A nugget is currently poking around for a new MMO, due to certain major economic changes PWE made to Forsaken World.
There's a whole lot of complexity around it, but what it boils down to for me, is that I can no longer live off my in-game investments while spending real money on luxuries. Not just that, but newer toons without in-game investments now have real trouble (for the first time since the game was launched) building up enough capital to acquire investments. One of the reasons FW has lasted so long for me is I loved that every dollar I spent on FW felt like a 'treat yourself' vs a 'pay us for basic amenities'. That's gone now.
And soooooo... I'm in the market for a new MMO. Preferably subscription-based, because I don't want to think about money in-game, for a while. I do not believe that F2P games are in any way inferior to, or of a lower quality than subscription-based ones. However, in order to play an F2P game sanely, without turning into a whale, you need to know how much every single thing you do is worth in RL cash. That kinda kills some of the happy escapism, and adds a bit of a DoT effect to the nugget's limited Willpower bar. And for someone with horrible altitis, F2P games change alts from happy new bundles of exploration to costly happy new bundles of exploration.
So for now, I would really prefer a subscription-based MMO, so I don't have to think about stuff like that for a while.
Unfortunately, when I went looking for a subscription MMO, and not a F2P one, I found, to my horror, that the thing I feared 2 years ago has now come to pass.
Everyone has gone F2P, with the exception of WoW. I won't go back to WoW, because I don't like the person I turn into when I play WoW. In a WoW context, I turn into this extremely mercenary creature, who really only ranks and assesses people by how useful they are to her. WoW is the only MMO I've played where I haven't made a single friend, or met someone who could have (given more time) become a friend. So - WoW is out.
I don't want EVE, cause space doesn't do it for me, and neither does open-world PvP. The latter, though, I'm willing to accept if the premise is attractive enough. ATitD was great when I tried it, but really not for me. Sad fact - I'd rather kill than build things. ;)
Which leaves me, really, with no subscription-based MMOs at all. HALP!
MMOs nugget has tried
There are a few missing from the Pinterest board, as I've been too sluggy to add them.
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Guild Wars 2
Box purchase and CS based on F2P principles. Broke my heart, don't bother. -
Guild Wars
Box purchase. Ah, ArenaNet, I used to love you so much, believe in you even more. -
Furcadia
Free. I wish furries were my thing. -
Runes of Magic
F2P. Boring. -
Glitch
Dead from not doing F2P right. I would have paid a subs to keep it alive if they had asked. I'm sure many other Glitches would have, as well. They never asked. -
Jade Dynasty
Rapacious F2P. Wuxia styled, hilarious storylines, but the sheer grind and willpower cost to NOT spend got to me in the end. Also, I still resent them for that $20 mount I had to buy to access my midlevel content... -
Heroes of Three Kingdoms
Dead F2P. Closed by PWE after testing some concepts that made their fully-fledged way into Forsaken World. -
Rift
F2P, formerly subs. I really wanted to like this game. Trion loves its community the way ArenaNet used to. But the game is simply lacking on every level, from art, to sound, to combat. Does do dynamic events really, really well though. -
City of Heroes
Killed by NCsoft, formerly subs. Wouldn't really have interested me anyway. I don't care if it had one of the most advanced character creation screens for its day, if every option is ugly. -
Pirates of the Burning Sea
F2P. Fascinating... but F2P, which defeats the point of this whole post! -
Forsaken World
F2P. The reason for this post in the first place. -
Chronicles of Spellborn
Dead, formerly F2P, then ?free?. Killed itself just as I was getting to know it. -
Lineage II
F2P, formerly subs. Beautiful indoors, beautiful character models, hideous outdoors. The last was a deal breaker for me. -
Aion
F2P, formerly subs. Took hours to download and install, only to find that my bombshell vixen of a toon walked like a chicken. Deleted in 5ish minutes. -
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Pay-for-content-unlocks. Fugly. Really smooth, but so ugly I uninstalled 10 minutes after installing. -
Atlantica Online
F2P. Can wield a party, much like GW. Horribly ugly, but interesting. But it's F2P! -
Allods
F2P. Tried recently to get back into Allods. Unfortunately, GPotato has implemented a ridiculously stupid authentication system, and after the Nth time of being told my password was incorrect, even though I'd just sent a password reset, AND reset it, AND was able to log into the Gpotato site itself, I gave up. All Gpotato games fall under this group now. -
A Tale in the Desert
Subs (I think). Great game, if you like building more than killing. I like killing more than building. -
World of Warcraft
Subscription with a growing cash shop. I don't like the person WoW turns me into, and I don't like their systems. -
Tera Online
F2P, formerly subs. Best combat I've ever seen. Beautiful art, great sound. So why it's not really 'sticky' for me, I don't know. -
Neverwinter
F2P. Feels like a cheap rip-off of Tera. As far as I can see, everything Neverwinter does, Tera does better. -
Age of Wushu
Paid 'VIP' status. Extremely promising, love the artwork, love the combat. Unfortunately, it's trying for an EVE-style economy, and from what I could see before I stopped logging in - it isn't working. At all. -
Lord of the Rings Online
Pay-for-content-unlocks (I think). Couldn't install on 2 computers now. Can't be bothered to troubleshoot.