No he won't play WoW because it's not free.

And I used to Play WoW but it ruins me. I get WAY to involved in it so I sold my account lol

Runescape, and I mean that seriously. There are 25 skills, of which 18 are non combat, (16 available to free players, of which 10 are non combat). Progression is far slower than in other MMOs, to reach the combat cap it would take atleast 150 days of gameplay, to entirely max, well over a year of gameplay time. It doesn't rely on this irritating actionbar mechanic, rather a more classical turn-based RPG element, involving pre-preparation rather than dynamic tactics. The quests are also brilliant, compared to the usual quests to level system, Runescape takes quests seriously, there are 174 quests (only 20 are free), each of which has a distinct and full story line, once again nearer to quests in tradition single player RPGs. The longer members quests can take 5 hours+ without guides, shortest quests 30 minutes or so. The game is also less forgiving, combat is quite easy, but there isn't room for error, and if you do die you're risking your equipment and carried items rather than a set respawn charge, as a result one nasty death can wipe out your bank. Frankly, I've always thought runescape was a very good game, atleast a very good game once you are past the early grind and start to understand the depth of the mechanics. Also when you get yourself out of the free worlds, but at the low monthly price, that's not very hard.

Get Guild Wars. You can get the trilogy (they aren't expansions, just different intertwined campaigns) for $40, there's also the expansion, Eye of the North, I'd recommend that if you plan on getting Guild Wars 2 (should come out late this year or 2012.)

I'm pretty sure by "paying" the OP means he doesn't want a game where developers put actual gear in cash shops, opposed to things like power-ups, mounts, things that generally make life easier and convenient, opposed to straight up cash-for-gear. That's relatively impossible to do, but I can see the logic behind it and personally would prefer that, though can't find anything like it.

I will recommend http://pwi.perfectworld.com/ then. I don't play the game as of February but I did play for two years, so I'll give some pros and cons and it couldn't hurt to try it out.

Pros:
- It's free.
- Cash shop options where player buys zen, converts to in-game cash shop currency of gold/silver. Other players can buy gold/silver with in-game coins. Therefore, there's a connection between in-game currency and cash shop currency where you can buy cash shop stuff without paying real money.
- Decent graphics, high customisation, the latter of which I think is one of the biggest draws to this game.
- 5 races, 10 classes, just had an expansion released.
- High emphasis on group play, and a few classes can solo quite a bit too.
- Dungeons that give bonus reputation to others for helping you do certain quests you need if you want to progress with certain quest lines.
- If you're good with economics and the art of trade, it's very easy to make a killing with coin and be successful in this one niche.
- Lots of PVP options. PVP and PVE servers -- but even the PVE servers have optional PVP which there's plenty of players engaged in.
- Virtually zero bots. I see videos on Youtube of players with working bots playing PWI, but herbing in the newbie areas where bots would be most prevalent, I never see them. There's little incentive to bot when it's easy as hell to level, and there's a direct link between cash shop and in-game currency that nullifies their black market.
- Daily group quests that a huge population participates in.


Cons:
- Group play has been slightly diminished. The old "FB" dungeons are rarely run anymore for reputation, and most of the map (which is huge) you won't see as many people on as before. Most spend their time in a few specific XP or gear farming instances and not outside.
- Power leveling is insanely common now, even though you can certainly level fast enough without it.
- Handfuls of bugs, some of which have not been fixed for over two years.
- The way the game was developed and the cash shop has it so people with higher attacks per second rule PVE, and playing something other than a healer or an APS class means you won't be invited to many endgame instances that involve single targets or bosses. Ironic that in AOE instances the classes that mostly aren't picked for most PVE instances are wanted in AOE instances that don't yield nearly as good of coin and gear but are needed for common quests.

Other things:
- While cash shoppers can get insane decked out gear faster (some spend upwards of three to five figures on this game), you can get it too without any money spent at all by merchanting and farming.
- There are definitely better games that are P2P. This is one of the better P2P games, and most populated, on the other hand.
- I quit the game because like pretty much every single F2P game, they spend more time developing their cash shop instead of fixing bugs or making new content. This is an affliction common throughout F2P, whereas P2P survives mainly due to content.. the opposite. To me the most enjoyable point of an F2P game is just following OBT when the game is at it's earliest live stage.
- I've also worked for a few years for F2P MMORPG developers and publishers. Just an FYI. My main jobs were marketing and competitive anolysis.

FFXIV ain't free, the game itself cost like what? 30-50 bucks? Also it will not be free forever.

You forget to mention that the runescape community is the toilet of online gaming. 5-10 year olds run rampant on free servers and 11-13 year olds run rampant on member worlds. You will be scammed, harrased, and begged for items at every turn, especially on the free worlds.

I played runescape from 2001-2005, back when it was decent, but these days the community really kills it. It makes the WoW community look very mature.


I also always considered the quests more of a hassel. If you don't read a guide the quests just involve going back and forth for items from your bank or you will have to go get it from who knows where.

Also most of the skills should just be renamed to "clicking skill"(fishing,mining,woodcutting,ect). But some skills are different.

if you can really get passed the really bad player base than it can be a fun game.

I'm just going to suggest one I didn't see mentioned here. http://pandorasaga.atlusonline.com/, a good Final Fantasy alternative.

Lord of the Rings Online

best free MMO available these days