MMORPG Recommendations?

[ZomBelleGrim]

I haven't gotten to play many MMORPG games, and I was wondering what you guys would recommend. I've played Forsaken World on my PC, and I'm currently playing Elder Scrolls Online on my Xbox One. I'm mostly looking for ones I can play on the PC, but ones for Xbox One or PS4 would also be nice. Anything would be greatly appreciated! :3 Thanks ^_^

[teresko]

Tried out "Tera" not so long ago. Liked the fight mechanics.

Aside from that, MMORPG is currently stagnating, because WoW is still too large and everyone is waiting for it to start dying.

[cardboard_man]

Guild wars 2 is good, i have not played it in a few months but when the new expansion comes out i will probably play it again. And final fantasy 14 seemed alright when i played it also a few months ago, i believe it has a 14 day free trial.

[MrFlyte]

I'm going to link you to this thread I posted a couple days ago as my recommendation:
https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/black-desert-online-jp-maybe-one-of-the-best-mmos-you-havent-heard-of/84402

Also, I have a guild now in the game, and we could always use more members :D

[ZomBelleGrim]

@cardboardman, thank you. :) And my boyfriend actually bought FF14, and he said if I wanted to play I just had to make a person on his account, so yay. And thank you @MrFlyte, I will definitely check it out. :3

[turin231]

I second guild wars 2, also B2P like ESO which is a very consumer and stress friendly model. The expansion is on pre-purchase so they have a deal that by buying the expansion you also get the core game if you are a new player. So you get both for like 45bucks. So it is a good deal. Probably the best one you can get for a long time. I am a bit burned out by it until the expansion comes but i did play 1.3K hours before i reached this point...So it is worth it.

[Calculatron]

Do not go there. 'Tis a silly place.

But, seriously, unless you have a group of friends that are dedicated to playing the game, it's like playing a hollow shell of what should be.

[GnomishViking]

Well I've been playing Runescape for ten years (don't judge ;P) Guild wars 2 is amazing but I haven't played in months cause once you max there isn't much point in coming back. SWTOR is good if you like Stat Wars but you pretty much have to sub and the game does get repetitive. Currently I just started ESO:TU and am having a blast!

[MrFlyte]

Okay, I see a lot of responses for Guild Wars 2, and I'm going to recommend not picking it up unless casual is your type of MMO.

GUILD WARS 2 REVIEW

About 2 months ago I hopped back into Guild Wars 2 for the first time in a couple years. I got it...pretty much at launch.
Now, the launch had a lot of problems. The dungeons were stupidly difficult that the only way to finish them was to break them. I remember me and my guild running the Ascolonian Tomb - or whatever it's called; the first dungeon. And the only way to effectively beat the boss was to run up a stair case on the far side of the room. When you did that, the bosses AI just farted everywhere and it would just stand and do nothing as long as you were on the stairs.
Other dungeons, like Arah, were so damn difficult and had no possible way of breaking it like the AC dungeon above, NO ONE, not one DAMN person ran the dungeon.

So fast forward to today...er...really 2 months ago when I hopped back in to see what had changed. Well I was glad to see all the dungeons are very much possible now...maybe too much so. I had just come off of playing Wildstar, which is a really freakin tough MMO (it's going Free to play this fall, I recommend picking it up once it does), so maybe I was use to Wildstar's difficulty curve, but when the guild I was part of told me "Here comes the hardest boss in the game," and then proceeded to tell me the mechanics of the fight and amp me up for a really tough fight...man, how I was let down. The boss was a joke. I could have gone in there without any of that information and probably would have been just fine. GW2 has no challenge, and it became boring very quickly for me on my second time through.
It does have some redeeming factors, however. I still love the World v World PVP! This is some of the finest MMO PVP I have seen yet! I loved it. I played shit tons of it. If you do get GW2 - make sure to spend some time in WvW!
Buuuuut, other than that, you have a game that pretty much just uses a loose tab-target system, a very casual experience with little challenge to the game, jumping puzzles that the developers love and I absolutely hate because precision platforming sucks unless you have an analogue stick. The game also has issues with replayability if you decide to create a new character of the same race; because frankly, who wants to play as short nerd (okay, I'll admit, I kind of do) or a piece of overgrown lettuce?...or just a really tall Human. Which means you start in the same starting zone, with the same quests, same...everything. And the fact that map completion doesn't carry over from one character to another, it makes that slog of a grind (if you're like me and want 100% completion) feel so much more painful when you see your map back at 0%.

