Free MMO's

[Tingham]

Hey folks.

Ive recently been looking at some of the free MMO's out there, since my WoW has been a bit out of action.

Having tried 9 or 10 of them, ive come up with 3 that are basically wow clones + something. All 3 of these are really pretty good, ive got about 4 hours into each of them and I havent found anything majorly wrong as of yet.

1) LoTRO. Alright, quiet down at the back. Firstly, this is now free to play. You DO have to spend real money for some stuff. However, this isnt too bad for 2 reasons.

Firstly : You dont have to spend alot.

Secondly : You can earn it in game. For example, another bag slot cost me 295 turbine points. (About £2.50), whereas I can earn 10 by doing some easy "Tasks" like killing 60 bandits, or 50 spiders, or something. If these tasks line up nicely with your quests, then thats also awesome.

In addition, the player community is the most pleasant and mature that I have seen on any MMO. The sound and graphics is superb, making the game immersive, and in the few short hours ive played on it ive managed to pick everything up with ease.


2) Runes of Magic.

Damn good, damn damn good. Basically WoW, but free. As with all F2P MMO's, you have to spend small amount of RL money for stuff, but in Runes it is mainly cosmetic stuff, clothes and whatnot.

Its a good game, both graphically and musically, perhaps a little behind Lord of the Rings though, and slightly more cartoony. Obviously it lack's the intricate and absorbing back story that LOTRO has.


3) Allods Online.

As someone, somewhere, on the internet said. "In the beggining there was WoW, in the end there will be Allods". This is a superb game, in many ways. However it is extremely similar to WoW. Two factions, similar classes, even similar sounds in many ways. Graphically it is amazing, the sound is good, the gameplay is fluid. It isnt as much of a social experience as the other two though.


Im wondering if there is anyone around who fancies joining me on any of these. Particularly LOTRO or Runes. It would be nice to have a Haven presence on these games, (Especially on LOTRO, for some reason it seems to fit us well). I was in particular thinking of getting a Haven kinship going to LOTRO.

I hope im not overwriting something someone has already tried. Gimme a bell if you would be up for trying it. Warning though, LOTRO does take a long time to download.

Ting out.

 

[Tingham]

Just a note here, ive been playing these 3 games for about a week or two now, but I always keep coming back to LOTR, it has somehow managed, through some recent patches and other improvements, to improve itself no end. Worth a look in.

 

[Huung]

Just a note here, ive been playing these 3 games for about a week or two now, but I always keep coming back to LOTR, it has somehow managed, through some recent patches and other improvements, to improve itself no end. Worth a look in.

I have a lifetime sub to LotRO, and I do love it. I haven't played it in years though, and certainly not since it went F2P. Seems most of the community left are RPers, so yes, the atmosphere is more casual and mature than the majority of MMORPGs out there.

 

[Tingham]

Can I perhaps tempt you back to it in any way Huung?

 

[Huung]

Fraid not, matey. I played that game to death when it came out, and I'm not really going for the RPG style games atm.

My current love is World of Tanks, which I'll be playing for the foreseeable future. Also a free MMO, but more of a tactical FPS style game.

 

[Belfa]

Grand Fantasia - Cartoony F2P mmo with similar action bars keybindings and also gameplay to wow.

Four Story- Was one i played a while back. Similar class'es etc. Very much a wow clone.

Perfect World- Heard its good never played it.

Then theres WoW- Can never be cloned. Only 1 wow. Great game
ill post if i find more these are all F2P with some stuff needing RL money to play good post Ting.

 

[Kasatka]

Eve is free to play *cough cough*

 

[Angelic]

Eve is free to play *cough cough*

At certain level, yes. And at certain level of commitment.

From what I know, there's

Silkroad Online - fancy graphics, asian setting, slow levelling, kinda nice
Ragnarok Online - sort of anime MMO, top-down, nothing too exciting, very grindy. Has got free servers and shit.

Surely there's tons of others, I even played some of them, can't remember at the moment though.

 

[Tingham]

Yeah, ive had a look at in at the above . Even Eve. Which I thought was interesting with alot of potential, and I did try it for a while.

What am basically driving at here is:

Now that Lord of the Rings online is much improved and free to play, would anyone be interested in working with me to set up a THN Presence on the Game?

