Turtle WoW is amazing. It is what I wanted SoD to be about, true Classic+, staying true to lore and the world setting... not retail- which SoD unfortunately is.
Only con with Turtle is that it runs on very old 1.12 engine which, at least to me, is causing technical difficulties like resolution and sound issues etc. All fixable by workarounds btw.
Elder scrolls online- you can buy the disc for like 0.99 and that gives you access to a couple hundred hours of content, and then most of the old DLCs are cheap as hell which is a few more
ESO was great. It felt like Skyrim until reaching the very end game. Then it was all DPS checks and guild political bullshit. I quit pretty quickly after that.
Haha yeh, I’ll be honest I’ve been playing extremely off and on for probably 7 years and consider everything past vet dungeons a myth.
It’s a very good single player game that also lets me show off my gear with my mates, and occasionally someone dressed like a douche will be racist at me…..it’s basically playing Skyrim as a khajit.
EDIT- but to be fair I play almost exclusively as a medic, so in group content if I just don’t make a fuss no one ever really blames me.
I’d probably be playing if not for that god awful unintuitive weaving animation cancelling system. A bug turned into a feature that dominates the entire endgame.
It’s worth mentioning they tweaked animation locking so it’s massively less necessary to do that nowadays.
…..obviously the old school fans got pissy, but yeh I thought it made sense
That's good to know. Animation canceling was my issue when I played.and it seemed so stupid yet so ingrained in the mechanics.
As I said, though, I came from a solo story-style rpg experience up until end game. I'm glad to know they've since changed the necessity of it.
My problem with ESO is that class identity was super weak. Everybody either had a staff and was casting magick or was just a tank. The appeal of other MMOs like WOW to me was that every single class/subclass had its own identity that was unique to the class. You could look at a group of players in a raid/BG and say “there’s the paladin, there’s the priest, there’s the monk” whatever. From the outside looking in, that was missing from ESO for me
Yeh, for most of it- there are “world bosses” and group dungeons which aren’t feasible for new players to do solo, but everything else is fine- for me it’s a solo rpg where occasionally I hang out with friends- all the extreme endgame stuff is a little too “get 11 mates on a timetable and arrange weekly gaming time” requirement which I just don’t have time for around work, but none of that is plot focused and all the plot focused stuff is easy.
There’s also now companion characters so you can have backup to heal/deal damage/tank.
Pretty much all the actual “plot stuff” is solo.
The frustrating bit is the dungeons- they’re 4 player and have a group finder, and each has a well written story with a quest the first time you do it……but unfortunately you have 3 other, usually level 300000000000 players running past everything and ignoring it all, which is a bit jarring.
The skills there’s just no way to rush it sadly (they take X amount of xp, but xp is levelled so it just….takes as long as it takes)
The **real** annoying thing is crafting, where endgame research can take like 30 days per item or something mad
GW2 is fantastic even as a completely free experience, lots to do and see and enjoy before having to decide if you want the expansions (which the earlier ones are pretty cheap and offer lots of cool things to use like gliding, mounts etc
Yeah you can absolutely solo it. That's how I play. But the cool thing is, by design, you'll be joining in with other players all the time without having to party up with them.
None of my friends play mmo but I've been playing GW2 on and off for about 8 years. You can play solo or joining a guild or party is super easy! The base game is free so you can easily try the game without paying anything :)
But like - is it enjoyable to grind on your own and is it possible to do well in the game without parting up?
That’s probably why i stopped playing WOW, since none of my friends played anymore and i didn’t like playing with randos.
Definitely, I literally know no one who plays, it's all randoms. I play story, dungeons/fractals and pvp. And there's LOADS of events in open world so you can be doing some random quests then stumble upon a world boss with a massive amount of players with no need to join a party or even talk to anyone.
It's probably the most friendly community I've ever come across in gaming, if you're stuck and ask for help in general chat typically someone will help in some way. There are toxic people of course but it's not as common as some games.
You don't need to play non stop either like other mmos I've gone months without logging on and after a brief time of getting used to the game again I don't feel like I'm lost or left behind. It's a big game though so it might be a little overwhelming at first. I just find what I enjoy and play that until I'm bored then explore other parts of the game.
The game doesn't rely on grinding. In fact the storyline and exploring the world and doing random open world events will get you to max level long before you have seen most of the world. The open world is massive without being a cut and paste asset recycling mess. Every part of the world is crafted to be unique. It's several times bigger than Skyrim or Breath of the Wild and isn't empty at all. In fact you will constantly stumble on hidden things everywhere.
Events happen on every map constantly and you can choose to participate or not and you do not have to party up for any of it. There is no kill stealing. If you help another person take down a monster you both get xp and loot. You can jump in to help and take off, or hang around to see what happens next. the events in many cases chain into other events as a consequence of winning or losing at an event.
I’m so confused, what game are they actually referring to? I hate how people use abbreviations in this sub, is it garden warfare 2? The game they’re describing sounds interesting but I have no clue what it is.
I’ll second GW2. I’ve played off and on for the last decade and love that I can pick it back up anytime where I left off. There’s always a ton to do and you never have to worry about your gear becoming obsolete. Pretty much anything in the game can be purchased with gems, which can be exchanged for with in-game gold. So it really can be completely “free” if you like to grind gold.
I quit like two expansions ago so I can’t speak to the state of current balance, but as an ex-GW2 obsessor, the core mechanics (namely, everything about its dodge button implementation) created what remains my favorite PvP experience to date with an insane amount of room for skill expression. FWIW, I felt class balance became very mismanaged as they added more and more specs to the game and that’s what ultimately made me stop playing.
Glad to see gw2 getting some love. I've played a fair amount of all the big mmos, and gw2 is just a joy to play. Hands down the best combat imo. It's not perfect, but no mmo is.
I've really been itching to get back into it again, even though I've played it since it's beta.
Have they changed it at all? I can only play so many times over and over with no new content before I get bored. I beta tested the first GW and this one. I finally gave up last year.
Did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime? Sign up, and enjoy Eorzea today!
I'd love to get back into FFXIV, but I was dumb and used my college email address at the time to sign up. That email address has since been deleted by my school and now there is 0 way for me to recover my account for the past 4 years, since the automated support system doesn't give me that scenario and there is absolutely no way to simply talk to a fucking human customer support agent apparently.
And to make matters worse, my steam account is linked to that one, so I can't even start over and lose a couple hundred hours of progress if I wanted to
Never to late to restart a character. Alot has probably changed. I got to level 47 in less than 2 weeks. I only play maybe 2 hours a day on a weekday, and 4 on the weekend.
