Battlegrounds in WoW are super fun. I don’t understand why PvP in this game is so consistently trashed on the forums, and battleground participation seems to be only a small fraction of the population. It’s a pity…those BGs are really one of the most fun experiences I have in WoW anymore.
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wow has pvp then other mmos thats the only reason i sub wows pve is for the super hard core m+ and raids other then that there isnt much there.
other mmos like eso and swtor have better content for casuals and pvp thats why i play them.
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Here is one of the message boards
Here is the Windows install instructions (includes links and there is a Linux version if you wanna try that)
Basic Server Install - Windows - EQEmulator Docs
https://docs.eqemu.io/server/installation/server-installation-windows/
All in all its a relatively simple install at this point (there is a LOT of old data out there that can make it confusing - this was started in the late 2000s or 2010)
To modify you just need to do a little database work. You can play on the same computer you set the server on, you can go god mode, and you can use bots to fill out your party.
You can even open up your server to everyone to join 
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FFXIV - Very populated with more active players than WoW. Leveling is a bit slow, but not too bad. PvP is an afterthought and not a main part of the game. End game is there with raids at different levels. Price is the same as WoW. TONS of content with story, expansions, housing, mini-games, etc. Combat style is similar to WoW. Hardware requirements are similar to WoW, maybe a bit less. Community is phenomenally better than WoW with toxicity being shunned. New player experience isn’t bad, but it does take a bit to get into the game. The class system is the biggest thing that makes it unique - you can be any /all classes with any / all professions on one single character (switch weapons and gear to change class).
New World - Population is diving, the game shouldn’t have been pushed out when it was. Leveling is pretty bleh. The game is centered around PvP, but in the early days had / have many imbalances and game breaking bugs. End game is PvP and territory control. If you are part of the big guilds, that is okay, but otherwise it’s bleh. Price model is B2P, so buy the game and play it free after that. Content is lacking - dungeons are fun, but you have to have expensive keystones to get into them (consumable), so you can’t run those often. Gathering is oddly satisfying. Art style is good given it is a new game. Combat style is action combat, but not a very fun action combat. Hardware requirements are higher than WoW. Community is about the same as WoW. New player experience is poor - don’t count on doing anything meaningful until max level. The game was pretty much ruined by a premature launch, bugs and dupes that ruined the economy.
BDO: Didn’t play it that much, but can say it is PvP centered. Graphics are amazing and combat style is pretty fun, but it lacks content and has P2W elements.
GW2: Population is meh. There are people playing, but not a bunch. Leveling seemed very dull to me. Didn’t PvP in this game nor did I reach end-game. Price model is B2P if I recall. Content is okay. AH is the best I’ve seen of any MMO. Combat style is unique, but still tab-target. Different weapons give you different skills. Hardware requirements are less than WoW. Community is pretty quiet, I don’t recall any socializing. New player experience is okay, but kind of meh.
Lost Ark: Population is mostly bots, and there are a TON of them. Leveling is pretty fun, but gets a bit frustrating when gearing up and having 0.2% chance of success to upgrade. Game is F2P, but you can buy things that give you a better leveling / gearing experience. Not really P2W. Loads of content, but you are stuck behind gearing and upgrading to advance to the next areas. Community is okay, but way too many bots. New player experience is pretty good until you run into the upgrade wall. Combat is action style, but the game is isometric so… think of it more like Diablo than WoW.
SW:TOR: Population is okay, not too many but still enough to socialize and group with. Leveling is fun and has tons of fully voiced over story. I would put SWTOR story at or above the level of FFXIV, which is to say WAY better than WoW. PvP exists and is pretty fun, but I miss the days of original Huttball. Art-style is pretty cartoony and the graphics aren’t the best. They have improved since launch and are okay, but… wish they used a different engine. Combat style is tab-target. Hardware requirements are lower than WoW. Community is pretty decent. New player experience is great. Fully voiced over story, different play modes, dungeons, etc make it a pretty fun game. I would say it is the best solo player MMORPG on the market.
