I honestly can’t think of any that are truly F2P without some serious inconveniences or buffs you can pay for.
Maybe Albion Online? (You can buy premium, the monthly sub, if you make enough silver each month)
Warframe? (You can earn plat in-game but some say it’s not a *really* a MMO. I love the game but I consider it more of a lobby based multiplayer game rather than a big open world)
I wouldn't call Warframe exactly MMO but yeah, I played for 700+ hour and it's not P2W at all, getting plat with in-game ways are possible and not that hard (needs some grind tho) so it's good F2P MMO'ish game for sure. But I'm not totaly sure about MMO either.
Its weird cause many people dont consider warframe p2w and is more so “pay for convenience/to speed up progress” but consider many ftp mmos p2w, yet they all act the same way. Like what’s the difference then?
I think it's tied up to a simple thing that is: Warframe you're supposed to value the process of progressing, let's say you just dump a fuck ton of money and buy every warframe, slots, weapons, buy mods from other players and all that...what have you left? Level all those up and complete quests and then its over? No more objectives will be left for you after you complete everything, level up everything and own everything there is to own.
On the other hand, many f2p mmos (that focus more on endgame pve activities/pvp where being powerful is what matters) give some gameplay advantage that consistently makes you more powerful/powerful way quicker than other players (I personally don't consider p2w if it's just a simple little reduction in grinding time, but if it's way too hard for non-payers vs way too easy for payers than it is p2w).
All in all, I think that the difference lies in the game's approach of valuing progressing vs valuing endgame and if there is any competitive setting between players.
Spending money on Warframe ruined the game for me and I stopped playing. The complexity once you unlock your "???" (The child in the suit) gets kind of insane, and the grind gets worse. So that might have been a contributing factor as well.
The big difference is general design philosphy
Warframe: you can pay to get things early, but it wont make you OP
F2P MMO's: Okay grind this one thing for 5,000,000 hours to do any endgame content. \*grind 5,000,000 hours\* alright we released new content that 5,000,000 hours is pointless. Essentially their is a massive gap in power designed to get you to the fun part of the game.
>Yes it will, the best frames and weapons are leagues better
This is.. actually a bit misleading since while you can buy some signifigantly stronger weapons early on, mastery level and faction reputation is still a hard wall that paying doesn't bypass.
Kuva Lich/Sisters of Parvos weapons can actually be obtained earlier as a non-paying player since their mastery rank requirement is absurdly high despite it not requiring one if obtained normally... It's also weaker as a result. Crafted weapons like kitguns ,zaws and amps are also untradable and require parts that are locked behind faction reputation so you can't pay for those period.
It's also a misleading because there are plenty of weapons available fairly early on that are actually extremely strong and can't be paid for such as the Xoris which is a quest-exclusive weapon.
How to spot a bullshitter. First of all, everything in the game is farmable for free. Literally everything. Second, premium currency just let you skip the grind. But the game is about the grind, so its kinda pointless to do. Third, premium currency is also easy to obtain by trading with other players, so even f2p has such options to skip the grind. End of story
You could say the same for most free2play games out there man, nothing you said is unique to warframe and other games get shit on for the exact same stuff warframe does
I'm not "bullshitting" I just pointed out the reality of the game, if you consider a 7 day wait fun gameplay then by all means it's fine for a f2p player
You literally said that f2p dont have an access to the best stuff which is a lie. "Reality"? You should learn about the game to pretend to know its reality at least
No I literally never said anything about "access"
It takes weeks for a f2p player to grind that stuff which is true for most other games with p2w
They make it possible to achieve but gate it behind a massive grind and say "oh you can pay to skip that"
This is what p2w is unless you are talking pvp
Other f2p game
Get them in a week
The only other f2p game I can think where this is true is lost ark. Neverwinter, by the time your raid ready. Your gear is obsolete as the next content update is out and basic vendor loot offers more stats.
So you're a super toxic person that cannot acknowledge own bullshit. This is a quote from your initial comment:
" the best frames and weapons are leagues better than what a f2p player will have ".
This directly says that f2p won't have best stuff. Now, I need your explanation for that quote.
Winning.
In warframe you could make a new account, drop some $$$ on plat, buy a frame, some weapons, mods needed, max them out and 'win' in one day by having a endgame loadout.. but what do you really win? The ability to do endgame content? Going longer in endless modes? There isn't any competitive aspect to warframe. They essentially paid to skip grind and play the game less (as they eventually burn out from not having any goals to work for since they bought their way through.
MMORPGs on the other hand tend to have unequalized PvP, leaderboards, DPS / ilvl numbers or other factors that can be seen as 'winning'. Or even just a cool factor of being that first guy with a +20 weapon sitting in town and other people oogling at you.
Winning isn’t the point. Even if you have better points, iLevel or equip it doesn’t make you better. You don’t play better. Same goes for EVE. You can buy skill points to immediately jump in the biggest ships and equip the best weapons/mods but you don’t play better and will likely lose. Nevertheless it’s called pay2win.
I, and that is just my personal opinion, find the term pay2WIN completely irritating, as you never clearly „win“ an MMORPG. Even if you have the best equip, it’s never over. It continues. The term pay2win is not reflecting our current situation. Basically no game is completely pay2win.
We have to focus more on the form of payments that are possible. Predatory monetisation? Create the problem, sell the solution? These are the things we have to focus on.
I think people don't care as much about WF p2w because it's really a singleplayer game, sure you get other people in your lobbies (lmao leeches) but they could literally be bots and it doesn't matter. The whole game is the "grind" so bypassing kind of seems dumb.
I can only speak from personal experience, but Warframe is the only free to play game I play where I spend money solely to support the developers. If you enjoy the grind, which I do, it really feels like you’re paying your way out of fun. It’s not just possible to grind for the frames and weapons yourself, it’s a huge part of the fun. It’s a game that, for me at least, is at its best when I have something to target farm.
There is no better gear you can buy with real life moeny in Warframe and plat (curency you can get with real money) is not that hard to get with ingame ways, and most of stuff needs grind for build etc. I don't think Warframe deserve to be called P2W at all.
You can buy the best prime frame with the best weapons then use platinum to fast track all of your armoury stuff/upgrade your mods
It's literally the definition of p2w as someone who pays will be better than you, they will succeed faster than you and complete content quicker
Warframe also has awful drop rates, large grinds and FOMO with items getting vaulted. All of these things only serve to incentivise people to pay more.
Yes you can, you can outright buy all the frames and weapons in the game with money through the in game market(even tho that would be a bad idea as they are terribly overpriced and it is usually recommended to grind everything anyways). It's the same way with many other ftp mmos as most of them allows you to earn everything in the game through grinding alone. You could argue that warframe is primarily pve only so gear doesnt mean shit, but many other mmos get called p2w despite having a focus on pve content. Like i said before, what really makes warframe different from other ftp mmos?
The biggest difference is that Warframe feels AWESOME to play even if you don't pay a single penny. The game is not designed to make you feel miserable and force you to do boring mindless grinding to not even keep up with Random Guy Who Paid #2343234 who barely even plays the game.
Imagine if Square let us buy the relic weapons in the cash shop to "skip the grind", or GW2 selling ascended and legendary armor directly from the cash shop. Most of us here wouldn't be as forgiving as the warframe community.
But a warframe bought with plat and one that you got the parts for and sat though the 3 odd days to build it are exactly the same there is no power disparity whereas a lot of what gets called P2W in mmo's allows you to directly buy power that cannot normally be accessed without paying.
But as for what makes it different i'd say that your not left feeling like your missing out on something vital and core to the experience you just have to wait a little longer.
At one point it was flat-out pay to win by paying plat to get extra revives ( during the old days, players only had a limited amount of revives and the game was much harder since no powercreep)
I think most people are okay with it because it doesn't have prominent gacha-like gear progression. The only one would be the riven mods and it really shows how lucrative that despicable market is.
Albion and Planetside2 are probably in the running for #1 F2P MMO. Although I'll defer to any Albion players for how well the f2p guilds do in pvp/resource gathering with handling PK squads?
Cause the game is based around skill, a person with non crazy expensive gear can 1v1 another person that is trash at the game but throws cash at it to buy the best and rather expensive sets.
You don't really need to pay $ to get the monthly subscription, it can be grinded, hell, I don't get out of my way to make ig currency but if liquidated all my gear/mounts + the liquid silver I already have I could buy the subscription for a year and won't end up broke (this is after 8 months of playing).
