Massively multiplayer online role-playing game

A networked role-playing video game in which many players interact in a shared virtual world that continues to exist between play sessions.

Persistent world: A virtual environment whose state continues to exist and change when individual users are absent. The world’s continuing state distinguishes MMORPGs from matches that reset after each session.
Multi-User Dungeon: A text-based network game combining exploration, combat, puzzles, and communication among players. MUDs established persistent shared role-playing worlds before graphical MMORPGs.
Role-playing video game: A video game centered on controlling characters whose abilities or stories develop through play. MMORPGs extend role-playing games into persistent, shared online settings.
Massive multiplayer online game genres: Categories of online games distinguished by their core activities and design conventions. MMORPGs sit alongside online genres that emphasize other forms of play.
Online community: A group whose members interact and form relationships through networked communication. Repeated shared play can sustain communities that extend beyond any single game session.
Server–client model: A network architecture in which clients request services and a server coordinates shared state. Game servers synchronize player actions and world changes across connected clients.
MUD1: A 1978 text-based multiplayer adventure created by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at the University of Essex. Its persistent online world became a direct ancestor of the MMORPG.
Avatar (computing): A digital representation through which a person acts in a virtual environment. Players experience the world and express identity through their characters.
Raid (gaming): A cooperative game challenge designed for a large group of players, often against powerful enemies. Raids make large-scale coordination a central endgame activity.
Parasocial interaction: A one-sided relationship in which someone feels connected to a media figure who does not know them personally. MMORPG relationships are often reciprocal, unlike the one-sided media bonds this concept describes.

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PC gameBroader topic: PC platforms have supported long-running worlds such as World of Warcraft.