After soundly defeating RuneScape in the first round, Sword of the New World is once again matched up against a fellow free MMORPG that is hugely popular. For all the gripes and complaints that both Maple Story and RuneScape get, there is no denying that both games are extremely popular. On the flip side, Sword of the New World combines innovation with great looking graphics to assume a leadership position in the next generation of free MMORPGs. Thus, this match came down to a humorous 2D cartoon world with a large fan base versus a more innovative but less popular 3D game. Once again, reviewers chose the better eye candy as Sword of the New World defeated Maple Story by a larger margin than it beat RuneScape.

Every player has his or her own family. All the characters of a player are in that family and they all share the same last name. Soloing is a major factor in the game due to the MCC (multiple character control) system. Different combat stances offer different skills and equipment possibilities. Can use experience cards to level up characters. Various forms of PvP such as family vs. family duels, city vs. city PvP wars, and arena style PvP.

This is one of those match-ups that were bound to happen sooner or later. On one side, you have a game that has dominated its pay-to-play competitors for years. On the other side, you have one of the few successful pay-to-play MMOs to be launched in 2007. While the majority of highly anticipated MMORPGs fail to meet expectations, Lord of the Rings Online has been an obvious exception due to a strong launch, simple game play, and a great fantasy world. Instead of positioning itself as an anti-WoW like Vanguard tried to do, Lord of the Rings Online has learned from WoW's success by making itself user friendly with its easy-to-follow quest system and various simple interfaces. The result has been the emergence of a new force in the fantasy genre that proved to be a great opponent for WoW this week. Despite heavy voting, Lord of the Rings Online was able to grab an early lead and maintain it for the entire week.

About World of Warcraft Still the world's most popular MMORPG. Had an extremely successful expansion, the Burning Crusade. Second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has been announced. Has improved PvP considerably by allowing players to report AFKers. Has several grinds such reputation, PvP honor, and experience. Versus

When asked about MMOs with no subscription fees and great graphics, these are two of the first games that come to mind. Guild Wars has been a monster hit and has won a number of awards on GameOgre, while Rappelz arrived with a large splash of its own. Unlike Guild Wars, Rappelz does not require to be bought before playing and it offered superior graphics far above any game of its kind when it launched. In fact, Rappelz looked like it was on the verge of becoming a major force in the industry like Guild Wars. However, things have not quite turned out that way. The game has been hurt by many factors such as gold farming, too much grinding, user discontent over pointing and clicking, and a lackluster PvP system.

Each week, two MMORPGs will face each other until only one is left. You will be able to vote and leave comments for each game on special pages solely dedicated to this tournament. For example, you can leave a 10 for the game you love and then a 0 for the game you hate. This is a battle after all! The game with the highest total score at the end of each week (Thursday morning at 12:01 A.M. CST) will move on. Comments that capture the spirit of the battle without bad language and overuse of caps will be displayed in the results article at the end of the week. There will be a total of 15 matches and the tournament will begin on October 25, 2007.

Guild Wars - Last year's winner and GameOgre.com's Online Game of the Year for 2006. Guild Wars Nightfall is one of the highest ranked games on GameOgre. World of Warcraft - World's most popular MMORPG with one highly successful expansion and another on the way. Was the runner-up in the first tournament. Runescape - Popular free MMO that continues to be one of the most and hated games on the entire Internet.

Both of these colorful free MMOs faced and defeated other free MMOs in the first round. Conquer Online pulled out a surprise win over Gunz and Maple Story barely defeated RuneScape in a battle that was decided in the final hours of voting. This time, however, Maple Story had no trouble conquering Conquer Online in order to move onto the semi-finals. In fact, Conquer Online registered the lowest score yet with a 0.75. Despite being a solid MMO with a strong position in the Asian fantasy theme niche (not to mention a higher score in GameOgre.com's Review Directory), Conquer Online was simply no match for the popularity of Maple Story and its console-like graphics.

The first match of the second round features two of the most well-known MMOs targeted towards casual gamers. City of Heroes is one of simplest MMOs to play and allows gamers to play out their super hero fantasies. On the hand, World of Warcraft allows gamers to easily jump into a fantasy MMORPG that offers a significant amount of depth. Both games defeated more complex games in the first round with World of Warcraft beating EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes getting past Final Fantasy XI. However, the simplicity of City of Heroes turned out to be not enough for the combination of low learning curve and depth of World of Warcraft.

This was probably the most confusing match-up in the first round. On one side, ROSE Online used to be free-to-play and is now pay-to-play with a free trial. On the other side, The Saga of Ryzom was pay-to-play with a free trial but can now be played for free with its unlimited free trial. Adding somewhat to the confusion is that both can be considered dark horses in the great MMORPG race. Suprising;y, the former free MMO is the one that came out on top.