Another free MMO suggestions thread

[Elheru Aran]

Yell-o.

STO has gone sour for me. I got to level 50 on two characters and gave up halfway through my Klink because, well, what's the use, they're all pretty much the same after a while. It's all some variation on spaceships zooming around, although to be fair to them, the space combat was pretty nice. I wouldn't mind a MMO space-combat sim that worked similarly.

Downloading SW:TOR, but wondering if that's worth it. Is it any better than how the first pages of the "SWTOR went F2P" thread depict it? Because it sounds like it deals a lot of bullshit for not a whole lot of results.

I tried Age of Conan a while ago, but... eh. About the only thing I was really interested in was boobs, and watch those running around for a few hours, well, I'm okay. It didn't help that (for me) the gameplay and combat was really shitty. Computer couldn't keep up with it.

Is Warhammer Online still a thing? Or did it die?

Oh yeah. I faffed about on LOTRO for a while, but ran out of steam around level 36 or so. Just too much running about doing nothing in between objectives. Everything else was fine, but the massive distances to cover... ugh.

Thanks for all suggestions...

[Borgholio]

The classics are going free to play now. Dungeons and Dragons online is free for the most part. Everquest 1 and 2 have gone free to play. WoW is free for low-levels.

[TheFeniX]

Eve is P2P, but I've read if you're willing to grind the ISK you can play for "free."

I said it before: but the leveling was where SWTOR shined, but I had 3 buddies I leveled with. There's more than enough stories to play through so you could get some mileage out of what is essentially 8 KOTOR3s of varying quality.

Rift is always there and was pretty fun, but there was nothing really in-depth about it rather than the slick builds you could do.... and the people screaming "this isn't WoW: you can't main a spec/soul." D&D Online couldn't hold my interest for more than an hour.

If you're looking for longevity you have to, at least in my experience, go to the few good P2P options out there. Aside from Eve, there is of course WoW and Squeenix has been doing everything they can to hold onto the millions of subscribers FFXIV somehow managed to score. Most likely it was by releasing a decent game that, for once, wasn't a port of something they made in the 90s. Still content pacing for FFXIV is miles ahead of what Blizzard has been selling.

Low-level stuff in WoW is horribly dated for any of the pre-cata races. You may get some mileage out of Worgen, Goblin, or Panda leveling. The rest was boring even my first time through. The sad part is, WotLK onward has some of the best leveling content new players won't see.

[Iroscato]

I've always liked Pirate Galaxy, played it for years now. It's what I would describe as an 'entry-level' MMO, quite basic and simple, but it's fully 3D with some pretty nice graphics, and you can upgrade your ship, customise the paint job, squad up with other players and blast some aliens or follow a story that is courageously translated from German to English

[Borgholio]

courageously translated from German to English

The German version of "All Your Base"?

[phred]

EQ 1 is one of the biggest worlds out there, and you can spend months just leveling.

I'm trying The Secret World out right now. It's $25 to get and free after that. We'll see how long it lasts.

[Iroscato]

courageously translated from German to English

The German version of "All Your Base"?

Heh, not quite that bad, it just makes it more endearing when they slip up

[bilateralrope]

WoW is free for low-levels.

Lets try to not confuse a free trial with free to play.

Eve is P2P, but I've read if you're willing to grind the ISK you can play for "free."

You can, but paying for the first month from what you earn through the 21 day trial is regarded as a challenge even for experienced players. Plus having to earn so much ISK gets boring quick.

My advise is that if you're interested in Eve Online then pay the subscription unless you find yourself earning enough spare ISK to buy PLEX.

[White Haven]

The Secret World is a really interesting case that is both a lot of fun and a tragic waste at the same time. It's dubiously balanced, it's got a UI that occasionally decides to wander off and get drunk, the controls and animations are a mixed bag, and yet that's all pinned to some of the best writing and quest design to come out of RPGs in years, MMO or otherwise. It leans on that writing HARD to make up for its many shortcomings, but that's a hell of a pillar to lean on.

