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It seems as if social networks are the answer to life these days.  If your not a part of at least 10, your way behind.  What does a social network have to offer the average MMO player though?  Isn't a MMORPG basically a huge social network anyway?  At least 6 sites think they do have something to offer you.  If nothing else, the fact that you can connect players and characters across multiple games.  This may be the most appealing thing about them.  I had lots of friends on Solclaim as AutomatiK in Asheron's Call, and wish I knew what they were playing now.  Let's take a look at the ones that I could find and see what they offer.  Since I'm sure not many will offer up membership numbers, I put in some basic popularity/traffic rankings as another way to compare them.  Also, these are loosely ordered in sequence according to how I thought they ranked against the other social networks.

Inclusive MMO Social Networks (many games)

Curse

Curse was a suprise to me, I never realized that they had a MMORPG social network until doing this research.  I knew they had a great World of Warcraft addon section, but that's all I ever used the site for.  That being said, they had the most impressive design to me.  It had a lot of MMORPG's to choose from, and was the first I saw that included free MMORPG's on it's list.  It also includes a nice account setup wizard that walks you through setting up your account.  Of course, it had things common to social networks, like blogs, being able to upload videos/pictures, and being able to search for other players that play a particular game.

Guild Cafe

Guild Cafe wants you to join up with other gamers.  They have several prominent features that help you find other players or a guild.  Probably the most prominent one is LFG (Looking for Group) posts.   They also offer profile surveys so that others that have the same interests as you can find and network with you.  It has a nice selection of free and paid MMORPG's, although I wasn't impressed with the profile design.  They rely on you to post your accomplishments in your favorite MMO.  Posting these and other things though, will get you experience points.  One of the other main features of the Guild Cafe is as the name suggests, they are also a home for your guild.  Offering a place to talk, put together events, and challenge other guilds in PvP.  Not to mention getting some nice tools to help in guild recruitment. 

Character Planet

Character Planet tries to accomplish everything.  It gives you the online gaming social community, it gives you free guild/clan hosting, and it also adds gaming news that you can vote up or down (think digg).   As far as the social network profile aspect, I found that it looked more like MySpace than any of the others.  Their was a nice selection of MMORPG's offered, but for the most part, it was pay-to-play games.  I will say that it did have a lot of options available.  One of two that I quickly noticed is that it offered members a ventrilo server.  The other was something called prize points.  Probably a lot like the Guild Cafe system, doing things on the site will get you more points.  Monthly prize point leaders get to redeem their points from a list of prizes, but I could not find this list.  Overall, I like where they are going, but it needs refinement.  

MMOFaces

MMOFaces has a tight integration with it's forums, but from what I saw, not a good integration with actual MMO's.  Despite being the only one with MMO in the actual title/branding of the site, I couldn't find any options to add players or games to my profile.   This project must be in it's early stages or just an addition to the forums on the site. 

KoinUp

KoinUp's best feature seems to be pictures.  It is almost a gaming version of Flickr, and one of the features of it is that you can post to KoinUp and Flickr at the same time through their interface.   Basically, if you love taking screenshots or videos in WoW and want to share them on a picture network, then KoinUp may be for you.   Right now, it has specialized tags for Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft, IMVU, and There. 

Specialized MMO Social Networks (one game)

Rupture

Rupture made my job easy.  Their about us page, summed their features and where they came from up nicely.  Here are the cliff notes:

• Started by Shawn Fanning, same guy that started Napster.
• Tracks a lot of stats in-game so you can keep up with what your friends are doing
• It tracks stats through in-game addons
• Has IM/Chat capabilities

Rupture has a tight integration with World of Warcraft right now.  When you put in your character and server name, it will automatically pull your information from the WoW Armory and insert it into your profile.  They plan to expand their network to other games in the future. 

SLProfiles

SLProfiles is targeted towards the Second Life community as a web addition to the game.  They have lots of features along with their social network profiles including pictures, creating events, joining groups, and even creating in-game items.  If you play Second Life, I highly recommend checking it out.  I think they do a good job of complementing the game.

Of course, you can always create your own groups and networks on one of the popular social networks like Facebook or MySpace, but I generally like where most of these are going, and think it's worth while to try to set up your gaming profiles on a gaming network such as one of these.   There's also Duels, which is sort of a social network, but it's a game too.  It'd also be classified as specialized since you can't add characters from other games.

If you know of others, just list them in the comments and I'll try to add them to the review.