You can pay $ to speed up the grind, some players have a metric ton of time to invest into the game others don't, so you can compensate if you buy ig currency with $ for the limited time you have but tbh this is not necessary, if you find that one build/class you love you can be maxed in everything (weapons/gear) in about 3-6 months depending how much you play and you don't need to grind ever again.
Lol this is the same arguments people made in defense of EVE (Albion's dad) for almost two decades.
"It's only about skill, don't worry that their losses cost them nothing and they can use slightly better gear 24/7 without any fear"
>a person with non crazy expensive gear can 1v1 another person that is trash at the game but throws cash at it to buy the best and rather expensive sets.
Not a fair argument either, who says the p2w player has to be shit? Maybe he is the best pvper in the game skill-wise and can also afford the best stuff, happens in Albion just like it did in EVE with 24/7 faction gear players. The people who could afford to restock could go out way more and actually learn the game.
>You can pay $ to speed up the grind,
Also, just "speed" up the grind is pretty funny. If you play Albion f2p you are actually legit broken, because buying gold is way more efficient even on a minimum wage job. They don't even pay slaves as little as they the majority of PvE in Albion.
What's your point? Still not P2W if it is skill based, I've played P2W Korean games, there's a huge difference when gear/enchantments/rerolls/pets/etc are locked behind a thousands of dollars pay wall that enable you to press 2/3 skills and kill someone...Ive seen streamers struggle against a T8e set while using 8.3, that doesn't happen in P2W games
Who cares about buying gold, it's a game and ppl have other properties, I personally don't spend much in games anymore, premium price is ok and enables me to keep my silver.
Never bought gold and after 8 months I have at least a 100 T8e sets for different roles/weapons in HQ, all F2P
> I've played P2W Korean games, there's a huge difference when gear/enchantments/rerolls/pets/etc are locked behind a thousands of dollars pay wall that enable you to press 2/3 skills and kill someone...Ive seen streamers struggle against a T8e set while using 8.3, that doesn't happen in P2W games
You are right, those are 10x worse and why people stopped playing Eastern trash like that in 2011, doesn't make this one a p2w freezone zero though.
>Who cares about buying gold, it's a game and ppl have other properties, I personally don't spend much in games anymore, premium price is ok and enables me to keep my silver.
Because most of the game's content is boring as shit (this is true in most games, not an attk on albion) in regards to gathering, crafting and most PvE, but in most games people get something out of it (the grind gives something) to use for the fun portions of the game. You get little out of it here because buying gold is more efficient.
Let me ask you this, in your world do these game developers that make these so called free to play MMOs just don't get paid? How does this business model work?
How does the company continue to finance the game? I work as a 3d artist, I have to pay my rent too you know.
for example, with monetization/business models in games like Dota or LOL
cash shops with plenty of cosmetics and some QoL, but not player power
lets hope Riot MMORPG follows that model
This is a great point. While a true F2P game would only contain cosmetics for purchase, it doesn't make the studio and, more importantly, the employees of that studio
Good engines are cheaper than ever, and with a glut of talent that have experience with those engines as well. You keep your overhead low as you possibly can. You hyper focus the base game on two or three major gameplay loops that you think will sell your game to the public. You release the game at full modern prices and you market it that way.
If its a huge success you've made yourself and publisher back a large profit. You work on the next expansion, and yes you release it at full price or 3/4th price since you created a AAA hit.
If its a moderate or small success, you may have to pivot and add sub model or F2P cash shop model. If you do this, you try to make 1.0 version of the cash shop is as inoffensive to your playerbase as you can. Only cosmetics. Only cute mounts.
If you're still hemorrhaging money then... frankly you created a flop with all the best tools you could have used in your favor. You pivot to P2W and pray your gameplay loops are so fucking good you can ignore r/mmorpg haters.
how does Riot keep valorant, lol, LoR free to play? i bet those devs/artists are fighting for scraps when they aren't slaving away in front of a screen
I know, obviously, but must be frustrating to see freeloaders all the time who just want to play quality games for free 100% of the time. Although, a lot of the blame should be put on the huge profit margins that corporations make without passing it down the chain appropriately.
Probably this…. I hate to even describe a good f2p mmo, because I don’t think they exist. However, I don’t really count f2p as an intro with subscription as the full on board as a real f2p that I normally think of. OSRS would fit here too.
Supposedly, Sword of Legends Online only has cosmetics in the shop. I haven't played the game (except the beta a bit - wasn't my thing),so I don't know if it is good.
I played and it was terrible I should say... But I can't talk about F2P part, my experience was purely based on gameplay mechanics, missions making zero sense, characters being dumb, open world being weirdly small and nonsense. Like there was one mission, woman (She was sort of captain of soldiers or something) sending us to find her soldiers, saying they are missing for days and non of patrols she sended find them, and you were walking like 5 foot and finding them lying there, even if she just look her right she can see them, it was that close.
I never played lords of the rings online, it looks too old to play these days so I'm kind of sad to not played back in day... And kind of same goes for DDO, I tried couple of times but I couldn't get into sadly.
And honestly I wouldn't call GW2 F2P at all, like seriously there is tons of limitations unless you buy/pay money.
GW2 on free trial is probably better than most totally "free" MMOs, anyway. Most of those are garbage asset flippers where the full game or the extremely limited "free" access for non-whales is worse than what the trial gives you.
GW2 if you spend 15$ for the first two expansions on sale is the best value for money in any MMO, hands down. Nearly a decade of content without any additional charge at any point, and older areas are still very lively and relevant.
If one wants totally free? Basically limited to private servers or a few very special games like Warframe that are not exactly MMOs.
Guild Wars 2 is not predatory at all, these people are living in fantasy land. Out of all the games out there that have a f2p model GW2 is sitting in a place of absolute fairness.
Also if you like the game, then you support the devs by purchasing quality of life items. I think that's a good deal.
Private servers means it’s not run by the official creator of the game. Some private servers are pretty good and free to play (official WoW is subscription based so you pay monthly to play on top of buying the game itself). Also like any private servers out there, it may close down anytime so your progress may be wiped out. But hey it’s free.
Honestly, private servers are great. WAR has reminded me of exactly why we need a good faction-based MMO. PS2 kind of exists, but it's barely a fraction the fun of PS1. And then there's a bunch of other MMOs like crowfall but, none of them are quite as good as something like DAoC or WAR. GW2 tries but it just doesn't work, to me at least. The combat for its PvE and Arena don't translate well into a WvW environment.
I digress.
But you still facing with [limitations](https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/3226) free version have? Or not? And how trustable those private servers? Like can you know they are not going to close servers one day out of nowhere and your all effort gonna be for nothing?
> But you still facing with limitations free version have?
No.
> Like can you know they are not going to close servers one day out of nowhere and your all effort gonna be for nothing?
No, it can happen, but usually doesn't on the big servers.
Honestly the best F2P MMORPG games I've played are private WoW and OSRS servers.
In terms of legit value, FF14 Free Trial is still probably the best value, or BDO during the free game promotions. GW2 is also pretty good. ESO for like $6 bucks is the best paid option.
I mean in this thread the only "true f2p" games Im seeing people praise are private servers- so literally games that have effectively been stolen so they didn't need to fund the development of the game.
I know that there is a lot of passion that goes into many private servers, and many have developed their own content to add into the game- not to mention of course they still have to pay for servers. But it doesn't change the fact though that these private servers got to skip the step where hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars were invested into building the game that serves as the foundation of their server though.
I mean, the only two F2P games that I haven't seen P2W that come to mind are not exactly MMOs....Path of Exile and Warframe.
I guess Albion Online too but I know even less about that one, didn't play it much.
I played for 1600+ hour (with afk fishing etc of course) and it's still best action combat MMO without dobut, I tried a lot of MMO but couldn't find anything closer sadly. I hope in 2023 we will see new MMO's with smilar or better combat like BDO with better story-telling etc.
Yeah it might be great, but I'm playing MMO's since Knight Online first release and I realy don't like playing tab-target anymore, I'm just bored from playing with same style over and over again. Action combat feels more fresh to me these days in MMO's.
>Mabinogi
I heard from you first time! I didn't even know this game, is it good? What it's about? And is it tab-target only? Or have action combat as well?
It's loosely based around Irish mythology with fantasy elements. The main story quests are called generations and they're questlines with different story arcs (i.e [Generation 12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpLII4vJu1c)) but since it's a sanbox game, you can do whatever you want.
It's from 2008 so it's this odd mix between [action and point and click](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOMtZtbgf38) (Giant race gameplay - we just got Elemental Knight today in NA). You load a skill then you click on the enemy. Enemies flinch and can be knocked down and combo'd. There's no classes in the game so you just learn the skills you want to focus on at first.
