Everybody likes to unwind after a long day of work, but not everyone enjoys the same after-hour activities. Some like to read a book, some just watch whatever is on, others like to play some computer games. There are different kinds of players, some are perfectly fine with shooting some turkeys for fifteen minutes and move on to the next game, they are called casual gamers. Other people want to see their points, score, level or whatever statistic to rise above others’ and are willing to do whatever it takes and put any amount of time to reach what they want.

These people are the hardcore gamers. They don’t play for the joy and fun of the game in the first place anymore, but glory and fame. They play long hours, some even more than 14-16 hours a day and that’s perfectly fine because they will eventually succeed in getting what they’re after or give up for good. These players almost always play multi player games, this way they can ensure they always have someone to beat, someone to be better than and they prefer free games over the monthly subscription type simply because they do not want to pay for something the can get for free. Of course there are 10 million World of Warcraft players, but that is a completely different size league with both casuals and blood thirsty hardcore fanatics competing with each other.

There are different free multi player games, that are fun to play and offer some entertainment for all kinds of players. Most often played games are made in flash, but there are browser based and standalone client games as well.

First free multi player online games were M.U.Ds, or Multi User Dungeons. Think of Dungeons and Dragons but governed by a computer game master, some algorithms to take care of fights, bestiary, movement and interaction between players. The first multi-user adventure game was developed in 1978 so there is quite a long history behind multi player role playing games on computers. The most notable MUD was a graphical mud Everquest, and Runescape started out as a text based MUD as well, but graphics was added in an early phase of development.

Later the term MMORPG (Massively Multi player Online Role Playing Game) became widely accepted for this kind of game. Some of the MMORPG games are operating on a monthly fee, the most widely played, World of Warcraft, costs $15 a month, while Tibia, or Runescape are free to play.

There are other models than these, most notably pay as you go cards for WoW, sold on the Chinese market, and some sort of economy based system in Project Entropia. PE is a free to play sci-fi theme MMORPG with a twist. There are Project Entropia Dollars needed for any sort of equipment in game, that can either be bought for real life currencies, or found during killing and looting a monster in game. Project Entropia dollars also can be sold for real currency which can attract some players with a gold digger mindset.

There are free multi player online strategy games that can be played in a browser without installing any sort of client software. Just a browser with JavaScript enabled and in some cases flash, and you are good to go. Companies are opposed to these games as they are so easily brought to a workplace by employees and they seriously hinder productivity. Most notable candidate is Imperion.org and Travian. Both are free to play strategy games, imperion is in sci-fi settings and in Travian you need to command a medieval village.

There is one kind of game you wouldn’t think a browser could run. First person shooters. Id software is well known for its ground breaking games during the last decade. Doom, Quake then the forgotten Quake II and the ultimate favorite on LAN parties, Quake III tournament. Every worthy hardcore fps gamer at least tried Quake III, it was a real hit, and now Id software has taken it to the next level. They’ve ported it to browsers, so you can play it inside your Firefox instead of completing that boring spreadsheet. But don’t blame me if your boss doesn’t give you a high five for your new high score.

Casual gamers may find flash based games attractive. You might have heard of Farmville, if you haven’t you should disconnect from the net because you are not using it anyway. Seriously though, Farmville with over 80 million players is the most popular Facebook application by far, ever. As of 4th of February it is also available on Microsoft’s gaming portal, MSN games, and it doesn’t require a Windows Live ID to play but a facebook registration instead.
It is a real time farm simulation, or farm-tamagotchi so to speak. The player has to nurture a virtual farm, planting, harvesting, plowing and planting seeds again. There are dozens of virtual items to get, give to friends or collect.

Another site I would suggest any casual gamer to check out is kongregate.com. It is full of the best flash games on the net and a good deal of them are also capable of multi player modes. The most popular game on the site is Platform Racer 2 which is a multi player Mario on steroids, with built in level editor. There is another popular multi player game in the top 5, Kongai, a rather complicated and competitive card collecting strategy.

There are also games to be played that are not multi player, but are somehow connected to other players either through high scores or best times, there is always something you can try to beat other people in. Remember Prince of Persia, the game for DOS about 80 years ago? There was some competition in that game too, people were going for fastest play through. If you want to play something for fun, Internet is there to offer you everything there is to computer gaming on and if you’re hardcore, there are always other people to compete with.