Similar alternatives to World of Warcraft?

[Digitalneo]

So yea.. WoW is losing its magic for me, and Blizzard-Activision is accelerating that.. you guys have any good alternatives that are mechanically similar?

I did try FF14 like a year or two ago as a Monk, but the quests felt very repetative and the environments didnt amaze me like FF games usually do for the time I did play (didnt make it to end-game at that time). Also, positional mechanics were a bit tedious.

I tried to get into GW2 about 2 years ago as well, and I loved how natural world events felt but the class system seemed a bit overly complicated and I'm not sure if I was just doing it wrong, but the only end-game content people wanted to do was transmog runs.

Maple Story Two and Runescape controls and interface really put me off of those games.

I'm not against giving the above a shot again, but I would like some alternatives first.

[Arabica]

I played Rift around 2014/2015 and loved it. You're right that it isn't as involved as WoW, but levelling and doing dungeon runs is still super fun. I also found Rift to be superior in terms of customization. There were loads of cool outfits and ways to allocate skill points.

[Fexel]

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

[Animusisters]

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

[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.

[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.

[aileron]

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

[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.

[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.

[Bella Desiare]

I've been a long time Lotro player so I'd say that's an option. Tera was okay, but didn't keep my attention for more than a couple of months.

[QUOTE=Tamanous;n6572]Lotro Legendary servers are an option. They are new and full of players. Of course you have to like Lotro and going from vanilla Wow to Lotro took me a bit to enjoy the transition but I'm really starting to get into Lotro again. Sadly it isn't a true legacy effort but merely a limited version of the live game with full cash shop which is annoying but can be avoided.

I heard about the Legendary servers. Are they really worth a look, considering they're just capped versions of the regular servers?

[I'[email protected]]

FFXIV is in my opinion better than WoW. If you are able to get through the story, it gets more and more interesting. Plus endgame is really most fun, It ain't as strong in PVP but still I will definitly start playing again with the new expansion coming out.

[ryvrdrgn14]

I had a lot of fun doing dungeons in Tera Online. If you want a PVE change of pace you can give Warframe a go. It's a totally different experience, but it can also be refreshing, even if you just play it for a bit.

[Teratus]

I tried to get into GW2 about 2 years ago as well, and I loved how natural world events felt but the class system seemed a bit overly complicated and I'm not sure if I was just doing it wrong, but the only end-game content people wanted to do was transmog runs.

The game has changed a little in the last 2 years, not as drastically as it has in the last 4 though.
Overall the story has greatly improved some of the best chapters been added in the last several months.
I'm pretty good with the trait system in Gw2.. although admittedly each class has it's own learning curve as their traits and playstyles are very different.
Ranger and Necromancer are my specific preferences ^^

[Fexel]

ESO is maybe an option, though the game lost it's charm for me since it just feels like a diluted form of a regular elder scrolls game

[PyroAmos]

MMO scene has been in a sad place for a long time. Personally, I prefer korean style grinder, no factions, siege based MMOs. Unfortunately the main company that brought that style to the west (NC Soft) went F2P with P2W in full effect and none of their NA releases are worth playing anymore. Their latest attempt at re-releasing Lineage 2 classic.... should check it out if you want to see what a crash and burn looks like, trying to re-release a subscription based game as a micro-transaction game was a bad look from the start, but their handling of it.... comically bad. Pearl abyss's Black desert came pretty close, but it is pretty expensive. When I played it you had to buy the game, then there was a monthly pseudo-sub and around $60~80 in MTX costumes per char (costumes are not purely cosmetics there, the costume stat bonuses are pretty much required). If you have a fat wallet, it does supply that eastern MMO feel I like.

As for western MMOs... the only one I've really spent a lot of time on other than WoW was SWToR, which was so close to being exactly like WoW it almost just a reskin. The major difference (when it came out) was the really good story line, but that kind of made it feel like a single player game, since there was virtually no reason to party for any of it. The battle-grounds and stuff felt very WoW like. Been a couple years since I played it, but all in all, it was ok when I was playing it.

For the most part, Lord of the rings, elder scrolls, FFXI, FFXIV, EverQuest, EQ2, EQ classic, GuildWars and GW2, are the main competition in western MMORPGs, none of which have looked good enough for me to invest the kind of time I invest when I play an MMO.

Kind of sad, my guild community (the core of which been together over 10 years, since back in lineage 1 days where we met) is looking to break off of black desert (most of us quit a while ago, and just hang out in the discord to play shitty steam games, LoL or PoE together), but there isn't a good MMO out right now. BDO got so stale after we accomplished our main goals (taking every castle in the game at least once, being a major player in siege politics, ect), we actually dropped out of hardcore siege scene and is basically just a casual guild looking for a game to jump to now. We were hoping Bless would be it, about 20 of us preordered that dumpster... probably the last time I'll ever preorder a game. QQ