MMORPG recommendations.

[Mister K]

Good day to you, Escapists.
For a few days now I've felt an urge to play an MMORPG. But, for all my knowledge in other genres, I am simply lost when it comes to MMO's.

I am looking for a MMORPG that:
1. Is either Buy-to-Play (i.e. buy it once and play without subscription) or Free-to-Play.
2. Doesn't have weird problems. Example: I tried playing Dungeon Fighter Online, but it crashed 100% of the time. I found out that I need to select English as my systems default language. I haven't done so because it would've lead to problems with other software.

Games I've had my eye on are Skyforge and Guild Wars 2 and I'd like to hear your opinion on them, but I will be more than grateful for other recommendations.

So, will you help the guy out? Thank you.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

It's very difficult for me to recommend games that fit your qualifications, but I would wholeheartedly recommend Guild Wars 2 to someone who's never played it before and can get into a group dynamic with a guild quickly enough. I played it on release and even though I quit soon after hitting the cap I didn't regret the time I spent with it.

The WvWvW pvp is damn fun as well.

The only other MMO I've played recently for a long amount of time was FFXIV and that's obviously a subscription game. You could try to get into Phantasy Star Online 2 (I played it for a few years as well and am kinda getting back into it), which has a full-fledged English patch going on a few years now. There's plenty of guides about any issues you'd have with it being a "JP-onry" game as well. Though I don't think it's much of a hassle to install even as a foreign player at this point.

 

[Alexandrin Braun]

I'm not much fan of MMO games eh. But I love mobile games. And most of the games I play for pasttime are those simple and casual games. I played Candy Crush Saga and as people would love to say, it sounds so gay. But really, it was nice. Lol. But I got bored with it and now I'm into a new puzzle game that I really love. It's Honeyday Blitz 2. Same concept with Candy Crush, but not too sweet and girly graphics. Suits me well.

 

[schtingah]

The question really is what you are looking for in an MMO.

If it's amazing PvP, Guild Wars 2 is a good choice.

If you're looking for an interesting setting/story i'd recommend Secret World.

If you want more fun and dynamic combat, have a look at TERA.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Lately I'm actually having quite a good time with The Elder Scrolls Online, it really does play as an Elder Scrolls game with multiple people. The way dungeons work is cool, the whole first person thing works as well as you'd hope it would but third person is still an option. I can't comment on the PvP just yet, but I'm optimistic. I'm taking my time with it, leveling pretty slowly, mostly exploring a lot which the game is absolutely great for. And on top of that, the quests have a remarkably low amount of grinding, so that's rad.

Guild Wars 2 is definitely a cool MMO too. Also really great for exploring, though sadly the quests are a bit more typical for MMO's. Though it must be said, there's a lot of mini-game-y stuff in them too. But they do feel sort of...trivial, at first. It's not exactly happy to cheer up cows and pluck weeds for the first 20+ levels. The shared world quests are cool, and the gameplay is at least not 100% like your typical hotkey-based MMO, but those auto-accepted area quests burned me out about it.

 

[gigastar]

Well if you have your eye on Skyforge then you may as well jump in and see how you like it.

Just... stay off the EU server unless you can communicate in at least 3 languages.

 

[Fallow]

TERA - Nice game, F2P. You can function perfectly fine without paying. If you like the japanese style (and sexy men/women), this is great. Endgame is pretty grindy, but there are lots of people playing both PvE and PvP.

Star Wars TOR - Nice game, F2P. Most similar to WoW. You can play OK without paying and get a feel for the gameplay, but after you've hit the lvl cap, you need to purchase access or a subscription.

Nosgoth - Fun arena game, functions perfectly fine without paying (all purchases are visual). It's a 4v4 arena based on Soul Reaver and Legacy of Kain. Really fun, atleast for a while. I recommend this for everyone, since it requires very little grind/buildup and is fast to install via Steam. Give it a try!

Ghost Recon Phantoms - A tactical shooter arena with classes. Functions OK without paying until lategame. If you like R6 or Ghost Recon, this is worth a look. You start out in the kiddie pool of players so you can get your bearings.



That's all I can think of right now.

