Across America, Korea, and Japan, MMORPGs and their denizen players are fairly uncommon. Yet, it is also just as common for people to give one of those "One of us is being stupid, and I hope it's not me," looks when one mentions the long acronym. The odds of this happening are likely to increase exponentially outside of the aformentioned countries.

What the Abbreviation Means

For the uninitiated, the term "MMORPG" is used to represent the much longer term "Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game". Such games are "massively multiplayer" in the aspect that it is meant to handle much more than a small group of perhaps 6 people- the numbers shoot into the hundreds of thousands and quite possibly higher, any number of which can be online at any given time. They are "online" in for the obvious reason that they are played via internet connections to one server, which then deals out information accordingly. These two terms modify the seperate entity of "RPG", which insinuates that each player takes the control of a character, which they make run around the world, and do various tasks. Whether or not any actual roleplaying occurs is up to the players. They are typically made for the PC, but consoles are gradually becoming more suited for the genre.

Nature of the Games

MMORPGs tend to have little to no active plot, with the exception with grand, planned events in some cases. However, they can, and often do possess a rich history, geography, and historical figures (fictional of course, though some real-world correlations may be made occasionally). An honourable exception to this rule is Guild Wars, which has a plot in which the players actively participate, though this generates some interesting sorts of plot holes.

While MMORPGs can develop complex trade systems in which players barter for unique items and services, most players and MMORPGs fall into a certain pattern, or have something similar at one point or another: Kill enemies for a new, attractive, and hopefully effective new skill or stat points or money/other such items to buy more/better equipment for your character, which aide you kill more enemies. There are those who play the games for the challenge that such commerce gives and the complexities of a market in an MMORPG.

What Do I Need to Play?

These sort of games do not take much to play. All that are required are the game itself, an internet connection and a computer, both of which must be able to take the workload that the game requires, and time. Most MMORPGs also have a monthly fee, so it is probably best to be able to afford that. Friends are optional, but it's always more fun to play games with people you know well, and can hit over the head the next time you see them, if they do something monumentally stupid.

Perhaps one of the largest problems is deciding which of the slew of MMORPGs in the market you should pick. This is totally up to the discretion of the player, but various factors should be taken into account such as the monthly payment, the cost of the game itself, and the system requirements of the game. Popular choices include ROSE Online (Rush On Seven Episodes), Ragnarok Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars, in no particular order.

Classes

'Classes' can be interchangeably (depending on the game) with 'professions' or 'jobs', and are not to be confused with your math course. These decide the methods by which you will lay a royal smackdown upon thine opponents. These too have their stereotypical patterns, outlined below:

• The Fighter: This (wo)man of muscle takes up his/her sword (or spear, or other large-ish weapon of choice) and uses it to hit his enemies into death or submission. They tend to be the 'tankiest' of the classes, meaning that they can take the damage and abuse with the most ease without dying.
• The Theif/Assassin: These characters are speedy. Their focus is to be able to avoid harm rather than to take it, and to attack faster, rather than harder. They tend towards smaller weapons, such as daggers.
• The Ranger: The ranger specializes in ranged weapons, like slings and the bow/arrow. Typically, they come with some sort of animal friend by their side to do damage with as well.
• The Healer: Healing spells and buffs are central to these characters, who are typically very dependant upon their friends to help them not die. They usually weild rods and magic-centric equipment.
• The Mage: These cast big spells, and they too use magic-centric equipment. They are the big guns of the game, and can deal the most damage, with the disadvantage that they are relatively inept at both avoiding damage and at taking it. They usually depend on the tankier characters to provide a bit of flesh between them and their enemies.
• The Crafter/Merchant: These are the characters who make and sell equipment and other useful items. They tend to be played by those who are attracted to bartering, or simply want to get cool swag. Their weapons vary from game to game, and their skills are more centered towards getting, making, and selling better items than actually defeating monsters.

Classes are usually one of the biggest differences between MMORPGs: each handles class differently. These most definitely will change names and guises, and possibly purposes. It would behoove you to pick a class which would suit your own abilities and personality well. If you are good at manipulating several skills and measuring out cast times, then pick the mage. If you have an eye for a good deal, then look into a merchant or the in-game equivalent.

