Elitism has a way of worming its way into anything we enjoy, poisoning it with snobbery and an unjustified sense of self importance. Even when it comes to the realm of MMOs, gamers can’t resist ranking the swarm of massively multiplayer time sinks from best to worst and hating on any - and every - title the genre has to offer.

It’s a mixed up mess with conflicting delusions of grandeur spewing from each MMO camp that has World of Warcraft raiders ranking themselves above EVE: Online traders and vice versa. But we’ve managed to iron out the kinks thanks to these handy and irrefutable charts. Read on and find out where your game of choice ranks in the MMO pecking order and why.

Above: World of Warcraft introduced the world to the stereotypical image of the hardcore MMO player

World of Warcraft
It should be no surprise that World of Warcraft sits at the top of the MMO hierarchy. Both serious WoW players and gamers who hold nothing but contempt for the genre generally agree that there are two types of MMOs: the ones that have the words “World” and “Warcraft” in the title and ones that don’t.

There are lots of MMOs that preceded WoW. But that hasn’t stopped Blizzard’s blockbuster title from taking credit for several so-called “groundbreaking” gameplay innovations.

Key gameplay innovations featured in WoW:
Farming (or killing the same monster over and over again for items/ gold)
Grinding (or killing the same monster over and over again for XP)
Raiding (or killing the same boss over and over again with your guild for items)
Wiping (or getting killed by the same monster over and over again)

Even though there are a ton of other post-WoW titles that also offer masochistic gamers the same ability to waste years of their lives leveling up their avatars and equipping them with rare loot, World of Warcraft continues to be the most recognized MMO amongst the mainstream masses and has managed to squeeze in just about every terrible time sink and high fantasy stereotype that the genre’s been known for since it released over three years ago.

Above: Part one of our MMO hierarchy. Click here to enlarge and read on for more elitist rankings