I need a new MMORPG to play! Here's the situation:

I've been playing DDO since launch. I've enjoyed it immensely and had always said I'd never play an MMO if it wasn't Dungeons & Dragons based.

Over the past couple years there have been changes that just keep irritating me in little ways and my enjoyment of the game has been steadily going downhill. Now with what they're about to do with the game, the proverbial straw is on the camel's back for me. I'm done and have cancelled my subscription.

So here I thought, great, that's money that'll go back into my pocket and I'll just play all the single player games I have laying around. The problem is that now after 3 months of not playing, I feel like I'm going through withdrawal. I need a new game!

I've been researching various games for the past 2 weeks and just can't find enough information to make any decisions. So I thought I'd ask here for some suggestions.


Here's the wishlist:

F2P - this is number one for now. I'm not ready to drop a bundle of cash for a game and then pay a monthly subscription again. Plus if it's F2P then I could possibly get a couple of my guildies to play, too. If there's a cash shop, that's fine, but it can't be one of these like DDO where most of the game isn't open to you if you don't buy content.

No PvP - I am so not interested in comparing "e-peens". I've jumped on my guildies about that. If the game has PvP then it better be completely in my control as to whether I'm going to participate. No ganking, no PKing, no griefing! If I don't agree to it, then go find some other dumbass to annoy. You play your way, let me play mine.

Real time combat - I'm not much of a twitch player, but I can't stand the idea of queuing up your actions and then sitting back and watching. DDO has an awesome combat system (when lag isn't an issue) and great camera control. Turn-based is fine for single player games, but I don't want it in my MMO.

Realistic graphics - Sorry, I'm not into cartoony or anime styled games. I play Free Realms and that's all the cartoon I can stand.

Integrated voice chat - It's not an absolute must, but it'd be pretty awesome to have. I really don't want to have to mess with Ventrillo if I don't have to, though that always made for some very funny conversations in DDO for those of us not using Ventrillo.

Fantasy based - I'd prefer it over a sci-fi based, however if SWToR ever does a free trial when the furor dies down, I'll be downloading it.


WoW is right out.
Last Chaos - tried it, couldn't stand the camera or controls, not to mention there was no real tutorial area so I was lost almost immediately
LotRO - no, it's Turbine so the F2P is most likely going to be like DDO where most of the major content must be paid for.



I've looked at Forsaken World and Vindictus, but neither is really screaming my name.

Vindictus would probably be what I try next, but there's basically no character customization at this point and only 3 gender-locked classes to choose from. From what I have read, it sounds like PvP is a bit of an issue as well as the inability to boot troublemaker party members. And they have giant creepy spiders. A SS of one made my heart skip a beat and my palms start to sweat. I suppose as long as I can pull the camera waaaaaay back, I can deal. And, there's no jumping in Vindictus. That'd take a lot of getting used to. But the combat style sounds more in line with DDO.

Forsaken World looks like it has pretty good customization of classes as well as visual. They have PvE only servers which is great for me. I can't find much information on combat style.


So does anyone have any recommendations? Like I said, I've looked at quite a few and it's likely any that are suggested I've already ruled out. But after a while they do all start to run together and it's nice to get feedback instead of reading an article or trying to find the info on a website.

I'd say Guild Wars suits your standards. Though it's getting a little old and isn't as popular as it once was, so, if you're looking to get in on a more active community, you might wait until Guild Wars 2 comes out.

I think I like the same sort of games. I've played Perfect World for a while, which I liked but when my character's level was about 20 the only quests I got were "Kill 20 of this monster" and when I had completed it I got "Kill 30 of another monster" without any story which was just boring. For me a story is very important for games, and I'm still looking for the perfect MMORPG. I enjoyed Eschalon very much, but it is not an MMO, just an RPG. Good luck finding something :-)

I've recently been playing both Champions Online and DC Universe Online. They are superhero MMOs which isn't quite what you are looking for, but they fit your other categories.

Both are F2P with stuff you can buy for real money and subscription options. However I have never spent a dime on either. I took a Champions character to the level cap--the first time I've ever done that in an MMO--and never felt pressured to spend money. DC is a bit more annoying in that regard though. All content is available to free players, but the money limit (game money, not real money) is WAY, WAY too low so you are forced to buy useless crap and use up your loot. I never got anywhere near the resource limit in Champions.

