a few months ago, i started playing World of Warcraft. "WoW," as it's called, is a massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG. it has many elements from the WarCraft universe, and is in direct competition with other MMORPGs such as EverQuest 1/2, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, Asheron's Call, and many others. the basic purpose of the game is like many others of its type - basically just keep leveling up a character while getting cool stuff for the character to use. again, like many other games of the same time, WoW costs money each month to play. the money is used to pay bandwidth bills of the company that runs it and to pay for continuous updates and support.
i had been playing WoW a lot until recently when i discovered a new game, Guild Wars.
Guild Wars isn't as massive as a MMORPG, so it's just pretty much a MORPG. it is more like Diablo II or Phantasy Star Online than EverQuest or World of Warcraft. basically people meet up in towns, form groups, and then once they venture into the world, they play in an instanced, private copy of the world. because of that, server/bandwidth costs are lower for the company that runs it, and so there are no monthly fees. GW feels more "massive" than Diablo II or PSO because of how it plays. guilds are a big part of the game, and continuous guild chat makes you feel like you're still part of a big group, even when playing a local copy of a map. towns can be entered at any time and are loaded with merchants, NPCs, and tons of other players constantly auctioning off items or just chatting generally. GW relies on skill use more than levels, and so has a very low level cap (currently at 20). the instanced dungeons and game world allow for a lot more detailed and complex quests that simply aren't possible in games like WoW and EQ. to many people, this makes for a more fun adventure since their character's actions result in permanent changes in their game world. with its single player experience better than that of games like WoW and EQ, and with its multiplayer experience similar to those games, while getting rid of online fees make this game very attractive for many people to play.