Best Free WoW Alternative

weswilson wrote:

I think Aion is a bit too "asian"

I hate this attitude.

Mordiceius wrote:

I hate this attitude.

Do you not feel it has strong similarities to other MMOs that prove to be far more popular in Asian countries than in Western societies? I mean, I don't know ANYONE who liked Lineage II, and yet it's the MMO I find it most reminiscent of.

I stumbled on a free MMO the other day that is a complete WoW clone with less to offer but still good solid gameplay for a free to play. It's called 4 Story and so far my husband and I are enjoying it but we are just using it as a crutch until Aion comes out

http://global.4story.com/

weswilson wrote:
Mordiceius wrote:

I hate this attitude.

Do you not feel it has strong similarities to other MMOs that prove to be far more popular in Asian countries than in Western societies? I mean, I don't know ANYONE who liked Lineage II, and yet it's the MMO I find it most reminiscent of.

The game is not like Lineage II imo. It is a game of it's own. Looking at a game and saying "Oh wow, that has some Asian looking characters in it, it must be terrible." is a very poor attitude. I'm not trying to white knight Aion or anything, but NCSoft has been busting their asses to westernize the game by doing a line by line translation, voice acting, grind removal and more.

4story looks interesting. Instant turn-off for me is the micro transaction to get a mount every 30 days. Looks like it comes out to about $10 every month just to own a mount. Granted you are still looking at a game costing less than WoW but *Shrug*. Just don't like the idea

Mordiceius wrote:

The game is not like Lineage II imo. It is a game of it's own. Looking at a game and saying "Oh wow, that has some Asian looking characters in it, it must be terrible." is a very poor attitude. I'm not trying to white knight Aion or anything, but NCSoft has been busting their asses to westernize the game by doing a line by line translation, voice acting, grind removal and more.

I don't know where the game comes from. I had no idea it was a translation of anything. I didn't know a thing about it when I turned it on, except that we were gonna get wings.

I support their work, but please don't think my opinion is based on the look of the characters. It's on the style of action, the entire sound palate, the way the zones are designed, the way the characters level, and the wackiness of the emotes. It FEELS like it has strong asian influences. Do you feel that is a poor assessment? Do you think that people cannot judge harshly on an MMO for reflecting those characteristics?

My wife has never played an asian MMO. She played 5 minutes of Aion and said, "Wow... yeah, that's all I'll be playing of that."

Acclaim sent me an e-mail telling me that Chronicles of Spellborn is completely free to play until they relaunch the new and improved free to play version next year. They will not be doing any updates until then but supposedly will be doing some live events.

It is a fun and visually appealing game, that is/was unfortunately woefully underpopulated and is probably too solo friendly as all classes can basically become Tank Mages or DPS Mages. Still the combat system is fun to play around with, and for those that like FPS games, aiming and strafing do matter and are probably vital for PvP.

DeThroned wrote:

4story looks interesting. Instant turn-off for me is the micro transaction to get a mount every 30 days. Looks like it comes out to about $10 every month just to own a mount. Granted you are still looking at a game costing less than WoW but *Shrug*. Just don't like the idea :)

Yea i'm completely with you on this one. The only thing allowing me to keep playing is that im just playing this for a month so no biggie if I decide to get a mount will do it for a shorter time not spend much, but they have already given us 1 seven day free mount so I bet the longer we hold out the more freebies we can rack up

Badferret wrote:

Acclaim sent me an e-mail telling me that Chronicles of Spellborn is completely free to play until they relaunch the new and improved free to play version next year.

Wow that is good news. Its an interesting game.

Running Man wrote:
Badferret wrote:

Acclaim sent me an e-mail telling me that Chronicles of Spellborn is completely free to play until they relaunch the new and improved free to play version next year.

Wow that is good news. Its an interesting game.

I just started playing it a few days ago, and yeah, I'm having pretty decent fun with it. I was looking to redownload 2Moons and ended up going with this.

I tried 4Story but it just didn't grab me.

Runes of Magic is still probably my choice of F2P MMO's, but I haven't been playing it lately. Been working a whole lot, and I'm kinda holding off a bit until Chapter II is released... I really want to reroll as a warden.

I've also tried Rappelz out again lately. It held me a bit better now that I have an upgraded machine (last machine I played it on was right at the minimum specs, lagged to all hell, and looked like crap), but I don't think I'd stick with it long term. The biggest issue I have with it is that you have to pretty much level to 10 before you pick a class, and there's nothing in game telling you about the classes you're choosing. And if you choose the wrong one, tough sh*t, you're stuck with it. Having to use TP to raise your job level also irritates me a bit.

