[JMalinowski]

I still play Diablo 2: LOD on OS X now and then. I've found a renewed passion for the game ever since D3 was announced. I sure hope it comes out sometime in 2009 and my late 2007 MacBook can run it. Even though Blizzard games run on almost anything, I hope my Intel GMA 950 graphics will be able to.
Sometimes I play a little WC3. The online Battle.net games are more amusing to me than the game itself now.
I've never been into Starcraft or even tried it out, but seeing the Battle Report video for SC2 intrigued me. It looks like a sci-fi WC
Now onto real MMORPGs. I've tried Eve, the space ship flying wasn't my thing. I've played Funcom's Anarchy Online (released 2001) since late 2002/2003 on my old Windows systems. I took a break when I switched to Mac in 2007 and didn't have Bootcamp for XP. I still play it now and then, but many people have left such an old game. I still find it to be the most complete and in depth MMO I've ever played - new or old. There's so much to learn in AO, so much calculating you need to get the next best thing on. Although I loved WC3, WoW was never a game for me. For one, the fantasy MMO theme doesn't work with me. WC is totally different from WoW for me. Another thing is the community. I can't stand a bunch of idiots going "QQ crybaby" when they're 12 years old or 50 year old losers. I haven't run into such an issue in the more mature community I've found in AO. But AO is so old and FC is so small it'll never be a Mac game. My XP SP3 partition only has Firefox, AVG, and AO on it.

[Madking]

I find Dofus to be a fun game, but I think you have it misrepresented in your article. It requires a download of 160 MB to play, and does not come even close to running natively on a Mac. Windows users get a perfect .exe program; Mac users get a folder containing a lot of junk and an .html file that doesn't always load well in Safari.

[JMalinowski]

WoW? Visual appeal? The cartoon nonsense? Maybe on a Mac, but not for all MMOs. True, the new expansion made some real nice zones, but the game itself is just amateur graphics that can run on almost any system.
Best visual game is Age of Conan, even if it flopped due to Gaute Godager launching the game for Funcom. He screwed up the most anticipated MMO in 2001 (Anarchy Online) and he screwed up the most anticipated MMO in 2008 (AoC). Thank God they fired him finally. At least FC is taking the steps to fix AoC with AO's former head at the helm.
Any PC game released in awhile has graphics WoW can't compare to, but then again the power gamer games are PC only sadly.

[robert_rhode]

Oh, was this discussion about web-based games? My bad.
In my experience, the less said about web-based MMOs, the better. On the one hand, you have HTTP, a connectionless protocol that makes interactivity a challenge. On the other hand, you have HTML, a content markup language that makes presentation a challenge. Those two qualities are pretty central to gaming, which is probably why game designers prefer to write a custom client.
It seems to me your choice comes down to an HTML game that works anywhere but has minimal interface, or a Java or Flash application that can only run on limited platforms and may have stability issues.
A perfect example of the former is Dark Throne, a turn-based MMO. Its interactivity is low and presentation, er, tabular. But it works great in any web browser!
Warfish, a turn-based Risk-style board game, worked so well on a web browser that I could play it on my Treo. I had lots of fun with this game.
In my previous comment I mentioned Kingdom of Loathing, is also turn-based. Its appeal stems from its designer's wacky sense of humor.
Dofus is quasi-real-time Flash-based MMO, a perfect example of the second category. It's nice that Mac users don't have to wait for a native port, but I found its UI so limiting that I would have preferred to wait for a rich native client.

[Peter Cohen]

swartzfeger said:

Better yet would to have Blizzard's offline card game come online.

I dunno. To see the Warcraft TCG come online would just be a bit too circular for me to get my head around.

Computer game -> MMO -> TCG - Multiplayer online card game.

[meemorize]

I think one of the best MMORPGs out there is Guild Wars (which is very well playable on Mac using Crossover Games). A lot of players of other titles like to dismiss it, saying that WoW is much better but I have never liked the 'kiddy' full colour graphics of WoW. Guild Wars is much more realistic and the fact that you can only use 8 skills at any one game instance makes it very challenging at times choosing the right setup for what lies ahead. It's that thinking part that I really enjoy and that—in my eyes—let's it transcende the hit-n-slash barrier.
I am very eager to see how Guild Wars 2 is going to be but even more eager to get my hands on Diablo III.
Having played D2 for many years my heart rejoiced when I heard the news of the new title... so many months gone yet I don't regret any minute I spent playing the game.
And lastly what I would really wish for to be made into a MMORPG is Warhammer 40000. I have the WAR Online title installed on a bootcamp partition but it just has not captured my soul as much as the others, especially because the servers are usually empty where I live/play (New Zealand) and running around in a vast world by yourself kind of defeats it being online.
I wish all games were made PC/MAC so I could get rid of Windows all together but I guess that will take a little while longer to catch on with software devs.

