As a fantasy novel fan I was pretty overjoyed to find out that the Riftwar Saga series was being turned into an MMORPG. The Riftwar Saga is the first series of the Riftwar Cycle, a series of fantasy novels written by New York Times bestselling author Raymond E. Feist; the stories take place in the fictional worlds of Midkemia and Kelewar, and human magicians are able to travel through dimensional rifts that connect planets.

Midkemia Online is pretty far into the beta stages and so far I'm enjoying the combat mechanics. It has a really cool dodging system, you can manually duck and dodge your opponents attacks in real-time. There are Thief skills for stealing from other players, but it's pretty tricky. Thieves tend to die alot.

I'm also really excited about the non-instanced player housing, and unlike other MMOs built using the Rapture engine, Midkemia Online has out-of-subdivision housing (which makes it less likely for other players to try and break into your house).

The PvP is pretty violent too, there's all sorts of gruesome ways to finish off your opponent like chopping their head off or slitting their throat from behind. If this game had to be submitted to the ESRB it'd probably get a Mature+ rating or more.

I'm enjoying the community so far, there's definitely a dedication to roleplay as the staff runs events based on things that happened in the books. If you've read the books it's always fun when a familiar character appears, like Jimmy the Hand. Hopefully the beta wraps up soon and the developers roll out all the awesome features we've been promised, but all the crafting and PvP duelling is done and very top-notch. I was excited to find out my character can forge his own weapons with the Blacksmithing skillset, and there's a wide variety of weapons too. Fun stuff!

I strictly play real time combat MMOs. I love PvP if it's fair and balanced. I hate the rock-paper-scissors aspect of most MMORPG combat. I believe combat should be up to player skill (defined as faster reflexes and a better working knowledge of the games mechanics). I hate grinding for loot drops. Blacksmithing is the only way I want to get my sword!

I play a really fun MUD, the roleplay is really fun because it's a smaller community (300 - 500 players online). The combat mechanics are intensely fun.

In these screenshots I am playing my Serpent character (they are a thief class that can summon pet snakes). I backstab someone, and order my pet snake to begin attacking them.

The person starts to attack me back, and has their sword covered in venoms that give me the Stupidity affliction. This makes my commands do random things instead of what I tried to do. You can see that I am trying to eat goldenseal, an herbal remedy for Stupidity, but it doesn't work on the first try.

They then proceed to slash me again, this time with a venom that gives me Paralysis me. I have to eat bloodroot to cure this one. 

The combat is very fast-paced, in real time these things are happening in seconds. You have to out-strategize your opponent and think of what he's trying to do and what you're going to do next. If an MMORPG doesn't have real time PvP, I won't play it!

Screenshots: Achaea a free to play MMO

I'm writing this today because I've played a lot of the recent MMORPGs touted as open world, player driven and sandbox, and have yet to be satisfied by any one of them. Truthfully finding the kind of epic roleplaying experience I'm looking for is absolutely impossible in today's MMORPGs; Mortal Online came really close to what I was looking for, but the constant ganking left me discouraged. I've been spoiled by MUDs, their sense of community and character customization mechanics appeal to my need to have complete control over my character. I like creating a description of my character instead of picking from preset face and hair options.

The best MUDs I've played had a playerbase of 300 - 500 people online, spread out across 6 player-ran cities (and some rogues). So each city would have maybe 20 - 40 people online. Because MUDs are in text, you're reading what is happening in the game, so it creates an extremely immersive environment if you're a book reader. For example, you could be standing at the entrance of your city, hanging out with friends. All of a sudden;

One of the best things about player housing is the customization it offers to players, but usually it falls short in its goal by not offering hardly enough options for players to build their dream homes. That's why text games are still relevant in the MMO industry - imagination will always beat graphics as long as developers aren't offering enough customization options. And even if they did, players would still be far more immersed by a text game.

Player Housing in MUDs offers;

• Unlimited customization, describe room to be exactly what you want it to be.
• Room upgrades like crafting tables, cooking stoves, gardens, indoor lakes, even remove the roof for an outdoors room!
• Purchase plots of land around your home to build on them too - trees, lakes and beaches are all available!