If anything looks interesting, check it out on youtube or something.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Maybe Guild Wars 2?

It is a one time purchase only as in free to play and while there are additional purchases like using your real money to buy cosmetic weapons, items or armours and aswell additional buff etc but it is not nessacery needed to played the game. Those stuff can still be bought with ingame golds but it will take alot of time to gather alot of gold to buy them.

As for weird problems, not as far as I know.

The only problems I ever get are the usually disconnection either with my network or theirs.

 

[Kiardras]

Skyforge is fun, but very very grindy. You need to up your prestige to open new areas, and you do this by re-running the same dungeon over and over and over and over to unlock sparks.

 

[miketehmage]

Try elder scrolls online.

Takes a lot of the same core gameplay of guildwars 2 but with better story and quests imo. Encourages exploration just as much. I'm having a great time on it

 

[Objectable]

Star Trek Online is my go to choice for MMOs. Its improved amazingly well since it first started and has the most customization out of any mmo I've seen.

 

[Odbarc]

I don't care much for MMOs but I found that Star Trek Online was a lot of fun because you can solo through the campaign and most importantly, you mostly drive around in a spaceship doing flybys with lasers.

 

[Harlemura]

Gonna have to throw in another vote for Guild Wars, since it's the only MMORPG I've played that wasn't subscription based. Even though I didn't enjoy it much myself, almost everyone else I've talked to about it enjoyed it, even a guy who's pretty fanatical about WoW. If it's alright in his eyes then it must be good.

Though you do eventually have to pay a subscription, Dofus and Wakfu are both alright games and you can get a fair few hours out of the free to play areas. I personally prefer Dofus because it's the more straightforward of the two, but neither of the games are that complicated.
I also really, really like the art style in both games. So much so that it's probably clouding my opinion of the gameplay, now I think about it. But I mean the Feca class though [http://www.wakfu.com/en/mmorpg/encyclopedia/classes/1-feca], I like pretty much every aspect of their design.

 

[Nismu]

guild wars 2 is fun game, plenty of little details all around if you keep eyes and ears open.. like when you have heard npc start to sing after the quest is done? Though you might want wait for expansion to come out, apparently you get base game with it

for my other favourite mmorpgs if you want something different than cookiecutter mmorps i would suggest DC universe online, Dungeons and dragons online (DDO not neverwinter, though neverwinter is worth checking too) and firefall.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So, will you help the guy out? Thank you.

WoW can now be functionally Free To Play in the same way EVE can be, you can translate in-game currency to play time. And it's still the runaway "best" game in the genre, featuring unrivaled content and systems depth.

GW2 is BTP, but has the wonkiest method of post-release content distribution ever created (the content is all seasonal/temporary...despite the game being out for years, if I returned today I'd find it largely unchanged), and provides little impetus for continued play once you've checked out all the zones and leveled a couple of characters to cap (which is a speedy process). The game succeeds in not being a punishing treadmill, but consequentially also succeeds in having precious little staying power.

SWTOR is FTP, and features the most robust story content in an MMO (TSW fans might beg to differ). The actual MMO part of the equation is a bit naff, and the story content can be exhausted pretty quickly. The FTP model also enjoys tweaking your nose and making you feel incredibly stupid for not having a subscription, and in all honesty anyone thinking of playing SWTOR should just pony up for a month and treat it as BTP.

TESO is a bizarre MMO that plays like a wobbly single player Elder Scrolls game with a lot of very annoying and immersion shattering NPCs running around. It's suited to solo play more than any other MMO in history, but also raises the question of why you're not just playing one of the superior single player offerings in the series instead.

TSW and Wildstar were both ambitious failures...the former is now BTP, the latter is going FTP any day now. Both have their merits, but both are also functionally on life support due to tiny player bases. Except a game in maintenance mode as far as new content and patches are concerned, and don't ever expect a vibrant and active community. As for the games themselves...TSW is story based and aims for a modern/conspiracy angle, and Wildstar tries to recapture Burning Crusade era WoW with punishing raids and attunements. Both games have some unique and highly commendable merits (TSW's unusual quest presentation and setting, Wildstar's MOBA style combat and movement), but both failed to find audiences for a reason. They're deeply flawed.

