Battle Engine Online

Popular online game taking place in a steampunk-themed universe of war. The game, made by an Esperian Developer, hearkens back to a "low high-tech" setting where pre-Vectoral Empire technology like airships, gunpowder, and steam engines continued to progress but other innovations like computers didn't.

The game is perhaps most famous for its visual design, showing a lovingly crafted blend of old world elegance and clunky, chunky industrial age technology. This is often imitated by other games, but mostly these knock-offs just throw gears and clocks everywhere.

There are three factions, each associated with a different element: Ignis (Fire), Glacia (Ice), and Fulgore (Lightning). The three factions are always fighting; this was partly as an attempt to capture a segment of the "hardcore PvP market" that found White and Gold Online wanting. A fourth faction, Lignum (Wood), has been rumored for ages but balancing PvP seems too difficult.

The game was a bit of a niche title for its first few years but really took off with its first expansion, BEO: Colossal, which introduced the option for players to build, control, and drive fantastical giant steam-powered mecha. Although a handful of purists poo-poo this sell-out to the "Metal Suit Damogun crowd", this clunky warmachines become iconic and the face of the franchise. (They were greatly aided by the fact that this part of the game was really fun and markedly different from anything in the MMO space at the time.)

A sequel/expansion, BattleBeast Online, focuses more on magic and control of giant monsters, but it never took off as well -- though eventually the two games were merged into one giant universe of big, stompy adventure.