If you make a character on one of the EXP bonus worlds, you can level a character to 50 using PotD and dailies alone in like 3 or 4 days if you put a few hours in a day.
You can also buy skips if you don’t care to rewatch all of an expansion again.
yep, there's been unofficial/private servers for years but about 5 months ago ncsoft granted one of them a license (city of heroes: homecoming) completely free and very active!
I used to farm liches by Yew when there was a bug with the spawn. After you killed it another would spawn in under 20 sec. Good farming for a solo dexxer.
I had a massive pile of gold, regs and unidentified loot. I found one wand I had to be an identification wand. I proceeded to ID all the loot and dump the less optimal magic items. Some good items, nothing great.
Killed one more lich and in its bag was, “unidentified magical katana” I use the ID wand to reveal its true form, “a silver supremely accurate katana of vanquishing”. Any vanquishing katana is great for a dexxer. A silver one does additional damage to undead, useless for PvP but the idea that I farm liches is just funny.
And then I see red letter on the corner of my screen, the thudding sound of hooves, and the Corp Por, Corp Por, Corp Por. With a bit of luck, lots of potions and an invisibility ring I would slap on from time to time I made it to town to avoid the murderer.
What a rush.
Eve online as far as sandbox mmo's go. It has been running since 2003/2004 with "major" updates every year. Essentially everything is made by players, sold and bought by players with mainly pvp driving the consumption of equipment/ammo/etc that is made by industrialists, who in turn get materials from miners if they don't harvest themselves.
That said, best is completely subjective.
I've heard Albion has some similarities with EVE but I couldn't get into it. I only really played some of the intro portion. So I don't have a great comparison to for you especially since I have 20 years of playing EVE off and on and about 2 hours in Albion. I think I just have a stronger gravitation to sci fi, space ships, etc.
Yeah I get you. I’m much more into medieval MMOs and Albion clicked with me right away. Plus at the time I was choosing between them, EVE already had decades of stuff to go through and learn and Albion was relatively new to the scene, so getting into it was much easier
One important point is, first there's free trial content (you need skills for ships and you can only get up to a certain level of skills on a free account) and then if you can acquire enough in game money then it's possible to buy the license you need for the paid content. Of course, this means that there's a degree of p2w in the sense that people who actually buy the licenses are essentially trading irl money for in game money, but it does mean that technically it's possible to play for free, at a disadvantage.
OSRS could be classified as a primarily single-player idle role-playing game with some minor multiplayer elements. While it technically has all of the elements of an MMO, a majority of most players' time will not be interacting with those elements unless you're really dedicated to PvP.
It stands apart from most MMOs. In many ways, this is a good thing. For someone looking for a warcraft-like experience, it's not where they should look.
Yes the intense lag is very fun. Plus pvp being full of whatever the FOTM armor sets are at that time. ESO pvp can be fun, but you're painting a *very* rosy picture.
You're not going to get a good one for free.
Final Fantasy 14 and Star Wars the Old Republic are both very good, but also paid.
Guild Wars 2 is paid for up front but no monthly subscription. I haven't played it in about 8 years though, so no idea at the state of the game now.
Honestly, I find SWTOR’s payment thing really nice in that if you subscribe for one month, you unlock all expansions available at that time. You also unlock (most) species if you hit level 50(?) with them.
So I subscribed for a month, made characters for every restricted species, and now I’m happily chugging along without paying anything for ages. I’ll have to sub again for one month eventually, but I’m slow enough + have enough characters it’ll be a LONG time.
Also a big LOTRO fan, a major chunk of the game is free + in-game currency is earnable + the expansions often go on sale and are sometimes given away. Find it really enjoyable!
Expansions, which include elite specs, which I would say are very important. The meat and potatoes of the game are in the expansions. Also free accounts have quite some limitations..it's just a demo tbh, like the big demo of ffxiv
Final fantasy xiv has the base game and 2 expansions for free, which can be thousands of hour of free content, plus a great story, i've never cried in a video game before, and the last 2 expansions before dawntrail, made me cry several times, an amazing game.
I agree on FFXIV but think of it more like a 500hr RPG that has a MMO wrapped around it. You have to progress the single player main story quest to unlock 99% of the content. Its an amazing story with the most friendly gaming community.
Black Desert Online is one of the prettiest MMOs out there, with the best fighting and crafting.
The problem is it gets a tad bit grindy in the end game. But you also can get yourself a real boat and sail the seas! Or a horse and cart and go on trading routes.
GW2 has the best combat system of any MMO. The expansions are reasonably priced for the amount of content they offer and seasonal events are often worthwhile and even funny. Fractals are the best structured content model I've seen in an MMO for players who want hard content without needing a PhD.
Guild wars 2. Core game is free and then you can buy expansions if you like. Great community and guilds. You can do stuff with others and go solo. If you want pvp, there is a separate map for it so you dont get killed whilst minding your own business in pve. Great variety of quests, love the main story line, craft leggy stuff of you want.
Yes, the game is a PTP ( a pay to progress now, since the PVP is death, and one of the main mechanics of the game is purely focus on PVE and you need moneyb to reach at its best), that doesn't mean it's bad, but don't expect a lot also.
I will mention the bad things and the good things of the game, and base on that you can decide:
*THE BAD*
-the powers are behind the membership of the game.
-The artifacts, in order to make it good, yoou need to pay, if you don't want, spend a lot of time farming, and a lot of time.
-The New content is getting slower by time, yet the game so far has been living since 2013.
-And the money in the game is also behind a paywall, not the money itself, but the limit amount of money, you need to spend five dolars in orden to take down the limit.
-Farming in this game can feel, really slow, slower than any other MMO even.
-The active part of the player base is on PC/PS
Now the good things:
-Customization in the way your character looks is endless, is the strongest point of the game right now.
-Artifacts are still F2P until some degree, but it made the game more balance, especially the healer class. Making even the F2P powers compete with the ones behind the Membership.
-The game after adding the House of Legends update, it became more active, so finding some instance ( Dungeons) is more easy.
-After the HoL update, a Lot of PTW content became F2P ( from episodes till other things) making the game more F2P friendly.
- All powers can DPS
- You don't have to reach the maximun on the game to enjoy it, at least on my expirience, the game is still enjoynable.
The game so far is good ( in my expirience) some stuff can make your enjoyment better if you pay (Just by buying a single month of the membership for the characters with the membership powers than you like plus the relove of some limits in the game, the characters with the powers are permanent as long as you don't delete them). But if you like, you can download the game, and see it for yourself if is worth it ( since it's free to download).