EVE, like WoW, can be paid for with in-game currency, but unlike WoW EVE is an impenetrable bog of complex systems and social strata with a gentrified and experienced population that eats new players for breakfast. The barrier to entry should be considered "extreme".

I'm not sure if Elite Dangerous/Star Citizen really qualify as "MMOs", but they might be worth looking into.

Quite honestly, everything in the genre aside from the above options is either too old, or too crap, to bother looking into. Unless you're super into Korean style grind MMOs.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I...yeah, with those requirements, I just have to echo some other posters.

Tera and Guild Wars 2.

But Tera has Elin. So Tera wins.

 

[Beliyal]

Throwing in another vote for Guild Wars 2. It has plenty of content and a lot of variety in that content, so you'll likely find at least something that suits you. Questing is alright and doesn't just boil down to fetching stuff; there are plenty of non-combat quests and some quirky quests where you get special weapons from the NPC to perform some task. There's a lot of exploring and mini-games (like jumping puzzles, of which some are basically entire games on their own). Not everything is straightforward so it's not just "Walk up to the viewpoint and click," sometimes it's a bit of a puzzle on how to get somewhere. This might be annoying to some people, but it was good for me, because I love exploring and solving puzzles. In questing areas, there are events which are basically repeatable quests available for all players in the event area and you usually have to work with others to solve those events. There are also bigger events with world bosses where a large amount of people is needed to succeeded, as well as a lot of tactics and coordination. All events can fail.

PvP is excellent to me. As far as I've managed to see, balance is very well done and there's a variety of possible builds, of which all have some merit (some less than others, but doesn't mean you can't play the way you want: you don't have to pick one thing and stick with it). I'm usually not much of a pvp-er, but GW2 gave me a good experience. My main is not a tanky class, but I can easily get the most points in a match. There's also world vs world which is where servers fight against each other via conquering points and castles, disrupting supplies and actual fighting. It's cool when you manage to get a lot of people together and then everyone just does objectives and fights, it can get really intense and large scaled.

Classes are interesting; there are some more standard classes like warrior and ranger, and there's some that are more unique, like mesmer or necromancer. It's interesting that all classes can use a lot of different weapons and skills are tied to those weapons, so you chose the weapon with the skills of most use to you. You can have two sets at hand to switch at any time. Throughout the game, you get enough skill points to unlock all traits (through which you create builds and choose traits that are the most useful to your playstyle). You can also change traits at any point, so you're never locked into anything. Equipment gives stats as well, which can also be switched at any time to create a different build. Stuff to buy with real money is cosmetic only. Also, you're always scaled down to the level of the area, so you can go back to do low-level areas at any time and never be overleveled.

Right now, you can only purchase GW2 with the expansion (which isn't out yet, but you can preorder). I think it's worth it because you get the base game for free + one extra slot for a character (base is 5 slots, preording gets you one more) with the expansion.

 

[Kiardras]

Been considering giving tera a go for a while now, but I've been swayed (probably wrongly) by internet posts claiming its a bit wonky... by that I mean the character design could be labled as "questionable" or "likely to involve imprisonment in most western countries"

Is this just internet reaction blowing shit out of all proportion? And is tera worth giving a few months to?

 

[Fallow]

Been considering giving tera a go for a while now, but I've been swayed (probably wrongly) by internet posts claiming its a bit wonky... by that I mean the character design could be labled as "questionable" or "likely to involve imprisonment in most western countries"

Is this just internet reaction blowing shit out of all proportion? And is tera worth giving a few months to?

It is indeed. I played it for quite some time. You don't have to pay a dime for it either, works just fine without paying.
As for the "questionable" part, I haven't seen it. The PCs are sexy as hell and there are a variety of costumes available, but I've only seen the far-right/far-left complain about that stuff. If you are referring to the elin types, they look like children and can only wear children's clothes. I also don't think the game would be around if there was "questionable" content there.

 

[Nismu]

Ahh yes forgot one that might be interesting .. If you like tera then blade and soul might be worth checking as well. Very similar game but more kung fu vibes.