Evony ads are popping up all over the Internet. The Evony craze has captured imaginations of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) players throughout cyberspace. Is it the World's Best Game, as advertised? We wanted to find out,.

With the world in a depressing recession, MMORPGs such as Evony are attractive. Many online games charge fees to start playing. Evony is free to register and play.

MMORPG is an acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, but we already told you that. Evony is one. Other popular MMORPGs are Exteel, Flyff, Habbo, and Illutia. None of these names passed through my spell-checker. Some other cool names for MMORPGs might be narwhals, scrimshaw, netsuke, and Bob the Online Game. Swoopo is already taken. BidCactus is a penny auction that plays like a classic MMORPG. Too much information; lets get to the good stuff.

When you sign up, you are required to pick a Lord/Lady name and also to provide an email address, a password, and your gender. Male and female are the only choices. Evidently you can't use your transgendered avatar from some other MMORPG that you are already hooked on. I tried LordEvony and was rejected. I also tried several combinations of Lord and Evony, to no avail. Some names I chose were already taken and some were simply ruled 'illegal'.

My email address was not validated; I was able to jump into the Land of Evony and begin questing immediately. The rulers of Evony don't actually seem to care who I am in real life.

I was assigned an avatar. He looked like Christopher Reeve as Superman, but with eyebrow implants. I was given one "item", a speaker. The speaker looked like a trumpet. I don't recall Christopher Reeve or Superman playing the trumpet. Evony is truly a land of fantasy.

I wanted my avatar to be called "linda mccartney" (Ebony and Ivory, get it?) but I chickened out.

After signing in, you are plunked into a city and assigned a quest to get you indoctrinated into the Land of Evony. My city was named 462,251. Apparently the arts community hasn't yet formed.

I was charged with building a cottage. At the bottom of the screen is a chat window that constantly scrolls, almost to the point of being unreadable. Other citizens of Evony used the chat window to plug their web sites, troll for free stuff, and ask questions about the game. It all went by so quickly that replying to any individual person became problematic. I am assuming they were actually real persons.

Building a cottage to fulfill my quest was a significant challenge for me, as I tend to live in the real world, where I can phone up a Realtor to find me a place to live. Evidently I would need cottages to provide housing for some people who would follow me on my next quest. The Land of Evony has overtones of socialism, but it might be nice to have a few virtual sycophants.

Being an Evony newbie, I would have been happy to take up residence in someone else's cottage until I got the lay of the land. I couldn't find a rent-controlled cottage.

Aha, I see how it works now. While there is such a thing as a free lunch in Evony, if you want to sit at the counter and be served in the order you were seated, fork over $30 for a "beginner's package."  The minimal expenditure is $5, which would entitle me to "50 cents Evony game coins" (sic).  Payment is accepted through Visa, Amex, PayPal, Master Card, or JCB.

So I clicked a few times and a cottage appeared in my yard. it was very cool beacuse I beheaded the zoning officials, tarred and feathered the carpenter's union bosses, and enslaved the nosy neighbors who complained about my landscaping.

I plan to launch an attack on the Wal Mart beyond the next ridge.