LOTRO: OLD MMO. I played back when it launched and it was pretty fun. No idea on current population, but I wouldn’t expect much. Leveling experience back then was meh, but you could level doing unique things like baking pies. No idea on PvP or end-game. Price model I believe is either B2P or F2P with bonuses for buying items. Content is okay, but seems like the same stuff expansion to expansion. Combat style is tab-target. New player experience isn’t great. It is LOTRO, so if you like the Tolkien books / movies, you’ll enjoy playing in that world.
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This is extremely helpful, man. Thank you for the jump-start!
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Albion Online is the most developmentally advanced MMO on the list. It stands out not just for the sheer number of systems, but also how cohesive and structured they are, and their level of technical excellence. If you can tolerate Diablo 3’s combat, you can really go places in Albion. There’s about 50 different niches you can get lost in. There’s stake dueling, 1v1 arenas, 2v2 arenas, 5v5 arenas, 10v10 BGs, 20v20 BGs, solo dungeons, 5 player dungeons, open world dungeons, 20 player raids, world bosses, world chest spawns, world pvp, faction pvp, guild pvp, alliance pvp, gathering, crafting, transporting, mercantile, land ownership, open world housing, instanced housing, all in softcore and hardcore flavors. Probably missing about 20 things, it’s basically the largest MMO ever made.
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There is an MMO called Fallen Earth Classic on steam for free right now.
You can play everything at no cost.
Its a niche game for sure but is worth a try. I play it a few times a month.
I believe that there going to release a new version in the future.
This youtuber has a video series out where hes looking for the worst MMO out there. He gave Fallen Earth a try and he gave it a decent rating.
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FE is really cool. It is really small and really short, but that is almost a positive. It is not trying to be the one true MMO. It’s kinda like playing a Fallout campaign but in a persistent player driven world.
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Awesome detailed reviews! Thank you so much. MVP of the thread so far
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I kinda get it due to the imbalance (bruuuuutal imbalance) what with iLevel at 60… but honestly, pre-60 I find it very VERY fun
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So true. For my alts, at least, leveling battlegrounds are much more fun.
Not exactly sure what you’re asking for specifically, but I’ve been playing MMOs for 21ish years, so who knows, some of this may help whatever you’re after (and I’m board in a meeting).
I’ll write these in order of when I started etc:
Ragnarok Online
Years played: Hardcore for like…5. But, I still play occasionally…sadly.
Key Focus: Back in the day, I was always attempting to prove my Vit/Crit Knight builds. Did a lot of MVP hunting. Barely touched WoE (pvp). Lots of social aspect stuff as well.
Pros: It was my first MMO so rose-coloured glasses are always on for this deeply flawed game. The character stat customization was crazy fun. Loved the art style (for the time). Gearing, though grindy, always felt insanely hype whenever you got that extra +1 on a piece of gear or you found that card you’ve been grinding for since the day before forever (0.01% drop rates… that thara frog card for my shield was bruuuuutal).
Cons: Grindy. As. F***. Non-responsive movement at times led to great sadness. Horribly outdated graphics. Totally an F2P maintenance mode game now. Making mistakes on character builds was nigh-impossible to correct (outside of a later paid service). Game play loop was all grind, very little else.
FFXI
Years played Less than a year.
Key Focus Figuring out how to run the game optimally and not have it lag or clip-out. Sometimes, sitting in a city seeing if anyone wanted to party to kill crabs.
Pros I think I saw a Chocobo once?
Cons Just an awful experience imo. The character build (job system) seemed cool… would have been awesome to be able to do much of anything with it. Pretty much a dead game now, though they still do updates for the remaining community apparently.
WoW
Years played When was vanilla beta? 2004? Since then.
Key Focus All over the place. Used to love just exploring the world. Raided for a while. Fell in love with BGs in Wrath. Really liked just dungeon running in Cata and MoP. Barely know what I was doing in the game the last few years.