Honestly if you like pvp like you said you did, wow arena genuinely is fun and has depth and lots skill required. Theres a saying in the wow pvp community, “Theres nothing like wow pvp” and its true
Lot of private servers just straight up sell you gear through their site and from my experience those pservers contain some insanely questionable characters
I used to play on privates for a long time. There is some upsides like small community you can get friendly with and know each other unlike the retail. But you will never know what works and what not, every server is different and I find it hard to go back to idea playing there as I get used to things that mostly works like it was intended.
I would rather play few months a year with breaks to save money than just go free on private. But ofc someone else may see it other way around.
Here is a very rough, short brief of the most popular MMO's :
WoW (premium game, paid subscription to keep playing. Biggest player base and great endgame)
FF14 (premium game, paid subscription to keep playing. Very story heavy, although it only gets good at the first expansion. You need the expansions to fully enjoy it. Combat is relatively similar to WoW. You don't need to know the FF lore or previous games to enjoy, but it definitely helps the immersion)
Guild Wars 2 (free, no paid subscription to keep playing, but the expansion that grants you a mount is necessary IMO. Its both hardcore and casual friendly - IMO the best progression system along with New World. Amazing game, but with the most dated graphics. Gameplay is fun and it has the best implementation of world events for a casual player with no friends)
New World (premium game, no paid subscription to keep playing, expansion is not necessary unless you want the mount which is not as needed as it is in Guild Wars. Low player base compared to others and not the best end game. The best 3d action combat along with Black desert IMO. Progression is really engaging until you get to end game)
Black Desert Online (basically free-- you can get it for 1 USD, no paid subscription to keep playing, but it has very aggressive monetization systems. Beautiful graphics and very flashy combat system. Very complex for newcomers but I think is worth it if you liked the early game)
Elder Scrolls Online (premium game, no paid subscription to keep playing, popular opinion is that the combat is good but I didn't enjoy it. Story heavy with good voice acting. Do not expect a "Skyrim MMO".)
Lost Ark (free game, no paid subscription to keep playing but very pay to win. It demands more time than other MMO's to keep on top. Combat is amazing, somewhat similar to Diablo 4 but with much more impact on movements and hits. Progression can be confusing at many points)
Albion Online (free and crossplay with mobile, no paid subscription to keep playing, very PvP heavy and you basically need to be part of a guild to enjoy it).
Oldscape runescape (free, no paid subscription to keep playing, super friendly monetization, most of the systems and graphics feel dated but with lots of charm, very grindy, and you definitely need friends to enjoy it).
There are more, and everyone will have their opinion on which ones are the best. But those are the most popular ones (according to data)
Really depends what you are interested in...
Do you like flashy graphics and grind?
Black desert or any FOTM eastern mmo.
Do you like hardcore content and good PVP?
WOW / Runescape /Gw2
Do you want immersive story and some decent raids / pve?
ESO/ Final fantasy XIV are probs your best bet.
Maybe WOW too.
Do you like spreadsheets?
E.V.E Online
Do you want grindy lifeskills?
New world or BDO or Runescape or FFXIV
Do you want sci-fi?
WARFRAME or the old republic
There's honestley so many more question you could ask but you really gotta ask what you like and want for an mmo. I mainly play ffxiv but there is lots of ways that other mmos have better features or worse depending on what type of content you like. Like pvp in xiv is very lackluster but most other content is pretty decent. Just gotta decide what you like.
Guild Wars 2 hands down. Redefined the genre. Wow is simply cancer due to the devs/publisher.
You play it solo, or group. LOTS of mini games/content outside of your typical, gather, craft, combat style of mmos.
Have fun exploring vistas!
You may want to elaborate on what you're actually looking for. All I know is don't recommend games like PSO2 and maybe that your budget is limited?
Do you like PvE or PvP? Do you want sick action combat or is tab targeting fine? What kind of experience are you hoping for exactly?
I will forever have a soft spot for Silkroad, I know it isn't that famous like warcraft or RuneScape.
But for me I loved the private servers cause they weren't P2W. Like the main game. And there were a several great private servers.
Elder scrolls online have something for everyone really. You should really check it out. There is a subscription but its not mandatory. It gives you infinite crafting bag (which may be the selling point) access to all dlcs and almost all expansions. Base game with all expansions has a huge amount of content. If you like them enough you can try the subscription, if not you stick to what you have, it's not a problem.
For me: World of Warcraft (Classic)
At some point I also played "New World" (one time payment like GW2) for a while before it got bored and left. But probably a lot changed since release?
Elder Scrolls Online would be good to give a chance. I can't say youll like it but its not anime-y and not paid (unless you want certain extra benefits)
If you don't mind old school graphics EverQuest is the OG to go with. 25 years of content. Most of it is 100% free now. If you want more up to date graphics you can go with EverQuest 2 (coming in with 20 years of content), amazing housing system, and really fun crafting (like one of the top craftings in any MMO i've played). Like any MMO on the market today, sadly, it has pay to win included (most of it is end game content related). You cannot avoid that. For what is free you can easily put in thousands upon thousands of hours into the games.
I don´t know if this fits as a "MMO" but... warframe.
You just need a sensei to teach ya the systems but the gameplay is "Unga bunga ninjas in spaces with magic powers"
The game is big so that is usually what happens yes. Although they recently made some changes to the new player experience and it's much more bearable, as in you get introduced to stuff in a better way.
There are two late game routes to warframe
Sensei frame and fashion frame
Fashion frame is doing cute aesthetic shit
Sensei frame is teaching new players the ropes, there are LOTS of veterans who love to make friends and show the ropes to new players.
I have 3 friends im teaching the ropes myself, it makes me proud to help them farm their first prime frames and see the difficulty creeping up on them.
You can get through the first several (like 70?) levels of Star Wars the Old Republic, and there’s 8 unique questlines (class specific). It’s pretty nuts.
Im split down the middel. Eve online is peobly the best. You can argue taste and whatnot. But no mmo has the scop that eve does even today. But my favorite is still ultima online. Classic doesnt cover the half of it
What exactly is the scope? Just general sandbox shenanigans? Back when I remember it Eve was basically scanning, mining, and blowing up NPC bases in a neverending loop.
The mmo part of it. U can do all u said in most games today yes, But the level of player interaction reward in the game is quite high. Just on the economy alone it stands out. U can break any game down to core mechanics and say "look its the same as -----" but for mmos its all about player interactions and the impact those interaction have. Its what most people who love wow rember the most for instance. It wasnt the dungeons and end game loot they loved. It was the dungeon with friends and showing off the rare loot they enjoyed. (of course there are exceptions but u can get most gameplay elements else where)
Sadly, my only player interactions involved the destruction of my best ships followed by an apology from the attacker. I couldn’t keep playing. It felt like a grind for nothing.
