free/cheap MMOs with decent plot/story

[JeenLeen]

I tend towards turn-based RPGs, but I've had funs with action RPGs and MMOs from time to time. I usually get bored, though, when it starts to feel like quests for the sake of quests without advancing a story. I enjoyed the Neverwinter MMO for the first few stages. I also really enjoyed Diablo II (not an MMO, but it had a similar feel to solo-ing an MMO today). Others like Path of Exile bored me fairly quickly due to almost no plot beyond "enemies/obstacles--kill them" (at least, as far as I got into the game, no real plot).
I do enjoy the leveling and character building most MMOs have, as long as I don't have to care about being the best possible in optimization (which should be fine if I'm not trying tough raids or doing PvP.)

I was wondering if anyone could point me towards a good free (or cheap) one, ideally one on Steam, that has a decent plot. I'd also prefer it if I can avoid PvP, since my enjoyment of the game would be hindered if another player killed me while I'm trying to finish a stage, and I'd rather not worry about hitting another player by mistake.

Of course, it's possible I'm just looking for something in a genre that isn't made for it and should stick to other games. It's no mark against MMOs if they just don't fit my personal taste.
...as I think about it, I guess I might just be asking "any good Diablo clones out there on Steam with decent story and free/cheap cost?"

[Cristo Meyers]

Star Wars: The Old Republic?

It's free-to-play, but upgrading to 'preferred status' and knocking out many of the f2p restrictions only takes a minimal purchase from the in-game store. You can subscribe, but honestly my wife and I have played through 2 full stories with just preferred status and liked it just fine.

No Steam, though. Origin only.

[Hunter Noventa]

An obvious answer might be Diablo 3, though you have to use Blizzard's battlenet client for that.

Torchlight and Torchlight 2 are also very Diablo-esque.

You also don't HAVE to use Origin for The old Republic, you can just get the client directly from the SWTOR site. But Cristo is right, but a single month of time and the game is almost entirely tolerable. You can even get free cash shop money just by setting up two-factor authentication.

If you're willing to pay a monthly sub, I would suggest Final Fantasy XIV. It's a very solo-friendly MMO, and PvP and Raids are entirely optional, although for the most part the Normal difficulty of Raids are pretty easy if you know what you're doing. It also has a pretty amazing story and a good sense of humor. There's a free trial available too, of course, if you want to check it out before you buy.

[Anteros]

I'll third SWToR. It's basically the go-to MMO for story. Plus, it's free and actually fairly polished.

I didn't like the gameplay of FFXIV, but my best friend loved it. I wouldn't consider it story based though. It's even weaker on story than something like WoW.

[LibraryOgre]

SWToR was fun for me as well, and the perferred status is definitely worth a small purchase of cartel coins.

I'll also suggest LOTRO... Lord of the Rings On-Line. Fun game, good community, good for years of gameplay.

[Toastkart]

Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 would be good choices.

Both do have storylines to follow, though to be sure gw1 had the better storyline over gw2. There's also tons of content to be had in either game.

GW1 is a bit more linear early on and much more team focused. You don't have to worry, though, as there are helpful npcs and heroes to round out your party. It can be considered essentially single player at this point.

GW2 is more open and you don't really need to group to do open world content, though it'll definitely make things more fun.

[Pronounceable]

Secret World has the best story of any mmo you'll ever find, because it's secretly a single player action adventure game. It's great even by single player standards, which are leagues above mmos. However it's buy to play. It's relatively cheap, esp if you get the big bundles that include dlcs.

Old Rep is completely free for story parts, which is the only good parts. It's 8 single player rpgs very incompetently stapled together, plus a bunch of mmo stuff awkwardly welded on. If you're looking for story and free, it's your man.

If you played Neverwinter, you know what to expect from an average mmo because it's the definition of trite mmo.

[Spacewolf]

I've just started playing Tera in the last few days and I have to say I'm enjoying it quite abit, the story is decent, although it doesn't use the setting as well as it could. The combats a nice change from other MMOs I've played and the scenery is extremely good looking.

If you've played Kingdoms of Amalur it's surprisingly similar to that, it even has the same Camera issue where it is pointed slightly down so you only notice the scenery when you stop for a second to look around.

