First Person Shooters (FPS) are one of the most common type of f2p games. They’re particularly popular in North America which is generally a smaller market for free to play MMOs than Asia. Most of today’s MMOFPS games are tactical shooters, and the evolution of the genre has been startling.

The earliest free to play shooters were modeled after the popular Counter Strike, which it self got a free to play version called Counter Strike Online. Games like Mercenary Wars, and Mission Against Terror come to mind. Then there’s Cross Fire which was released several years ago but looks and plays a lot like the classic Counter Strike. Nexon has its own FPS called Combat Arms which has gained a large audience and received continual updates. Aeria Games publishes Wolfteam which is developed by Softnyx, and Netgame publishes Operation 7. Besides the original Wolfteam, most of these games are pretty standard tactical shooters set in a modern, urban environment.

Then there’s ijji. Run by the Korean company NHN, ijji publishes a lot of free to play games including MMORPgs. But their FPS and shooter catalog is notorious. They run no fewer than four shooters with a fifth in development. Despite having so many shooters, they is a lot of variation between them. GunZ: The Duel is a third person shooter like Battlefield Heroes and S4 League. Soldier Front is more traditional tactical shooter, and A.V.A is perhaps the most polished free shooter to date. Their latest shooter is Genesis A.D which has a sci-fi theme complete with futuristic weapons and maps. There’s jet packs, wall jumps, and all the rest. In some ways, it reminds me of Unreal Tournament. There are some similarities between Genesis AD and Alliance of Valiant Arms. Both have three classes that players can switch between, and similar interfaces.

The fifth ijji shooter still development is Karma: Operation Barbarossa. Even Karma will fit in nicely since it is set during WW2 and doesn’t directly compete with any of ijji’s current shooters. The f2p shooter genre is just getting started. Electronic Art’s has just announced another free to play (or play4free as they call it) Battlefield game. This one has realistic graphics and looks a lot like Battlefield 2.

Let’s wrap up with some more free to play shooters that are already available. K.O.S. Secret Operations has been compared to Counter Strike: Source on MMOHut. Its a fun game and many of the maps are modeled off stages in CS which should make the game feel familiar to veterans. Quake Live is an updated version of the classic Quake 3: Arena and is launched right from the browser for convenience. Even the US Army has gotten into the F2P FPS game with America’s Army. Its a hyper realistic, tactical, team based shooter. And we can’t forget War Rock by GamersFirst. Like Battlefield, the game has multiple modes, some of which support tanks, airplanes, and other vehicles.

I mentioned mainly FPS shooters, but also a few third person shooters (TPS.) There are many other free games that are best categorized as shooters but don’t quite fit the traditional definition of the term. We’ll cover those games next time.

It’s no secret that most free to play MMOs and MMORPGs come out of Asia. When it comes to f2p, countries like South Korea, China, and even Japan have been ahead of the West for years. There is a reason why Asian countries adopted the free to play, micro transaction supported business model while America and Europe largely stuck to the subscription model. Asian citizens were simply not affluent enough to afford the subscription, and many didn’t even have personal computers. Instead, gamers traveled to internet cafes where they paid to play on an hourly basis.

Even though most of the major economies of Asia have since prospered, the habit of making dozens of small purchases rather than lump-sums has stuck. Even games that are pay-to-play in the West like Age of Conan and Lineage 2 are free to play in South Korea. Oddly enough, free to play seems to be better for business than the monthly subscription method. More and more Western developers are starting to realize this. There are now a ton of Western developed games that are free to play or have been converted from P2P to F2P.

Turbine was one of the first pioneers of the MMOPRG industry with their 3D title Asheron’s Call. They’ve also been one of the quickest to adapt to the new realities of the market. Both The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online are now free to play, though they still maintain optional monthly subscriptions. Its very likely that their future releases will stick to the new f2p model. Another veteran studio that has embraced free to play is Sony Online Entertainment. Admittedly, ‘Sony’ is not exactly a Western company, but SOE is based in America and has operated some classic Western MMORPGs including EverQuest, and Star Wars Galaxies. They launched a free to play alternative to their EverQuest 2 title under the label EverQuest 2: Extended. But even before that, they have been testing the f2p waters with games like Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures.

