MMO recommendation

[Lheticus]

Can anyone tell me what a good "social" MMO would be? One with player interaction emphasized in more than just a "cooperate when you want/need to" way? No need to limit to free, though I'm not really willing to buy a $50 piece of software, especially if it's on top of a subscription.

[Togath]

How much game play compared to social do you want?
Coming immediately to mind(from game play heavy to game play light);
World of Warcraft(heavy gameplay, but also notable for having a lot of exploration[you can walk from one end of a continent to the other].)
Minecraft Multiplayer(not exactly an mmo, but there is often a lot of socializing)
Landmark(little experience with it myself, but it seems like a more building oriented Minecraft in it's current state, with larger servers)

As a word of warning; while free may cost you less money, it's also more likely to be buggy, low quality, or have a small playerbase, since with less profit, the company has less reason to fix things.

[Winthur]

Can anyone tell me what a good "social" MMO would be? One with player interaction emphasized in more than just a "cooperate when you want/need to" way?

Tibia, the golden standard among Poles and Brazilians alike. Not even joking. From Rookgaard where you have to buy a fishing rod from someone who will later block you from escaping from a deadly rat to later evading PK death squads. Also, free.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I can only speak to the three MMOs I've played.

World of Warcraft costs $15 a month, has eight million* people paying every month, and has been online for ten years- and it shows. If you want an MMO where you can spend three, four, five hundred hours and still find new things to do, I'd recommend WoW. Its designers have the most experience with the game, the community is the biggest, and the mechanics are the most polished. On the flip side, it can be difficult to find a guild depending on how social you are, and there is certainly a lot of grinding, especially if you're playing a class that's weak at low level. The best and worst thing about World of Warcraft is that the game is extremely interesting and deep at level cap, but it takes a long time to get there.

Guild Wars 2 is, in my opinion, strong in a lot of ways where WoW is weak but weak in places where WoW is strong. The art is beautiful- cutscenes, characters, the world, and even spell effects all look fantastic- and the combat is fun and satisfying at low level. However, none of the rotations I found** had any real depth to them beyond using cooldowns on cooldown, and combat became repetitive. The best and worst thing about Guild Wars 2 is that walking around the world without fighting is more fun than actually playing the game.

*Don't quote me on that.

**I played an Elementalist and a Guardian, both to roughly level 25.

[Knaight]

Lunia is pretty solid*. It basically has a map with a bunch of levels in it, and you form a group then head off to those levels, which has an instance just for the one group you're in. It's also action based - a sufficiently good player with a level 1 character could hypothetically beat the game, though it would be extremely tedious and require some amazing dodging skills. In practice, this expands the acceptable level range, keeps everyone involved, and produces some interesting dynamics regarding cooperation. It's also part of the culture of the game for the social aspect to get emphasized, particularly as groups are generally formed for longer than in other games.

*Sadly, it got bought out a while back, and the new company's art direction has serious fanservice-overload issues, particularly on the website.

[amalager]

Man, Im not trying to interrupt. I just want to share something about my games. Since it's MMO I just want to mention about Flyff and Rohan Blood Feud were the ones that interest me at the highest level. I know its too old but there are no other games that interest me more. Usually, the games that were released within this year were just graphically interesting but the gameplay is seriously unacceptable. Just in my opinion.

[Psyren]

I personally like Firefall because it's a skill-based shooter (i.e. you have to aim and can kill monsters even if they have no path to get to you) and you can organically jump in to help people fight things or do quests around the world without needing to "party up" first. Any number of nearby players will all gain rewards for pitching in.

It's also a free download on Steam so you can try it out as much as you like before deciding if you want to spend anything. Yahtzee reviewed it here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRxPVxTxzzU)

[Chen]

In terms of player interaction, I'm assuming you mean more than grouping and killing things or other players. If you are just looking for that WoW is clearly a staple and Rift is a very good WoW clone that is free to play.

For ones where you have more interaction with others economically there's Eve online. Very good player driven markets and politicking. It's quite complex though and can be quite overwhelming when you start. It's also a spaceship based game (mainly) so that can drive some people away.

Action RPGish ones you have Tera which is very pretty (albeit with quite a bit of fanservice). Again it's free to play. Guild Wars 2 is also a little more actiony than say WoW or Rift, but probably a little less so than Tera.

[Calemyr]

I am always in search of a good MMO, myself, and I've tried a great many. Right now the only one I'm really enjoying is Final Fantasy XIV, though granted that's probably mostly because I'm new to it (and therefore the tedium hasn't set in).

Things I like about it:
* Interesting Approach to Classes: The player character does not have a set class. After reaching level 10 in your starting class, you can train in any class you like and switch between any class you know at will by changing weapons. Levels and skills are separate for each class, but some skills are accessible to other classes. Certain combinations of classes can lead to "jobs", which are more specialized versions of a class.

* Allegiance is Malleable: Unlike WoW, the playable factions in the game are cooperating rather than competing. Once you actually join a faction, you also gain the option to change factions at will as well.

* FATE: FATE is a kind of local event that pops up regularly on specific maps and are available to everyone (high level characters have their level lowered in order to participate). They can vary between wiping out a replenishing horde of monsters until a certain quota has died, gathering resources or monster drops and returning them to an NPC, or ganging up on a boss monster. No grouping or teams required, just everyone taking part in the objective. You get rewards based on your level of contribution, ranked on a scale of gold, silver, and bronze. It's kinda cool how it inspires people to put their own personal quests aside and work together for a common goal, if only for a time, and it's a frightfully profitable thing to do more often than not.