I loathe PVP with an insane passion. Neither game forces PVP but both have duels and arenas if you want to play around with it. Both allow you to automatically reject duel requests so you won't be harassed by idiots who won't take no for an answer. DC pushes PVP quests on you, and you can't drop quests in that game, but you can just hide them and ignore them. Champions doesn't.

Both of them play smoothly in combat. Neither feels turn based. Some people comment that DC combat is faster and smoother, but that's because DC is a glorified console game while Champions has a bit more tactical depth. Targeting SUCKS in DC and the cutesy "click left-click right-hold left-scratch your nose-recite the alphabet backwards" attack combos are really irritating, and impossible for a slow old man like me. I much prefer Champions combat.

Realistic graphics? Neither is cartoony but it depends on your definition of "realistic". One of the few ways I feel DC is better is I find the graphic style as well as their use of sound and music creates a more visceral, immersive game experience.

Voice chat - no idea. I know they have voice chat, but it might be through third-party stuff. I'm a dedicated soloer and tend to ignore everyone else.

Fantasy based - OK they don't really fit that. I mean you could create a fantasy character in Champions--not so much in DC because of the backstory--but when you are fighting robots in Snake Gulch it's a bit hard to maintain the fiction.

Personally I think Champions is a much, much better game than DC, but that doesn't mean DC is a bad game. Both are heavily story based rather than just hack in slash. No grinding in either game. Champions is probably better for RPers, or even just people like me who want to create an interesting backstory for the character. DC characters are basically "names with attributes attached".

You need to take a closer look at LotRO. I have accounts in LotRO and DDO and difference between the two would surprise you. The ease of earning TP (Turbine Points) is what makes the F2P model work in LotRO so well. A trick I learned was if you have enough money to buy only one month of subscription a slew of content gets enabled and stays enabled for all the characters in that account (but not for any new ones created after you end the sub). Try it I think you'll like it and after a while if you do, consider subscribing for a month or two, ever month gets you 500 points.

PS I totally agree with Oaktree about Guild Wars 2 . When it gets released LotRO will take a back seat.

I actually have Guild Wars, the trilogy set. I got it dirt cheap a couple years back so figured I'd give it a whirl. It wasn't too bad, but I didn't play for more than a few months. GW2 looks better, but I'll probably hold off for now. If I give my guildies enough warning to save their pennies, maybe I can get them interested.




So by the time you get to the higher levels, the content starts to become stale? I don't mind fetching or "kill X-amount of whatever" quests, but it wouldn't really make any sense to have more of those at higher levels unless it's leading up to something.
In DDO the "kill X-amount" aren't quests, they're done in explorer areas which you have to go through to get to quests. You get XP at certain amounts and have the chance for named mobs that will drop chests. It's all optional, except what you have to clear out on your way to the quest.

I'd recommend you try DDO, but as I said earlier, it's really not F2P if you want all the areas open. "For a limited time" they did just lower the 1-year membership to $80 (which is way cheaper than the plan I had) and that opens everything. The monthly fee is less now than when I started. I think it's down to $9/month.

If you're looking for good lore and story, LotRO is a clear winner. I've never played it so I don't know anything about the game play, but I do think there are those "kill X-amount" quests at least in the beginning which is fine for tutorial reasons. I think their F2P set up is better than DDO's with more open, but again, I'm not sure since I haven't played it.

How's the combat in Perfect (and I would think Forsaken) World? I think I may give it a try just to see how it feels.



Oh yeah, that is completely not up my alley. I suck at console style gaming which is why I always stick to the computer. Auto-targeting is good, though I prefer Tab-targeting or simply clicking on your target and then smashing the ever-loving snot out of them. In DDO you used to right-click until your fingers bled to attack if you didn't want to use auto-attack and after years of complaining they finally made it so all you have to do is simply hold the button down to swing.



Yeah I should have made that a little more clear. DDO would fall in my "realistic" category, likewise Vindictus, LotRO, Lineage, etc. "Cartoony" would be like Free Realms, Wizards 101, Dragon Nest, etc. Games like WoW are the fine line between both.

Champions has a stylized look that gives it a comic book feel which is very appropriate and look good.


While you're right about them not being the category I'm looking for, Champions does look interesting. I always wondered what it'd be like to be a superhero and what powers I'd have. I bet I could get two of my guildies interested for casual gaming.

