Alright, so I sound like a cheapskate. But anyway. Is there an Ultima Online like game that is free, or allows free players along with paid? And not Runescape please, something that allows team play in combat. RScape is exclusively 1 on 1.

So, any suggestions???

All the decent ones cost. Your better off buying a game like Diablo 2 and using battlenet.

If you want to "Try" one for about 5 days, then there is www.darkages.com, but you have to download the program, and if you want to play the full version you get the whole monthly pay thing that Ultima Suffers from.

The best games cost because usually there are large development overheads, like loads of people working on it. What is really needed is an OPENSOURCE game.

Actually the thing that keeps them costly (besides the CEO of Sony's desire for money) is the fact that everyone plays through a huge server.

Most of those games are gobal, and have a huge number of players (like 500,000 for Asheron's Call, or maybe that was Everquest - I don't know, but they have a ton of players).

They are usually all routed to one huge area (or a few smaller servers broken up over different sections of the u.s. - but they interact with each other like a triangle). They also usually have a backup server for when the main one is down

The amount of data going through these places makes the cost lordly. Think about what type of server you'd have to own or rent, and maintain, for that type of bandwidth. The bill is incredibly high.

Other types of games and services don't charge because they either have smaller communities, limited features and stuff ads in your face, or are direct TCP/IP

How about Neverwinter nights? (or what was it's name again...)

Online play, option to have a dungeon master, home made levels,...

.

So how much does Ultima Online cost, for starting out and monthly upkeep?

And anyone wanna give me a quick description of what it's like? Is it cheaper than Everquest? I'd neva be able to pay for THAT.

although it will be for cash , any cyberpunk must get NEOCRON (http://www.neocron.com)