I've played quite a few of them. Most are terrible.
Neverwinter: Only play if you like solo PVE, and to run out of things to do after 1 week.
Runes of Magic: I started playing it and quit the same day so idk. World Chat was just full of garbage and people cybering, and the graphics were crap.
RIFT: Started up, quit within 10 minutes. Looked like crap and I really didn't want to spend the time to make the horrible control scheme playable. The actual lore and backstory sounded really good though, so it might be worth your time to fiddle with it.
MapleStory: Played for about 4 days. It was pretty boring, and after I received an unwanted hairstyle change as a quest reward, and saw I'd need to pay real $ to fix it I said fuck that. Also taking a airship to a new area took about an hour of real time just sitting on the ship as it pretended to move. You could pay $ to get there faster of course.
Realm of the Mad God: Very fun, but due to it being a Roguelike you die and its over. There is only so much time you will want to waste with it realizing that a moment of lag could erase weeks of work. Also, there really isn't anything new that you can't see from day one.
D&DOnline: Played about 4 hours. I loved how I was able to make my character look, and the graphics were good, but I hated the controls.
Forsaken World: I was really hopeful about this game. Unfortunately its pacing is all over the place, and its a ***** just to navigate all the content at times. But if you are really dedicated, I think that you might enjoy it for a month or two. I played Bard during beta, it was fun. Then I tried Gunner and Mage, but didn't really play much after that. It became a chore to make MP food as your mp regen is almost nill, so unless they have changed it squads would routinely need to have picnics in dungeons in order to have any mp because potions didn't do squat. You'd waste minutes sitting down to eat your milk and cheeses and watch your mp creep up. Also the talent trees are really complicated so if you enjoy tinkering with builds you will like it.
TERA: I REALLY want to try this game, but every time I try to DL the client it gives me an eta of anywhere from 18 hrs to 8 DAYS! I have DSL, not dial up aol from 1995, so idk wtf is wrong with their system over at EnMasse but people would like to try their damn game that don't want to spend over a week downloading it. Most other mmos take me 4-6 hours tops.
DC Universe Online: Played it when it was sub only on my roomates account. I hated it. He played it for months and I had to listen to it every night. There is only so many times you can hear them defeat Gorilla Grod before you question their sanity. You spend more time watching the same cutscenes, and playing dress up, than actually playing the game. The power sets were pretty lame too. I had more fun playing those X-Men dungeon crawlers on ps3. At least in that game flying wasn't a pain in the ass. I had more fun, with no sub fees, playing as Jean Grey in a few days than I did all that month I played DCUO with the same roommate.
PWI: I've played it since June 2009, so 4 years now. I loved it from day one, and even though I've played many other mmos during that time I never stopped playing PWI. Its the only game that has controls that make sense to me without needing to creatively remap everything. You have access to tons of skills at any time, not just 4 or 5 that you chose beforehand. I hate mmos that have you learn like 18 skills but you only end up using 4 of them because they only let you use 4 of them. That means most people just end up using the same 4 skills.
Also even though the engine of PWI is many years old, it still looks good. Its got an eclectic set of Chinese and more recently some African and European themes. Enemies are diverse, bosses are actually challenging. Its not just run around spamming skills and jumping out of big red circles. You have to tank and heal that shit. You need to keep aggro, use debuffs, and have good timing at times. Bosses have different tactics and buffs you need to learn, not like Neverwinter's method of every bossfight being a dps race to kill the hordes of constantly respawning adds over the course of 15 minutes while one guy pokes at the boss.
Its also been around forever, so its already expanded several times, and its not done yet. Most new mmos have crap end game that you can reach in a week. PWI's endgame changes year to year. Its also 100% free. I haven't spent a penny on it in years, though I did in the beginning for a few things. Sadly I don't even use those things anymore, or even the character I started with lol.
Lastly its got a decent community, and a good forum. Its not perfect, but its shocking how much better it is than all the other mmos I've played. DCUO had the worst, which surprised me. The stereotype is that free games attract trolls, but I've found that people are way bigger dicks when they are paying for their time in the game. They feel entitled to treat everyone anyway they feel as they are paying good money, and feel like as long as they keep doing so that no one at the company will call them on their shit. And from my experience they would be right.
I'm personally waiting for WildStar. It looks so freaking awesome! I'll probably roll an Aurin Esper Scientist. Or maybe Cassian Spellslinger/Explorer.
Elder Scrolls Online will not be successful IMO. Though I would like it to be. Combat in ES games has traditionally been its weakest point, and its pretty hard to sneak with people running around all over the map around you. I usually play the mage though so thats more of an observance than an inconvenience to me.