@purEvil: But will it be a pure warden? Or warden/druid or druid/warden?

I like the idea of the new classes so much, I am probably going to play them to as high level as I can with no secondary class. I do admit however, that the appeal of a scout secondary (that goes well with every class) or a rogue for dual wield, does sound mighty appealing.

I'm probably going to go Warden/Scout, to replace my Scout/Priest as main. I've toyed with the idea of reversing them (as I could go ahead and make the scout now, and just pick up warden later on), but I just decided against it until I see which would be better for my play-style. I tend to stick to ranger/hunter classes in games.

I'll throw my 2 cents in for Runes of Magic as well. From all that I've tried, it seems to come the furthest in retaining quality and fun.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online was pretty good but I had to stop playing because of time constraints and just never went back. Neo Steam was good too, albeit far more cartoonish. Unfortunately I couldn't get past Neo Steam's awkward movement controls, otherwise I might still be playing it. I really liked the setting.

Runes of Magic expansion launches today with the elves, raid dungeons and new classes warden and druid!

I can't wait to check it out. If anyone else gets the jump on me, let us know how the new stuff is!

I still dig Runes of Magic, I play it every so often. It's a good free-to-play WoW substitute.

Another one I liked was Requiem: Bloodymare. I paid the subscription and it didn't add much...so the free version is pretty good, as is.

Now that DDO is free, I think DDO wins, hands-down.

I played the elven expansion for about 30 minutes this morning and was having a blast with the warden. The warden gets a third skill tab for your treant pet. I know, I know, how original treant pet but this one does look really cool!

I can't wait for some time to put the druid through its paces and more time with the warden. The elfen newbie area is brimming with quests. I hope you can transfer between the elven newb grounds and human ones. That would rock for the secondary class so that you didn't have to rely on the daily quests to level.

duckilama wrote:

Now that DDO is free, I think DDO wins, hands-down.

I was gonna say this, but Ducki beat me. If you're at all interested in D&D, DDO is fantastic. It really grabs the feel of a well run D&D campaign, and is well up there with my favorite MMOs of all time(FFXI>DDO>SWG>WoW>all others).

The druid is pretty decent. It seems a lot like the priest with some tweaks. The warden is probably the most versatile and powerful class in the game right now. Warden/scout is going to be a very popular and powerful combination. I don't know if the wardens pet is counted as a primary or general skill. If the pet is a general skill, I bet that it is going to be a very popular secondary class.

Anyways jump on in, RoM is a lot of fun right now.

I wish. I'm running a warden/scout now, but you don't get the pet when you're scout primary. I'm not worried too much about it though, because at least when you're warden primary you can get vamp arrows/shot/autoshot/etc.

I like the druid class, but haven't spent much time on it yet.

And yes, when I took scout, I ran back over to the human start area and hit up all those quests. Got up to level 6 on scout in about 15 minutes.

The damage shield may be significant for those that take warden as secondary. I don't know if it absorbs and reflects the melee damage or if it lets all the damage get through and then returns a portion of it. I think its the former and that would be a boon to any primary class. The flimsy scouts and rogues could use some damage reduction as I'm sure the cloth class wouldn't mind it either in oh sh*t its on me and still alive circumstances. Its too bad elves can't be knights or humans can't be wardens or druids, because a warden/knight sounds awesome!

I am liking the new elf zone but when I'm testing out the new classes I want to go to the human newb zones because I can get to 13 really quickly on both primary and secondary classes. I haven't figured out how to get an elf to the human zones yet. I'd also like to take my quest starved level 16's over to the elf areas to see if that will help me level them.

I really really really can't believe they haven't fixed it so that you can do quests on each of your primary and secondary classes.

To get to the human lands, you have to take the airship on the Elven Island. This takes you to Varanas. At this point I picked up my secondary class, rented a horse, and just rode out there. I'm sure there's a way for humans to get out to the Elven Island, but I don't know how yet.

Druid is definitely a lot of fun. I think they patched in some improvements to other classes as warriors were pretty unplayable before chapter 2.

The Warden is very powerful. I would say overpowered but that implies negativity and nerf. They are easy and fun to play but not godly.

Now you're not even trying

Try runes of magic, perfect world or 2moons

Now that I have some free time I'm going to give LOTRO a shot. Haven't played an MMO since WoW: Burning Crusade and even then I don't think I got past level 30.