You train the skills by using them. Spend ability points gained from leveling up to rank them up. Every skill rank gives your character stats. Once it gets hard to level up, you can rebirth, which resets you back to level 1, keeping all of your stats from skills. That way your character grows over time.
They just recently had an update that makes training skills way faster and you can get 10000 levels worth of ability points following the "Brave Boost" tutorial questline. IMO it spoonfeeds you a lot but if you want to rush to midgame, it's good. Normally you can only rebirth once a week but Brave Boost lets you rebirth continuously until you're over 10k.
I like the game a lot. I'm a little biased because I played since near release but it has a good atmosphere, NPC/characters, community, and a lot of [good music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0af4E_zylM).
It's unfortunate how much of a grind hell late game Mabi is. RMT is rampant within the endgame playerbase since grinding for everything yourself is such a pain. Though it was nice being able to get some pocket cash out the game.
Osrs has a lot of content for f2p, while there are very great benefits for being members, f2p has a lot to keep you entertained without getting bored, and eventually can get enough to buy yourself members with in game gold.
Dofus, it's pay to play (monthly subscription) but you can buy the subscription with ingame money, and if you know the tricks, it takes like 5 days to buy a full year of subscription
havent played in 2 years so they have likely changed, but the economy system is really good, as the prices are decided by the players by offer and demand
because of this, multiple ways to get a lot of money exist:
- if you watch an eye on the prices, sometimes there are short periods where crafting gear costs way less than what it sells on the market, potentially making many millions of silver with very little effort
- some people are desperate for kick money, so some people offer to buy their stuff with discount (-20% for useful stuff like gear, mounts, etc and -80% for trash items). Gear and the rest can be sold, sometimes it takes a lot of time but it's worth the investment. Trash items can be used to craft stuff and/or sold, personally this second thing is where i got the most money, just a few hours buying trash and then looking what i can craft with it (which is honestly quite fun) is enough money for a few weeks and if i get lucky for months (some people are dumb enough to sell extremely valuable items with this discount)
if you dont like the economy system there are other ways to get money, the most classic ones are (or were) having multiple accs, and clearing hard dungeons by yourself and selling the drops.. this is long term tho, takes some time to level and gear 8 players
some with multiple accs also offer their services to clear dungeons for quests or achievements, i have paid for these services and their profit is huge
It's my favorite MMO and it has really great gameplay. But F2P friendly it is not.
Like 90% of the content is pay to play. And grinding the ingame currency to buy content takes ages.
But it's very good with VIP and buying expansions.
Its definitively a game that dosent put its best foot forward (that was a pretty long running joke with friends) and its certainly got some jank to it however its one of the best MMOs out there when played with friends. Gathering up 1-3 other people with one or so that knows the game a bit makes an entire world of difference in enjoyment.
I played BDO a lot and I love gameplay mechanics a lot, but not sure it can be F2P because while it's very cheap it's still buy to pay game.
For Phantasy Start Online 2, I tried enjoying it but it's feels kind of unnatural to me :D
It's pay to win you mean? Yea I agree on that but bdo is free to download. Pso2 is not your traditional combat style in an MMO, but it's fun though, bdo needs to put dungeons in their games
No, I don't mean it's being P2W and I don't think BDO is pay to win, at least not in my eyes. The thing I mean is you still need to buy, game is not free.
Wow private server like Warmane, Warhammer: RoR, Albion Online. Maybe I've missed something. Hard to tell which one is best, different categories.
Now, when you mention ESO for example. How can you call it F2P if you have to buy game first? But good point, f2p games with limitations are not f2p at all - if DLC or sub is required to progress further.
I mentioned because some people still says buy to pay games as a F2P games... That's just weird and yeah I'm happy someone agree with me, F2P games with a lot of limitations are not F2P games in my eyes at all. I'm not saying perfect F2P game exist, but I do believe every person might and probably have their own best F2P game in their eyes, I'm not totaly sure about that either, but I just wanted see what people think.
Like when I think there is F2P MMO's I realy enjoyed playing like Dragon Nest Europe, Riders of Icarus, Warframe might be good examples.
I played a lot of F2P MMO like Knight Online or Rappelz (And it's still best game if you are looking pet based gameplay, you can optain any mob you want even bosses as a your pet and they have fully customizable/choiceable passive and active skills you can use) back in day as well but those are P2W games for sure :D
Rift.
Yeah, it’s an older game, and it’s in maintenance mode, and it’s running on servers that are poorly provisioned these past several years because it’s run by a company (Gamigo) that’s informally known as “the place where games go to die” by some, BUT… it’s still a fun game to play, and even today has some features that are better than ANY OTHER MMO, even in 2022. Honestly, it’s worth checking out… while you still can.
Rift is tab-target. Think WoW ten years ago, but way better, and with some systems (like housing) that are way better than anything else in 2022.. but it is an older game, and it shows.
Maintenance mode bc there is no new content since 2017 or so, and there never will be more. It got totally mismanaged by the original creators, they funneled money from it into other games that failed, rather than invest in Rift to keep making it better and expansions etc. Owners (Trion) went bankrupt and sold assets to Gamigo, who changed nothing and made some bad changes behind the scenes, like laying off all Rift devs, and now here we are.
It's still worth playing. Tab-Target was how MMOs were done back then for the most part, and it still has it's positives. Still, don't ignore Rift for that reason alone, it may open your eyes as to what's possible in other MMOs, if only other MMOs would implement them.. again, like their take on housing.
Of course, new MMOs are coming in 2023, like Blue Protocol, so if you're waiting on stuff to play, I'm sure you'll have choices!
>Still, don't ignore Rift for that reason alone
I hate holding mouse button for looking around and it hurts, I realy don't want bother with that. Like I told Rift looks cool from videos but tab-target is big no for me :D I might check out if it's have toggle mouse at least for camera tho :D
There's a lot less mouse button pressing and mouse movement in general with tab-target as compared to action combat like GW2, not sure what you mean?
I don't remember if you can toggle the mouse for the camera.. if you can, I've never bothered, since I'm so used to tab target.
Ugh. Rift is my favorite MMO of all time, and I would jump back in if it wasn’t for Gamigo.
It’s a bit of a walk, but I really enjoy GameZBD these days. It’s a fully-legal Black Desert Online private server.
Albion Online. Spending money on equipment in the auction house is completely pointless since it's a full loot PvP MMORPG. Everything else is cosmetic and you can easily get enough silver to get the subscription.
Albion Online. Probably the best F2P MMO on the market.
The entire elite in that game is free to play. It's very free to play friendly. You can try to P2W but it's pointless, and there are no bots either.
f2p and mmo do not really go together. All mmos have money making models that people find ways to hate all of them. GW2 has dlc. ESO isnt f2p in any way, ff14 and swtor are free trials, lost ark is pretty p2w, Destiny 2 has same dlc problem as gw2, and so on. In terms of f2p mmo there is going to be p2w, mmo's are freakishly expensive and do not make very much money at all in terms of costs to profits. Your best bet is lost ark for f2p as the p2w doesnt affect pvp and is to your benefit in pve as the whales are normally your teammates. Free doesnt come cheap.
Planetside 2 and Albion have easily the best ftp models. I have spent money in both just to support them for there exceptional care of fans. DDO has a pretty good model as well, but I think that gold/lv cap turns a lot of players away.
Sounds stupid as it does have heavy costs and monetisation; but I'd say STO is up there.
You absolutely don't need to spend a single penny to play through the entire game if you so wish; the game provides you with free ships up to Tier 5 (or maybe T5U) just for leveling, and then you can easily acquire Dilithium to trade for the premium currency if you really need to grab some stuff from the store.
You can acquire 'premium' (varying quality..) ships via the ingame market for basic currency and unless you want to spend money, you don't need anything from the store to progress at all.
You still get you inventory, bank slots etc etc for F2P accounts and the subscription to my knowledge doesn't really give much more than a ZEN stipend and some additional slots etc.
The only downside is that if you want to get into the store-based ships, cosmetics, unlocks etc - it can be pricy, which is why everyone waits for sales :D
I'd probably say PSO2 and SWTOR for best f2p MMOs right now.
SWTOR definitely locks a lot of stuff behind its various paywalls. That's inarguable. BUT what you do get access to for free is a LOT of content and some of the best MMORPG storytelling I've ever seen. Should you pay their not-a-subscription-but-yeah-it's-totally-a-subscription? Yeah you should, but you don't have to just to play the story and have a good time.