So, there is my review on GW2. I recommend looking up some gameplay videos before investing to see if it's something you'd be interested in, but count my vote against picking it up.

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OTHER MMO RECOMMENDATIONS

FFXIV is doing strong. I personally found it way too much like a traditional MMORPG to enjoy, but, people love it and it's doing well, so I would say look into that before GW2.

Skyforge just launched in Open Beta and is similar to the old Phantasy Star Online system. I hear it has addicting gameplay with near limitless progression, plus an active combat system. It's f2p, so probably worth checking out.

Blade N Soul uses a tab-targeting system and is a bit archaic in it's MMO design, but it has some standout features. Firstly, even though the combat is tab-target, it's fast-paced and aggressive, almost masking the tab-targety-ness of the combat. Down side is that there is no NA release at the moment. It's f2p, doesn't hurt to check it out, if you don't mind playing on the Russian servers with an English patch (that has been machine translated).

Warframe isn't quite an MMO. It's what I like to call a μMMO (microMMO) - it features onlien socializing, guilds, and group content, but doesn't have the traditional quest hubs or open areas to explore. Currently it's the most played game on Steam with - I think - 20k concurrent players at peak. It's a combination between MOBA style "Hero" selection, heroes, or "Warframes" that have their own abilities, with a system somewhat similar to the Monster Hunter series in that you pick a mission and run it solo or with a group, mix in a heavy dose of loot grind and a light dash of collectible card game and that's Warframe. I have several gameplay videos if you would like to see more about the game, or also, there are tons of other Youtubers posting Warframe content daily.

I mentioned Wildstar, which currently I don't recommend hopping into the game. The player base is mostly gone save for a few hardcore players. They are in the middle of transitioning from a 15/mo sub fee to a f2p game coming this fall. The release of the f2p game will also revamp many of the game systems in almost a complete overhaul. However, it is an action/skill based MMORPG that uses active combat system and telegraphs so that players can dodge and position themselves around enemies and bosses - and trust me, the designers KNOW that showing where an attack is going to hit will make the game easy, so they made SURE AS HELL to pile in as many big ass telegraphs as they could to ramp that difficulty up.
Aside from combat and player housing, this game doesn't really do anything else unique to the MMO formula, but that's okay! Not every MMO needs to reinvent the wheel, so long as it has something going for it to stand out. The game has a sense of humor, cartoonish graphics with hand-drawn textures that have been hit or miss among players. I didn't really like the art style myself, but the gameplay was really, really good. Worth checking out once it goes f2p. The developers put up a LOT of good information on the game right after launch, I recommend going to watch their videos - they are really entertaining and informative about the game!

Finally, I already recommended Black Desert, and I'm going to recommend it again. People made comparisons that it's just a fantasy version of EVE. It has a massive world, active combat, kick ass graphics, player driven economy, the right level of challenge. As of right now, I am drooling over this game. Getting in is tough, because it's Japan only, but it's so worth it if it looks like your type of game. The post I linked has videos of gameplay in it that I recorded, along with a lengthy in depth review (so no point in reiterating that here). Check it out, and when you decide to join us in Black Desert, hop into the Media server. Fortissimo guild is waiting for ya ;D
(shut up about the name!!! Look, we were limited to JUST 10 characters, and it was a long struggle of finding a good name. You're just jealous you didn't come up with it..........yeah.....)

[uVis]

So bumping this a bit, with a request for more specific information:

Is there anyone playing an MMO with any active immersion/roleplaying in it? Not the renaissance/theatric stuff that barely touches upon the setting, but where people actually play a character within that world. (rather than aliens touching down in the "rp spot" of the server)

An example would be EVE, where even the meta can be considered RP, or alot of the old MUDs (like the Iron Realms games).

Any games with a fantasy setting and good atmosphere out there? It's OK if it's mainly OOC, as long as the mindset exists/is encouraged (you'd want to play a game as well).