Poll of the Day > Which paid MMO is the best?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Surprise me.

For solo players? SWTOR. By now there's a years worth of content if you do all 8 class types 8 hours a day. I haven't played it since 2014 and it was long then. I beat 4 then waited a year then did 4 more. Launch then 2014 after giving up on ESO.

If you're into more fantasy stuff, I'd go EverQuest 2. Start level 1 in Faydwer. Or whatever you like. Just do the quests like it was day 1. The collection stuff, etc. No boosting. Just play solo unless you find others ding what you do. If you skip to the end it's a completely different game.

If you're into grouping go FF14.

If you're into hardcore raiding with 50+ people, go original EverQuest. You'll have to choose the guild wisely and most of them will be vets so you'll be doing a lot of catching up. But yeah it's as old school hardcore as you can get. Unless they changed it, you couldn't even solo light blues at high level years ago. Non-raid light blues lol. Certain classes only. If you ask me, they're nuts, but people still like it. The progression servers are nice too, but I'm not a sadist.

Gemstone IV

while not sure if free - Guild Wars 2 is coming to steam soon, and I never played it

Honestly I never found one that I completely liked.

Before the blizzard stuff with sexual harassment and then their evil mtx bs, I gave up wow because of their loot time gates.

FF14 is okay except there's a patch of missions that's pretty much busy work with no progress and even skipping the scenes it still took me 3 days of over 6 hours of gameplay each day to get through.

Eve was fun until you realize their time gates are the worst in all of gaming. All skills, including those needed to fly certain ships take any where from 30 minutes to 28 days. So most battle ships will take literally over a year to train. And that's also without you training for mining, industry, manufacturing skills as well. So there's a lot of "oh that ship looks cool! I wanna try it" then you set up all the skills and realize it'll be ready for you to fly in the fall of next year.

No of you count freemium MMOs, if you are into 2d side scrolling Maple story is fun but as one of the first games to offer MTX it is probably one of the worst when it comes to milking you dry. Game play is fun and you can definitely get by doing the game cheap, but it can be difficult.

Lokarin posted...

while not sure if free - Guild Wars 2 is coming to steam soon, and I never played it

no monthly subs, and you can definitely access a ton of content without paying money. some things are level gated if you are purely F2P (like the various pvp modes). each expansion unlocks one more elite specialization for each class and gives a bunch more zones to explore. first two expansions are bundled for $30 (often goes on sale for half price), and the most recent expansion is $30 by itself. there's an expansion about once every couple of years (2015, 2017, 2022).

the scummiest part of the game's monetization is that between each expansion there's something called a Living World that are like patches between expansions that add one zone at a time, and there's something like 7 Living Worlds per expansion. if you're around when the Living World is new, you get it free, but otherwise it's $2 per chapter. and a lot of easier character progression (and stuff like flying) is locked behind multiple chapters. like one of the two flying mounts is locked behind about 5 chapters of grind.

hopefully they do what they did a while back and begin putting old Living Worlds on rotation to keep forever, because this one system is a pretty trash aspect on an otherwise extremely wallet friendly game. expansions are relatively cheap and spaced out

hypnox posted...

FF14 is okay except there's a patch of missions that's pretty much busy work with no progress and even skipping the scenes it still took me 3 days of over 6 hours of gameplay each day to get through.

they've since truncated a LOT of the annoying parts of A Realm Reborn compared to years ago. and if you're skipping anything past like 2.1, the game probably isn't for you, because the story is the main focus

Runescape

Old School Runescape.

agesboy posted...

they've since truncated a LOT of the annoying parts of A Realm Reborn compared to years ago. and if you're skipping anything past like 2.1, the game probably isn't for you, because the story is the main focus

Seems kinda weird to have an MMO that the main focus is the story. That short of isn't the point of an MMO.

Straughan posted...

For solo players? SWTOR. By now there's a years worth of content if you do all 8 class types 8 hours a day. I haven't played it since 2014 and it was long then. I beat 4 then waited a year then did 4 more. Launch then 2014 after giving up on ESO.