Pros The first “big” vibing MMO I had played. Accessible, well, once upon a time. Very responsive combat. I still, to this day, find BGs fun. Great class fantasy. Raid bosses are still super cool.
Cons It’s just a different game now, and that’s just a con for me, not overall. Feels more like an instance-based looter shooter. Incredibly confusing onboarding to endgame. Grindy at the moment. Add-ons required for a lot of endgame content with others. Huge amount of easily-triggered rage in groups in-game.
FFXIV
Years played A little over two so far.
Key Focus Raiding, Story, crafting (oddly).
Pros Very little friction- you want to do something, go do it. One character can have all classes (jobs). Fantastic story. Game trains its players quite well. Fun player-driven social scene.
Cons Initial (pre-30) gameplay is painfully slow. Combat not as responsive as WoW (but not bad at all, especially when double-weaving becomes a thing). Currently no hardmode dungos (I know… 6.25… but we don’t have that yet). PVP while getting better, still pales in comparison to the POTENTIAL of WoW’s. Whenever I finish a patch’s MSQ I want another 10 hours straight to my veins.
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One of the best responses I’ve ever gotten. Well written. Thank you!
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Love it, old expansions were way better like mop and wod but the current ones are still fun if you break the game a little.
Love this one too. Gear is permanent, only 5 character slots though. It cost me 30 dollars one time but some people play free forever
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Resident MMO junkie here to give my two cents. I’ll skip retail WoW and talk about the others that I’ve played based on the criteria the og post asked for.
WoW classic: Wrath is on the horizon. There are only like 3 busy servers and dozens of completely empty ones. If you want to play singleplayer, go on an empty server, if you want to actually do end game content, go in those 3 servers. The prepatch is soon so jump in, power level, and have fun.
FF14: Continuing to be awesome. The game is much more story focused, so imagine the first 40 levels or so being essentially Cata/MoP level questing, but then after lvl 45 or so the quality leaps waaaaay up. It’s no secret that in FF14 you either quit in the first few hours, or you become a walking advertisement for the game XD The latest patch just came out where you get your own island to play with and people are loving it. But you’ll be playing 200+ hours of really good story before ever seeing it XD
Black Desert Online: My big problem with BDO is that it falls prey to a lot of Korean MMO stereotypes. There are gender locked classes, and a lot more classes for women than men. The women are hyper fetishized and men are either pretty bois or ugly brutes. It’s a lot more action combat style over substance gameplay with an absolutely incomprehensible story. The game is massive though, with basically unlimited leveling progression. It’s a one time purchase for only $10 but lots of microtransactions that become increasingly pay to win the longer you play, but it’s not god awful. If you want to be competitive though, prepare to spend thousands.
Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind gameplay, Oblivion interface, and Skyrim story telling. If you like Elder Scrolls, you will really like Online. To put it in other words for people who don’t know, it’s primarily first person perspective. While there is a third person camera, it’s not great. You’re better off in first person. Any class can fill many roles and wield many different weapons, the world is GIGANTIC with lots of fun side content stuff to do. It encourages exploration in really unique and fun ways. It’s a lot more “adventure” based where yeah, the main story is there, but mostly it’s more like an open world game. Since the sub is optional and it’s not expensive, it’s definitely worth dabbling in if nothing else. I’ve played over 100 hours and only completed one “zone” so to speak because of how fun the exploration is.
Everquest: Only played a little, the UI confused the crap out of me. It’s definitely very old style…you can play some really cool classes and the conversation mechanic is cool…but it’s kinda tough to get into, at least in my opinion.
Albion Online: Pay to win grinding game. Not really much else to say about it. You grind up cool stuff, but you do so with the knowledge that if you paid a bit of money, the cool stuff you grinded up could be just that much cooler and it never stops being annoying. It’s not terrible by any means and is great for a bit of fun, but the pay to win aspect never stops staring you in the face.