If at all possible, play it with a group of friends who are also new to it. The group dungeons, in particular, would be a tragedy to miss out on, because they're actually hella immersive and atmospheric. Ultimately, it's a deeply flawed game that won't hold you forever, but it is very much worth the time you put into it until then. The tragedy is that it could have been so much more, and isn't.

[Elheru Aran]

So SWTOR has improved from its initial F2P release? That's good to know.

EVE scares me. It doesn't sound so much 'cool space sim' as it sounds more like 'cutthroat mercantile space sim full of assholes who will waste your butt in two microseconds for an extra cred unless you pay/grind your way up to insane levels' sometimes... So. Eh. Maybe not?

WoW is... cool in concept; not sure it's got staying power for me though. And the P2P side of things doesn't fly for me, either. I don't get to play very regularly, so I need to be able to drop the game one day and then pick it up again the next week-- a limited time free trial won't really work.

DnD Online, Everquest... hmm. Is there any significant difference between the two?

I don't really do groups, mostly because I don't know a lot of people, so it's all strictly single-player action for me for the most part, I'm afraid...

[Borgholio]

it sounds more like 'cutthroat mercantile space sim full of assholes who will waste your butt in two microseconds

That's exactly how it is. And they don't do it for money. Sometimes just for fun or to hear your "carebear tears" when you whine about it. But it's not like instant death, even newbies and casual players have a great deal to do and can be safe doing it too.

unless you pay/grind your way up to insane levels

Even that can't save you. A large group of low-skill characters can group up and waste you if they really want to time it right.

DnD Online, Everquest... hmm. Is there any significant difference between the two?

DDO is newer and has better gameplay and graphics. It's based on grinding quests more than exploration, while EQ is more dated...but has a truly massive world that you can quite literally get lost in. But it is also a somewhat empty world, most players having moved on to newer and prettier things.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeahhhh. I'm not big on highly competitive environments. I mean, that's the whole reputation of the game... it says something that you have to point out that there's stuff you can do on your own, away from the 500-lb gorillas, rather than that being where you start out and can stay if you want.

Everquest is sounding interesting. I get that it's an older game, but I don't mind empty. Never been into all the chatter and stuff. It's not going to die in like, two weeks? Being around for three or four months is probably enough time for me to get bored of it

[Borgholio]

It's not going to die in like, two weeks?

Nah it's been around for a decade and they're still releasing expansion packs every year or so.

If you get into EQ, let me know. I have an old character I can fire up on the Povar / Morden Rasp server.

[TheFeniX]

So SWTOR has improved from its initial F2P release? That's good to know.

That, I don't know about. The leveling process when I played at release was quite fun, even if endgame was a snooze-fest. If it's still like it was, you could get a lot of mileage out of just that single-player style. I don't believe there is any required group content to make your way to max level.

If you're already downloading it, definitely give SWTOR a shot. I've heard the Imperial Agent story is great. I enjoyed what I leveled Smuggler and Trooper to and the Jedi Knight storyline is basically KOTOR3.

WoW is... cool in concept; not sure it's got staying power for me though. And the P2P side of things doesn't fly for me, either. I don't get to play very regularly, so I need to be able to drop the game one day and then pick it up again the next week-- a limited time free trial won't really work.

Game cards might be an option, but I'm still annoyed there's no billing option like what you described. I've said it before, but I would keep my WoW account active for $5 a month just to be able to log in and maybe do a limited amount of dailies, dungeons, raids. That said, FFXIV has an "intro" subscription for $13 a month which gives 1 one character per server. But since 1 character can be all classes and do all the story content, it works for me.

It also manages to have much more memorable fights than anything, aside from maybe end of expansion bosses, WoW has. Only SWTOR comes close on that front.

I don't really do groups, mostly because I don't know a lot of people, so it's all strictly single-player action for me for the most part, I'm afraid...

Most MMOs have moved away from the idea of needing a dedicated group of players to get anything done. Hell, an annoyance of FFXIV is that you can't bring people with you to class/job/story quest duties (essentially small-scale instanced content). This is unlike SWTOR which will instead scale the difficulty of instanced story content based on the number of people you bring. There was nothing more fun than bringing a full group of people to my final class quests and still almost getting wrecked because the scaling was insane. Hell, the actual group content in SWTOR was the weakest part of the game, aside from maybe Heroic Group Quests.