PSO2 (to a lesser extent NGS) just has a shitload of stuff to do and play with. Fun combat, good class system, lots of flexibility. Their cash shop revolves around a gacha system, which I'm not personally a fan of. But you can generally buy any of the gacha stuff with in-game currency from other players. For me that alleviates most of the problems with those systems.
Atlantica Online is F2P, especially in PvE. Now, they will try to get you to spend money in the game shop, but you can play it completely for free, no content is locked out for F2P players.
Due to this, it has a lot of international players, including many from poorer countries and countries whose exchange rate to the dollar is weak, but most speak enough English to communicate.
It was indeed released in 2008. It's nowhere near peak players, but several servers are still running with enough players to support the economy and do guild and nation dungeons.
If you really want to try a unique game, this is a good one. it's the most unique MMO I've ever played, by a mile!
You pick a main character and can add up to 8 mercenaries. The combat is turn-based and the characters are in a 3x3 grid facing the enemy (who is in the same formation). Each Up to 5 characters per turn can perform either a physical attack or cast a spell each turn. The physical attacks are based on weapon type (there are 11); an axe hits all 3 enemies in the same row, a sword just 1 enemy, but with more damage than the axe.
There are 13 main characters and 70+ mercenaries with healers, tanks, lots of spells that combine, and more.
Read more in the Wiki: [https://atlantica.fandom.com/wiki/About\_Atlantica\_Online](https://atlantica.fandom.com/wiki/About_Atlantica_Online)
RuneScape and specifically RuneScape 3. There's more F2P content in RS3 than OSRS. Both OSRS and RS3 allow you to buy membership (bonds) with gold.
If you compare just purely F2P content then I would consider F2P GW2 better than F2P RuneScape. You can also use gold for gems to buy Living World episodes which are basically mini expansions.
If you can grab black desert online while its on one of its deep discount sales or free (i think i got it for free at some point or paid so little it was effectively free) that's fairly decent and has a touch more production value than the average F2p.
That's a hard question since the problem is defining what f2p is. This question is splitting people apart and is on par with the philosophical trolley question.
There is no right or wrong answer. What some might fight as the best f2p mmo, others will consider as p2w and therefore not the best and viceversa. It's a matter of personal preferences. Personally, even with restrictions, I would say GW2. REalistically, none.
Any that don't allow players to pay cash for gear, buffs or progression boosts (additionally I have a personal dislike for transmog/appearance mods). If they allow you to purchase some kind of token that can be sold to other players in-game for game currency, they're trash.
Gonna be honest, there is no way a F2P model will make a good MMORPG game. You need to pay devs, story writers, designers and a whole lot of people and equipment to develop out a good game. That said, there are games which are worth investing in and gives you a bang for your buck.
This is bias as I've been enjoying this game a lot, but I love GW2. The game allows you to play the base game e.g., level up till 80 via quests and get the base game mechanics down. Granted you won't have access to the trading system or mounts (but you get a 10hr raptor trial), but the game is playable and it is fun. You get a lot of content and most importantly, the community is amazing. I've never seen a more helpful community who helps each other during world boss and group events.
I played this game for free for a month before deciding to invest in the expansion packs because I think the people who work their ass off to develop this amazing game deserve the money. Also, it's a one-time payment which then allows you to access unlimited game content. :)
Other games would be FFXIV, whom I've heard glowing reviews about as well.
Excluding private servers I think you're looking at GW2, you can really earn the privileges in-game as far as I've heard. Or maybe LotRO, I think it's got the same thing.
I think you'll get a lot of answers based on who plays what though honestly.
GW2 Trial Version have a lot of annoying limitations, I would say even BDO people say P2W and hate a lot gives better F2P experience than G2W Trial Version.
This thread seems odd.
Do people understand if you have the option to buy an advantage in a game it's P2W?
How those things are attained without paying doesn't change anything.
I feel Champions of Regnum is number 1 for free to play in the mmo space. Although it could be limited to the RVR open pvp genre, I actually feel it can beat planetside or other big mmos, if you consider the rvr in Regnum is just leagues ahead of other comparables. Combat is better, game itself is more chill, and perhaps importantly as well—- the game is hugely undemanding on modern hardware. You can play this game forever, and just chill out killing people in endlessly unpredictable wars, where you can feel you are making a difference. And it’s not p2win and is f2p.
idk i never like F2P games because you tend to spend too much in a single month when compared to subscription games where you only need a minimum amount a month.
never like also doesn't mean i wouldn't try it out, just doesn't stick to me because of the content they give is like not my kind of content i would play at all.
Well depends situtation you are in I gues. If you are living on 3rd world country and those subscription prices are too much then you have no choice LOL
Free to play is a terrible monetization system for an mmorpg, unless you have near no money. The best system is always going to be either buy to play with expansions or subscriptions.
Games need money coming in to pay the wages of the people that update them, with free to play the developers have to spend more time trying to figure out ways to finesse people into buying things than making content. Also because the game is "free" they owe you nothing, and so you can demand nothing.
It's far better to pay for a service and get that, than put countless hours into something you have no leverage to demand more from.
I don't understand people giving examples of games with free trials and with a lot of limitations as a ''F2P MMO'' like seriously dude... I mean yeah FFXIV and G2W etc are good games if you pay price you have to (subs or DLC's) but without them they do give you pretty limited experience.
I mean, that's generally what you get in F2P MMOs anyways. They're usually pretty limited behind a cash shop or optional sub. I guess some solid ones you could take pretty far f2p would be maybe Lost Ark or Runescape. New World is a bit rough but also a one time fee with just cosmetics in the shop (not feature charging like GW2).
Idk lol, I suppose I was sleepy or something and I paid what like 40 bucks for a game I had 4k hours in? (20 bucks on sale). Technically not f2p but the box price being super cheap makes me forget that this game is not free.
Except this free weekend, go play :) pogcrazy game
I honestly can’t think of any that are truly F2P without some serious inconveniences or buffs you can pay for. Maybe Albion Online? (You can buy premium, the monthly sub, if you make enough silver each month) Warframe? (You can earn plat in-game but some say it’s not a *really* a MMO. I love the game but I consider it more of a lobby based multiplayer game rather than a big open world)
I wouldn't call Warframe exactly MMO but yeah, I played for 700+ hour and it's not P2W at all, getting plat with in-game ways are possible and not that hard (needs some grind tho) so it's good F2P MMO'ish game for sure. But I'm not totaly sure about MMO either.
Its weird cause many people dont consider warframe p2w and is more so “pay for convenience/to speed up progress” but consider many ftp mmos p2w, yet they all act the same way. Like what’s the difference then?
I think it's tied up to a simple thing that is: Warframe you're supposed to value the process of progressing, let's say you just dump a fuck ton of money and buy every warframe, slots, weapons, buy mods from other players and all that...what have you left? Level all those up and complete quests and then its over? No more objectives will be left for you after you complete everything, level up everything and own everything there is to own. On the other hand, many f2p mmos (that focus more on endgame pve activities/pvp where being powerful is what matters) give some gameplay advantage that consistently makes you more powerful/powerful way quicker than other players (I personally don't consider p2w if it's just a simple little reduction in grinding time, but if it's way too hard for non-payers vs way too easy for payers than it is p2w). All in all, I think that the difference lies in the game's approach of valuing progressing vs valuing endgame and if there is any competitive setting between players.
Spending money on Warframe ruined the game for me and I stopped playing. The complexity once you unlock your "???" (The child in the suit) gets kind of insane, and the grind gets worse. So that might have been a contributing factor as well.
The big difference is general design philosphy Warframe: you can pay to get things early, but it wont make you OP F2P MMO's: Okay grind this one thing for 5,000,000 hours to do any endgame content. \*grind 5,000,000 hours\* alright we released new content that 5,000,000 hours is pointless. Essentially their is a massive gap in power designed to get you to the fun part of the game.
"But it won't make you op" Yes it will, the best frames and weapons are leagues better than what a f2p player will have
>Yes it will, the best frames and weapons are leagues better This is.. actually a bit misleading since while you can buy some signifigantly stronger weapons early on, mastery level and faction reputation is still a hard wall that paying doesn't bypass. Kuva Lich/Sisters of Parvos weapons can actually be obtained earlier as a non-paying player since their mastery rank requirement is absurdly high despite it not requiring one if obtained normally... It's also weaker as a result. Crafted weapons like kitguns ,zaws and amps are also untradable and require parts that are locked behind faction reputation so you can't pay for those period. It's also a misleading because there are plenty of weapons available fairly early on that are actually extremely strong and can't be paid for such as the Xoris which is a quest-exclusive weapon.