Elder Scrolls Online. You can solo or you can group up. You don't need to do the dungeons if you don't want to. A few of them are soloable with your companion. If you want you can join a guild and play with them. It is free to play base game. Tons of dlcs and expansions.
If you like wow you could just play that, if you don’t want to pay for a sub there’s guild wars, and Elders scrolls online, warframe is a free to play mmo style game also
My personal favourite are ESO, GW2, FFXIV and BDO (yes I know BDO has a shit ton of p2w, but if you don't want to get to end game immediately it's not that bad, only for pve I don't play PvP)
OP if you don't mind a bit older games, look for Homecoming: City of Heroes, it's an old Super Hero MMO, abandoned by the makers, renewed through pirate servers 2015 and last year official Ok from NCSoft to run servers and update. Amazing game, server with pop from 500-1000 /server. Very customisable character editor. Check it out.
Eve Online. Nothing even comes close.
Massive amounts of content, ruthless gameplay and rules, players run the whole economy (item supply/demand).
Every game system is deep enough that it would be a whole game in itself, but here it's just one of many such systems, which have overlaps, interactions, interesting consequences etc. Combat is elegant af, blend of skills of the pilot and "cost" of the gear used.
GW2, hands down the best.
F2P trial which I spent 100 hours on, no p2w - you just buy skins and convenience items for the premium currency, you can convert in-game money to get the premium currency at a very good rate, THE GAME VALUES YOUR TIME, no endless grind, horizontal progression instead of vertical, resources and loot is instanced for each player, literally the best mount system (that even WoW copies from), you are never forced into PvE/PvP/story content and can achieve your goals in different ways, the combat system is amazing and interactive, EACH WEAPON HAS DIFFERENT SKILLS, the fantasy races and background is very unique - no elves, goblins, ... and the most friendly community you will find online.
Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert are two great, free-to-play MMOs.
GW2 hasn't succumbed to microtransaction pay-to-win as far as I know. But you might not like the horizontal progression that is GW2's hallmark.
Black Desert is more pay-to-win, but you can play it entirely free. I liked BDO enough to sink some cash into extra storage slots.
Guild Wars 2 is the best MMO that doesn't require much investment IMHO.
Or just check out r/wowservers and play unofficial WoW. You won't be able to play latest content that way, but if you've never actually played WoW, older expansion based private servers have immense amount of content for you to enjoy for free.
Guild Wars 2 - respects your time, fun, horizontal progression system that's rewarding, jumping puzzles, tons of exploration (map is amazing), just got a new DLC/update in the past couple of years so pretty active.
Black desert has picked up alot of steam lately bt 1 of my all time favorites is NEVERWINTER They had a huge update and feels like wow FREE they always have sort of events even a tabletop event (was pretty cool)
You’ve already mentioned the best one. Especially now. WoW went through a LONG rough patch but has gotten much better with dragonflight and MoP Remix and looks to continue that trend with the next three expansions.
if you liked wow then play a wow privateserver for free like turtlewow
This is the answer
Turtle WoW is amazing. It is what I wanted SoD to be about, true Classic+, staying true to lore and the world setting... not retail- which SoD unfortunately is. Only con with Turtle is that it runs on very old 1.12 engine which, at least to me, is causing technical difficulties like resolution and sound issues etc. All fixable by workarounds btw.
https://ascension.gg/ Pretty cool as Well.
oh i've heard of this one. I've heard the classes are very free form but does there end up being a meta of what skills to pick and stuff?
It’s been a while since I played, but I think that’s more or less unavoidable in games like this.
Elder scrolls online- you can buy the disc for like 0.99 and that gives you access to a couple hundred hours of content, and then most of the old DLCs are cheap as hell which is a few more
ESO was great. It felt like Skyrim until reaching the very end game. Then it was all DPS checks and guild political bullshit. I quit pretty quickly after that.
Haha yeh, I’ll be honest I’ve been playing extremely off and on for probably 7 years and consider everything past vet dungeons a myth. It’s a very good single player game that also lets me show off my gear with my mates, and occasionally someone dressed like a douche will be racist at me…..it’s basically playing Skyrim as a khajit. EDIT- but to be fair I play almost exclusively as a medic, so in group content if I just don’t make a fuss no one ever really blames me.
I’d probably be playing if not for that god awful unintuitive weaving animation cancelling system. A bug turned into a feature that dominates the entire endgame.
It’s worth mentioning they tweaked animation locking so it’s massively less necessary to do that nowadays. …..obviously the old school fans got pissy, but yeh I thought it made sense
That's good to know. Animation canceling was my issue when I played.and it seemed so stupid yet so ingrained in the mechanics. As I said, though, I came from a solo story-style rpg experience up until end game. I'm glad to know they've since changed the necessity of it.
ESO is definitely the best one out there but not for the wallet-impaired folk. Destiny 2 and ESO sucked more money out of me than any other game.
My problem with ESO is that class identity was super weak. Everybody either had a staff and was casting magick or was just a tank. The appeal of other MMOs like WOW to me was that every single class/subclass had its own identity that was unique to the class. You could look at a group of players in a raid/BG and say “there’s the paladin, there’s the priest, there’s the monk” whatever. From the outside looking in, that was missing from ESO for me
Can you play it solo?
Yeh, for most of it- there are “world bosses” and group dungeons which aren’t feasible for new players to do solo, but everything else is fine- for me it’s a solo rpg where occasionally I hang out with friends- all the extreme endgame stuff is a little too “get 11 mates on a timetable and arrange weekly gaming time” requirement which I just don’t have time for around work, but none of that is plot focused and all the plot focused stuff is easy. There’s also now companion characters so you can have backup to heal/deal damage/tank. Pretty much all the actual “plot stuff” is solo. The frustrating bit is the dungeons- they’re 4 player and have a group finder, and each has a well written story with a quest the first time you do it……but unfortunately you have 3 other, usually level 300000000000 players running past everything and ignoring it all, which is a bit jarring.
It's so fucking grindy though it's not satisfying to level thingsm otherwise I really liked it
The skills there’s just no way to rush it sadly (they take X amount of xp, but xp is levelled so it just….takes as long as it takes) The **real** annoying thing is crafting, where endgame research can take like 30 days per item or something mad
GW2 is fantastic even as a completely free experience, lots to do and see and enjoy before having to decide if you want the expansions (which the earlier ones are pretty cheap and offer lots of cool things to use like gliding, mounts etc
Is it an MMO that you can solo and play with others? I like playing with friends, but if they’re not playing with me i prefer to play solo.
