City Of Heroes has the best character creation system ever in any MMORPG (they have an award that says it, along with a buncha articles on game sites) So dont worry about making a unique look. The reason people pay for MMORPGs is a strange on at that. Its really hard to explain, there are people who say "monthly payments! **** it! no way!" And I was the same way once until along came Earth And Beyond, I was very skeptical, but I did finally buy it, entered the game and realized exactly why the genre is so popular. The MMORPG games are all in a theory endless, the thing I first fell in love with was the immense worlds, unlike most of the game I had played up until then, running from mission to mission in confined areas, I was given a massive massive expanse, that I could go to and from at my leisure (or if the areas monsters permitted me to enter with my head attached) .
MMORPG's are always much bigger and more immense than any standard game and generally have much more content and land to explore. Also, as killing the same thing (ala Halo) over and over in a MMORPG would get boring, you have alot more creatures or monsters to encounter, with each new level and movement to another hunting area being a whole new experience with new monsters and their subsequent abilities to confront. The thing also with MMORPGs is the massive social spectrum, as you grow your character you become more experienced, just like aging in real life (technically). When you first start out your pretty much a nobody, but the more levels you gain, the better your outfitted and the more skilled and powerful you grow, eventually you find yourself being referred to for help and advice and sometimes realize your leading large groups or even guilds eventually.
You play a single character (made in your image or an image you enjoy in any case) and you enter the massive world, among other players, who all have their own agendas and so forth, just as in the real world. You grow and eventually become very powerful and money and all that in MMORPGs, its sort of like living a second life online playing a role you wouldnt be able to play in this life (or most likely timeframe). The patches are the paramount part of where this money is going, all online games have in-game tech support in case you need help (and those people need to be paid) most MMORPG servers are also on 24 hours a day, and anyone hosting a professional dedicated game server through a server company knows that this requires money to maintain and keep online. All MMORPGs also have content teams, who are constantly fixing and perfect the game (if you encounter any problems, they are most likely fixed very quickly) . Of course also not forgoing the new content, almost every month you can expect areas (equivalent of levels to single player gamers), new features, and new game things (like vehicles in star wars galaxies). Of course theres also the thing thats been stated already, people who pay monthly for a game play a game with an audience that is much more mature and responsible than your general game audience, though MMORPGs do have their unsavory types, its usually much less than other games. So you get access to a huge game, a nice social setting, plenty of people to hang out with, and all the riffraff like hackers and cheaters are nowhere to be seen (MMORPGS cannot be hacked or cheated on, the most rampant form is Macroing which is highly controllable by the developers).
PS: dont expect to hear from wizard for a while, i remember how galaxies was for me, I would forego any and all things on the computer and immediately login and play till i couldnt play no more
Its the nature of MMORPGS (did i mention their unheathily addictive, every damn one)
"Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. "
Edited by - Comont54 on 6/26/2004 11:07:18 PM
Fri Jun 25, 2004 9:35 pm 
I'll stick to KOTOR for now. 
sorry, but yeah the only good source of info I know about it is the official site, but what got me informed about the project was the 2 previews so I threw those in for good measure.