Bigger and Badder: Stats, Skills, Equipment and Experience

Stats, skills (and/spells), equipment, and level (which is in turn determined by experience) determine the capabilities of your character. In general, bigger numbers in each mean better, unless in the cases where the words "Penalty" or negative numbers pop up. Then its usually a trade off- lose a bit of your power in one field in exchange for some in another.

Stats

Short for statistics, but with a different connotation in video games. They, rather than such things as the percentage of people who prefer a certain brand and such, represent the capacity of your character, rather than such things as the percentage of people who prefer a certain brand and such. Bigger is better, if the skills/spells that the character uses compliment the stats (a burly but stupid mage is not entirely effective). There are a few types of stats which are typical to MMORPGs: Strength, Intelligence, Defence, Constitution, Dexterity, and Speed. These can vary and change from game to game, and may abbreviated in creative ways, but the general idea will usually be there. Each does different things, takes different fields:

• Strength (Str): In the general meaning, strength is just that: your character's physical strength. The technical aspect affects your character's capacity to do damage by hitting things (monsters, other players, wooden chests) with other things (swords, bats, spears, etc).
• Intelligence (Int): This stat has less to do with your characters actual IQ than it does with his magic capacity. Higher Intelligence correlates to making spells do damage, heal, etc in a more effective, desireable manner. It also is linked with the character Maximum Magic/Mana Points (MP), which limit how many spells you can cast.
• Defence (Def): This is the counterpoint to Strength. It is how well the character can take a hit, physically, how much HP one loses if hit. There is often another stat which does the same in terms of magic.
• Constitution (Con): In some cases Defence and Constitution are put in one catch-all stat. Constitution is more or less the characters ability to stay up in spite of injuries. Increases in Constution are reflected in a proportionally higher Max HP (Maxiumum Health Points). If you take damage, you lose HP. If your HP hits zero, you die, get knocked out, or something to the same effect. More on death later.
• Dexterity (Dex): This is your characters flexibility, how good he is with his hands and on his feet. Traditionally, it has an effect on how well the character can dodge things, and how well he can perform things which require precision, such as aiming and shooting a bow, picking a lock, or casting a spell. It also, in some cases, shares a trait with speed, affecting the rate at which you can bludgeon/stab/slash things.
• Speed (Spd): This is like the half-brother of Dexterity, as Constitution is Defence's. Speed usually affects dodge rate, the ability of a character to attack faster, and possibly the character's capacity to move greater distances in less time.

Stats are typically gained when a character gains enough experience (more on this later) to 'level up'. Many MMORPGs use a 'stat point' system, where a level-up (the noun version of 'level up') gives you a stat points, rather than let you directly add to the stat. This gives a sort of curve to the system to prevent people from simply maxing out one stat. You spend stat points to increase stats, and the cost to do so raises as the stat does.

Skills

Skills are typically the thing that keep the game from getting stale and predictable, due to their variety and flexibility. There are categories of skills for the typical MMORPG. These are usually only sectioned off by the players in how they reference them, gamer slang, and not officially by the makers:

• Special Attacks: These are, in the most basic form, a normal attack, with more damage, and other effects. They are more physical than a magic attack. These attacks usually drain Special Points, or Skill Points, both called SP. Their effectiveness is typically linked to Strength.
• Spells: These are magical attacks, the weapon of choice for mages, which require and drain MP to cast. They come in two flavours: Area of Effect (AOE, in common use) and Single Target. Area of Effect spells, as one could guess, are spells whose effects are felt by characters in the designated area. They last a while, and then go away. Single Target spells in general deal more damage to a single enemy. Some attacks, rather than do damage, give affflictions, which are nasty things which render the afflicted person slightly less combat worthy in some way or manner. Others are healing spells, and are made to recover HP lost, and to remove a character's afflictions.
• Buffs: These are spells, but with a unique affect. These give positive, temporary effects to the target, making them a sort of anti-thesis to afflictions. The effects vary from higher damage and effectivess, to changing stats, to reducing damage, to any other conceivable good effect.

All of these generally have either a 'Cooldown', 'Charge time', or both between uses. A charge time is a waiting time between when you choose to cast a spell, and when you actually can cast the spell. The character is usually focused on this skill/spell, and is limited as to what he can do during this Charge Time. Cooldowns are similar. If a cooldown is applied to a spell which you cast, you are temporarily unable to use that particular spell or skill again for a period of time. The purpose of these two is to keep character from simply using their strongest spell as rapidly as they can press a button, MP/SP permitting.