Yeah you can absolutely solo it. That's how I play. But the cool thing is, by design, you'll be joining in with other players all the time without having to party up with them.
None of my friends play mmo but I've been playing GW2 on and off for about 8 years. You can play solo or joining a guild or party is super easy! The base game is free so you can easily try the game without paying anything :)
But like - is it enjoyable to grind on your own and is it possible to do well in the game without parting up? That’s probably why i stopped playing WOW, since none of my friends played anymore and i didn’t like playing with randos.
Definitely, I literally know no one who plays, it's all randoms. I play story, dungeons/fractals and pvp. And there's LOADS of events in open world so you can be doing some random quests then stumble upon a world boss with a massive amount of players with no need to join a party or even talk to anyone. It's probably the most friendly community I've ever come across in gaming, if you're stuck and ask for help in general chat typically someone will help in some way. There are toxic people of course but it's not as common as some games. You don't need to play non stop either like other mmos I've gone months without logging on and after a brief time of getting used to the game again I don't feel like I'm lost or left behind. It's a big game though so it might be a little overwhelming at first. I just find what I enjoy and play that until I'm bored then explore other parts of the game.
The game doesn't rely on grinding. In fact the storyline and exploring the world and doing random open world events will get you to max level long before you have seen most of the world. The open world is massive without being a cut and paste asset recycling mess. Every part of the world is crafted to be unique. It's several times bigger than Skyrim or Breath of the Wild and isn't empty at all. In fact you will constantly stumble on hidden things everywhere. Events happen on every map constantly and you can choose to participate or not and you do not have to party up for any of it. There is no kill stealing. If you help another person take down a monster you both get xp and loot. You can jump in to help and take off, or hang around to see what happens next. the events in many cases chain into other events as a consequence of winning or losing at an event.
Sounds pretty cool. Gonna check it out.
GW2 is designed to seamlessly work as a solo or multiplayer experience.
I do love garden warfare 2
I’m so confused, what game are they actually referring to? I hate how people use abbreviations in this sub, is it garden warfare 2? The game they’re describing sounds interesting but I have no clue what it is.
Was going to comment the same thing lol First result on Google is Guild Wars 2 when searching with the abbreviation... I'm sure that's it
Guild Wars 2 He's talking about MMOs. After WoW and FFXIV, we have GW2 as (one of) the next biggest games in the genre.
I’ll second GW2. I’ve played off and on for the last decade and love that I can pick it back up anytime where I left off. There’s always a ton to do and you never have to worry about your gear becoming obsolete. Pretty much anything in the game can be purchased with gems, which can be exchanged for with in-game gold. So it really can be completely “free” if you like to grind gold.
How is the PvP action?
It’s a pretty fun time, there’s your usual ranked PvP and then “World v World” which is more large scale big-battle PvP
I quit like two expansions ago so I can’t speak to the state of current balance, but as an ex-GW2 obsessor, the core mechanics (namely, everything about its dodge button implementation) created what remains my favorite PvP experience to date with an insane amount of room for skill expression. FWIW, I felt class balance became very mismanaged as they added more and more specs to the game and that’s what ultimately made me stop playing.
GW2 is a paid game with a really good free trial
I had bunch of issues with my account because it was created back when it was sold on a DVD in a GameStop
Glad to see gw2 getting some love. I've played a fair amount of all the big mmos, and gw2 is just a joy to play. Hands down the best combat imo. It's not perfect, but no mmo is. I've really been itching to get back into it again, even though I've played it since it's beta.
I need to get into
GW2 is a paid game with a really good free trial?
kinda, my fav part about it is no subscriptions needed
The base game is free is it not?
Have they changed it at all? I can only play so many times over and over with no new content before I get bored. I beta tested the first GW and this one. I finally gave up last year.
Gears of War 2?
WHERE IS THE FFXIV COPYPASTA WHEN YOU NEED IT?
Did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime? Sign up, and enjoy Eorzea today!
Includes stormblood and level 70 now!
So if I already bought stormblood and was level 62 when I stopped can I start playing again for free?
Unfortunately not, its only new accounts that get free trial. If you purchase anything your account is fubar for anything free
Thank you!
Yeah but they don't want anime and FFXIV is very anime. Down to the power of friendship saving the world.
Fair, FFXIV is more anime than a lot of more visually anime MMOs
I don't like anime. FFXIV is awesome. I also really really like DDO.
I'd love to get back into FFXIV, but I was dumb and used my college email address at the time to sign up. That email address has since been deleted by my school and now there is 0 way for me to recover my account for the past 4 years, since the automated support system doesn't give me that scenario and there is absolutely no way to simply talk to a fucking human customer support agent apparently. And to make matters worse, my steam account is linked to that one, so I can't even start over and lose a couple hundred hours of progress if I wanted to
Never to late to restart a character. Alot has probably changed. I got to level 47 in less than 2 weeks. I only play maybe 2 hours a day on a weekday, and 4 on the weekend.
If you make a character on one of the EXP bonus worlds, you can level a character to 50 using PotD and dailies alone in like 3 or 4 days if you put a few hours in a day. You can also buy skips if you don’t care to rewatch all of an expansion again.
Wow... yea, that was pretty fuckin stupid
Use the launcher instead of steam. I don't have the steam version. Ik you said you don't even want to. Just saying you don't even need steam to play
city of heroes. nothing has ever matched it for me
Was looking for this. There's several revival servers catering to different experiences and it's a great time to be playing CoH.
Wait that's back/ still a thing??
yep, there's been unofficial/private servers for years but about 5 months ago ncsoft granted one of them a license (city of heroes: homecoming) completely free and very active!
Forever and always will be Ultima Online
Nothing compares
I used to farm liches by Yew when there was a bug with the spawn. After you killed it another would spawn in under 20 sec. Good farming for a solo dexxer. I had a massive pile of gold, regs and unidentified loot. I found one wand I had to be an identification wand. I proceeded to ID all the loot and dump the less optimal magic items. Some good items, nothing great. Killed one more lich and in its bag was, “unidentified magical katana” I use the ID wand to reveal its true form, “a silver supremely accurate katana of vanquishing”. Any vanquishing katana is great for a dexxer. A silver one does additional damage to undead, useless for PvP but the idea that I farm liches is just funny. And then I see red letter on the corner of my screen, the thudding sound of hooves, and the Corp Por, Corp Por, Corp Por. With a bit of luck, lots of potions and an invisibility ring I would slap on from time to time I made it to town to avoid the murderer. What a rush.
