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By Danny "Ralsu" Gourley

style="font-weight: bold;">About This List

Please refer to the href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/Top10F2P">Top Ten
Free-to-Play Games Portal to find out how to get a game you
make or like on this list.

Month in Review

June started with a strong debut by style="font-style: italic;">Requiem: Blodymare
at the #5 spot. Sadly, the marriage of style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest and style="font-style: italic;">Resident Evil seems
weaker the longer I play. It finishes the month in the #9 hole. style="font-style: italic;">Rohan: Blood Feud
became the highest rank game to make its first appearance on this list
when it broke in at #4. It is still going strong.

Rohan's
spot on the list forced Fiesta
Online to drop off the list. I still contend that
Outsparks game aimed at young teens is the perfect introduction to
massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs). The other game to drop off
the list is NeoSteam,
a fun steampunk game. It has a poor translation and a mostly foreign
player base, making it a tough game for English speakers despite its
many virtues.

Taking the free space afforded by NeoSteam
is Runes of Magic.
I was impressed by early screens of Frosgter's title, but did mention
the game in this Top Ten because being pretty is not enough to make the
list. But when I had a chance to href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/36847">preview the
starting zone for Runes
of Magic, I was impressed by the extensive lore
the developers have crafted in order to ensure a captivating story. It
was enough to grab my attention and earn a spot in the Top Ten.

Games I gave a spin this month but not making the list were style="font-style: italic;">Holic (best left
for Ten Ton Hamster
readers), Rakion
(a terribly fun PvP game that is not a MMOG to me), and style="font-style: italic;">Perfect World (not
enough time to evaluate).

Readers might note that this is the first week since the Top Ten began
that Mythos
has not held the #1 slot. I am horribly confused right now by the
game's odd stagnation. The work on the overwolrd is massive and will
make the game great, but it looks like a regression of production to
me. The game has a beta server, but developers are pushing the
overworld to a separate test server with a limited population. When you
have a test server for your beta server, that says your game is in
alpha. I fully believe this will make style="font-style: italic;">Mythos better, but
it also could cause a lot of fans to lose interest--and already has.

The List

Moving into July, I will finish up my exploration of style="font-style: italic;">Perfect World. I'll
also cover Wurm Online.
I continue to play several betas, three of which have non-disclosure
agreements (NDAs) preventing me from talking about the games. If any of
the NDAs drop, I'll be sure to give the games any moments in the sun
due to them.

Here are my Top Ten Free-to-Play Games for June 2008.

Disclaimer:
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of
the Ten Ton Hammer network or staff.

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colspan="4" rowspan="1"> style="color: white; font-weight: bold;">Top Ten
Free-to-Play Games

June 2008 style="text-align: center; width: 75px; background-color: rgb(114, 105, 62); font-weight: bold; color: white;">Rank style="text-align: center; width: 75px; background-color: rgb(114, 105, 62); font-weight: bold; color: white;">Previous style="text-align: center; width: 105px; background-color: rgb(114, 105, 62); font-weight: bold; color: white;"> style="width: 334px; background-color: rgb(114, 105, 62); font-weight: bold; color: white;">Game

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