Help me pick my next free mmorpg

[Eric Tolle]

I have a new laptop arriving next week and so I'm finally going to have the capacity to play something besides Runescape. So I could use some advice on my next game.

What I like in games are:
* Individualized character designs-the more customizable character features the better.
* Quests that are more than "go over here and kill 20 wolves / bring me 20 elf lattes".
* Robust skill system.
* Good costumes.
* Large world, but a good transportation system
* Good graphics
* Good community.
* Possible RPing opportunities would be nice.
* Not into PvP, though group battles are OK.

I've been considering:

Perfect World International
Lord of the Rings Online
Shaiya
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Rappelz

So any thoughts? Any suggestions for anything I may have missed?

[Sith_Happens]

Champions Online. Let's take a look at your list shall we:


* Individualized character designs-the more customizable character features the better.

Yes. Oh so very yes, I cannot even begin to describe how yes it is with respect to this one. Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQUjEWySCd8) a video of someone hitting the "Randomize All" button for six minutes.


* Quests that are more than "go over here and kill 20 wolves / bring me 20 elf lattes".

This is about the one thing that it fails on. At least it did back when I played the game (a little over a year ago); there have been some pretty big overhauls of the questlines since then, which may or may not have addressed the objective variety.


* Robust skill system.

Very, very yes... if you're a subscriber. Which it sounds like you're planning on not being, in which case you're stuck with Archetypes, a.k.a. set power progressions. You still get to pick all your own Advanatges (bonus effects on powers) though.


* Good costumes.

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFBJfZh-q28) another video of someone hitting the "Randomize All" button.


* Large world, but a good transportation system

The best transportation system: Travel powers. You get your first one straight out of the tutorial, so after the first few hours of the game you never have to walk again. While the world is quite large, it feels a lot smaller than it is when you're flying over it at high speeds.


* Good graphics

Yes, if and only if you don't mind your MMO looking like a comic book.


* Good community.

From my memory pretty much everyone in game was really nice, though there weren't a whole lot of said people. Apparently the population has exploded since it went F2P though.


* Possible RPing opportunities would be nice.

Don't know, never RPed myself. I can tell you though that if you go to Club Caprice in Millenium City you'll always find a fair number of people hanging around speaking in character. And of course they recently introduced Hideouts, which seem perfect for that kind of thing.


* Not into PvP, though group battles are OK.

Champions Online has instanced PvP only, with one Free for All mode and several different team modes (including one where your party has to fend off zombies for as long as possible, and any player who dies comes back as a zombie).

[Drascin]

DDO ticks off about half your list, but fails on the other half. It has some of the best quests I've seen on an MMO, going far beyond the usual "kill 20 wolves", a good community, RPing opportunities, and is thoroughly focused on group PvE instead of PvP.

The problem is that the character appearance customization is very much not top-notch.

[Eric Tolle]

Ooh, Champions Online! I hadn't even thought of that one, and I used to play Champions. That's one I'll check out.

With my laptop arriving Monday or Tuesday, I'm wondering just how many mmorpgs I can fit on it....

[dsmiles]

I occasionally play Rappelz, and enjoy it. Little PvP, nice graphics, nice scenery, but very little RP, though the opportunity is there. The costumes are pretty standardized for each class, but the community is pretty friendly (or, at least, not openly hostile towards new players). Pretty standard fetch quests, though at higher levels, there are better quests.

Seems like Rappelz is probably not your game, though, as I said, I enjoy it (which is rare, since I don't care for MMOs).

[Toastkart]

Although you'd have to wait until sometime next year, Guild Wars 2 seems to fit your bill pretty closely.


* Individualized character designs-the more customizable character features the better.
Extensive character customization is the name of the game. Not only appearance, but background details that have an effect on your personal story. Character creation video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TJDTv1aGR4)


* Quests that are more than "go over here and kill 20 wolves / bring me 20 elf lattes".
Dynamic events and personal story quests. Example of a high level dynamic event (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-healkDctCw) and part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWAlT8XpGG4&feature=related) (word of warning, though. This particular dynamic event is designed for 10 people, while only 2 are participating. However, one of the game designers is offering commentary while the interviewer is playing.)


* Robust skill system.
10 slot skillbar. 5 weapon skills, most classes can slot two weapon sets with different skills, the classes that can't have other methods of having a variety of offensive skills. One healing skill slot. 3 utility skills slots. 1 elite skill slot.


* Good costumes.
Incredibly robust dye system, variety of armor classes (light, medium, and heavy). And transmutation stones will allow you to mesh item skins that you want and stats that you want.

* Large world, but a good transportation system
The world is very large, but there is instantaneous map travel to waypoints that you have unlocked.


* Good graphics
Exceptionally good, but not resource heavy graphics. Also, a very close relationship between concept art and in-game graphics. concept art (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKTBGN35nA)

I heartily recommend you check it out further, as I'm sure I'm not doing it justice.

[TSED]

Champions Online.


Yeah, this is exactly what I was going to say. It was pretty fun, until I stopped playing it due to scholastic / time management reasons. I have tried to get back in, but its f2p version has a lot of REALLY good features cut out and I can't actually bring myself to play it in that state.

(And Uni students don't budget in frivolous "I'm gonna reactivate this MMO and see if I still like it!" expenses.)