[Meest]

Guild Wars 2 is a good solo free to play after the box cost game. Every class has it's own heal so there's no real dedicated healer so you can solo easily. Good for variety of gameplay choices, has the PvP arena environment for quick action, World vs World vs World for more persistent open world pvp play. Then the PvE which they call the Living Story, with a lot monthy and quarterly events along with the standard dungeon runs.

[phred]

The Secret World is a really interesting case that is both a lot of fun and a tragic waste at the same time. It's dubiously balanced, it's got a UI that occasionally decides to wander off and get drunk, the controls and animations are a mixed bag, and yet that's all pinned to some of the best writing and quest design to come out of RPGs in years, MMO or otherwise. It leans on that writing HARD to make up for its many shortcomings, but that's a hell of a pillar to lean on.

I gotta admit, the UI/control scheme is a fucking mess, but it's still interesting.

EQ isn't going away anytime soon. If you do decide to try it out, just head into PoK and ask for the biggest family guild. Instant friends and groups, which you will want since it wasn't really built for soloing. People drop in and out all the time, so it's not like you'll hurt any feelings if you wander off after a couple days/weeks/months

[biostem]

I've been playing Neverwinter for a while now, and it's pretty fun. The game is easy to get into and leveling is fast, but to compete in high level PvP can be expensive. Gearing up isn't too hard, and they have a system in place to exchange currency earned in-game for currency for the premium store.

From the same developer, is Champions Online - it's a fun game with lots of customization, but if you are a free player, you have to use one of the premade character archetypes, instead of full free-form power selection that you get as a subscriber.

[Serafina]

EVE scares me. It doesn't sound so much 'cool space sim' as it sounds more like 'cutthroat mercantile space sim full of assholes who will waste your butt in two microseconds for an extra cred unless you pay/grind your way up to insane levels' sometimes... So. Eh. Maybe not?

Speaking as someone who jumped into Null-Sec after about three hours of gameplay: EVE isn't scary.
You just have to keep one thing in mind: Don't fly what you can't afford to loose.
This means sticking with frigates for PvP and Cruisers for PvP for a long time (=first couple of months). Which is fine because you aren't really missing out on content on that: Frigates and Cruisers can do everything larger ships can and are useful in all parts of the game.


As for "space where other players can't ruin your shit" - thats called High-Sec and is indeed where you start out. Well, they can still shoot at you - but unless you are in a fragile ship with lots of expensive cargo, that generally won't happen (if you do, looting your wreck is more valuable than the ship they loose to the police ships).
Of course its also the "lowest-level" area of the game, with the least rewards for pretty much everything.


I am currently doing a whole bunch of things:
- Fly an Exploration Frigate on exploration runs. That is, scanning down signatures in star systems and hoping to find sites where i can hack containers for plenty of loot. A good 1-hour run can net me between 50 and 100 million ISK, a bad one is still about 10 mil. I am using an Astero, a ship that costs about 110 million with equipment in my area of space, though you can do Exploration in significantly cheaper ships too.
- Take part in Frigate Training Fleets from my Alliance. That means i grab a cheap frigate and fly around with a lot of other new players, whacking whatever players outside our Coalition we can find.
- Take part in strategic operations. I usually grab a really cheap (~10 million for three) Electronic Warfare frigate for that - when (not if) i get blown up i get its cost paid in full by my Alliance's Ship Replacement Program. Until then i make sure an enemy ship - even an expensive battleship - can do little to affect the fight.
- Mine Asteroids and Ice to fuel my Industry-activities in a pretty well-secured systems where the majority of miners have a few nasty ships docked up in case somebody harrasses us.
- Kill NPC ships for money when i am bored and want to blow some stuff up.

A lot of that is actually pretty non-competetive. On Exploration-runs, if there are non-friendlies in the system i usually move on to the next one. I do my mining and NPC-killing in space that is reasonably safe - i still risk loosing my ship, but only with a pretty small chance. And for the actual fleet activities i just treat my ships like ammunition.