But its not just MMORPG industry veterans switching their tactics. Large publishers of traditional retail video games are also under threat from the Asian model. Its not just MMORPGs that f2p in Asia, but shooters, racers, sports game, and all the rest. Companies like Electronic Arts and THQ have started coming around to the free MMO future. Lets start with EA. They have a number of free titles now including the third person shooter Battlefield Heroes, the real-time strategy game BattleForge, and the racer Need for Speed World. As for THQ, their famous World War 2 themed strategy franchise Company of Heroes now has a free to play version called Company of Heroes Online.

There are a lot more Western developed MMORPG and MMOs that are free to play. But this is only the beginning. I expect almost all PC titles to eventually convert to the microtransaction model.

Two key players are involved in bring free to play MMOs and MMORPGs to the players. They are the developers and publishers. Development studios are usually based in Korea or China and crafted for the local audience. When a studio wants to release its game in other region, it often doesn’t have the resources and/or knowledge required to operate a local office or localize the game for foreign markets. That’s where publishers step in.

Publishers pay developers a license fee for the privilege of hosting their game in a specific region, like North America or Europe. Developers also usually get a cut of all cash shop items. The developer is still responsible for designing new content for the game and fixing existing problems, but the task of marketing, customer service, and localization is passed to the publisher. Some of the biggest publishers today include Aeria Games, GamesCampus, gPotato, GamersFirst, and Outspark. None of these companies develop games themselves. Instead, they serve as an intermediary between players and the game studios.

Because many companies that publish games in America are based here while foreign developers are based in Asia, some interesting dynamics occur. Take for example the case of Eyasoft. They are the Korean developer behind two recent free to play MMORPGs: Iris Online and Legend of Edda. Despite being developed by the same studio, the two games are published in North America by different publishers. GamesCampus publishes Iris Online while gPotato publishes Legend of Edda. The two games are both anime styled, but still quite different. Edda has chibi style graphics while Iris boasts a Gypsy theme. Both have very traditional gameplay elements, but mix them with original features.

Not all developers rely on foreign publishers. Some companies are large enough to handle foreign localization and game development all in-house. Perfect World Entertainment comes to mind. Their US branch now hosts a number of free to play MMORPGs from the original Perfect World to more recent titles like Battle of the Immortals, Heroes of Three Kingdoms, and the upcoming Forsaken World. Usually as developers grow in size they take up the task of self publishing, and even expand to publish games by other studios. This is the case with Gravity. Best known for Ragnarok Online, they now operate a publishing portal in the US called WarpPortal. Besides publishing Gravity games like Requiem and Rose Online, WarpPortal now publishes Dragon Saga, the relaunched version of Dragonica Online.

There’s simple answer to which method is best, but my personal opinion is that in-house development and publishing is usually better for the players. When there’s a problem with the game, publishers are often helpless without the assistance of the developer. This can lead to confusion and a stalled game. Of course, most Western players wouldn’t have access to many Asian MMORPGs if it weren’t for publishers. I expect both publishers and developers to continue to expand globally. There’s still a lot of opportunity out there for new publishers willing to bring foreign games to local markets.

MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game. Its a mouth full, but the term has done a great job describing the genre for nearly three decades. When someone shows us a game like The Lord of the Rings Online, we can automatically label it as a MMORPG. This is also true for a game like Battle of the Immortals or Metin 2. All three of these games are very different yet they are fit neatly into the MMORPG label.

But not all online games are RPGs. Some are shooters, racing games, or sports games. Where do these fit in? Well someone somewhere came up with the clever idea of simply calling them MMOs. They dropped the ‘RPG’ half and were left with ‘massively multiplayer online’ as the description. Clearly a MMO racing game like Drift City, which is being published by GamesCampus now, is different than a traditional console racer. The MMO label is no gimmick, it really does help better identify the game. MMOs are a much broader category since so many genres can fit the description. For example, the parkour themed street racing game FreeJack is no RPG, but its still a free to play MMO. The same holds true for Zone 4: Fight District which is a fighting game. It’s got some RPG elements including some PvE gameplay, but its still a MMO.