Equipment

This is 'stuff': weapons, shields, armour, headgear, etc. These too have 'stats', which improve upon the stats of the character who has them equipped. Weapons generally improve upon strength. Shields, armour, headgear- defence. But for those who use magic, there are variants of these that focus on magical attributes, like rods, robes, and pointy hats. There are also exceptions to these rules, as there are for most rules. Some weapons have other enhancements as well as, or in replacement of, the normal ones, improving on other stats than the typical ones for that sort of item. There also may be other basic equipment types. Some may have greaves, some may have gauntlets, and others may have shoes in addition to or in replacement of the traditional equipment items.

Experience

Experience, in theory, is a measurement of how well-travelled, how trained a character is. It operates under the assumption that those who have seen more and done more are probably stronger, etc. In reality and practice, experience is just a counter until you become bigger and badder. There are two main ways of gaining experience: Questing and Bashing. Bashing, quite simply, is killing things. The stronger the monster/human/puppy/butterfly is, the more experience it will reward when you kill it. Questing is a bit different. You are given a task, or a series of tasks, which you are to fullfil. Once you have done so, you receive experience points, or, in some MMORPGs, no experience at all, but items instead. Once a certain ammount of experience has been gained, the character gains a level, and can now take on bigger quests and stronger monsters, as well as give the player bragging rights. There are instances of some games which have other factors which have an effect upon how much experience is received, such as play time and how many player-characters were involved.

Putting that Swag to Use

Well, you've got the weapons, the armor, and the experience. What do you do now? Well, there are several different things you can do. You can:

• Kill more things- PVE (Player Versus Environment/Everything) ¹ is almost always an option. When the monsters you are killing and the experience they provide become insignificant to your leveling (like filling a pool by spitting in it), then you should move on to killing bigger, more experience-giving monsters.
• Cooperate- This is, in a way, much like the above, instead with many people in a "party" (a group of people who share EXP and cooperate to smash stuff up). With more people, you can either kill stronger things you couldn't have before, or kill the same things, but much faster, leading do a level up faster. However, killing too weak a thing is inadvisable, since the exp is watered down and distributed among the players.
• Compete- Then there is competition, usually in the form of PVP (Player Versus Player), or perhaps GVG (Group Versues Group or Guild Versus Guild). PVP is pretty self explanatory. As opposed to PVE, in which the player-characters attack monsters nad interact with the world, PVP is where players duke it out in a fight for dominance, braggin rights, and possibly prizes. GVG is pretty much the same thing, except they are more group-based (a single player going solo would be a bad idea), and oftentimes involve a sort of 'base' to invade. GVG overlaps cooperations and competition, where you work together to kick the other team's collective ass.

Death

Did your character just die? Do not fret! For in most MMORPGs, death is not permanent, but merely a flesh wound and a setback, simply evoking a penalty of your hard-earned experience, or another penalty of some sort. In any case, death has no irreversable effects in mainstream MMORPGs, and after a little bit of time, or no time at all, one can be back up to speed with how they were before they died.

Etiquette

Just like one the topics of Death, Life, and 'Experience', the society of gamers has developed its own etiquette. Certain actions are considered in bad taste, and are looked on with contempt.

• Newbies: Newbies are the common tier found in all the social systems within different MMORPGs. A newbie (also referred to as n00b, noob, n00blet, or other variations) is anyone who is inexperienced in the game, and has a tendancy to make it show. A newbie's status as such usually shows in them asking questions easily answered by introductory quests, or the game manual, or by the simple common knowledge available to any normal player of MMORPGS.
• Begging: Beggars in MMORPGs are not like those in real life. These are by all means not hard on their luck. In an MMORPG, everyone starts off in the same position (unless they have friends who've already been playing), and thus should be able to get what everyone else can if they work. Beggars are typically looked down upon or ignored.
• Kill Stealing: This is the second most common offense committed in MMORPGs, as it can happen both out of ignorance and as an accident. Kill Stealing is when one player attacks a monster which is already engaged or being attacked by another player who has not asked for help. Killing this monster results in the EXP being split between the two of them, effectively stealing EXP from the player.