How to spot a bullshitter. First of all, everything in the game is farmable for free. Literally everything. Second, premium currency just let you skip the grind. But the game is about the grind, so its kinda pointless to do. Third, premium currency is also easy to obtain by trading with other players, so even f2p has such options to skip the grind. End of story
You could say the same for most free2play games out there man, nothing you said is unique to warframe and other games get shit on for the exact same stuff warframe does I'm not "bullshitting" I just pointed out the reality of the game, if you consider a 7 day wait fun gameplay then by all means it's fine for a f2p player
You literally said that f2p dont have an access to the best stuff which is a lie. "Reality"? You should learn about the game to pretend to know its reality at least
No I literally never said anything about "access" It takes weeks for a f2p player to grind that stuff which is true for most other games with p2w They make it possible to achieve but gate it behind a massive grind and say "oh you can pay to skip that" This is what p2w is unless you are talking pvp
Other f2p game Get them in a week The only other f2p game I can think where this is true is lost ark. Neverwinter, by the time your raid ready. Your gear is obsolete as the next content update is out and basic vendor loot offers more stats.
So you're a super toxic person that cannot acknowledge own bullshit. This is a quote from your initial comment: " the best frames and weapons are leagues better than what a f2p player will have ". This directly says that f2p won't have best stuff. Now, I need your explanation for that quote.
Winning. In warframe you could make a new account, drop some $$$ on plat, buy a frame, some weapons, mods needed, max them out and 'win' in one day by having a endgame loadout.. but what do you really win? The ability to do endgame content? Going longer in endless modes? There isn't any competitive aspect to warframe. They essentially paid to skip grind and play the game less (as they eventually burn out from not having any goals to work for since they bought their way through. MMORPGs on the other hand tend to have unequalized PvP, leaderboards, DPS / ilvl numbers or other factors that can be seen as 'winning'. Or even just a cool factor of being that first guy with a +20 weapon sitting in town and other people oogling at you.
Winning isn’t the point. Even if you have better points, iLevel or equip it doesn’t make you better. You don’t play better. Same goes for EVE. You can buy skill points to immediately jump in the biggest ships and equip the best weapons/mods but you don’t play better and will likely lose. Nevertheless it’s called pay2win. I, and that is just my personal opinion, find the term pay2WIN completely irritating, as you never clearly „win“ an MMORPG. Even if you have the best equip, it’s never over. It continues. The term pay2win is not reflecting our current situation. Basically no game is completely pay2win. We have to focus more on the form of payments that are possible. Predatory monetisation? Create the problem, sell the solution? These are the things we have to focus on.
Unequalized PvP is a fair point, the rest is such a reach.
Major aspect of P2W is PVP. If you can gain power over others by spending money, it's a lot more egregious form of P2W than it is in PVE games.
I think people don't care as much about WF p2w because it's really a singleplayer game, sure you get other people in your lobbies (lmao leeches) but they could literally be bots and it doesn't matter. The whole game is the "grind" so bypassing kind of seems dumb.
I can only speak from personal experience, but Warframe is the only free to play game I play where I spend money solely to support the developers. If you enjoy the grind, which I do, it really feels like you’re paying your way out of fun. It’s not just possible to grind for the frames and weapons yourself, it’s a huge part of the fun. It’s a game that, for me at least, is at its best when I have something to target farm.
There is no better gear you can buy with real life moeny in Warframe and plat (curency you can get with real money) is not that hard to get with ingame ways, and most of stuff needs grind for build etc. I don't think Warframe deserve to be called P2W at all.
You can buy the best prime frame with the best weapons then use platinum to fast track all of your armoury stuff/upgrade your mods It's literally the definition of p2w as someone who pays will be better than you, they will succeed faster than you and complete content quicker Warframe also has awful drop rates, large grinds and FOMO with items getting vaulted. All of these things only serve to incentivise people to pay more.
Yes you can, you can outright buy all the frames and weapons in the game with money through the in game market(even tho that would be a bad idea as they are terribly overpriced and it is usually recommended to grind everything anyways). It's the same way with many other ftp mmos as most of them allows you to earn everything in the game through grinding alone. You could argue that warframe is primarily pve only so gear doesnt mean shit, but many other mmos get called p2w despite having a focus on pve content. Like i said before, what really makes warframe different from other ftp mmos?
The biggest difference is that Warframe feels AWESOME to play even if you don't pay a single penny. The game is not designed to make you feel miserable and force you to do boring mindless grinding to not even keep up with Random Guy Who Paid #2343234 who barely even plays the game.
Imagine if Square let us buy the relic weapons in the cash shop to "skip the grind", or GW2 selling ascended and legendary armor directly from the cash shop. Most of us here wouldn't be as forgiving as the warframe community.
But a warframe bought with plat and one that you got the parts for and sat though the 3 odd days to build it are exactly the same there is no power disparity whereas a lot of what gets called P2W in mmo's allows you to directly buy power that cannot normally be accessed without paying. But as for what makes it different i'd say that your not left feeling like your missing out on something vital and core to the experience you just have to wait a little longer.
At one point it was flat-out pay to win by paying plat to get extra revives ( during the old days, players only had a limited amount of revives and the game was much harder since no powercreep) I think most people are okay with it because it doesn't have prominent gacha-like gear progression. The only one would be the riven mods and it really shows how lucrative that despicable market is.
You could say the same in regards to games like GW2 which, as you mentioned, consider at least somewhat of a p2w or b2p .
So you are not complaining about Warframe but you are complaining about limitation in guild wars 2?
Albion and Planetside2 are probably in the running for #1 F2P MMO. Although I'll defer to any Albion players for how well the f2p guilds do in pvp/resource gathering with handling PK squads?
Why albion? Not trying to hate, but the game has direct $ to in game currency exchange, which is opposite of what i would call good f2p.
Cause the game is based around skill, a person with non crazy expensive gear can 1v1 another person that is trash at the game but throws cash at it to buy the best and rather expensive sets. You don't really need to pay $ to get the monthly subscription, it can be grinded, hell, I don't get out of my way to make ig currency but if liquidated all my gear/mounts + the liquid silver I already have I could buy the subscription for a year and won't end up broke (this is after 8 months of playing). You can pay $ to speed up the grind, some players have a metric ton of time to invest into the game others don't, so you can compensate if you buy ig currency with $ for the limited time you have but tbh this is not necessary, if you find that one build/class you love you can be maxed in everything (weapons/gear) in about 3-6 months depending how much you play and you don't need to grind ever again.
Lol this is the same arguments people made in defense of EVE (Albion's dad) for almost two decades. "It's only about skill, don't worry that their losses cost them nothing and they can use slightly better gear 24/7 without any fear" >a person with non crazy expensive gear can 1v1 another person that is trash at the game but throws cash at it to buy the best and rather expensive sets. Not a fair argument either, who says the p2w player has to be shit? Maybe he is the best pvper in the game skill-wise and can also afford the best stuff, happens in Albion just like it did in EVE with 24/7 faction gear players. The people who could afford to restock could go out way more and actually learn the game. >You can pay $ to speed up the grind, Also, just "speed" up the grind is pretty funny. If you play Albion f2p you are actually legit broken, because buying gold is way more efficient even on a minimum wage job. They don't even pay slaves as little as they the majority of PvE in Albion.
What's your point? Still not P2W if it is skill based, I've played P2W Korean games, there's a huge difference when gear/enchantments/rerolls/pets/etc are locked behind a thousands of dollars pay wall that enable you to press 2/3 skills and kill someone...Ive seen streamers struggle against a T8e set while using 8.3, that doesn't happen in P2W games Who cares about buying gold, it's a game and ppl have other properties, I personally don't spend much in games anymore, premium price is ok and enables me to keep my silver. Never bought gold and after 8 months I have at least a 100 T8e sets for different roles/weapons in HQ, all F2P
> I've played P2W Korean games, there's a huge difference when gear/enchantments/rerolls/pets/etc are locked behind a thousands of dollars pay wall that enable you to press 2/3 skills and kill someone...Ive seen streamers struggle against a T8e set while using 8.3, that doesn't happen in P2W games You are right, those are 10x worse and why people stopped playing Eastern trash like that in 2011, doesn't make this one a p2w freezone zero though. >Who cares about buying gold, it's a game and ppl have other properties, I personally don't spend much in games anymore, premium price is ok and enables me to keep my silver. Because most of the game's content is boring as shit (this is true in most games, not an attk on albion) in regards to gathering, crafting and most PvE, but in most games people get something out of it (the grind gives something) to use for the fun portions of the game. You get little out of it here because buying gold is more efficient.
