Similar alternatives to World of Warcraft?

[nope]

I echo a few of the other replies and suggest you wait for WoW Classic.. We can expect launch as early as April but likely May or June.. I'm not playing any MMOs right now so I don't burn myself out by the time the game is released.

Tera Online is also great like ryvrdrgn14 mentioned.

[EngulfingDarkness]

Try playing Lineage 2, either high five expansion or interlude. Game is you either love it or you hate it. If you love pvp this is the wet dream, you have olympiad system where you compete against other players 1v1 and grind points and the end of the week best player out of each class is crowned as hero of that class, gets some insane glow new weapons and new armor for the duration of his hero, if you like mass pvp's there are castle sieges where a clan or alliance holding the castle from which it gets some income some items and leader gets a dragon mount( i shit you not) defends it and other clans/alliances attack it. It gets crazy if you can stomatch the grind.

[aileron]

Someone else mentioned it, and I've heard good things about it as well, D&D Online, but I never tried it.

[ryan_]

I actually really liked SWTOR because of the class-specific storylines. Makes playing all alts feel more fulfilling. Plays very similar to WoW, gameplay wise it's almost a direct copy, with a few twists. I don't play it anymore, so maybe it's terrible now though.

[JackofTears]

I loved "Guid Wars 1&2", fantastic games and I really miss playing them. But they dumbed down GW2 after the first expansion, so now the game isn't as engaging or challenging and the skill system has traded its depth for simplicity. I was a beta tester for GW2 and played it for two years before it went down the drain - what a sad turn of events.

I would highly recommend checking out "Elder Scrolls Online". It plays a lot like Skyrim, with wonderful levels of open world exploration; the side missions you pick up in the field are often interesting (more interesting than most MMO sidequests) and well voice acted. The game even creates a false sense of impact by your character, in the way many of the quests play out; sure, you can't have any real impact in an mmo, but the way those stories are told, you feel like you did (such as in the mission where you have to change time and get to observe some of the repercussions). Not to mention the fact that combat is actually engaging and requires some skill, rather than just spamming powers. ESO is the best mmo I've played in a long time.

[Animusisters]

If you have to play FFXIV, please don't act like you are still in World of Warcraft.

[Fexel]

🤔 Could always play everquest, though thats less of a theme park MMO