And yes, i get blown up constantly. My Killlboard is about 90% losses, including some really expensive and stupid ones. But eh, you can also get frustrated from wiping at a raid boss from a stupid mistake, so no difference there. When that happens i usually replace my loss, see that i still have money to spare and then take a break.


As for being free to play - i am currently making about 17 million per day from Planetary Interaction (=colonies that produce stuff), which should add up to about 500 million per month. A PLEX (=30 days game time) costs about 800 million. I won't pay my entire game time with PLEX, but i should be able to buy one every two or three months and thus reduce the cost by quite a bit.

Also, there are 21-day trials if you accept a Buddy Invite - i could throw you a link for that, and most major coalitions have their own programs there. And the good ones offer loads of free stuff for newbies too.

[Elheru Aran]

Welp, I'm gonna try SWTOR for a while. I may jump back onto STO and finish leveling my KDF Gorn for the chuckles. When I get bored of SWTOR (I keep trying to type STOR for some reason) I might give Everquest a go... thanks everybody.

[TheFeniX]

I actually just last night installed SWTOR. I had to call EA support because someone managed to change my e-mail and lock my account. However, all my stuff was still there. Finally getting into the game, I can only sum up the F2P system with the following comment: "Pay us money and you can access the same stuff no one thought was worth paying money for years ago."

Seriously, pay money to unlock more than 2 action bars? A fucking interface option? Quality.™ I know I'm just yelling at clouds, but EA cannot make a F2P system that doesn't boil down to "gouge the fuck out of the customer." And these assholes are now exclusively in charge of Star Wars games.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Right? They seemed to have eased up a little since the F2P re-launch, though. From what I understand, Galactic Starfighter and Strongholds don't have the F2P restrictions that PvP, FPs, and Ops do.

[Elheru Aran]

OK, my first shot at SWTOR was kind of shitty, but today I played around a little more. Once I got the resolution adjusted (my god was it awful at default) it was far more playable.

But only 30 inventory slots? What the hell, EA? I could fill that up in a couple hours of pissing about. And adding more slots costs 5K creds when most drops only give you like 5 at a time? Fuck that.

I guess I'm gonna unload them at vendors pretty often...

EDIT:

Oh, apart from all that, though, it's not terribly different from LOTRO, which is nice-- familiar controls and all that. Just wish there was more of a Sprint ability. Force Jump and Sweep together though? Fun. And T7 is *very* useful. I'm only up to level 5 though. Ah well...

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

You'll get tons of credits once you're off Tython. Don't worry about the inventory costs. Things don't really get going until you're level 10 and on Coruscant, and even that's still the prologue. Chapter 1 starts around level 16-18.

[TheFeniX]

OK, my first shot at SWTOR was kind of shitty, but today I played around a little more. Once I got the resolution adjusted (my god was it awful at default) it was far more playable.

The game is still incredibly ugly by modern standards, even for an MMO.

NOTE: The rest of my information is OOOOLD, but may still be relevant.

But only 30 inventory slots? What the hell, EA? I could fill that up in a couple hours of pissing about. And adding more slots costs 5K creds when most drops only give you like 5 at a time? Fuck that.

I guess I'm gonna unload them at vendors pretty often...

You can send your companions off to sell your vendor trash. Takes about 5 minutes. It's at the far right of their portrait in the Crew Management window.

Oh, apart from all that, though, it's not terribly different from LOTRO, which is nice-- familiar controls and all that. Just wish there was more of a Sprint ability. Force Jump and Sweep together though? Fun. And T7 is *very* useful. I'm only up to level 5 though. Ah well...

You unlock an out-of-combat sprint at 15 or so. T7 will likely be replaced by Kira as she is all around more useful and is voiced by Laura Bailey with all her trade-mark snark. You don't unlock your healer till late in the game, so you may be forced to run a straight DPS build, like vigilance or whatever Sentinals get because they have huge upfront damage abilities in their early 20s.

Haha, found my old vibroblade.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Does the story take you all the way to lvl 50? I'm enjoying the Imperial Agent arc (lvl 11 so far), but I don't know if it will grip me that long, and I'd like to check out Jedi Knight at some point, too.