For me its:

  1. Ultima Online

  2. Final Fantasy XI

  3. Ragnarok Online

UO was a game I just recently discovered and it’s fantastic, best sandbox experience I’ve ever had in a game.

FFXI was another recent discovery. It took the formula from Everquest and made it better. The game is even less grindy today with the QOL changes.

RO was a big part of my teenage years. I love the look of the game, it reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s a great casual game to just pop into and grind out some levels or explore.

  • Smeagolicious [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    Unfortunately the only traditional MMO I’ve put any significant time into is SWTOR - which I did enjoy playing as a singleplayer experience, or going through storylines in coop with a friend. The voice acting and storylines for the classes could be great, though there was a lot of variance in quality between them. Too bad it was held up by pretty mediocre gameplay.

    I’ve played a little bit of FFXIV and while I believe what the fans tell me about it, going through early A Realm Reborn stuff was a boring slog which didn’t compel me to play more.

    If Warframe counts as an MMO then it’s my favorite, ez.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Classic EverQuest (pre Luclin)

      Fond and painful memories of grouping in Blackburrow and Crushbone and getting killed by trains. I recently tried out modern EQ and there’s so much content, plus you can have an npc companion for heals which makes soloing viable.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    FFXIV: As a complete work, from the exceptionally great and varied music to the extended Valentine that the game is to the entire prior run of the series, it’s hard to top.

    Elder Scrolls Online: This one has unique vibes among MMOs, and has a special sort of “wander any direction and something will happen, voice acted and all” immersiveness to it, even if the game can sometimes feel too compact to feel like a world and more like a theme park instead.

    I’m having a hard time narrowing down on a third.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        Pretty standard fare for mmorpgs since WoW, the whole themparkization of questing.

        Even with that big shortcoming, there is still a lot to see and do, and just about all content but DLC dungeons are functionally free after you pay the box price, and the most recent box typically includes all previous expansions.

        Tamriel is one of my guilty pleasures, even with todd 's ongoing skullduggery and bad ideas floating over the rest of the series.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                Yeah, the overworld is meant to be roamed around in casually. Like many MMOs, the challenging areas are contained experiences.

              • batsforpeace [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                I had this issue too while questing, it took some tinkering to make a ‘nerfed profile’ where the overland enemies pose a bit of danger, wearing almost no armor, no blue/red CP skills, fairly low health, also using some of the new ‘scribing’ skills, they’re customizable but not very powerful, I use a npc companion too because it’s more fun gameplay overall, on average I don’t think people have enough time to mess around like this though, the overland feedback thread on their forum has like 200+ pages of people debating for and against raising overland difficulty lol

  • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    I’ve only played a handful. Let’s see if I can rank them accurately by fondest memories:

    1. World of Warcraft
    2. Everquest
    3. Ultima online

    Guild wars and the old Republic are the runner ups

  • Lerios [hy/hym]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    in a few months i will have put 20 years of my life into world of warcraft, starting at age 7.

    so idk what the best mmo is, but i can say with absolute certainty that its not WoW

  • Rose Thorne(She/Her)@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    1. FFXIV. While it’s been awhile, due to life circumstances, it will always hold a place in my heart.

    2. Rift. I only started after it went F2P, but I had an absolute blast running around in that game. I still adore the Chloromancer/Stormblade as a class concept, running around whacking shit with my electric sword to heal back health.

    3. Florensia. This one is probably a bit obscure, these days. It was a F2P MMO with an added focus on ship building and combat alongside your standard dungeon crawling and such. Cartoony graphics, grindy as hell, and where some early cracks probably started forming in my egg.

    It’s high up on my list, but I have to admit, it wasn’t for the game itself. There was a community there like no other, one that I really felt like myself in. Every day, the same names, the same faces, most of us doing more chatting than anything else.

  • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago
    1. Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU/NGE)
    2. ???
    3. ???
    spoiler

    I am gonna be honest I bounced off of basically every other MMORPG after that. Really ruined the genre for me, especially playing that game’s evolution into a F2P WoW-clone like many others in the genre. I had put hours into MANY others (and some very obscure ones, anyone here played Ryzom?) but didn’t really stick with any for more than a trial month. Then I got into Dota…

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU/NGE)

      I played on the Basalisk emulated server a couple years ago, classic SWG got me interested in Ultima Online since so much of it’s inspiration was taken from that.

      • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        The EMU servers are great, I just don’t have that kind of time to spend on games anymore.

        In the OG, I played a Bounty Hunter / Carbineer / Ranger chasing down motherfuckers in the middle of nowhere and leading Krayt Dragon hunts. Back when hunting a jedi actually meant something because there was only like a dozen of them on any given server and they were all sweaty no-lifing weirdos.

        I have yet to see any MMORPG with a more robust class or crafting system than OG galaxies.

        • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          In the OG, I played a Bounty Hunter / Carbineer / Ranger chasing down motherfuckers in the middle of nowhere and leading Krayt Dragon hunts. Back when hunting a jedi actually meant something because there was only like a dozen of them on any given server and they were all sweaty no-lifing weirdos.

          I had a marksman too I think iirc, carbines or heavier blasters, I didn’t make much progress at the time outside of just mucking around.

          Now UO I have a house in. So my goal if I come back to SWG again is to get a house and fill it with stuff.

  • lil_tank [any, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago
    • Guild Wars 2
    • Dofus (retro) / Wakfu (basically the same)
    • Path of Exile

    Any other French/Spanish zoomer who skipped WoW because everyone played the Ankama MMOs?

    I’m totally a casual tho I don’t think I spent more than 60 hours on GW and PoE each