We have our beloved MMORPGs. The real first popular MMORPG that made a mark would definitely be Ultima Online which featured very open-ended PvP and a true death penalty for dying. It was far too harsh for casual players typically and even worse for anyone that did not have broadband back then. In fact, the acronym LPB (low ping bastard) was first widely used in this game due to how scarce broadband internet was at the time about POWER LEVELING.

Fast forward to today where the only competition on the market really is WoW and you can basically sum up competitive MMORPG gaming with what you read everyday here on WoWriot about POWER LEVELING. Given that Blizzard is basically intent on keeping 3v3 as the eSport (read: competitive) bracket and virtually ignore the other two brackets, people often wonder about the future of WoW as an eSport when the game changes so radically so often. If you are not familiar with what happened to get POWER LEVELING, Blizzard basically held the entire tournament in the 3.0.8 ruleset except for the final week where rosters and teams were locked in. In the final week of TR, Blizzard decides to patch the game to 3.1 which entirely changed and even destroyed some comps, and effectively invalidating the entire qualification process. This is probably the biggest gripe I have with playing MMORPGs competitively to get POWER LEVELING.

Aion looks to be the next big competitor stepping up to the plate in this market and while it is likely that Aion needs no introduction, Veex did write up a really good article on Aion that you can read here if you do not know too much about the game yet.