A persistant world. Like a copy of Earth but set in a video game world. Some things change month to month depending on what content is added. Some games you're allowed to virtually change the landscape by taking over cities and what not. Other words you can't like World of Warcraft.
Also you are playing with over 1,000 players at the same time. You don't see them all on screen though, they are spread out across the world.A couple dozen if not a hundred can be on your screen at once. That would be taxing on your computer but World of Warcraft is optimized really well for that.
Each MMORPG has something usually unique about itself. Otherwise it's just a generic MMORPG. That's why it's called Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing game. Also you usually play a class like a healer, mage, or warrior. From those three main classes come different classes. Like a Hunter, or a Warlock, etc.
To conclude you get to play with and/or against thousands of players on one server. There is more than one server if the MMORPG is good. Your character stays on that server unless you can transfer it to another server. This usually costs money.
Think of a server as a copy of the world but on a different computer. So you can only access your character on that server. WoW is very popular and has over hundreds of servers worldwide. 8.5 million players are playing World of Warcraft. The games biggest downfall though is the fact that endgame is not casual. You are requied to have high level gear and a powerful guild to explore the best and strongest content.
There are still 5-man instances though but the highest and best gear instances (dungeons) are 25 man. That's why I no longer play it. Blizzard games are usually casual. The hardcore player will prevail in Blizzard games, but I find no excuse for making the latest content toward hard-core players. Frankly it's not fair to the customer.
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