If you're into more fantasy stuff, I'd go EverQuest 2. Start level 1 in Faydwer. Or whatever you like. Just do the quests like it was day 1. The collection stuff, etc. No boosting. Just play solo unless you find others ding what you do. If you skip to the end it's a completely different game.

If you're into grouping go FF14.

If you're into hardcore raiding with 50+ people, go original EverQuest. You'll have to choose the guild wisely and most of them will be vets so you'll be doing a lot of catching up. But yeah it's as old school hardcore as you can get. Unless they changed it, you couldn't even solo light blues at high level years ago. Non-raid light blues lol. Certain classes only. If you ask me, they're nuts, but people still like it. The progression servers are nice too, but I'm not a sadist.

Are you sure that you know what you're talking about @Straughan ?

From what I understand about The Old Republic the game takes a serious nosedive once you go into the expansions. The core game is really good though, but you're probably better off just playing the free version that lets you go through the campaign. Even then, it's an EA game, it tries to nickel and dime you for almost everything, even after the monthly fee(this last part I actually can confirm).

Everquest 2, unless they made a huge change in the last 7 years, it's a godawfully dated game. The interface is a nightmare, and like with EA games, it will nickel and dime you for almost everything.

Everquest 1 is even more absurdly dated, why would you recommend it?

Oh, and I'm playing FF14 right now, most of the content can be played fine single player, and it's so insanely well populated that you'll have a super easy time finding a party as long as you're a healer or tank, and the game is made in a way so it's a LOT easier to do both roles as long as you pay attention. You'll be fine!

EchoBaz posted...

From what I understand about The Old Republic the game takes a serious nosedive once you go into the expansions. The core game is really good though, but you're probably better off just playing the free version that lets you go through the campaign. Even then, it's an EA game, it tries to nickel and dime you for almost everything, even after the monthly fee(this last part I actually can confirm).

The expansion content is a bit rougher for solo, but I got through Revan just fine. That was the last I played. I was one of the first to beat him when the expansion dropped. They had to emergency patch it to fix everything. As far as the newer content? Not sure, but why would they all the sudden make it less soloable? Would be a dumb move.

EchoBaz posted...

Everquest 2, unless they made a huge change in the last 7 years, it's a godawfully dated game. The interface is a nightmare, and like with EA games, it will nickel and dime you for almost everything.

The pay model was just sub and play. This whole f2p thing i never count because the market was always cosmetics when I played. He asked paid so I didn't talk about the free model. And dated? Sure, but that's my experience and I still say today that it's auniquely loveable experience. The UI was just fine for me.

EchoBaz posted...

Everquest 1 is even more absurdly dated, why would you recommend it?

It was my first mmo and is still going. Dated or not new people play every day. I recommend what I know.

EchoBaz posted...

Oh, and I'm playing FF14 right now, most of the content can be played fine single player, and it's so insanely well populated that you'll have a super easy time finding a party as long as you're a healer or tank, and the game is made in a way so it's a LOT easier to do both roles as long as you pay attention. You'll be fine!

I led a hardcore raid guild with 2 other guys August of 2013 when the re-release came out after the new patch and we were server-first Turn 5 Bahamut on Gilgamesh(when it existed, i heard they merged). Sure, you can solo just fine it in, but it doesn't require queueing and grouping for the main quest or it did at one time. Swtor never did. Every single piece of the content could be done solo or with a companion ai.

Straughan posted...

Sure, you can solo just fine in it, but it does require queueing and grouping for the main quest or it did at one time.

As of later expansions, you actually can do almost everything legit solo with AI party members. All new dungeons since the previous expansion have them, and (kinda spoilers but not really but maybe) one of the three trials can be done with AI party members. But even for forced multiplayer content, queue times are super fast and it's not like they require real teamwork or anything. DPS and tank are basically the exact same experience as compared to solo, and healing requirements are incredibly lenient.

And on a tangentially related note, you can do everything but the super duper endgame stuff solo with AI party members in FFXI. Game went from forced socialization in order to progress at all to one of the best solo experiences of all time when the last mini-expansion hit about half a decade ago.