From your great descriptions and what I looked at on the Champions site, it'd be the one I'd check out. So far other than DDO and LotRO, their site has one of the most informative (and easy to understand) breakdowns of what the game offers at both price points. And they appear to have integrated voice chat which is a huge bonus.


Y'all have given me some food for thought. Thanks a bunch! I'm still open for more suggestions if anyone else has them.

Yeah I have a giant sum of TP on my DDO account, I'll still be getting my 500 for the next 2 months since my subscription doesn't technically end until April.

How is the set up for earning different? That measly 25 TP you get for acquiring favor is so laughable that it's almost insulting, especially once you hit 2500+ favor. You have to farm the hell out of each server for DDO if you want to amass enough TP to do much of anything. If you're playing on more than one server like I do, then it's nearly impossible to get enough.

I'm surprised they haven't "fixed" the unlocking of content you mentioned.
It's not like that in DDO. You cancel your subscription and everything needs to be unlocked that's a perk for VIPs. You have a WF sorc? Too bad, you have to buy your WF to play it now. You have a monk character? Too bad, buy it now. Shared bank slots you had? Buy now. That raid you ran yesterday? You have to buy it when you want to run it next as well as the entire adventure pack it was part of. And so on.

It's another example of DDO being the afterthought game. I guess that's one of the reasons I don't want to mess with LotRO. I don't want to support Turbine in any way (boy do I sound bitter!). One of my guildies tried LotRO out and he liked some aspects of it, but he said overall in his opinion DDO was better. But, to each his own.

I'll definitely keep GW2 in mind. For now I just don't want to drop any cash for a new MMO if I'm not positive I'm going to like it.

The ways to earn TP in LotRO are so numerous it's easier if I have you check out this article http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/08/ho...ine-points.html Cool thing is if you play several characters on several servers they all add TP to your account (I don't recall how DDO works). And things don't cost much especially if you do the one month sub thing. My biggest disappointment was that TP are not transferable between the two games.

Forsaken World is not the same as Perfect world, although it's made by the same people, and I think it's very similar. LotRO looks great, I'm defenitely gonna try it. Perfect World has ONLY "Kill X-amount" quests (Except for one really weird quest where you had to find a hair in a huge lake within 5 minutes, and to find the hair you had to mine a rock), which really annoyed me. There is one thing I did really like about perfect world: The ability to fly. I like seeing the world from above

Get hold of Age of Conan. Some of the best combat mechanics going around in an MMO. Beautiful graphics and a dark adult setting.

It went Free to Play a while back and I dare say would make a refreshing change from DDO.

I'm sorry to bump this, but I thought I would give a little update since y'all have been so helpful.

Since I originally posted, I have tried 3 of the suggested games: Forsaken World, Champions Online, and Age of Conan.


So far I have to say that I've been having immense fun with Champions Online, which is a total surprise for me since it's not a genre I would have normally looked at. I'm a little lost with it (because there's so much to learn and it's so different) and a complete spaz, but I've done a lot of laughing and that is always a good sign. I clearly don't understand the concept of "superhero" because outside of bizarre hair colors and weird colored eyes, my character is completely normal looking. And short, she's shorter than everyone and I thought 5'6" was tall (I'm only 5'1")! I'll have to try harder with my second character. Hopefully it won't take me 2 hours to make that one. There are almost TOO MANY choices!

Forsaken World has potential, but I really don't like being forced to group for a dungeon. I know that's the point of MMOs, but I really like to learn how to control my character before I go teaming up with people. Despite the tutorial area, I don't feel like there's enough learning before being thrown in a group of strangers for your first taste of real combat. I think every game could stand to have some low level solo dungeons or have a solo setting for dungeons. It also doesn't have as much variety in character creation. DDO isn't stellar, but they have more choices than FW.

Age of Conan I haven't spent enough time with to make many decisions about, but the tutorial area was good and it's a beautiful game. I thought their character creation could stand a little more variety, too.


There are a few things where DDO is better than the above games, IMO.