Some games are more difficult to classify. I consider Grand Chase a MMORPG since it has a leveling system, strong PvE where players work alone or together to kill monsters and bosses. But the game has no persistent world, and instead relies on instanced stages. This is similar to many recent brawler MMORPGs, but many of those including Fists of Fu, Vindictus, Divine Souls, and Dungeon Fighter Online at least have persistent world towns. But how important is a persistent world to a MMO or MMORPG? Many regard it as the defining characteristic of a MMORPG, but I find such arguments to be hollow. Guild Wars may rely on instancing, but I peg it squarely in the MMORPG category.

If persistence was a requirement, even Dungeons and Dragons Online may not meet the standards of a MMORPG. But let’s move on to sports titles. For the most part, sports games like MLB Dugout Heroes, FreeStyle Street Basketball, and FIFA Online fall cleanly into the MMO category. But what about dancing games? Should we consider them MMOs or MMORPGs? Since there’s no real authority on the matter, I’ll go ahead and say yes. Online gaming, and especially free to play online gaming is growing so fast that pretty soon every genre will be represented in the MMO market. At that time, will the term still hold any meaning? Who will coin additional terms that do a better job describining particular genres that emerge? Could it be you?

Browser games are the fastest growing segment of the MMORPG industry at the moment. They originally appealed to people who were unable or unwilling to download a large file before playing a game. Some people are just afraid to download large clients, ‘will this give me a virus?’ is a very common question I hear on free to play gaming forums. A lot of the virus nonsense is unfounded fear, but it is true that certain anti-cheat programs bundled with f2p games trigger a response from anti-virus programs. Some people play browser games at work where they just don’t have the ability to install files on their office computers.

What ever the reason, browser gaming is huge. There are literally hundreds of free to play browser games currently available with more being released weekly. Browser games started as simple, text based RPGs with a few images thrown in. Some of the most popular browser MMOs still fit this description. BiteFight and Gladiatus by GameForge are two examples. There’s also the newly released Shakes and Fidget MMO based on the popular German webcomic. These text based RPGs tend to be slow paced, but there is an audience for them.

The next type, or genre, of browser game are the action oriented games. These allow free movement and generally revolve around player vs player combat. Bigpoint is a big publisher of such games. Some if the most popular include SeaFight and Dark Orbit. Bigpoint has around 50 games on their portal, and they offer everything from a Farmville style game called Famerama, to different variants of their action titles. Deepolis, for example, is similar to Dark Orbit but is set underwater where players drive submarines rather than starships. They’ve also got some more in depth games in the work like Poisonville which they have spent millions of dollars developing. Its a browser based Grand Theft Auto where players can freely roam a modern city filled with gangs, crime, and defenseless drivers who just can’t be bothered to lock their doors.

Moving on to a more recent phenomenon in the browser based MMO industry, strategy games. These have been around for years with some of the earliest being Tribal Wars and Travian, both German developed titles. The genre really went mainstream after the ad bombardment following the release of Evony by a Chinese studio. Evony swamped the internet and created a meme for it self. Dozens of browser based real time strategy games have launched since, all using a variant of Evony’s famous ‘my lord’ slogan. Just to read off a small list of games with gameplay similar to Evony; War of Legends, Caesary, The Seventh Dragon, War of 2012, King and Conqueror, Lords Online, World of Lordcraft, Empire Craft, and Freesky Online. There are literally dozens more but that should suffice. Of course the genre isn’t all about copy and paste scripts, there are a few gems like Lord of Ultima which at least tries to innovate.

Let’s finish with a entirely new sort of browser game. The kind that look and play just as smoothly as client MMORPGs. A relatively new development tool called Unity is now being utilized by various gaming studios to create great looking 3D MMORPGs that run on the browser. FusionFall was one of the earliest titles to use Unity and has a huge, persistent world based on the Cartoon Network universe. Another Unity powered game is Nanovor Evolution which is the successor to the original Nanovor which required a client download. Interestingly, the new browser version has better graphics! Other Unity titles include Tiger Woods Online, and Captains of Darktide. I expect Unity to be used more extensively in the near future by developers. The upcoming Battlestar Galactica Online is being developed on Unity.

