Alright! I have just gotten my PSP basically hit up with half a dozen 60+ hours-a-piece games, which is going to satisfy my single-player gaming for the rest of the foreseeable future. Now that my single-playerness is satisfied, I am looking for an MMORPG to play. I am more leaning towards a free game, since even older games like GW will run me $100 due to it having half a dozen expansions . I'll put below a few things I am looking for, and i'll leave it to you guys to give me some suggestions .

::Preferably something where the Item Mall doesn't sell actual gear which makes you better

::No shooters // RPG-shooters, or FPS-RPGs.

::Looking for something with graphics. Not necessarily good graphics, but preferably something that tends towards more realistic. Examples being Aika or Guild Wars. Avoid suggestions like Maple Story lol.

::Decent or better character customization -- this is talking about skill // stat progression, not physical customization.

::No barren wasteland worlds. I'v seen a few games where there is like miles of terrain with like 8 bushes or rocks around. Doesn't have to be lavish, just seem populated.

::I'm fine with slow leveling. I played iRO back when it came out. So spending over a year to get 'near' last level ain't that bad lol.

::Free

Other than the above, go wild. Suggestions don't need to fulfil ALL of it, but I would like to have a couple of the above atleast in your suggestions.

Well, go wild .

Well, the wife and I played Perfect World for like 2 years (F2P MMORPG that has a cash shop but you don't need to pay a cent to purchase cash shop stuff thanks to an in-game currency trade system), but that would nix your "no super fast leveling" and "gear in cash shop" issue. I certainly agree with it though.

The other games I can think of don't have that cash shop and power level connection but they are swarmed with bots.

Honestly I would loosen expectations of the power leveling or cash shop thing and you'll find a lot of options. Otherwise, P2P is the way to go.

Free and no paying for better items/benefits doesn't exist as far as I know

Lord of the Rings Online

best free MMO available these days

EVE sounds right except for the free part.

Warhammer online? I don't really know.

I play WoW which is the best of the best.

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 don't mind fast leveling or slow is what I mean. I'm fine with both. I don't mind people being able to buy cash shop stuff, but I don't like games that make those items almost impossible to beat. As long as the cash gear won't completely break the game for PvP I don't care about it.

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




Correct. I don't care if people buy stuff. As long as they aren't able to buy way beyond final-tier gear that completely breaks it. I'v known some games where you can buy items which upgrade your gear beyond anything in-game offers.

This.

I know it's probably not what you're looking for but I hear Phantasy Star Portable 2 for PSP is pretty decent

It's subscription free too

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.

Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst was pretty fun, but it's a party based game like Guild Wars, not a huge open world. The official servers are long gone, but there's a free private server if you wanna check it out (http://www.schtserv.com/).

EVE can be free if you can get the in game currency to buy game time cards in game.

I gave it up a few years back when they selling for 250,000,000 ISK or something.

Tales of Pirates, Ether Saga Online, World of Kung Fu, and Knight Online.

You mentioned Aika, have you played it already? I'm currently checking it out - I'm a PvP oriented guy - and it sounds pretty close to what you said. It'd help tremendously if you told us all the MMO's you've already played/decided you will not play.

Atlantica Online. I urge you to check this one out. It has a cash shop, but everything in the shop is buyable ingame. The world is huge and has great detail and music. It also has a turn based battle system, as in when you engage a monster on the field, you are teleported to another screen where you fight with your party(you and mercs you control + a party with other players and their mercs).

Seriously, just check out the site and read about it, it is the best free MMO I ever played.

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.

Here's my top three:

Star Wars Galaxies
World of Warcraft
Lord of the Rings Online

Free MMOs are nice, but really you have to pick either free or good.

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.

Free mmos:

FFXIV(pretty terrible but hey, its free)
Earthrise(not just ffxiv terrible, but dark and light terribe but its free)
DDO(Dungeons and dragons online((went free some time ago and is doing good))
LOTRO(went free with DDO some time ago, fun game, definitely worth a go, and its free)
APB:reloaded(it failed as a p2p but after its developer went under, it was bought out and is re-releasing as ftp, it is 3rd person still but its more of a shooter then anything)

I disagree, Runescape should die.

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

Ok so you're asking for a reaslistic good MMO with lots of exploration and immersion but wont play WoW because..its too good and you get addicted..?
I'm not sure what you look to gain here? Or what you want us to tell you? Thats kind of a double standard. So, you want a lackluster MMO that is fun but "meh" enough that you wont get addicted? lol?

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

He didn't say he wouldn't pay, if I remember correctly.