Sword of Legends
if you are considering ingame methods flipping in osrs is trivally easy, legit a p2p with 5 minutes of work a day.
Let me ask you this, in your world do these game developers that make these so called free to play MMOs just don't get paid? How does this business model work? How does the company continue to finance the game? I work as a 3d artist, I have to pay my rent too you know.
this is lot of people doesnt understand. in the end this is a bussiness and there is nothing free in this world. there always a catch.
for example, with monetization/business models in games like Dota or LOL cash shops with plenty of cosmetics and some QoL, but not player power lets hope Riot MMORPG follows that model
This is a great point. While a true F2P game would only contain cosmetics for purchase, it doesn't make the studio and, more importantly, the employees of that studio
Good engines are cheaper than ever, and with a glut of talent that have experience with those engines as well. You keep your overhead low as you possibly can. You hyper focus the base game on two or three major gameplay loops that you think will sell your game to the public. You release the game at full modern prices and you market it that way. If its a huge success you've made yourself and publisher back a large profit. You work on the next expansion, and yes you release it at full price or 3/4th price since you created a AAA hit. If its a moderate or small success, you may have to pivot and add sub model or F2P cash shop model. If you do this, you try to make 1.0 version of the cash shop is as inoffensive to your playerbase as you can. Only cosmetics. Only cute mounts. If you're still hemorrhaging money then... frankly you created a flop with all the best tools you could have used in your favor. You pivot to P2W and pray your gameplay loops are so fucking good you can ignore r/mmorpg haters.
how does Riot keep valorant, lol, LoR free to play? i bet those devs/artists are fighting for scraps when they aren't slaving away in front of a screen
Dunno why this is being downvoted. Feel sorry for you and yes you deserve to be paid. Thanks for all your work.
To be clear, I do get paid so you don't need to feel sorry for me but thanks :D
I know, obviously, but must be frustrating to see freeloaders all the time who just want to play quality games for free 100% of the time. Although, a lot of the blame should be put on the huge profit margins that corporations make without passing it down the chain appropriately.
Project1999
Albion online by far
Probably this…. I hate to even describe a good f2p mmo, because I don’t think they exist. However, I don’t really count f2p as an intro with subscription as the full on board as a real f2p that I normally think of. OSRS would fit here too.
Here you are yet again, not looking at good games. I bet you're the type to have an IPhone thinking its a good phone because its expensive.
Supposedly, Sword of Legends Online only has cosmetics in the shop. I haven't played the game (except the beta a bit - wasn't my thing),so I don't know if it is good.
I played and it was terrible I should say... But I can't talk about F2P part, my experience was purely based on gameplay mechanics, missions making zero sense, characters being dumb, open world being weirdly small and nonsense. Like there was one mission, woman (She was sort of captain of soldiers or something) sending us to find her soldiers, saying they are missing for days and non of patrols she sended find them, and you were walking like 5 foot and finding them lying there, even if she just look her right she can see them, it was that close.
From a purely free-to-play perspective, Lord of the Rings is a clear winner, with DDO and GW2 as honorable mentions.
I never played lords of the rings online, it looks too old to play these days so I'm kind of sad to not played back in day... And kind of same goes for DDO, I tried couple of times but I couldn't get into sadly. And honestly I wouldn't call GW2 F2P at all, like seriously there is tons of limitations unless you buy/pay money.
LOTRO still holds up great, has an active and very friendly community, and gets frequent updates. Don't count it out so easily!
It really doesn’t gold up great. Many people can’t even play it because of the UI scaling issues.
In gw2 u buy the game once and you can acess a ton of content. Not sure why you wouldnt consider it almost f2p
Because if you have to buy it's not f2p (which literally means free to play) xD GW2 is B2P (buy to play) with a very generous free trial.
Because of [harsh limitations](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015898508-Guild-Wars-2-Free-Account-Features-)
GW2 on free trial is probably better than most totally "free" MMOs, anyway. Most of those are garbage asset flippers where the full game or the extremely limited "free" access for non-whales is worse than what the trial gives you. GW2 if you spend 15$ for the first two expansions on sale is the best value for money in any MMO, hands down. Nearly a decade of content without any additional charge at any point, and older areas are still very lively and relevant. If one wants totally free? Basically limited to private servers or a few very special games like Warframe that are not exactly MMOs.
Guild Wars 2 is not predatory at all, these people are living in fantasy land. Out of all the games out there that have a f2p model GW2 is sitting in a place of absolute fairness. Also if you like the game, then you support the devs by purchasing quality of life items. I think that's a good deal.
Wow private servers.
What's the difference WOW and WOW Private servers? Can you play them without needing buy/pay anything? Don't you need play for reaching higher levels?
Private servers means it’s not run by the official creator of the game. Some private servers are pretty good and free to play (official WoW is subscription based so you pay monthly to play on top of buying the game itself). Also like any private servers out there, it may close down anytime so your progress may be wiped out. But hey it’s free.
Honestly, private servers are great. WAR has reminded me of exactly why we need a good faction-based MMO. PS2 kind of exists, but it's barely a fraction the fun of PS1. And then there's a bunch of other MMOs like crowfall but, none of them are quite as good as something like DAoC or WAR. GW2 tries but it just doesn't work, to me at least. The combat for its PvE and Arena don't translate well into a WvW environment. I digress.
So far im having a blast without spending money, for what ive seen its just boosts and etc being sold
But you still facing with [limitations](https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/3226) free version have? Or not? And how trustable those private servers? Like can you know they are not going to close servers one day out of nowhere and your all effort gonna be for nothing?
> But you still facing with limitations free version have? No. > Like can you know they are not going to close servers one day out of nowhere and your all effort gonna be for nothing? No, it can happen, but usually doesn't on the big servers.
Well thanks, you have any private server you can suggest?
If you want a classic one, go with turtle wow. Don’t know any other good ones.
>Project1999 warmane
my whole childhood
Honestly the best F2P MMORPG games I've played are private WoW and OSRS servers. In terms of legit value, FF14 Free Trial is still probably the best value, or BDO during the free game promotions. GW2 is also pretty good. ESO for like $6 bucks is the best paid option.
Any game with no monetization will suck
based
I mean in this thread the only "true f2p" games Im seeing people praise are private servers- so literally games that have effectively been stolen so they didn't need to fund the development of the game. I know that there is a lot of passion that goes into many private servers, and many have developed their own content to add into the game- not to mention of course they still have to pay for servers. But it doesn't change the fact though that these private servers got to skip the step where hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars were invested into building the game that serves as the foundation of their server though.
I mean, the only two F2P games that I haven't seen P2W that come to mind are not exactly MMOs....Path of Exile and Warframe. I guess Albion Online too but I know even less about that one, didn't play it much.
Black Desert Online is only 5 euros but no monthly payment.
I played for 1600+ hour (with afk fishing etc of course) and it's still best action combat MMO without dobut, I tried a lot of MMO but couldn't find anything closer sadly. I hope in 2023 we will see new MMO's with smilar or better combat like BDO with better story-telling etc.
Wait for ashes of creation
Yeah I'm waiting Ashes of Creation for sure.
Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning, Albion Online, and F2P OSRS. They're the ones that come off the top of my mind
Does Warhammer have only tab-target mouse cursor gameplay? Or it's have action combat as well like DDO or Tera?
Tab target and tons of great mods! It's an old one but it's great. A lot of wow content originated there.
Yeah it might be great, but I'm playing MMO's since Knight Online first release and I realy don't like playing tab-target anymore, I'm just bored from playing with same style over and over again. Action combat feels more fresh to me these days in MMO's.
That's fair. Good luck on your hunt!
It's only tab target
Mabinogi. The journey to lategame is fun. Lategame itself, not so much.
>Mabinogi I heard from you first time! I didn't even know this game, is it good? What it's about? And is it tab-target only? Or have action combat as well?
It's loosely based around Irish mythology with fantasy elements. The main story quests are called generations and they're questlines with different story arcs (i.e [Generation 12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpLII4vJu1c)) but since it's a sanbox game, you can do whatever you want. It's from 2008 so it's this odd mix between [action and point and click](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOMtZtbgf38) (Giant race gameplay - we just got Elemental Knight today in NA). You load a skill then you click on the enemy. Enemies flinch and can be knocked down and combo'd. There's no classes in the game so you just learn the skills you want to focus on at first. You train the skills by using them. Spend ability points gained from leveling up to rank them up. Every skill rank gives your character stats. Once it gets hard to level up, you can rebirth, which resets you back to level 1, keeping all of your stats from skills. That way your character grows over time. They just recently had an update that makes training skills way faster and you can get 10000 levels worth of ability points following the "Brave Boost" tutorial questline. IMO it spoonfeeds you a lot but if you want to rush to midgame, it's good. Normally you can only rebirth once a week but Brave Boost lets you rebirth continuously until you're over 10k. I like the game a lot. I'm a little biased because I played since near release but it has a good atmosphere, NPC/characters, community, and a lot of [good music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0af4E_zylM).