* Duty Finder: At the top of both my likes and dislikes is the Duty Finder, which allows you to queue up for "pick up groups" for instanced dungeons. It works quite well (though healers continue to have a much lower wait time). The down side of it is that you have to have a full party to start an instanced dungeons and there are a number of instanced dungeons in the main quest (four between levels 15 and 20), which can get really frustrating, especially if you're playing a DPS class.

* Plot manages to be personal and global at the same time: Characters in the game treat you like a badass problem solver who can be counted on to get things done, and it feels more like they're praising you than "Insert name here". There's a big story going on, and you're definitely not the only player involved, but you play an important role in something bigger than you (something Elder Scrolls Online tried and failed to achieve).

* The Chocobo: At level 20 (in any class, plus some other hurdles) you get access to a chocobo you can ride. At level 30 you can train the chocobo to fight as your pet. You get to name it, train it, customize its color and skillset, equip it in different (albeit functionally identical) barding, and call it in as support in a fight. It's really quite cool to have a pet you can count on at all times (at least when you're allowed to summon it).

* Malleability in General: Outside of race, name, and gender, nothing about your game is set in stone. Feel like playing a healer? Jump to the conjurer class. Feel like playing a tank? Take the gladiator class. Want to try working for a different faction? You can change factions easily enough. You want to change your chocobo companion's appearance or name? Go right ahead. This means there's a whole lot less dependence on alts to see the majority of the content, and I find I really like that.

* No luck-base quests (yet, at least): One thing I absolutely adore about this game is that when quests ask you to collect 10 bomb cores or 5 jackal skins, you get one from each monster you kill, rather than have to kill 50 of them because they have a 10% drop chance. Good grief is that such a nice feature. I have very bad luck with that sort of thing, comically bad, so it's a really, really, really nice feature. Really nice.

What I don't like about it:
* Gear is level dependent, level is class dependent: Being able to switch between being a level 30 Arcanist and a level 10 Conjurer is nice, but the gear I can wear as my Arcanist is almost all too high level to use as the Conjurer. As such, you're going to be keeping an awful lot of clothing options to wear so that you aren't left underdressed when you change classes. The good bit is that you can set up "gear sets" that tie a combination of equipment together, so you change your entire loadout with one button rather than having to manually re-equip everything. Also, your gear is stored in a separate inventory space than your items and provide lots of room for a large variety of gear.

* An awful lot of hoops: Getting some features unlocked require a lot of work. Getting access to mounts, for instance, requires you to hit level 20 in a class, complete the main quest to the point that you join a faction (including four separate instanced dungeons), collect 2000 seals (faction currency, earned by faction quests and FATEs) to buy insurance, and then you get your big yellow bird. Honestly, it's not too big of a deal, but most people only mention the level 20 requirement.

* Model manipulation is only available endgame: The ability to change the model of a piece of gear ("transmog" if you're a WoW/Diablo III veteran) is not available until you get a class to level 50 (max level). I like the fact that the feature exists in the first place, but this means that for a very long time you look like you got dressed in the dark as you gradually replace pieces of gear with each successful quest. It's really hard to look like a badass mage when you're wearing woolen mittens, for instance.

* Crafting and resource gathering are seem very tedious and not very rewarding at any but the highest levels. There is no automating multiple instances of an item (want to make five bronze ingots? you'll be making them one at a time). The good bit here, though, is that resource nodes are player specific, so you're not stealing opportunity from other players by using them (and they're not hindering you, either).

All told, it's a pretty fun game that boasts a flexible character structure and a rather enjoyable story. Apparently the original FF XIV absolutely sucked, but Square-Enix chose to rebuild the game almost from scratch rather than let it be a black mark on the franchise, probably at great cost. And they did a fantastic job rebuilding it. That kind of professionalism and respect for their name is inspiring and just makes the experience sweeter for me.

Anyway, that's my recommendation. I personally put story and personal enjoyment over social interaction, but I think it fits your criteria fairly well, too.

[Terraoblivion]

There is no automating multiple instances of an item (want to make five bronze ingots? you'll be making them one at a time).

There is. I can't remember the exact name, but when you select an item to make, it's the button to the left of synthesize item. It only makes items of normal quality, but it's still there.

[Calemyr]

There is. I can't remember the exact name, but when you select an item to make, it's the button to the left of synthesize item. It only makes items of normal quality, but it's still there.

Really? Dang, I tried everything I could think of to get the interface to do that. That is a discovery I am really glad to learn about.

[Terraoblivion]

I believe it isn't available at the start, but it should show up at level 15 at the latest.

[Sajiri]

Calemyr its called Quick Synthesis or something :) You have to craft the item yourself once, then you can use that. There are some things with crafting that you don't have to be endgame to make profit off. Cooking for example is pretty good, you won't make a whole lot of gil with one thing like other crafting jobs, but everyone needs food at some point of various levels, some things especially if you HQ them, people will want for leves for raising their own classes, there are some lower level things you can make that are used in max level recipes that get bought up really quick. Craftable gear isn't that profitable until you're maxed level, unless you're making stuff for the leves, but when you get stuff like cooking, carpenter, goldsmith, botany etc, you can make some nice money making or gathering parts that are used in max level recipes that people arent bothered making themselves

For the record though, luck based quests....just wait until you get atma at endgame.

I was going to suggest WoW or FFXIV, but they've already been said pretty well. There's also FFXI if you don't mind something quite so dated (though WoW is about the same). It's been made easier for solo/lowman in the last couple years but at least when I played, it was always the sort of game you wanted to ally yourself with people, and you'd join groups to exp and stay in them for a long while. I used to make a lot of friends that way, not like going into a dungeon finder in other groups where once you're out you never see your party members again.