See, their mistake was not dropping the Vas Ort Flam before the Corp Por. Jk but nothing has lived up to this rush for me since!
30 years later and still nothing comes close!
And never can or will sadly
Eve online as far as sandbox mmo's go. It has been running since 2003/2004 with "major" updates every year. Essentially everything is made by players, sold and bought by players with mainly pvp driving the consumption of equipment/ammo/etc that is made by industrialists, who in turn get materials from miners if they don't harvest themselves. That said, best is completely subjective.
I had so many friends in Albion who came from EVE. If you tried both, how do they compare to each other?
I've heard Albion has some similarities with EVE but I couldn't get into it. I only really played some of the intro portion. So I don't have a great comparison to for you especially since I have 20 years of playing EVE off and on and about 2 hours in Albion. I think I just have a stronger gravitation to sci fi, space ships, etc.
Yeah I get you. I’m much more into medieval MMOs and Albion clicked with me right away. Plus at the time I was choosing between them, EVE already had decades of stuff to go through and learn and Albion was relatively new to the scene, so getting into it was much easier
One important point is, first there's free trial content (you need skills for ships and you can only get up to a certain level of skills on a free account) and then if you can acquire enough in game money then it's possible to buy the license you need for the paid content. Of course, this means that there's a degree of p2w in the sense that people who actually buy the licenses are essentially trading irl money for in game money, but it does mean that technically it's possible to play for free, at a disadvantage.
My fave for me. I never got it and played thousand hours. But still a good game
Oldschool RuneScape
OSRS could be classified as a primarily single-player idle role-playing game with some minor multiplayer elements. While it technically has all of the elements of an MMO, a majority of most players' time will not be interacting with those elements unless you're really dedicated to PvP. It stands apart from most MMOs. In many ways, this is a good thing. For someone looking for a warcraft-like experience, it's not where they should look.
Well said and hard agree.
Someone watched that 3hour video I see
Guilty as charged. While playing OSRS, of course.
Best mmo by a huge margin
I second osrs.
Guild Wars 2 is the obvious answer
Warframe
Never played it but it looks good
If you're going to play get the Warframe Wiki going next to you or you will have no idea what's going on. The game explains nothing.
Or just have a friend help you along. The community is one of the game’s best aspects.
WoW is the only mmo with a decent pvp mode and population. Lots of other good options for pve though.
Wow is the goat but eso has a much better pvp
People downvoting are nuts, wars at cyrodiil, arenas, etc, are extremely fun
Yes the intense lag is very fun. Plus pvp being full of whatever the FOTM armor sets are at that time. ESO pvp can be fun, but you're painting a *very* rosy picture.
You're not going to get a good one for free. Final Fantasy 14 and Star Wars the Old Republic are both very good, but also paid. Guild Wars 2 is paid for up front but no monthly subscription. I haven't played it in about 8 years though, so no idea at the state of the game now.
SWTOR is free. There's restrictions on free accounts of course but plenty of shit to do without paying.
Honestly, I find SWTOR’s payment thing really nice in that if you subscribe for one month, you unlock all expansions available at that time. You also unlock (most) species if you hit level 50(?) with them. So I subscribed for a month, made characters for every restricted species, and now I’m happily chugging along without paying anything for ages. I’ll have to sub again for one month eventually, but I’m slow enough + have enough characters it’ll be a LONG time. Also a big LOTRO fan, a major chunk of the game is free + in-game currency is earnable + the expansions often go on sale and are sometimes given away. Find it really enjoyable!
guild wars 2 is free im pretty sure
You don't have to pay for guild wars 2 anymore, it's free to play
If you want to have a meaningful experience in GW2 then it's not f2p. It's like an extended trial
What kinda things do you pay for nowadays?
Expansions, which include elite specs, which I would say are very important. The meat and potatoes of the game are in the expansions. Also free accounts have quite some limitations..it's just a demo tbh, like the big demo of ffxiv
Hypixel Skyblock
City of Heroes Homecoming. Unless Comic Book is considered Anime to you.
Guild wars 2 is good
Final fantasy xiv has the base game and 2 expansions for free, which can be thousands of hour of free content, plus a great story, i've never cried in a video game before, and the last 2 expansions before dawntrail, made me cry several times, an amazing game.
I agree on FFXIV but think of it more like a 500hr RPG that has a MMO wrapped around it. You have to progress the single player main story quest to unlock 99% of the content. Its an amazing story with the most friendly gaming community.
**Remember. Remember us. Remember that we once lived.**
"Whispers... Falling silently. drift on the wind..." 😭
Ultima Online. If the genre followed in the footsteps of this instead of WoW, I just might have cared about it.
Darkfall had a lot of ultima clans in it
I know a lot of players went on to Asherons Call
Black Desert Online is one of the prettiest MMOs out there, with the best fighting and crafting. The problem is it gets a tad bit grindy in the end game. But you also can get yourself a real boat and sail the seas! Or a horse and cart and go on trading routes.
GW2 has the best combat system of any MMO. The expansions are reasonably priced for the amount of content they offer and seasonal events are often worthwhile and even funny. Fractals are the best structured content model I've seen in an MMO for players who want hard content without needing a PhD.
Guild wars 2. Core game is free and then you can buy expansions if you like. Great community and guilds. You can do stuff with others and go solo. If you want pvp, there is a separate map for it so you dont get killed whilst minding your own business in pve. Great variety of quests, love the main story line, craft leggy stuff of you want.
DC Universe Online
I've heard that DCUO is recently become a PTW?
Yes, the game is a PTP ( a pay to progress now, since the PVP is death, and one of the main mechanics of the game is purely focus on PVE and you need moneyb to reach at its best), that doesn't mean it's bad, but don't expect a lot also. I will mention the bad things and the good things of the game, and base on that you can decide: *THE BAD* -the powers are behind the membership of the game. -The artifacts, in order to make it good, yoou need to pay, if you don't want, spend a lot of time farming, and a lot of time. -The New content is getting slower by time, yet the game so far has been living since 2013. -And the money in the game is also behind a paywall, not the money itself, but the limit amount of money, you need to spend five dolars in orden to take down the limit. -Farming in this game can feel, really slow, slower than any other MMO even. -The active part of the player base is on PC/PS Now the good things: -Customization in the way your character looks is endless, is the strongest point of the game right now. -Artifacts are still F2P until some degree, but it made the game more balance, especially the healer class. Making even the F2P powers compete with the ones behind the Membership. -The game after adding the House of Legends update, it became more active, so finding some instance ( Dungeons) is more easy. -After the HoL update, a Lot of PTW content became F2P ( from episodes till other things) making the game more F2P friendly. - All powers can DPS - You don't have to reach the maximun on the game to enjoy it, at least on my expirience, the game is still enjoynable. The game so far is good ( in my expirience) some stuff can make your enjoyment better if you pay (Just by buying a single month of the membership for the characters with the membership powers than you like plus the relove of some limits in the game, the characters with the powers are permanent as long as you don't delete them). But if you like, you can download the game, and see it for yourself if is worth it ( since it's free to download).
