and Middleearth Online. Even I don't get that much playing time....

One MMORPG I would like to see is one based on the RPG-system called 'Tales From the Floating Vagabond'. Drink a lot and doing lots of antisocial activities is a sort of a way of letting of steam and escaping reality for a little while.

A Shadowrun MMORPG would be neat. Lots of runners competing against each others, kidnapping executives, fighting in cyberspace and blowing up production facilities with fireball spells. You could chose to work for the corps too. Would be awesome.

Sadly, only two games ere ever made about Shadowrun

I play Star Wars Combine, free, pretty complex game, still in development.
Sadly there is no combat implemented yet, but the galaxy is HUGE, and everything is done in real time, so travelling through hyperspace takes, literally, days or weeks (obviously you cannot do anything else while in hyper, except walk around your ship, or drop out of hyper if you feel like it... dunno where you'll end up though), going across the galaxy would take months, maybe weeks in a fast hyper ship.
It's mostly roleplay. I joined the Rebel Alliance

EVE Online's good... I play that from time to time... but I haven't played much lately.

For RPG based game I suggest Guild Wars. There's no subscription, you just buy the game and play it for as long as you want. There's less emphasis on leveling up than other RPGs so there's less of the grind. Also the only time you meet other players is in the citys, once you venture out into the wide world your on your own unless your form a team with someone.

You can play it on your own because you can hire AI mercineries to follow you around and protect you but it's recomended you find a friend and join up, it's a lot more fun.


If anyone is looking to play either of these games and wants to team up with someone I'd be happy to join them.

Looks like PlanetSide will have a free version.