Your Opinion Requested about the "free" MMORPGs

[Whytewulf]

So I am waiting a bit for Star Wars to come out and thought I would check out some of the free games. I did my time with Evony and Lord of Ultima time sinks, and found Dungeons and Dragons online. It seems to have some decent graphics, character generations, weapons, etc. And the world seems to be fairly well populated. But I have seen other ads popping up and it seems there are 100's of these MMO type games out there. So I am curious on your thoughts and why.

 

[alandavidson]

There's the good old runescape if you're looking for good grinding up to levels. My personal favorite free MMO is Angels Online. It's basically Precious Moments gone wrong. It's not the best by far, and has its flaws, but it's a fun game to play overall.

Also check out Battlefield Heroes, a free third-person shooter with RPG elements (level ups, ability upgrades, class system, etc). It's a good way to waste time on a rainy day.

 

[Kagim]

Most of them ultimately feel weak in comparison to pay to play MMO's i have played.

I can get past graphics, hell Galaxies is my favorite MMO and gods be praised for the SWGemu someone on this site told me about, it's ultimately that they don't really offer anything cool. That or they have pay stores that make the game horribly unfair and in some cases break the game.

One of my favorite MMOG's ever was Gunbound. A game that has been trashed in its quest to siphon money by making cash payments the only way to get equipment for your character in a reasonable amount of time.

Or Dreamlords, a game that in order to get any equipment for your dreamlord or use half of your upgrades you had to spend money.

Fully equipping your dreamlord cost almost a hundred dollars, and you could very likely spend 20 bucks a week on upgrades in the game if you were an avid player.

Some games pull it off. LoL has an interesting idea, technically everything is unlocked to the player except different skins. Playable characters can be purchased with real and in game cash and the selectable characters change every week. So no one is really at a disadvantage. Paying money speeds things up and lots of people are willing to pay for that privilege. People who don't have much cash can enjoy the game and be uninhibited.

Aika was a decent game, but its lack of overall polish really showed. Gender specific classes and a broken feel to combat made a somewhat interesting game fall behind.

Sword of the new world is a pain in the ass to get the hang of combat. Overall i didn't have much fun once i figured it out either.

Silkroad is a half decent game but it has a click to move interface. If you don't mind that check it out.

....

Sorry for the reviews.

 

[Firoth]

They're all doomed to horrible inflation because of people spending real money to either buy in game currency or items then selling the real money only items for huge sums of in game currency. Plus they tend to be breeding grounds for the smacktards you get on Xbox Live.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

most F2P MMO's are avarege/weak compared to P2P MMO's (WoW, Guild Wars(< my favorite mmo btw), Age of Conan), but there are actually some good ones out there; Dungeons and Dragons online, Atlantica online and Runescape are some of them

 

[ShadowKatt]

most F2P MMO's are avarege/weak compared to P2P MMO's (WoW, Guild Wars(< my favorite mmo btw), Age of Conan), but there are actually some good ones out there; Dungeons and Dragons online, Atlantica online and Runescape are some of them

Point of contention, Guild Wars is free to play. If it was really your favorite, you'd know that.

 

[squid5580]

They're all doomed to horrible inflation because of people spending real money to either buy in game currency or items then selling the real money only items for huge sums of in game currency. Plus they tend to be breeding grounds for the smacktards you get on Xbox Live.

Oh so what you are saying is those smacktards come from PC gaming. Huh imagine that. Guess Live isn't to blame afterall. It was PCs the whole time.

 

[Firoth]

They're all doomed to horrible inflation because of people spending real money to either buy in game currency or items then selling the real money only items for huge sums of in game currency. Plus they tend to be breeding grounds for the smacktards you get on Xbox Live.

Oh so what you are saying is those smacktards come from PC gaming. Huh imagine that. Guess Live isn't to blame afterall. It was PCs the whole time.

Not by any means. Some smacktards are born in eggs that need to hatch, and some are born live...Xbox Live! Har Har Har!

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

most F2P MMO's are avarege/weak compared to P2P MMO's (WoW, Guild Wars(< my favorite mmo btw), Age of Conan), but there are actually some good ones out there; Dungeons and Dragons online, Atlantica online and Runescape are some of them

Point of contention, Guild Wars is free to play. If it was really your favorite, you'd know that.

o really? - so i don't have to pay anything to play the game? - i can just download it and make a free account?

 

[squid5580]

They're all doomed to horrible inflation because of people spending real money to either buy in game currency or items then selling the real money only items for huge sums of in game currency. Plus they tend to be breeding grounds for the smacktards you get on Xbox Live.

Oh so what you are saying is those smacktards come from PC gaming. Huh imagine that. Guess Live isn't to blame afterall. It was PCs the whole time.

Not by any means. Some smacktards are born in eggs that need to hatch, and some are born live...Xbox Live! Har Har Har!

Sure but the fact that PC gaming is breeding them in the first place says alot. Guess you can't fight genes.