Tobold has an excellent article up today about MMORPG's rewarding too much based on time, and not enough based on skill. I've thought this for a long time, and while there are certain efforts to reverse this, it is always met with controversy. The best implementations of a skill-based competition is team-based PvP. In World of Warcraft, equipment and time spent getting it, is still a major factor. In Guild Wars, I think this is much less of a factor. A game I have regretfully not tried, eventhough I see it as the closest answer to this problem. In Asheron's Call, I thought that skill-based action was at it's height. Manipulating the keyboard and being able to exploit your build to it's fullest was essential. Everyone wore basically the same equipment, and 10-20 levels of difference had little bearing on who was going to win the fight. It was some of the best 1v1 PvP I've ever participated in. I will say that in my opinion, it does take a certain amount of skill to level quickly or get the best items in an MMO. In the long term, however, these methods quickly reverberate throughout the community, and soon become the standard. I think that in the future, mobs will have better AI and will force you to think. Repeat a certain action, and the mob starts adjusting. If I actually have to think to level though, I better be getting more xp. :)

I encourage you to head on over to Tobold's and participate in the discussion about the answer to the reward problem in MMORPG's.

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: What to reward in a MMORPG

Yeah, I know, there are tens, if not hundreds, of free alternatives to WoW. Why 3? Why not 5? Why not 10? The answer is simply, quality. These are the top 3 free alternatives on my list. Why WoW? MMORPG's are addictive. So addictive, in fact, that even when people are disgusted with one game, they search for another just like it. Maybe they need a change of scenery. Maybe they need a change of rules. And sometimes, they just don't have any money to spend on a game anymore. This is where the free MMORPG comes in. A good one can satisfy all three needs and more. Over the past couple of years, the offerings on the free multiplayer game lists have really improved.

You may ask how they make money. Most F2P MMORPG's make money by selling items in an online store on their site. This is probably not what you think. In most, you can gain all the best items by just playing, so you don't have to worry about the rich kid that buys everything in site on eBay beating you in PvP. These stores mainly sell items that get you to those items faster. Double and triple XP boosters, stat boosters, and and temporary protections. When games do sell armor and weapon items, you can usually trade these in-game, so it's possible to get them without buying them.

Enough of the shop talk, let's talk about the list. I look for games that give me the same look and feel as World of Warcraft. Are they going to look as good or have the same amount of content? No. But they are getting better and they are free.

1. Archlord -- After looking through and testing some of the latest free MMORPG's, I have decided I was a bit too tough on this game in my Archlord Review. It comes close, very close. For a free game, this game probably deserves a 27 or 28 out of 30. Prominent features include a good PvP system, castle sieges, and lots of content. It's also the only WASD movement game that made the list. Apparently, players agree, after only a month of being free, they are adding a third server.

2. Rappelz -- This game has been around for a while. So, long, they have come out with 4 major updates. And they just continue to improve. Lots of in-game content, dungeon sieges, PvP, and pets. Rappelz also has an excellent community inside and outside of the game. Take a look at our Rappelz Review for more.

3. 9Dragons -- There are actually several that could fit into this slot. I chose 9Dragons because out of all the games I've tried, it has kept me in the longest. 9Dragons has an excellent storyline, good PvP content, good quest content...at lower levels. Once you get around the 30-40th level range, it starts waning and really becomes grindy. The other reason I put it on the list is because it's rumored that a big update will be coming soon that will add more high-level content. It may come before you reach 40, who knows. It is an interesting concept with good oriental graphics. Our 9Dragons review has more.

There you have it. There are several games I could talk about in the honorable mention space, but just subscribe to our feed, and I'll do my best to keep you up-to-date on the latest MMORPG's coming out. I'm seriously looking at Twelve Sky right now and it has potential to make this list in the future.

Looking for something else?  Check out our free multiplayer game listings for lots of other options. 

Have others you think are better? Don't hesitate to list them in our comments and I'll check them out.

It's amazing what you can get for free these days. Open source has completely changed how people think about software. I can get a new computer and completely stock it with everything I need for my daily activities through open source software and online services. The quality of open source software has also greatly improved over the past few years, with some areas actually going beyond what you can buy. The exception to this has always been games. Sure, you can get lots of free games online, but none match the quality of some of the titles at the store. There seems to be a shift lately in this arena though. I see more and more quality games being released free. The availability of some of the lower level tools like 3D engines, graphics programs, and modelers seem to be fueling this effort to create high quality games released free. I'm going to list some of the ones that I was actually surprised to find are now free.

This is by no means a complete list of free games available. I tried to put together a list that gave varying weights to quality, cross-platform compatibility, and community. It's hard to play an online multiplayer game without multiple players.  Again, this is not a complete list of free games.  If I've played it, looked at the community, and think it holds up, then it goes on the list.  