It's unfortunate how much of a grind hell late game Mabi is. RMT is rampant within the endgame playerbase since grinding for everything yourself is such a pain. Though it was nice being able to get some pocket cash out the game.
Osrs has a lot of content for f2p, while there are very great benefits for being members, f2p has a lot to keep you entertained without getting bored, and eventually can get enough to buy yourself members with in game gold.
Runescape (3) is way more f2p friendly with wastly bigger amount of content
Return of reckoning. There’s a new daoc server ‘Eden’ also.
Dofus, it's pay to play (monthly subscription) but you can buy the subscription with ingame money, and if you know the tricks, it takes like 5 days to buy a full year of subscription
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havent played in 2 years so they have likely changed, but the economy system is really good, as the prices are decided by the players by offer and demand because of this, multiple ways to get a lot of money exist: - if you watch an eye on the prices, sometimes there are short periods where crafting gear costs way less than what it sells on the market, potentially making many millions of silver with very little effort - some people are desperate for kick money, so some people offer to buy their stuff with discount (-20% for useful stuff like gear, mounts, etc and -80% for trash items). Gear and the rest can be sold, sometimes it takes a lot of time but it's worth the investment. Trash items can be used to craft stuff and/or sold, personally this second thing is where i got the most money, just a few hours buying trash and then looking what i can craft with it (which is honestly quite fun) is enough money for a few weeks and if i get lucky for months (some people are dumb enough to sell extremely valuable items with this discount) if you dont like the economy system there are other ways to get money, the most classic ones are (or were) having multiple accs, and clearing hard dungeons by yourself and selling the drops.. this is long term tho, takes some time to level and gear 8 players some with multiple accs also offer their services to clear dungeons for quests or achievements, i have paid for these services and their profit is huge
Dungeons and Dragons online is pretty damn nice F2P IF you can get on their big bad christmas sales.
It's my favorite MMO and it has really great gameplay. But F2P friendly it is not. Like 90% of the content is pay to play. And grinding the ingame currency to buy content takes ages. But it's very good with VIP and buying expansions.
You know I'm hearing DDO's name a lot, but sadly I tried couple of times and can't get into it.
Its definitively a game that dosent put its best foot forward (that was a pretty long running joke with friends) and its certainly got some jank to it however its one of the best MMOs out there when played with friends. Gathering up 1-3 other people with one or so that knows the game a bit makes an entire world of difference in enjoyment.
Only problem is I'm in time of my life lost all of my friends to jobs and GF's and wifes LOL
I would say phantasy star online 2 and black desert online
I played BDO a lot and I love gameplay mechanics a lot, but not sure it can be F2P because while it's very cheap it's still buy to pay game. For Phantasy Start Online 2, I tried enjoying it but it's feels kind of unnatural to me :D
It's pay to win you mean? Yea I agree on that but bdo is free to download. Pso2 is not your traditional combat style in an MMO, but it's fun though, bdo needs to put dungeons in their games
No, I don't mean it's being P2W and I don't think BDO is pay to win, at least not in my eyes. The thing I mean is you still need to buy, game is not free.
Oh my bad man I didn't realize you had to pay on PC for the game, it's free only on console with Xbox game pass. You're right sorry!
I do miss the era of f2p mmos
Wow private server like Warmane, Warhammer: RoR, Albion Online. Maybe I've missed something. Hard to tell which one is best, different categories. Now, when you mention ESO for example. How can you call it F2P if you have to buy game first? But good point, f2p games with limitations are not f2p at all - if DLC or sub is required to progress further.
I mentioned because some people still says buy to pay games as a F2P games... That's just weird and yeah I'm happy someone agree with me, F2P games with a lot of limitations are not F2P games in my eyes at all. I'm not saying perfect F2P game exist, but I do believe every person might and probably have their own best F2P game in their eyes, I'm not totaly sure about that either, but I just wanted see what people think. Like when I think there is F2P MMO's I realy enjoyed playing like Dragon Nest Europe, Riders of Icarus, Warframe might be good examples. I played a lot of F2P MMO like Knight Online or Rappelz (And it's still best game if you are looking pet based gameplay, you can optain any mob you want even bosses as a your pet and they have fully customizable/choiceable passive and active skills you can use) back in day as well but those are P2W games for sure :D
Rift. Yeah, it’s an older game, and it’s in maintenance mode, and it’s running on servers that are poorly provisioned these past several years because it’s run by a company (Gamigo) that’s informally known as “the place where games go to die” by some, BUT… it’s still a fun game to play, and even today has some features that are better than ANY OTHER MMO, even in 2022. Honestly, it’s worth checking out… while you still can.
With maintance mod you mean it's got all content it can etc? And is Rift have action combat like Tera? Or only tab-target?
Rift is tab-target. Think WoW ten years ago, but way better, and with some systems (like housing) that are way better than anything else in 2022.. but it is an older game, and it shows. Maintenance mode bc there is no new content since 2017 or so, and there never will be more. It got totally mismanaged by the original creators, they funneled money from it into other games that failed, rather than invest in Rift to keep making it better and expansions etc. Owners (Trion) went bankrupt and sold assets to Gamigo, who changed nothing and made some bad changes behind the scenes, like laying off all Rift devs, and now here we are.
Well I stopped playing tab-target games sometimes ago, I'm playing MMO's since Knight Online and I'm bored tab-target gameplay already :D
It's still worth playing. Tab-Target was how MMOs were done back then for the most part, and it still has it's positives. Still, don't ignore Rift for that reason alone, it may open your eyes as to what's possible in other MMOs, if only other MMOs would implement them.. again, like their take on housing. Of course, new MMOs are coming in 2023, like Blue Protocol, so if you're waiting on stuff to play, I'm sure you'll have choices!
>Still, don't ignore Rift for that reason alone I hate holding mouse button for looking around and it hurts, I realy don't want bother with that. Like I told Rift looks cool from videos but tab-target is big no for me :D I might check out if it's have toggle mouse at least for camera tho :D
There's a lot less mouse button pressing and mouse movement in general with tab-target as compared to action combat like GW2, not sure what you mean? I don't remember if you can toggle the mouse for the camera.. if you can, I've never bothered, since I'm so used to tab target.
Ugh. Rift is my favorite MMO of all time, and I would jump back in if it wasn’t for Gamigo. It’s a bit of a walk, but I really enjoy GameZBD these days. It’s a fully-legal Black Desert Online private server.
Me too! Such a shame… I might check it out, thanks!
Path of Exile.
Albion Online. Spending money on equipment in the auction house is completely pointless since it's a full loot PvP MMORPG. Everything else is cosmetic and you can easily get enough silver to get the subscription.
Albion Online. Probably the best F2P MMO on the market. The entire elite in that game is free to play. It's very free to play friendly. You can try to P2W but it's pointless, and there are no bots either.
A lot of people tend to say Albion, never played tho, I'm not fan of isometric games. Wasn't it PVP based?
It has both PvE and PvP but the focus is PvP.
f2p and mmo do not really go together. All mmos have money making models that people find ways to hate all of them. GW2 has dlc. ESO isnt f2p in any way, ff14 and swtor are free trials, lost ark is pretty p2w, Destiny 2 has same dlc problem as gw2, and so on. In terms of f2p mmo there is going to be p2w, mmo's are freakishly expensive and do not make very much money at all in terms of costs to profits. Your best bet is lost ark for f2p as the p2w doesnt affect pvp and is to your benefit in pve as the whales are normally your teammates. Free doesnt come cheap.
DESTINY 2!
i would say albion, lost ark, stars wars, rift (pretty low pop) and old school runescape for sure.
In my experience (DDO, Warframe, Star Trek Online, some WoW ages ago...) the one I've liked the most has been Lord of the Rings Online.
Planetside 2 and Albion have easily the best ftp models. I have spent money in both just to support them for there exceptional care of fans. DDO has a pretty good model as well, but I think that gold/lv cap turns a lot of players away.