Often Western gamers cringe when they hit the mid levels in a Korean or Chinese developed MMORPG. The ‘grind’, they say, gets way too intense. The game stops being fun and becomes a chore. These gamers have a point, the exp curve seems to be on a logarithmic scale in many Asian MMORPGs like Lineage 2 or Last Chaos.

But if everyone hates grind so much, why do developers keep making games with grind? The answer is more complicated than you may think. The truth it is, it seems Asian gamers like the level of grind in MMORPGs. Just ask yourself, when was the last time the early level PvE content in an Asian developed MMORPG was challenging. The answer is probably ‘never.’ There’s a reason for that too. It turns out Asian gamers like to social in their MMORPGs. I don’t mean they form groups and chit-chat while raiding. I mean they just like whacking on a few easy monsters while talking about their lives with their friends. This is why many Chinese games in particular, like Jade Dynasty or Zentia have very easy mobs who don’t aggro until the later levels.

Perfect World Entertainment noticed this phenomena while localizing Battle of the Immortals for North America. After listening to feedback from early beta testers, they realized that Americans craved more challenge, every fight needs to carry the risk of death or it becomes a ‘grindfest’ in the eyes of many US players. That just isn’t the case in China. Of course this doesn’t mean American players are ‘hardcore’ while Chinese players are wusses. Quite the opposite. Asian developed games happen to stress PvP far more than Western games do nowadays. Just look at Kingdom Heroes or Shaiya which are both driven by player vs player combat. Even cute looking games like Legend of Edda have open PvP, something that Western MMORPG players still whine about.

We’ve taken a look at the preferences of Chinese and American players. The Chinese like a simple PvE experience coupled with intense PvP. The Americans want a challenging PvE experience that requires team work, but want their PvP to be consensual. What about Europeans? Well Europe has its own quirks. I don’t know whether its the lack of powerful computers, or just a general preference, but Europeans love browser based games! They just can’t get enough of them. The browser gaming juggernaut Bigpoint has a number of widely successful titles like SeaFight and Dark Orbit. Western gamers most used to cutting edge graphics aren’t as interested in these games as their European counterparts. The browser based strategy genre is also huge in Europe. One of the earliest pioneers of the genre was InnoGames with their Tribal Wars title. They’ve released several more browser games since then including The West and Greepolis. Many other studios are now in the strategy market with games like Travian, Ikariam, and others.

Now these are just some general observations on the regional preferences of gamers. I’m sure there are plenty of European gamers who hate browser games, Chinese gamers who hate grinding, and Americans who love it. But its just a fact that browser games do better in Europe and that Asian developed MMORPGs tend to be more grind-heavy. The market for MMOs and MMORPGs is changing every month, and one of the biggest trends is how fast local games are going global. Thanks to the free to play payment model, many MMORPGs that were previous Asia-only are now coming to the USA and EU. That means developers will have to take into consideration the preferences of the international community when designing their games. That can only lead to better games.

Today I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss one of the most popular MMORPG art styles. Anime is short for ‘animation’, and was first coined by Japanese artists. Anime was first inspired by Disney cartoons, but soon morphed into a distinct art form that went on to be an international industry.

Since Anime originated in Asia, its not surprising that the first MMORPGs to use anime inspired graphics came out of Asia. Interestingly, many of Japan’s neighbors including China and South Korea adopted the anime style and added their own variations to it. Most free to play MMORPGs come out of South Korea today, so let’s start by taking a look at some Korean developed MMORPG with an anime art style.

We’ll start with a new game, Legend of Edda. It was developed by eyasoft and is published in North America by GamesCampus, the same publisher behind Soul Master, Heroes in The Sky, MLB Dugout Heroes, Shot Online, and Asda Story. So what’s Legend of Edda all about? It’s got chibi characters. What is chibi? Its a kind of anime where the characters are small, almost child like. Chibi has become a subgenre in and of it self. There are chibi styled cartoon shows, games, and so on. Despite the cute graphics, Legend of Edda provides a solid gameplay experience for all gamers. It’s not a kids game, but the graphic style helps it stand out.