[AnubisIV]

I remember giving Dofus a try a few years back when one of my friends tried to get me to play it since she had gotten hooked. The problem was, I was an avid WoW player at the time, and Dofus just felt incredibly boring and incredibly slow in comparison. I made it off of the initial starting island/zone, and then gave up after that.

[sunflowerflyer]

My wife and I both play Runescape. It is was the No. 8 PC game in 2008 ( http://blog.nielsen....d-mobile-games/ ).

Runescape is a java based game that runs in a web browser, and thus works on most all platforms including our macs (and our pc's). It has an area that is free to play, and membership brings many more skills, quests, and opens up the entire map.

The low cost allows us to both play together, with many other adult couples (and lots of kids of course). Our daughter has a free acount that will likely someday also become a paid membership. There is no way we would pay $15 for one player, let alone 3.

[cmflyer]

Huh, more people with opinions than actual players, perhaps?

I've been playing Warbirds, a multi-player online WWII flight simulator, since about 2001. I took two breaks of about a year each, but I am back into it now. As a frustrated pilot and fan of birds of all kinds (biological and mechanical), I love this game. It's a very well-modeled flight sim on the one hand, but it's also a great team and strategy game too. I belong to the virtual arm of an actual USAF Fighter Group and all of us are students of aerial combat history and tactics (with three retired USAF pilots in leadership positions). We sometimes fly on a whim in our "main arena" where you pick a side and go dogfight, attack ground targets and capture bases, and we often have scheduled squad nights and squad only events where experienced Warbirds leaders set up simulations of real WWII campaigns and battles. These events often have 150 pilots flying a variety of missions in Allied and Axis roles where getting shot down means you're out for the night. The emphasis with WB is piloting skills (no 1st-person ground combat available, yet).I highly recommend it.

1st Lt. CFlyer

=4th= Fighter Group

Warbirds, http://www.totalsims.com/

[rheostar]

I play Battleground Europe (originally known as WWIIOnline) on a Mac. This game’s been around for the PC since 2001 but a Mac version appeared in 2003. The team behind Battleground Europe were some of the original programmers for Warbirds.

As with Warbirds, the game’s set in WWII with opposing Allied and Axis forces. However, this is a combined arms battle with ground, air and sea units all being controlled by thousands of players in front of their PC/Mac located somewhere in the world.
http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/
http://wiki.wwiionli...hp/Introduction
Games such as WoW do nothing for me and CoD seems very limited compared to Battleground Europe.

[Stan25]

I have been playing Warbirds since the summer of 2001. I found the game on a software download site, when I was looking for a flight sim game for Mac. I downloaded the game, but it took awhile to do, because I had dial up at the time. I started by flying the game offline and then flew the free weekend stuff online for awhile. Then the people at IEn had a massive free month long session in one of the the arenas and I was invited to join a squad, the first week of the event. I have not looked back since. This is the only flight sim game that I have found that gives full functionality to Mac users. So go and download the software at www.totalsims.com and join in the fun.

[tiborg]

I've also been playing Battleground Europe since about it became available on the Mac. In all those years, the only other game I've bought has been Civ4 and it's been over a year since I played that last. Since Battleground Europe is completely PvP and doesn't have a leveling system similar to those found in fantasy games, the outcome of battles has more to do with your strategy and skill rather than equipment and "experience".

[rambphoto]

when you combine the relative skill required in a sim with the war game strategy, political and leadership skills that are required to lead scores of other live players in battle, and an equally skilled opposing force, you get the most intense gaming experience available online.

that is the s3 in Warbirds ...

http://www.squadselectseries.com/?sid=

if you are serious about serious online gaming it should be your final destination.

kudos to all the flight/combat sims that have been faithful to the mac all these years ...

rich boswell

AKA thoraw, thorwb << virtual combat pilot since 1997

[bishopd]

I have been playing Runescape for about 4 yrs. My brother was shown the game by several of his friends, played for a year then, introduced me to the game. I prefer the skill based game over the group/combat games. After a week of playing the free version I ran out of bank space so I converted my account to membership. At $5 a month it is one of the cheapest games around. When I started I only had a modem. It surprises me how this game plays well whether you use a dial-up modem or high speed modem. When they came out with the high definition version of the game, I finally gave in and bought a new 17” Mac Book Pro.