Overview

A Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) is a type of online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (traditionally in a fantasy setting) and take control over most of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

MMORPGs are immensely popular, with several commercial games reporting millions of subscribers. South Korea boasts the highest subscription numbers, with millions of users registered with the more popular games; see list of MMORPGs for a list of the most prominent MMORPGs.


Common features

Though MMORPGs have evolved considerably, many of them share various characteristics.

• Traditional Dungeons & Dragons style gameplay, including quests, monsters, and loot.
• A system for character development, usually involving levels and experience points.
• An economy, based on trading of items (such as weapons and armor) and a regular currency.
• Guilds or clans, which are organizations of players, whether or not the game actively supports them.
• Game Moderators (or Game Masters, frequently abbreviated to GM), sometimes paid individuals in charge of supervising the world.

As most MMORPGs are commercial, like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, players must either purchase the client software for a one-time fee or pay a monthly subscription fee to play. Most major MMORPGs require players to do both these things. By nature, "massive multiplayer" games are online, and require monthly subscriptions due to the needs of the design and development process. With this in mind, the alternate term MMGS, standing for Massive Multiplayer Gaming Service, is also appropriate for describing MMOGs in general and MMORPGs in particular.


History

MMORPGs, as we define them today, have existed since the early 1990s. However, they have a history that extends back into the late 1970s.

The first gameworlds

The beginning of the MMORPG genre can be traced back to text-based (entirely non-graphical) Multi-User Domains, or MUDs, the first of which was developed by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw in 1978. These were games that ran on private servers (usually at a university, sometimes without the knowledge of the system's administrators); players would connect to the games using a TELNET client. Gameplay was usually similar to role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons; by typing commands into a parser, players would enter a dungeon, fight monsters, gain experience, and acquire loot.

Similar games quickly developed around the same time for the PLATO System. MUDs (and later descendants such as MUSHes and MOOs) were sometimes wildly different from one another, but shared many basic interface elements - for example, a player would usually navigate his or her character around the gameworld by typing in compass directions ("n", "se", etc.)

Many MUDs are still active to this day, and a number of influential MMORPG designers, such as Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid, Mark Jacobs, Brian "Psychochild" Green and Damion Schubert, began as MUD developers and/or players.

Early commercial development

The first commercial MMORPG (although what constitutes "massive" requires some context when discussing mid-1980s mainframes) was Islands of Kesmai designed by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. Still text-based (or, more accurately, roguelike), this game became available to consumers in 1984 at the cost of $12.00 per hour via the CompuServe online service.

The first graphical character-based interactive environment, though not actually an RPG, was Club Caribe (first released as Habitat), which was introduced in 1988 by LucasArts for Q-Link customers on their Commodore 64 computers. Users could interact with one another, chat and exchange items. Although very simple, its use of online avatars (already well established off-line by Ultima and other games) and combining chat with graphics was revolutionary for the time.

Neverwinter Nights on AOL, the first graphical MMORPG.