Another anime styled MMORPG that’s in the ‘chibi’ mold is Luna Online. This one is published by gPotato and really ups the cuteness factor. Players are very child-like, but for some reason the NPCs are adults. There are a lot of social features built into the  game including the ability to get married, have a boyfriend/girlfriend, and so on. Both Luna Online and Legend of Edda have a lot of class options avaialble. They also have another feature in common, auto loot. Which of these two chibi games should you play? Well they’re both free to play, so check them both out!

If you don’t have time to play two games, take a look at a few screenshots. Legend of Edda has a visual style more similar to Ragnarok Online while Luna Online is far more anime styled.

Let’s now take a look at some Japanese MMORPGs, or more accurately, MMOs. GetAmped 2 and CosmicBreak are two recent fighting MMOs that are anime styled. They both have the same blocky graphic style, but one involves robots. They both offer a lot of customization options and allow large amounts of players to battle on one stage.  There are anime styled games for almost every genre, all available for free. If you’re a fan of anime, check one of these games out today!

Web 2.0 is a term thrown around often, so often that many readers may not even know what the term actually means. Its a reference to the relatively new trend of user participation on websites. For example, sites like YouTube and Wikepedia are built to foster user participation. In fact, these huge sites would be nothing if it weren’t for users willingly contributing to them. The first wave of Internet sites simply offered visitors content to consume. They couldn’t take part in the growth or evolution of the site. That model worked for a while, but innovation was stagnant. Web 2.0 came along and innovation exploded to give us the modern Internet where everyone can get involved.

What does any of this have to do with MMORPGs or video games? More than you might expect. Almost every video game since the earliest days has been very much in the Web 1.0 model. Developers created games and players consumed them. Multiplayer was a step forward, but the rules were still set by the developers. This top-down design still works for a lot of titles, don’t get me wrong. I love JRPGs even though they tend to be linear. MMORPGs offered even more player involvement than typical multiplayer games, but the developers still called the shots.

Modding has always been part of the gaming scene. Counter-Strike, which served as the inspiration for dozens of free to play shooters like Mission Against Terror, Cross Fire, and Mercenary Wars, originally started as mod for Half Life. Quake 3 which is now called Quake Live has also been modded extensively. Modding is great, but often requires technical expertise that most gamers don’t have. Because of this, modding has always been a small niche. But more recent MMORPGs have been designed from the bottom up to make it easy for players to take part in the creation process. What am I talking about? The best way to explain it is to describe some of the games that are centered around user generated content.

1. Roblox

Roblox is a browser based game that has a visual style that was obviously inspired by Legos. And just like the famous block toys, gameplay in Roblox consists of building original content, or exploring content built by other players. Its aimed at kids, but the creation tools are quite complex. There are literally thousands of examples of player made content ranging from virtual chat rooms to intricate RPGs with combat systems, NPC vendors, sailing features, and much more. The most common project are arenas where players join and fight it out with various weapons the design chose to scatter around the map. Another popular genre is the maze. Players create mazes that are Mario-like platformers where players have to get to the end of the stage by jumping from plat form to platform. There’s no goal in Roblox, its a huge sandbox that is fueled entirely by player participation. Its free to play, but full access to the creation tools required a subscription.

2. Second Life

Second Life has received a lot of media attention over the past few years. More of a social experience than a traditional MMORPG, Second Life thrives on both player interaction and player participation. There are no orcs to slay or damsels to save. Instead, its a place to make friends and amass a cyber-fortune. Players can start businesses, design clothes, construct buildings, buy plots of land and lease it, and much more. Some people have gotten rich from Second Life, but its not for everyone. It has no goals and the lack of direction can be daunting for new players. Second Life is also aimed for an older audience than Roblox. There’s plenty of sexual content though it is shielded from users who haven’t confirmed their age.