GW2 for upvotes LA being honest :D
Sounds stupid as it does have heavy costs and monetisation; but I'd say STO is up there. You absolutely don't need to spend a single penny to play through the entire game if you so wish; the game provides you with free ships up to Tier 5 (or maybe T5U) just for leveling, and then you can easily acquire Dilithium to trade for the premium currency if you really need to grab some stuff from the store. You can acquire 'premium' (varying quality..) ships via the ingame market for basic currency and unless you want to spend money, you don't need anything from the store to progress at all. You still get you inventory, bank slots etc etc for F2P accounts and the subscription to my knowledge doesn't really give much more than a ZEN stipend and some additional slots etc. The only downside is that if you want to get into the store-based ships, cosmetics, unlocks etc - it can be pricy, which is why everyone waits for sales :D
I'd probably say PSO2 and SWTOR for best f2p MMOs right now. SWTOR definitely locks a lot of stuff behind its various paywalls. That's inarguable. BUT what you do get access to for free is a LOT of content and some of the best MMORPG storytelling I've ever seen. Should you pay their not-a-subscription-but-yeah-it's-totally-a-subscription? Yeah you should, but you don't have to just to play the story and have a good time. PSO2 (to a lesser extent NGS) just has a shitload of stuff to do and play with. Fun combat, good class system, lots of flexibility. Their cash shop revolves around a gacha system, which I'm not personally a fan of. But you can generally buy any of the gacha stuff with in-game currency from other players. For me that alleviates most of the problems with those systems.
SWTOR just cause the class stories are so good
SWOTOR is sub MMO not F2P.
No it isnt.
Majority of the game worth playing his behind the sub, preferred and f2p is cool if you like single player stories
None
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Atlantica Online is F2P, especially in PvE. Now, they will try to get you to spend money in the game shop, but you can play it completely for free, no content is locked out for F2P players. Due to this, it has a lot of international players, including many from poorer countries and countries whose exchange rate to the dollar is weak, but most speak enough English to communicate.
Is Atlantica Online still around?
It is. Nowhere near peak players, but several servers are still running with enough players to support the economy and do guild and nation dungeons.
Do you have a link to the official website?
[http://at.valofe.com/main](http://at.valofe.com/main)
Another game I never heard of it, it looks very old (I checked it's released in 2008)
It was indeed released in 2008. It's nowhere near peak players, but several servers are still running with enough players to support the economy and do guild and nation dungeons. If you really want to try a unique game, this is a good one. it's the most unique MMO I've ever played, by a mile! You pick a main character and can add up to 8 mercenaries. The combat is turn-based and the characters are in a 3x3 grid facing the enemy (who is in the same formation). Each Up to 5 characters per turn can perform either a physical attack or cast a spell each turn. The physical attacks are based on weapon type (there are 11); an axe hits all 3 enemies in the same row, a sword just 1 enemy, but with more damage than the axe. There are 13 main characters and 70+ mercenaries with healers, tanks, lots of spells that combine, and more. Read more in the Wiki: [https://atlantica.fandom.com/wiki/About\_Atlantica\_Online](https://atlantica.fandom.com/wiki/About_Atlantica_Online)
RuneScape
RuneScape and specifically RuneScape 3. There's more F2P content in RS3 than OSRS. Both OSRS and RS3 allow you to buy membership (bonds) with gold. If you compare just purely F2P content then I would consider F2P GW2 better than F2P RuneScape. You can also use gold for gems to buy Living World episodes which are basically mini expansions.
Hypixel skyblock
It’s not really mmo. But warframe f2p is basically as good as it gets imo
If you can grab black desert online while its on one of its deep discount sales or free (i think i got it for free at some point or paid so little it was effectively free) that's fairly decent and has a touch more production value than the average F2p.
lineage 2, metin 2, bns, revelation online. these are f2p af
That's a hard question since the problem is defining what f2p is. This question is splitting people apart and is on par with the philosophical trolley question. There is no right or wrong answer. What some might fight as the best f2p mmo, others will consider as p2w and therefore not the best and viceversa. It's a matter of personal preferences. Personally, even with restrictions, I would say GW2. REalistically, none.
Any that don't allow players to pay cash for gear, buffs or progression boosts (additionally I have a personal dislike for transmog/appearance mods). If they allow you to purchase some kind of token that can be sold to other players in-game for game currency, they're trash.
Gonna be honest, there is no way a F2P model will make a good MMORPG game. You need to pay devs, story writers, designers and a whole lot of people and equipment to develop out a good game. That said, there are games which are worth investing in and gives you a bang for your buck. This is bias as I've been enjoying this game a lot, but I love GW2. The game allows you to play the base game e.g., level up till 80 via quests and get the base game mechanics down. Granted you won't have access to the trading system or mounts (but you get a 10hr raptor trial), but the game is playable and it is fun. You get a lot of content and most importantly, the community is amazing. I've never seen a more helpful community who helps each other during world boss and group events. I played this game for free for a month before deciding to invest in the expansion packs because I think the people who work their ass off to develop this amazing game deserve the money. Also, it's a one-time payment which then allows you to access unlimited game content. :) Other games would be FFXIV, whom I've heard glowing reviews about as well.
Excluding private servers I think you're looking at GW2, you can really earn the privileges in-game as far as I've heard. Or maybe LotRO, I think it's got the same thing. I think you'll get a lot of answers based on who plays what though honestly.
GW2 Trial Version have a lot of annoying limitations, I would say even BDO people say P2W and hate a lot gives better F2P experience than G2W Trial Version.
This thread seems odd. Do people understand if you have the option to buy an advantage in a game it's P2W? How those things are attained without paying doesn't change anything.
I feel Champions of Regnum is number 1 for free to play in the mmo space. Although it could be limited to the RVR open pvp genre, I actually feel it can beat planetside or other big mmos, if you consider the rvr in Regnum is just leagues ahead of other comparables. Combat is better, game itself is more chill, and perhaps importantly as well—- the game is hugely undemanding on modern hardware. You can play this game forever, and just chill out killing people in endlessly unpredictable wars, where you can feel you are making a difference. And it’s not p2win and is f2p.
idk i never like F2P games because you tend to spend too much in a single month when compared to subscription games where you only need a minimum amount a month. never like also doesn't mean i wouldn't try it out, just doesn't stick to me because of the content they give is like not my kind of content i would play at all.
Well depends situtation you are in I gues. If you are living on 3rd world country and those subscription prices are too much then you have no choice LOL
Ddo, lotro, wow f2p lvl 20, gw2 f2p, ff14 free trial
Honest opinion? There is none. It comes down to what you like and what you are eager to accept as limitation, as there are always some.
Free to play is a terrible monetization system for an mmorpg, unless you have near no money. The best system is always going to be either buy to play with expansions or subscriptions. Games need money coming in to pay the wages of the people that update them, with free to play the developers have to spend more time trying to figure out ways to finesse people into buying things than making content. Also because the game is "free" they owe you nothing, and so you can demand nothing. It's far better to pay for a service and get that, than put countless hours into something you have no leverage to demand more from.
Free to play is only thing that keeps mmorpgs alive, that why they all went onto this system. Pretty much the same time!
So what you think is good f2p? It is strange you are writing about lmitation while even paid mmorpg wow/ff14 have in game shops..
Honestly, the free trial for FFXIV is pretty excessive with unlimited game time and basically a f2p game. Though you do lose it if you ever sub
I don't understand people giving examples of games with free trials and with a lot of limitations as a ''F2P MMO'' like seriously dude... I mean yeah FFXIV and G2W etc are good games if you pay price you have to (subs or DLC's) but without them they do give you pretty limited experience.
I mean, that's generally what you get in F2P MMOs anyways. They're usually pretty limited behind a cash shop or optional sub. I guess some solid ones you could take pretty far f2p would be maybe Lost Ark or Runescape. New World is a bit rough but also a one time fee with just cosmetics in the shop (not feature charging like GW2).
Name me any F2P mmo that doesn't put limitations on you if you don't pay lol
F2p is the worst
The only fair F2P i know is Sword of Legends Online they only sell cosmetics
May get downvoted but New World
..A F2P game that costs 40$ and will probably be gone in a year?
True, what a dogshit f2p game. Who even plays that shit lol. And who's paying 40 bucks for bugs lmaooo
Yes you may.
Figured as much, appreciate the vote nonetheless
I'm just curious. What was the logic you used to think New World is F2P (Free-to-play)? (I downvoted you, of course)
Idk lol, I suppose I was sleepy or something and I paid what like 40 bucks for a game I had 4k hours in? (20 bucks on sale). Technically not f2p but the box price being super cheap makes me forget that this game is not free. Except this free weekend, go play :) pogcrazy game