MMORPG is an acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games and was coined by Richard Garriott in 1997. As the name suggests, these games can be played online and allow a large number of players to fight and win against one another in a virtual gaming framework. As with all other Role Play games, the player lives in a fantasy world in the form of a character and is responsible for the characters actions. These games have also been used by various psychologists and sociologists as a tool for academic research since these games allow a person to explore different identities. Some of these MMORPG are free to be used and such games generate their revenue through advertisements and possible purchase of the in-game items. Some freely available MMORPGs are Atlantica Online, Allods Online, Ace Online, and Karos Online. An exhaustive list of the games can be found at freemmorpglist.com.
ATLANTICA ONLINE MMORPG:
This is a free, three dimensional, turn-based combat game developed and published by NDOORS Corporation. The game is set in a mix of real world locations along with some mythological and fantasy elements. The game has nine characters whose appearance can be customized by the player. The role the player is to plan each move of these characters during his/her turn. Advanced players of the game can bring in three teams together to lead a group of twenty seven characters into the combat. The skill set of some of the characters can be preset so that the characters can be put under the auto-battle system. Some of the features of the Player versus player combat are Challenge, Free League, Coliseum League, Weekly and Grand Championships along with Wars. In addition, there is also the Player versus Environment feature which allow the player to accumulate rewards in addition to their loot. The game has bagged many awards including the 'Best Fantasy MMORPG of 2009' and 'Best free to Play Game of 2008' and has been consistently rated by MMORPG.com as the best game in its category.
ACE ONLINE
This is a three dimensional shooter game developed by Masangsoft and owned by YD online Corp. The game involves a fight between two imaginary cities namely the Bygeniou City United (BCU) and Arlington National Influence (ANI). The goal of the player on each side is to shoot down an enemy fighter to collect National Contribution Points (NCP). The player is awarded 1 NCP for shooting down an enemy combatant. Strategic Points, Mothership wars and Arena battles are some of the other means to collect NCPs though a win in Arena battles does not yield as many points as in the other two situations. The duel can either be a one-on-one fight or can be a formation battle. The formation battle allows up to six players per formation. However, a battle formation requires the presence of all members of the adversaries to be logged on and present on the same map. A formation is declared a winner when all the members of the other team are eliminated either by enemy shooting or by some other means.