3. Entropia Universe

Mindark is a Nordic studio that has created not just a virtual world, but a virtual universe. Using the same versatile engine they have built several sandbox style MMORPGs including Project Entropia and Planet Calypso. The two games both use a currency that is convertible into US dollars which is a pretty original concept. It does mean an initial deposit is required to buy anything, but enterprising players can turn that initial investment into a steady income stream. Several stories made their way into the main stream media of players spending tens of thousands of dollars on large plots of land in the Entropia Universe. Many of these investors actually made a ton of money after purchasing the virtual real estate. Planet Calypso is Sci-Fi themed and actually has quests to complete and enemies to slay, players looking for something original should take a look at it. The Entropia Universe uses the Crytek engine which allows for great visuals though the game does support lower hardware settings.

MMORPG 2.0 is still an unheard term, but I believe it will get just as big as Web 2.0. The next phase of video games will tap into the huge potential that lies inside the head of gamers. Gamers are a creative bunch and given easy to use tools, they will create amazing adventures for themselves and their peers. Development studios that offer these tools will reap huge financial rewards. These few projects I listed above are on the forefront of this new wave. They are visionaries and pioneers that have started the process of paving the way for MMORPG 2.0. Soon crowdsourching will be the main way of building a MMO. Players interact in MMORPGs, and that what makes them special. Soon, they may be building the very world that they interact in.

Yesterday we talked about New MMORPGs so I thought it fitting that we take some time today to discuss old MMORPGs. As I mentioned earlier, MMORPGs tend to keep our attention longer than most other genres of video games. You can’t ‘beat’ an MMORPG in a few dozen hours. Instead, they offer thousands of hours of gameplay. Some gamers never tire of their favorite MMORPG and end up playing it for years. The longest lasting MMORPGs are those that are able to capture a large enough audience and keep them interested for a years. Some new releases sell millions of copies but fail to maintain those new players. Warhammer Online and Age of Conan come to mind. Let’s take a look at some old MMORPGs that are still around.

1. The Legend of Mir 2

MMORPGs originated in the West, but one of the biggest early era hits was a Korean game called The Legend of Mir 2. It found a huge audience across Asia and is still enjoyed by millions of players in China, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. The developers, WeMade Entertainment, followed up with a sequel aptly titled The Legend of Mir 3 which offered improved graphics. While it never reached the same level of penetration as the original, Mir 3 is still serviced today on servers all around the world. WeMade has started to publish other games as well including the free to play Digimon Battle.

2. Ultima Online

The first major MMORPG that brought the genre into the mainstream. Ultima Online was developed by Origin which was headed by Richard Garriott (aka Lord British), the man behind the now defunct Tabula Rasa. Despite being released way back in 1997, UO is still around 13 years later. The official servers are now run by Bioware Mythic which is the MMORPG wing of Electronic Arts. A ton of new content has been added over the years, including not one but two graphic overhauls. Ultima Online still has around 40,000 subscribers, but the real action is happening on the various emulated servers for the game. Run by enthusiasts and veterans, these private servers are not only free to play on, but offer a classic UO experience that can’t be found on the official servers anymore.

3. Tibia

Tibia isn’t just the name of a bone. It’s also one of the oldest MMORPGs still in existence. Not only is it still around, but it is widely popular. With low system requirements, and a tiny client size Tibia has been a hit all around the world. It’s a 2D game set in a standard medieval fantasy world. It has what I refer to as an ‘unlimited free trial’, players can log in and run around all they want but they won’t be able to progress past a certain point without signing up for a monthly subscription. I don’t recommend signing up, especially when many similar MMORPGs like Runescape offer more free content.

These are some of the oldest mmorpgs out there, but there are several that are older still. Can you name some MMOs or MMORPGs that are very old? One quick way to see if a MMORPG or is or not is to look at its PvP offerings. Generally speaking, older MMORPGs were much more open about PvP. Player interact naturally meant player competition. It wasn’t until EverQuest and World of Warcraft that PvP started to become optional.

MMORPGs are different than other video game genres. Their rate of release has been accelerating tremendously, but they still have longer life spans than almost any other kind of game. Think about the latest football game for the consoles. It will be outdated in a year. MMORPGs tend to keep their users interested for much, much longer. We’re still playing Fiesta Online and Runes of Magic despite the fact that there are plenty of flashier MMORPGs to chose from today.

