The Mana World

The Mana World is a free, open-source MMORPG started in 2004.

It is not an Allegedly Free Game, but truly free. Playing is free of charge, there is no item shop and there is no plan of the developers to ever change that. They are Doing It for the Art in their spare time without having any commercial interest.

The game uses retro 2D graphics which imitate the style of SNES games. Its small community consists mostly of open-source enthusiasts, and many players actively help with developing. Surprisingly, this all works well!

Tropes used in The Mana World include:

• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Many very difficult quests are only for getting a nice hat.
• Ascended Meme: Because of the continuous begging of the Brazilian players for "Itens" (a common translation error when translating Portugese to English), the developers added an actual item named "Iten", and later a spell to create said "Itens" with the incantation "#itenplz" which made all nearby mobs attack the user when cast.
• Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: There is almost no punishment for dying.
• Development Hell: The new server software is "going to be released next year" since 2006. ManaPlus client (which also supports other games, such as Evol Online) is updated regularly, however.
• Evil Pays Better: Averted. Being evil gives you no advantage at anything, and makes you useless in PvP.
• Have a Nice Death: The player is greeted by a random amusing message on death.
• Infinity+1 Sword: Sorcerer's Robe. You can spend years to get one. Actual years.
• Killer Rabbit/Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Flowers and butterflies will destroy you.
• Level Grinding
• Loot Drama: Terranite ore is very valuable, and it is acquirable only in PvP area. Go figure.
  • Four-Leaf Clovers.
• Luck-Based Mission: The forest bow quest, the monster oil quest, and several others.
• Most Gamers Are Male: Averted. Maybe male players are majority, but not on higher levels. Also, an admin and many developers are female. That leads to NPCs like tall, muscular Christmas Elves.
• Naked on Arrival
• Nice Hat: Hats are important to the point that some people call the game maliciously "The IRC with hats".
• Playboy Bunny: The waitress in Dimonds Inn (The sprite was originally designed for the 2008 easter event)
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: Warriors wear Middle Ages-style armor with... jeans chaps. All archers, even bald men, wear cute Cat Ears, and high-level mages have their underwear showing.
• Random Drop: Drops are rather rare, but the one of the rarest and most expensive can drop from a defenseless plant.
• Running the Asylum: Many developers with significant creative influence used to be players themselves.
• Shout-Out: Devs confirm they were inspired by Secret of Mana. In the newbie area there is even a merchant sharing a name with infamous Neko.
  • Do you want your possessions identified?
  • An earlier version also had cameos of Captain Kirk and Mr.Spock. They were removed from the game due to copyright concerns, but the sprites still exist in the data files.
• Twenty Bear Asses
• Underground Monkey: Multiple versions of many enemies exist. For example: Scorpions (Angry, Red, Black, etc.), Slimes (Yellow, Red, Green, Sea, Santa, Rudolph), Goblins (Fire, Ice), Maggots, Snakes, Skulls, Wisps, Skeletons, Zombies.
• We Buy Anything