Guild Wars 2: I played hundreds of hours of this and yet strangely I never really got into it. To me, the game didn’t start being fun until well past max level. The leveling content is essentially BFA’s end game, so if you find world quests fun…congrats, that’s every quest in the leveling experience. Not bad but not great. Once you hit max level though…that’s when the game actually starts. Good story, great fun, the dragon riding mechanic is ripped straight out of their mounts except they go way way beyond it with mount families and special stuff like that. It’s much harder to reach that point in my opinion, but very worth doing.
Lost Ark: Another Korean type mmo with gender locked classes, but this one with a top down perspective that feels almost like a Diablo MMO done right. Fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, very good questing and class balance…but just like BDO, the end game is very pay to win and if you want to be at all competitive…spend thousands of dollars.
And those are all of the ones you listed that I’ve played, but I also would like to suggest games like RIFT, Path of Exile, Warframe, or even Planetside 2.
RIFT especially is like an AU WoW, created by the people who left Blizzard during the big Cataclysm controversy and were like “We’ll make our own game! With necromancers and talent trees and cross faction and dragons and stuff!” XD It’s good for a bit of fun, but I haven’t looked at it in a long time. Last I checked it was a lot of fun, though it’s had some free to play growing pains that are a bit controversial.
2 Likes
Excellent in-depth reviews. Thank you!!
Population. How high is it, and is it important for this particular game?
Don’t know, but seems to be very healthy.
Leveling experience. How long does it take and how fun is it?
As long or a short as you want. I find it fun because the leveling experience is linked to the Main Story and you don’t feel like you’re leveling so much as progressing through a genuine RPG and story.
PvP. Does it have PvP? What is it like?
It has PvP, but I’ve never touched it.
End-game. I’m interested in both group-based end-game content and solo opportunities.
Fantastic. As casual or as hard-core as you want.
Price model. Free? How bad are the P2W aspects?
Pay to play with monthly sub. Absolutely no aspect of legal P2W
Content. This is a broad topic, but I’m thinking about how many different activities are there to engage in? Professions? Housing?
Incredible professions, can be any class you want, housing, though, that can be tough to get in to. Dungeons are pretty fun, as are raids and the in-game Casino and its associated mini-games.
Art-style. How good does it look? Do you enjoy its particular aesthetic?
Fantastic. I love the Art-style. It’s just cartoonish enough to not be uncanny, but realistic enough to feel genuine. You can be as armored or skimpy, serious or goofy as you want on a male or female character.
Combat Style - Is it just button mashing, or is there some other nuance?
Button Mashing is discouraged and proper timing of keypresses sees a huge increase in your performance.
Hardware requirements - Some games can run on very little, others need a decent machine
Diverse machines seems to handle the game well. It runs on consoles.
Community. How do other players behave? Is toxicity common, or is it a rare occurrence? Are more experienced players willing to help a newbie out?
Very solid community and the overwhelming majority are fun and helpful.
New player experience . Is a second monitor needed to learn how to play and manage the game systems? Are there adequate tutorials and explanations present in game?
If you like reading and you’re okay with exploring UI’s the New Player experience is fine. If not you may want to have a friend guide you through the start.
Uniqueness. What makes a particular game stand-out from the others?
Solid Dev leadership who understand fully the game they are making, have an actual plan for the game’s life, and actively listen to and provide responses to player feedback.
Miscellaneous and other opinions that are important to know about a particular game.
It’s an RPG and Story-Delivery vehicle first. MMO Second. It allows you to play and interact with others and your friends and to laugh and cry over its content together better than any other multiplayer game I’ve seen.
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Guild Wars 2 has a final expansion… meh! 
Could never get into Elder Scrolls Online… the controls are awful! 
Star Wars: The Old Republic is still Online? 
Ditto for Star Trek Online… 
Looking into Final Fantasy XV this weekend… 
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i wanna try ff14 so bad but i can’t figure out what i need to purchase on the website, feel like i’m in a raid already
There are 7 very active servers, not 3 and the empty servers have been merged. Just FYI.
https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/599712/final-fantasy-xiv-online-starter-edition
It’s not hard.