But that doesn’t mean developers of established MMORPGs can relax. Every year brings a new wave of potentially disruptive innovations to the genre. 2010 has been no different, and I suspect 2011 will be even more disruptive. So what games are there for us to look forward to? The MMO market has gotten so big recently that we can sub divide it into several smaller categories such as browser based and client based along with the more traditional subscription based and free to play categories. Let’s take a look at some of the newest MMORPGs heading our away across all of these categories.

1. Age of Empires Online

Why is this one first? Because Age of Empires 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. The classic real time strategy (RTS) series is now getting a free to play version thanks to Robot Entertainment which will be developing the game along side Microsoft Game Studios. Age of Empires Online has an animated graphic style, similar to the Battlefield Heroes visual style. Age of Empires Online isn’t the first MMORTS, there genre first got started with Shattered Galaxy but really took off when Electronic Arts released BattleForge. That game combined RTS gameplay with RPG and TCG (trading card game) elements to create something truly original. THQ is behind an even more ambitious MMORTS project called Company of Heroes Online. COHO lets players experience the single player campaigns from the series, but also allows them to play the multi-player aspects entirely for free. So despite its pedigree, how does Age of Empires Online hope to compete with these MMORTS games? For starters, it has a persistent world and allows players to work cooperatively on quests that involve beating up on AI opponents. I look forward to playing Age of Empires Online, from the early screenshots it looks similar to Age of Empires 2 in mechanic — which is a good thing. There was an Age of Empires 3, but it just didn’t have the same magic as the first and second installments.

2. Battlestar Galactica Online

What do you get when you combine an awesome Sci-Fi show with a powerful game development tool and put the biggest name in browser gaming in charge of the whole project? You get Battlestar Galactica Online, a browser based MMORPG currently under development by Bigpoint. Bigpoint is the German browser games publisher behind a number of huge international hits including Seafight and Dark Orbit. Unlike those previous games which have pretty bland 2D graphics, Battlestar Galactica Online will be built using the Unity development tool. While Unity can be used to create many kinds of games, it has had the most success as a tool to build browser based games. The list of impressive browser games that were built on unity include FusionFall, Nanovor Evolution, Tiger Woods Online, and Captains of DarkTide. So what can players expect from Battlestar Galactica Online? Some epic Human vs Cylon PvP for one. Remember that this is a Bigpoint game, and they love PvP! The game is set during season 2 of the tv series and the creator of the show will be involved in crafting the game universe so expeect it to stay true to the show. BSGO is scheduled for release sometime in fall of 2010, but the official site is pretty vague at the moment. Will it get pushed back? Maybe. But I hear Caprica is coming back on soon. As far as spin-offs go, its pretty good!

3. Final Fantasy 14

Switching gears to subscription MMORPGs for a moment, let’s take a look at the hotly anticipated Final Fantasy 14. Like Final Fantasy 11, 14 will be a MMORPG. Expect a similar fantasy theme, but with a much larger world and vastly improved visuals. The game is already playable thanks to a beta test, but not everyone will be able to play it first-hand. First and foremost, the job system is very in-depth and unlike anything we’ve seen before in a f2p or p2p MMORPG. Your class is determined by the weapon you have equipped, and changes based on your current equipped. There’s a huge, open game world to explore, but there is one catch. Its got a steep learning curve, especially when compared to World of Warcraft. Why mention WoW? Because its difficult not to when talking about a new subscription based fantasy MMORPG. WoW dominates that field, and newcomers will just have to get used to going toe-to-toe with it. Square Enix is a Japanese developer, and doesn’t have quite as much experience in the MMORPG field as some of the big-name Korean MMO developers like Nexon or WeMade Entertainment. But they do have plenty of experiencing crafting beautiful worlds, filled with lore and memorable music. FF14 is no exception on that front. Oddly, it even ‘feels’ like a console RPG at times. The game supports gamepads, and the interface seems more fluid with a controller plugged in. My advise? Try and get into the beta to see if its for you.

Well that’s all the time we have today. We took a look at one upcoming free to play client game, a free to play browser game, and a pay to play client game. These three games are very different from one another, but each offers something the others cannot. There are at least a dozen games coming out for each of the three categories mentioned here in the coming year. That means players will have more choices than ever before. What MMO or MMORPG are you looking forward to? Share your thoughts below!