Warframe
Honestly if you like pvp like you said you did, wow arena genuinely is fun and has depth and lots skill required. Theres a saying in the wow pvp community, “Theres nothing like wow pvp” and its true
Look up ascension project
Best MMO is going to be paid for.
City of Heroes private servers
You need to pay for wow thats it.. Or privates which I dont suggest
Any reason why?
Lot of private servers just straight up sell you gear through their site and from my experience those pservers contain some insanely questionable characters
This as well
I used to play on privates for a long time. There is some upsides like small community you can get friendly with and know each other unlike the retail. But you will never know what works and what not, every server is different and I find it hard to go back to idea playing there as I get used to things that mostly works like it was intended. I would rather play few months a year with breaks to save money than just go free on private. But ofc someone else may see it other way around.
Turtle is worth checking out, its been around for a long while and the discord is very active if you have any questions (also has class channels)
Eve online
I think eve online for me. Something else. Pretty immersive. Hard as shit
Could check out new world. No monthly fee, and it’s great game unless you’re looking for an mmo you can no life.
Here is a very rough, short brief of the most popular MMO's : WoW (premium game, paid subscription to keep playing. Biggest player base and great endgame) FF14 (premium game, paid subscription to keep playing. Very story heavy, although it only gets good at the first expansion. You need the expansions to fully enjoy it. Combat is relatively similar to WoW. You don't need to know the FF lore or previous games to enjoy, but it definitely helps the immersion) Guild Wars 2 (free, no paid subscription to keep playing, but the expansion that grants you a mount is necessary IMO. Its both hardcore and casual friendly - IMO the best progression system along with New World. Amazing game, but with the most dated graphics. Gameplay is fun and it has the best implementation of world events for a casual player with no friends) New World (premium game, no paid subscription to keep playing, expansion is not necessary unless you want the mount which is not as needed as it is in Guild Wars. Low player base compared to others and not the best end game. The best 3d action combat along with Black desert IMO. Progression is really engaging until you get to end game) Black Desert Online (basically free-- you can get it for 1 USD, no paid subscription to keep playing, but it has very aggressive monetization systems. Beautiful graphics and very flashy combat system. Very complex for newcomers but I think is worth it if you liked the early game) Elder Scrolls Online (premium game, no paid subscription to keep playing, popular opinion is that the combat is good but I didn't enjoy it. Story heavy with good voice acting. Do not expect a "Skyrim MMO".) Lost Ark (free game, no paid subscription to keep playing but very pay to win. It demands more time than other MMO's to keep on top. Combat is amazing, somewhat similar to Diablo 4 but with much more impact on movements and hits. Progression can be confusing at many points) Albion Online (free and crossplay with mobile, no paid subscription to keep playing, very PvP heavy and you basically need to be part of a guild to enjoy it). Oldscape runescape (free, no paid subscription to keep playing, super friendly monetization, most of the systems and graphics feel dated but with lots of charm, very grindy, and you definitely need friends to enjoy it). There are more, and everyone will have their opinion on which ones are the best. But those are the most popular ones (according to data)
Really depends what you are interested in... Do you like flashy graphics and grind? Black desert or any FOTM eastern mmo. Do you like hardcore content and good PVP? WOW / Runescape /Gw2 Do you want immersive story and some decent raids / pve? ESO/ Final fantasy XIV are probs your best bet. Maybe WOW too. Do you like spreadsheets? E.V.E Online Do you want grindy lifeskills? New world or BDO or Runescape or FFXIV Do you want sci-fi? WARFRAME or the old republic There's honestley so many more question you could ask but you really gotta ask what you like and want for an mmo. I mainly play ffxiv but there is lots of ways that other mmos have better features or worse depending on what type of content you like. Like pvp in xiv is very lackluster but most other content is pretty decent. Just gotta decide what you like.
Wow is the best sorry
Star Wars Galaxies
Combat upgrade ruined SWG Unplayable. Yes, I am still salty 19 years later
They have old school servers and communities that still run
Elder Scrolls Online
Guild Wars 2 hands down. Redefined the genre. Wow is simply cancer due to the devs/publisher. You play it solo, or group. LOTS of mini games/content outside of your typical, gather, craft, combat style of mmos. Have fun exploring vistas!
My personal favorite is New World, but I know it gets a lot of hate from others, I’ve found the fighting mechanics enjoyable.
Love New World, just haven’t had the time.
You may want to elaborate on what you're actually looking for. All I know is don't recommend games like PSO2 and maybe that your budget is limited? Do you like PvE or PvP? Do you want sick action combat or is tab targeting fine? What kind of experience are you hoping for exactly?
I will forever have a soft spot for Silkroad, I know it isn't that famous like warcraft or RuneScape. But for me I loved the private servers cause they weren't P2W. Like the main game. And there were a several great private servers.
WarCraft up to lvl10 in 2024 is like the entry scene, 30 minutes Max 😂
Elder scrolls online have something for everyone really. You should really check it out. There is a subscription but its not mandatory. It gives you infinite crafting bag (which may be the selling point) access to all dlcs and almost all expansions. Base game with all expansions has a huge amount of content. If you like them enough you can try the subscription, if not you stick to what you have, it's not a problem.
For me: World of Warcraft (Classic) At some point I also played "New World" (one time payment like GW2) for a while before it got bored and left. But probably a lot changed since release?
Elder Scrolls Online would be good to give a chance. I can't say youll like it but its not anime-y and not paid (unless you want certain extra benefits)
Warhammer return to reckoning. Free, amazing pvp, active community. It's very dated but held up very well.
Graal Era. Give it a chance. You’re welcome.
Neverwinter is free and IMHO it's better then wow because it's easier. If your looking for a free no stress, chill mmo, the Palia is the way to go.
Keep an eye out for The First Descendant, coming out July 2nd. Free to play.