Admittedly I've only played a few days so I'm not sure of the staying power of the game, you seem to level extremely quickly as I'm halfway to the level cap (Level wise that is probably not EXPwise). and outside the multi-player instances abit to easy (It does make you feel powerful but it's a good way to get into bad habits for the instances I've noticed.)

It also fits your criteria of being free I don't think I've been disadvantaged in anyway by not spending any money so it might be worth a quick look as even if you don't like it, it's not like it costs you anything.

[Kish]

Star Wars: The Old Republic is the only truly story-based morepig I've played.

[Sallera]

I wouldn't really recommend Tera for story. The game has an amazing combat system and beautiful scenery, and the instances are great fun (last I played, at least, which was before they raised the level cap past 60), but the story wasn't more than mediocre, and almost every quest is just 'go kill things.'

The Secret World is pretty much the go-to example for a story-centred MMO, as already mentioned, and is probably worth the cost.

[Sajiri]

Blade and Soul has a decently enjoyable story, although it's littered with generic boring sidequests as well that are all the same. Im almost certain when I played the japanese and russian versians (although the JP one had no quest translationat the time, and RU was essentially machine translated for large parts of it, so my understanding was limited) the side quests had more interesting plots to them, but the english localisation decided to heavily censor them and just make every quest pretty much "Im a scholar and I want you to kill some stuff for research." The main quests and the actual gameplay are pretty fun though, as are the cinematics.

There are other's I'd suggest but they've all been mentioned in the thread already

[lesser_minion]

Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 would be good choices.

Guild Wars 2 is free-to-play at the moment, but it's not on Steam, and I'd be wary of supporting it (or anything else from NCSoft) until they sort out their latest debacle.

'Politics' aside, the storyline is passable, and has a couple of decent moments, but so many important scenes completely fail to land, often because the writers love to copy-paste near-identical situations and plot devices from one mission to another. And then there are the scenes that are just so bad.

This is a game where you can beat twenty different kinds of crap out of a boss, and then, at 20%, be rewarded with a cutscene where an NPC ally screams that the boss (that you were curbstomping) is too strong, drops their weapon, and has to be rescued (from the boss you were mid-way through curbstomping) by another NPC (who dies in the process) while your character presumably gets distracted by a random blade of grass or something. The NPC in question is also a veteran of a highly-decorated military outfit, now serving in an even more elite military outfit, and while maybe this could be chalked down to PTSD or some such, I personally find that to be really inconsistent with how the game portrays war and violence elsewhere.

[Toastkart]

Guild Wars 2 is free-to-play at the moment, but it's not on Steam, and I'd be wary of supporting it (or anything else from NCSoft) until they sort out their latest debacle.
I'm not sure what not being on steam has to do with anything. I won't comment on NCsoft, as I haven't played any other games associated with them and to my knowledge ANet has been largely independent of them.


This is a game where you can beat twenty different kinds of crap out of a boss, and then, at 20%, be rewarded with a cutscene where an NPC ally screams that the boss (that you were curbstomping) is too strong, drops their weapon, and has to be rescued (from the boss you were mid-way through curbstomping) by another NPC (who dies in the process) while your character presumably gets distracted by a random blade of grass or something. The NPC in question is also a veteran of a highly-decorated military outfit, now serving in an even more elite military outfit, and while maybe this could be chalked down to PTSD or some such, I personally find that to be really inconsistent with how the game portrays war and violence elsewhere.

You're not wrong, but that's not really any more hamfisted than some of the stuff in SW:TOR.

[lesser_minion]

I'm not sure what not being on steam has to do with anything.

He asked for something preferably on Steam. As I said, I don't recommend supporting ANet for now, at least not until you've seen what's in the April feature patch and/or the start of LW3, and supporting Wildstar or B&S runs the risk of supporting them indirectly.


You're not wrong, but that's not really any more hamfisted than some of the stuff in SW:TOR.

I can't comment much on The Old Republic. From what I hear, the writing is generally decent, and even the specific examples (http://sfdebris.com/videos/games/swtoragent.php) of stupid stuff I've heard about seem just-about-forgiveableish-if-you-squint (spoiler link, naturally). Although I also hear that that particular storyline is the best in the game.

I'm also fairly sure that there would have been literal riots if SWTOR had actually pulled anything close to being as awful as the scene I just described.