 

[dfcrackhead]

All I have to say about this is:

3D and free: Perfect World International

2D and free: Maplestory

BrowserBased and free: Runescape.

 

[tlozoot]

I still have two high level accounts knocking around on Runescape...

...and I've got a few weeks before heading back to university...

 

[ninja555]

Some games pull it off. LoL has an interesting idea, technically everything is unlocked to the player except different skins. Playable characters can be purchased with real and in game cash and the selectable characters change every week. So no one is really at a disadvantage. Paying money speeds things up and lots of people are willing to pay for that privilege. People who don't have much cash can enjoy the game and be uninhibited.

Whats LoL?

 

[Kagim]

Whats LoL?

League of Legends.

An MMOG of Dota.

 

[Micky_PX]

I haven't played it in 4 years but the "basic" original Anarchy Online (without expansions) is F2P, and if you can tolerate outdated graphics (in saying that, in my opinion the artistic style and graphics were still pretty decent), a bit of laggyness and a lot of zoning and maybe a less refined gameplay compared to modern MMOs, it's worth a pop. I enjoyed playing it a lot. However, the expansion packs add a lot, especially the higher up in levels you go, so if you stick to the F2P version you'll probably feel a bit gimped equipment wise when compared to a similarly skilled and similarly levelled player who has the expansions.

Keep in mind, this is advice that's 4 years old so maybe a lot has changed, since I haven't kept up to date with it, but taking a quick google I can tell that the base Anarchy is still F2P.

 

[Firoth]

Oh so what you are saying is those smacktards come from PC gaming. Huh imagine that. Guess Live isn't to blame afterall. It was PCs the whole time.

Not by any means. Some smacktards are born in eggs that need to hatch, and some are born live...Xbox Live! Har Har Har!

Sure but the fact that PC gaming is breeding them in the first place says alot. Guess you can't fight genes.

Well, my point was that they can come from both places. I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of Live smacktards didn't even know you could play real video games on PCs.

 

[squid5580]

Oh so what you are saying is those smacktards come from PC gaming. Huh imagine that. Guess Live isn't to blame afterall. It was PCs the whole time.

Not by any means. Some smacktards are born in eggs that need to hatch, and some are born live...Xbox Live! Har Har Har!

Sure but the fact that PC gaming is breeding them in the first place says alot. Guess you can't fight genes.

Well, my point was that they can come from both places. I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of Live smacktards didn't even know you could play real video games on PCs.

You forgot the PS3. Although they are more elusive due to the lack of mics.

I wonder what the Wii's smacktard ratio is like.

 

[ShadowKatt]

most F2P MMO's are avarege/weak compared to P2P MMO's (WoW, Guild Wars(< my favorite mmo btw), Age of Conan), but there are actually some good ones out there; Dungeons and Dragons online, Atlantica online and Runescape are some of them

Point of contention, Guild Wars is free to play. If it was really your favorite, you'd know that.

o really? - so i don't have to pay anything to play the game? - i can just download it and make a free account?

Absolutely. Of course, you do have to buy the game from the store, after that though, you have no further recurring fees. However, if you intend to contest that point as not being a truely free game, then you cannot necessarily point to D&D:O either.

However, Guild Wars is pretty great. Excited for GW2.

 

[Wiiiiiiilliam]

Well my brother and sister are big fans of maple story. They're not hardcore gamers but they really like it. So they're probably fun for non-hardcore gamers.

 

[QCX]

I'd have to agree with the general consensus about this.

I have played my fair share of Free MMOGs and well they just don't stack up. A majority of them are WoW clones or worse and the game plays is less then lacking in the fun department.

It comes down the certain factors. One of the biggest is the fact that there's no money coming into the the game and therefor it has no push or pull when it comes to updating or content even.

I tried DnD online, which was good for a F2P game. But it still just does not flow like an MMO should and draw you back enough to continue past the starting area. Altho I do like the whole DnD storyline for the tutorial, that was pretty fun. I imagine playing this with a full group of RPer would be really cool.

Jade Dynasty - god what a waste of time and effort. From its videos it looks pretty good, but when you play it...there is just nothing to guide you or give any form of direction.

Now if your willing to spend $30 odd bucks, get yourself a copy of Global Agenda. It lacks in the questing area and general community feel, but makes up for it with the constant PVE and PVP. Its not everyone's cup of tea, but it's definitely worth $30 especially that is F2P now.

Atlantica was pretty good, but once again due to lack of devs it fails in content and player base.

I guess the main thing you got to take into factor is that these games don't generate an income and so the dev team is lacking in inspiration (payment) to continue developing anything for them. So most of them are released pretty much unfinished. Those that were P2P and are now F2P are pretty much games that had no player base, but are able to continue there servers via micro-tranactions.

All in all if your to cheap to pay either a monthly fee or money up front. Grab DnD its the most polished one out there.