First-Person Shooters

F.E.A.R. -- The multiplayer component of F.E.A.R. called F.E.A.R. Combat is free, just sign up at their web site for a key and download the game. You can play against retail owners of the game, as well as, other F.E.A.R. Combat users.

America's Army -- This is a game put out by the U.S. Government as a recruitment tool. The graphics in this game look very good and they continue to update it. The web site boasts that it has 7.9 million players.

Urban Terror -- A counter-strike-like Quake 3 mod that is now a full game.  Lots of weapons, maps, and players. 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory -- This game was originally slated to be a expansion pack for RoCW, but after some problems with the single-player component, it was released for free. The game logic was open-sourced, and the Quake3 engine that runs it is also open-sourced.

True Combat: Elite -- Tactical-teamplay shooter that is one of the best mods for the above Enemy Territory.

Starsiege: Tribes -- One of the first online-only multiplayer games was also one of the best. Plenty of people still play Tribes 1.

Tremulous -- From the website, Tremulous is a free, open source game that blends a team based FPS with elements of an RTS. Runs on the Q3 engine also.

Alien Arena -- Has a Quake-like play, a good stat system, and nice community support.

Cube 2 -- Cube 2 is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS.

Nexuiz -- This game has been talked about on here before, but I had to list it again. It has good community support, is open source, and was released under the GPL license.

Warsow -- Features all the classical moves that Quake offered along with more special moves for players like the wall jump and ramp slide.

War Rock -- Soon to be released, War Rock is a free FPS that is among the top downloads on FilePlanet.com

Free Allegiance -- The only space simulation game on the list. Has a solid community following.

Open Arena -- Q3 clone that is aiming to work with all Q3 mods. Has bots and several dedicated servers for gameplay.

Legends -- Tribes-like gameplay and cross-platform compatibility based on the Torque game engine.

MMORPG's

Archlord (Review) -- P2P game that went free recently, has castle sieges, good PvP system, lots of quests, and an opportunity to become archlord.

RF Online -- Sci-fi fantasy game that has faction-based PvP, guild battles, and resource wars.

2Moons -- Supposedly a MMORPG set in a volatile world that challenges you to survive.

Rappelz (Review) -- This game looks like it has lots of options for players, as well as having a very active community for support.

Knight Online -- According to Download.com, Knight Online has over 6 million downloads, and 300,000 people playing at any one time.

Shadowbane -- Previously a pay-to-play game, UBI has quietly released this game free to the public.

Anarchy Online -- Another pay2play game that was released free to the public a while ago. I like the concept, and glad it's not yet another fantasy hack and slash.

MU Online -- With real player vs. player combat and weather effects, you might not believe this game is free. With a solid guild and party system, you'll be making friends in no time.

Eudemons Online -- It has decent graphics, offers players the chance to go pk, and a mentor system.

Hero Online -- In beta right now, Hero Online has one of the most active communities I've seen in a free game. Created by martial arts novelist, the game focuses on skills and movements.

Silk Road Online -- Even though it's a European fantasy based MMORPG, I'm told Silk Road Online has plenty of english speaking players to interact with. This is supposed to be a lot like World of Warcraft, except free.

Legend of Ares -- From the creators of Hero Online come this realm vs. realm pvp-based rpg. Also features a honor system.

Rakion -- I was really unsure where to put this since Rakion bills itself as a MMORPG strategy action game. If your looking for a game that covers it all, this may be for you.

Last Chaos -- Good graphics and interesting features such as its Player vs. Player vs. Environment bringing PvP and PvE together are what puts Last Chaos on this list.

9Dragons (Review) -- One of the only U.S. based free to play MMORPGs on the list, 9Dragons has great graphics, a lot of options for characters, and one of the best PvP systems there is.

Strategy

Command & Conquer Gold -- Popular RTS that went free for it's 12th anniversary.

Battle for Wesnoth -- This turn-based strategy game has quite a following in the Linux world, although it's freely available to Windows and Mac users.

FreeCiv -- An empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. Been in development a long time and improvements keep coming.

Spring -- Boasts large battle support, large maps, good AI, and many different mods. Has some very detailed graphics.

Savage: The Battle for Newerth -- This is a real-time strategy shooter that has decent graphics and a different kind of gameplay for those looking for something out of the ordinary.

Invasion: Battle for Survival -- Not a lot of explanation on the web site, but the graphics look decent for a real time strategy game.

BZFlag -- Not the best graphics in the world, but the tank battle BZFlag has some great gameplay, low hardware requirements, and runs on a lot of different operating systems.

There you have it, some of the best and the brightest from the world of free multiplayer games. With some of the games on this list, I wonder why I ever paid to play at all.