The coming years promise to be interesting for MMOG players, as developers lured by the lucrative possibilities of subscriber bases on the World of Warcraft scale roll out game after game. The market will demand quality and innovation and only a few stellar titles will be left standing among the wreckage. Despite an interesting take on player vs. player combat, Rising Force Online, plagued by treadmill gameplay and poor content design, may well not survive the MMOG wars.

Sci-fi MMOGs are still fairly rare, and those that cater to a worldwide audience rarer still. RF Online combines anime-styled fantasy and sci-fi themes in its setting of Novus Sector, home to three warring factions. The Accretian Empire are a race of robots, the Cora Holy Alliance spiritual space elves, and the Bellato Union a cute people straight out of Kingdom Hearts skilled in building giant mech armatures. These three groups hate each other. Why? Who can tell? The developers don't bother with cutscenes or even narrative to set the stage. Pick a character and get to whomping, cowboy.