 

[Angelic]

Now that Lord of the Rings online is much improved and free to play, would anyone be interested in working with me to set up a THN Presence on the Game?

Am I missing something here - from what I understood while reading the official site the free version has misicule gold limit, very limited AH and mail funcionality...? Is it even playable on some reasonable level?

 

[thatbloke]

I'm no expert on the subject but I believe that those limits can be increased with microtransactions - and the currency for said microtransactions can be earned by in-game actions (though likely much slower than if you were to stump up some RL monies)

 

[Tingham]

The gold limit isnt something that has been an issue as of yet, though i could understand why it could be.

As for the AH. Basically how it works is you can buy everything as you would with any other MMO. (Actually the search and filter is very good, and the ability to put stuff up on the cheap JUST for your Kinship is superb). Selling is, I have to admit, very odd. Basically you buy slots for auctions. 5 slots costs 95 turbine points.

To put this in perspective you begin with 200. You can buy them at a rate of about 500 for 4 euros or so, perhaps a little less. Or, and this I think is cruicial and one of the things I really like:

You can earn them by killing crap, completing quests and evening using skills in the game, supah funky.

As far as I know there is no limit on mail functionality. Ive been using it constantly and thouroughly. (Ignore the spelling im on a strange keyboard - I hope my hotel's internet holds for this post tbh).

Edit because I saw Blokies post : Yup, your right. Though ive been suprised by how they mount up. Example

Cost of 5 AH sell slots: 95 points.

From Bree Land Questing: 20
From Killing stuff as I did it : 60
From Class Quests : 35

That was up to level 15 or so. One thing I did forget to mention is that, because it is in general a much harder game, levelling is alot harder and slower.
So no. Your not missing anything. Dont get me wrong, you do have to pay for some things, but it works out less than paying a subscription. I got myself another char slot, 5 more AH selling slots, an experience boost tome and a funky horsie for the turbine points i had earned just through questing for a day or two.

 

[Tingham]

Actually, ya know what. Big post on this subject incoming soon

 

[Belfa]

Ting if you could fill me in on download and gameplay and shizz like that ill give it a go can i be a warrior?

 

[Angelic]

Hm...this sounds quite reasonable. I remember having played LOTRO like a year ago, so it's likely my pc will hold up to it - I think I shall re-download it so I have something to waste time on when I don't feel like studying I would expect your details, Ting - like server and faction and stuff

So yeah, see you in game - but only between LoL and most importantly studying, to scarcely!

 

[Tingham]

Okay guys, well, a massive post with full links and details will follow on after my exam tommorow

 

[Angelic]

Okay guys, well, a massive post with full links and details will follow on after my exam tommorow

What a coincidence, I have an exam tomorrow morning as well Good luck to you, sir! Might I inquire what subject is your exam in? Not to derail the thread in the slightest, of course (Mine's pathophysiology.)

 

[Tingham]

International Political Economy here . Good luck to you too!

 

[Silk]

You should add everquest 2 to that funky list

(EQ2 extended)

It's not bad at all, I preferred it to Lotro.


Also add champions online, which again is a nifty game. It's like city of heroes, but good

 

[Windzarko]

Flyff (aka "Fly for Free" or "Fly for Fun" or something) was very grindy, but had a certain charm to it that I found entertaining; it's one of those games that's free but kept alive by microtransactions.

Same goes for Allods, if that's still about. Oh, and for Gunz: The Duel if you want something more shooty and don't care if you get RSI (I only stopped playing that game when I realised that having to go to the freezer and put something cold on my wrists after every other match was a BAD thing, even for the trade-off of K-styling being AWESOME fun if you could pull it off).

Also, Hellgate London is about to see its revival, and it'll be free to play. As I understand it, when it relaunches it'll have all the original content it had when it died (including the expansion and other stuff you used to have to pay extra for), along with all the patches and updates its had in Korea/Japan in the years since it died over here. Beyond that, I'm not sure how it'll work (like if you'll have to buy a hard copy of the game, and I imagine the online play will be bouyed up a bit by microtransactions of some sort). I'm just hoping that my collector's edition from the original launch years ago will count for something still...