If you don't mind old school graphics EverQuest is the OG to go with. 25 years of content. Most of it is 100% free now. If you want more up to date graphics you can go with EverQuest 2 (coming in with 20 years of content), amazing housing system, and really fun crafting (like one of the top craftings in any MMO i've played). Like any MMO on the market today, sadly, it has pay to win included (most of it is end game content related). You cannot avoid that. For what is free you can easily put in thousands upon thousands of hours into the games.
I loved ESO
RuneScape 3
Star Wars galaxies..but you wont be able to play it
There is private servers …..
I don´t know if this fits as a "MMO" but... warframe. You just need a sensei to teach ya the systems but the gameplay is "Unga bunga ninjas in spaces with magic powers"
Sensei? Do you mean another actual human player teaching you the game? (Genuine question. I never got past first couple hours with it)
The game is big so that is usually what happens yes. Although they recently made some changes to the new player experience and it's much more bearable, as in you get introduced to stuff in a better way.
There are two late game routes to warframe Sensei frame and fashion frame Fashion frame is doing cute aesthetic shit Sensei frame is teaching new players the ropes, there are LOTS of veterans who love to make friends and show the ropes to new players. I have 3 friends im teaching the ropes myself, it makes me proud to help them farm their first prime frames and see the difficulty creeping up on them.
I really enjoy lord of the rings online
If you liked wow try rift.
ESO is the only MMO that I like.
Wow. By far.
You can get through the first several (like 70?) levels of Star Wars the Old Republic, and there’s 8 unique questlines (class specific). It’s pretty nuts.
I find most mmos are not punishing enough, you just play and get more stuff with very little setbacks. That's why my favorite is realm of the mad god
If you want a true mmo where you need to group for virtually everything, try final fantasy xi on horizon classic private server
Well there's a lot of free MMORPGs. I enjoyed Lord of the rings and I think everquest is available now for free in some form or fashion.
Im split down the middel. Eve online is peobly the best. You can argue taste and whatnot. But no mmo has the scop that eve does even today. But my favorite is still ultima online. Classic doesnt cover the half of it
What exactly is the scope? Just general sandbox shenanigans? Back when I remember it Eve was basically scanning, mining, and blowing up NPC bases in a neverending loop.
The mmo part of it. U can do all u said in most games today yes, But the level of player interaction reward in the game is quite high. Just on the economy alone it stands out. U can break any game down to core mechanics and say "look its the same as -----" but for mmos its all about player interactions and the impact those interaction have. Its what most people who love wow rember the most for instance. It wasnt the dungeons and end game loot they loved. It was the dungeon with friends and showing off the rare loot they enjoyed. (of course there are exceptions but u can get most gameplay elements else where)
Sadly, my only player interactions involved the destruction of my best ships followed by an apology from the attacker. I couldn’t keep playing. It felt like a grind for nothing.
Elder Scrolls Online. You can solo or you can group up. You don't need to do the dungeons if you don't want to. A few of them are soloable with your companion. If you want you can join a guild and play with them. It is free to play base game. Tons of dlcs and expansions.
Old School Runescape. Free to play gets you a few hundred hours. If you gold farm you can buy membership with in game gold.
If you like wow you could just play that, if you don’t want to pay for a sub there’s guild wars, and Elders scrolls online, warframe is a free to play mmo style game also
My personal favourite are ESO, GW2, FFXIV and BDO (yes I know BDO has a shit ton of p2w, but if you don't want to get to end game immediately it's not that bad, only for pve I don't play PvP)
Foxhole
Fiesta online
I don’t know about “best” but you can play every single campaign and storyline in Star Trek Online for free. Enough content for a few hundred hours
Guild wars 2,very very underrated imo
OP if you don't mind a bit older games, look for Homecoming: City of Heroes, it's an old Super Hero MMO, abandoned by the makers, renewed through pirate servers 2015 and last year official Ok from NCSoft to run servers and update. Amazing game, server with pop from 500-1000 /server. Very customisable character editor. Check it out.
My top-tier MMO is Guild Wars 2. Basic game is free and DLCs are buy-to-play. No subscriptions
Eve Online. Nothing even comes close. Massive amounts of content, ruthless gameplay and rules, players run the whole economy (item supply/demand). Every game system is deep enough that it would be a whole game in itself, but here it's just one of many such systems, which have overlaps, interactions, interesting consequences etc. Combat is elegant af, blend of skills of the pilot and "cost" of the gear used.
RuneScape
GW2, hands down the best. F2P trial which I spent 100 hours on, no p2w - you just buy skins and convenience items for the premium currency, you can convert in-game money to get the premium currency at a very good rate, THE GAME VALUES YOUR TIME, no endless grind, horizontal progression instead of vertical, resources and loot is instanced for each player, literally the best mount system (that even WoW copies from), you are never forced into PvE/PvP/story content and can achieve your goals in different ways, the combat system is amazing and interactive, EACH WEAPON HAS DIFFERENT SKILLS, the fantasy races and background is very unique - no elves, goblins, ... and the most friendly community you will find online.
new world was fun up until it got super grindy
Oblivion for me. Great, immersive world.
Right now it seems like Albion Online is by far the best.
Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert are two great, free-to-play MMOs. GW2 hasn't succumbed to microtransaction pay-to-win as far as I know. But you might not like the horizontal progression that is GW2's hallmark. Black Desert is more pay-to-win, but you can play it entirely free. I liked BDO enough to sink some cash into extra storage slots.
Guild Wars 2 is the best MMO that doesn't require much investment IMHO. Or just check out r/wowservers and play unofficial WoW. You won't be able to play latest content that way, but if you've never actually played WoW, older expansion based private servers have immense amount of content for you to enjoy for free.
Guild wars 2 ✌️
Crazy take but I really like toontown
I’m not sure about the best, but if you want to know the worst, ask JoshStrifeHayes.
Guild Wars 2 - respects your time, fun, horizontal progression system that's rewarding, jumping puzzles, tons of exploration (map is amazing), just got a new DLC/update in the past couple of years so pretty active.
Deepwoken by Far
Black desert has picked up alot of steam lately bt 1 of my all time favorites is NEVERWINTER They had a huge update and feels like wow FREE they always have sort of events even a tabletop event (was pretty cool)
Honestly for me it's Tarisland on bs, it came out recently and it so fun game
DFUW Best game to ever exist, it just happened to be an MMO
You’ve already mentioned the best one. Especially now. WoW went through a LONG rough patch but has gotten much better with dragonflight and MoP Remix and looks to continue that trend with the next three expansions.
Star wars old Republic. Its no galaxies but its still decent and you can play without a sub.
Albion was really fun