ABSTRACT
A great community can more than compensate for a mediocre game, but a bad community can ruin even the best. This is what makes it so difficult to predict whether a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) will succeed or fail; so much depends on factors beyond the developer's control. MMORPG aficionados are quick to point out that Phantasy Star Online is not a true MMORPG, since it can be played offline. By the time Microsoft published Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call in November 1999, the MMORPG had been around long enough for the novelty to have worn off. Most MMORPGs don't have all the players populating the same persistent universe; instead, players are distributed among several parallel universes, each running on its own server. In June 25, 2003, LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies, a MMORPG developed by Sony Online Entertainment.