One is their chat system. In DDO you can close or open every chat channel as well as custom channels for your chat windows. You can undock chat windows and limit them to specific channels. I always had 3 undocked windows, one for guild, one for party, and one general chat window and those channels were the only ones to appear in those windows. BUT if you don't want the inane babbling of other players or the trade channel or whatever, you can disable any or all of them. I've noticed in all three of the above games, you can't do that (as far as I can tell) and I really don't care for that. And I don't like to close the chat window because you never know if someone is talking to you.

Attacking is another thing that seems a bit better in DDO. I can't say this with 100% conviction because I'm still learning the ins and outs, but it appears there is no basic left-click attack for the above games. In DDO if you simply left-click, you attack with your weapon or fists if unarmed. Hold the left-click button and you continue to attack. Enable auto-attack and then it's even easier, simply click on your target, get in range and the character does the rest. Spells and special attacks are button based or click on them.

Maps, IMO, are easier to read in DDO. Open the map and everything for the area is clearly marked, quests, NPCs, vendors and entrances to other areas. Maybe it's because so much of DDO is "instanced"? It's not a completely open game so maybe it's easier for the areas to be fully visible and marked on the maps since it's not the entire city that's on the map at one time, if that makes sense. This is only in the public areas, not in the dungeons. DDO dungeon maps suck since they have never been able to or perhaps have never deigned put for the effort in making them better. In multilevel dungeons, you have no clue where an upper or lower level will be by looking at a map. There are two quests in the entire game that I absolutely detest because of this. I always get lost and God forbid you fall a level, you'll never get back to your team unless you've memorized the entire route. So far I can't say anything about the other games' dungeon maps.

LFM board. As far as I can tell, Forsaken World and Age of Conan don't have LFM boards for people to post on to get groups gathered. Instead it seems the only way to get people is to post it (in some rude cases, spam the hell out of it) in the chat channels. I could be wrong, but I didn't see anything. Champions Online has one, though I didn't see how detailed it was set up since I only took a cursory look at it. No one was looking for newbie lvl 8 superheroes. lol

Anyway, I'm glad for the suggestions, I've been enjoying trying the new games out! I still haven't tried Vindictus which I had originally planned on, but if I do I'll post another update.

And if anyone has any other suggestions, please post!

I haven't played the other games, but I can answer some of your questions about Champions.

You can always change the look of your character by going to a tailor. It costs resources, but it not that much and there isn't much to use resources for anyhow so no real harm done. You can change every aspect of your look including height, facial features, etc.

Personally I love the character builder. It's half the fun of the game. I typically spend at least an hour crafting the look of new characters and then frequently run back to the tailor to tweak on a costume piece or a color. I ran a bunch of different characters and looks ranged from a typical schoolgirl to a cowboy robot to a lizard-like alien. I pointedly avoided the spandex-and-cape look because I think it's silly.

I'm not sure if you can undock the chat tabs, but you can definitely customize each tab to include only certain channels, create new tabs, and even create custom channels for specialized purposes like megaboss hunts. Yes you still get the people spamming trade and LFGs on the main channels, but that's what ignore is for.

Your basic attack is going to be your energy builder. That's bound to your 1 key by default. That's a toggle--turn it on and you attack until the enemy is dead or you change targets. Then you can throw your other powers in as needed. Look in the options because there are other settings for your energy builder, such as automatically attacking as soon as you target an enemy.

You are right about the maps. There aren't a lot of details other than quest targets. Don't worry about getting lost in the instanced areas. They are all pretty small and simple.

Oh awesome, Cyjon! I saw the tailors and took them for the actual title, so costume only was what I figured. I had been considering re-rolling completely since I'm not that far along. So you've saved me a lot of hassle! When I log in tonight, I'll check it out. I'm such a girl with visuals that I'm sure I'll be visiting the tailors often to tweak her look. I made her after a basic character idea I wanted to use in DDO, so she looks simply like a dual sword wielding thief with weird hair and big yellow eyes. lol Pretty boring, but I suppose good enough to get started.


I'll definitely look into the chat windows. Most of the chatter has been sort of entertaining, but there have been a few occasions where it's been annoying as hell. I've just shut the window or gone into a dungeon for that.

I had noticed the energy builder basic attack simply because I kept running out of "mana" for my more powerful attacks. I'll get the hang of it, but anything I can tweak to my slow-adjusting capabilities is good. I'll get there!

Thanks for the tips! I've been skimming the wiki and forums, too, but my brain almost exploded today from the information overload.