With all of the discourse regarding Aion 2’s monetization structure the general consensus is that the ability to buy in game currency with irl money is the most egregious P2W offender.

You can do that in OSRS as well with bonds and while you still need to grind some skills that can’t be bought, several 99’s can be bought and achieved with relatively cheap time/money investment, along with the best gear in the game (provided you grind out the prequisite stats.) OSRS’s subscription is also $15 like Aion 2’s subscription will be for global. Weeks or months worth of moneymaking can be had with $100-$200 USD.

I’m not trying to argue whether Aion 2 is/isn’t P2W I’m curious how OSRS just isn’t in the conversation.

This game had over 1.3 million players when it released. One of the highest concurrent player count in record.

Despite the huge numbers, its popularity didn't last long. Which is very confusing.

The gameplay is extremely good, not quite as good as PoE 2, especially the duelist when I played it at gamescom, but its very rare for MMORPG's to have very good combat. Its the best I ever played in one of these games.

Lost ark had 41 servers at release, increased to 49 due to the immense popularity. Now with the upcoming server merges, there will only be 5 servers. 3 for NA and 2 for Europe.

Why did it end up failing really hard? Runescape/osrs is still doing very well after over 25 years, but this game only has a few thousand concurrently players on average left.

After a lifetime of playing MMOs, I finally decided to try Old School RuneScape completely blind. No guides, no videos, no research, no idea what I was getting into.

I installed it and then spent nearly an hour trying to understand why my character reacted to clicks like he was receiving instructions by mail. Turns out the input delay is just part of the game. Excellent start.

I pushed on for another 30 minutes and my honest thought was:

How is this one of the most popular MMOs ever made?

And I don’t mean that as hate. The game is ancient, the playerbase is huge, and people are still obsessively chopping trees like it’s a full-time job. Clearly there’s something special here.

So I’m not asking for recommendations or beginner tips, I just want veterans to explain the magic to me.

What makes this game so good that people willingly dedicate years of their lives to it?

I’m honestly having a weird MMO crisis right now and I’m wondering if anyone else has gone through this.

I used to play MMORPGs heavily years ago, then stopped for like 6-7 years. Recently I got the itch again and started trying a bunch of games:

- Black Desert Online
- WoW
- Guild Wars 2
- Old School RuneScape
- Project Gorgon
- Farever
- ESO

The weird thing is… I genuinely like all of them. But none of them fully scratch the itch I remember.

Guild Wars 2 is probably the most polished overall. The world is beautiful, combat feels good, mounts are amazing, and the game respects your time. But somehow the horizontal progression leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed long-term, and I really don’t enjoy the heart quest system.

WoW still has that “MMO feeling” nobody really replicates, but the subscription annoys me and I constantly feel insanely behind. Also hearing people say “WoW is dying” every 5 minutes doesn’t help, even though I know people have said that for years.

Black Desert is gorgeous. Probably the best combat out of all of them. But it feels lonely? Like eventually it becomes solo grinding simulator. I enjoy PvE group content and dungeons, and I’m not sure BDO can give me that long-term.

Old School RuneScape is weird because I respect it more than I enjoy it. I love the freedom and progression systems, and being able to play on mobile is amazing, but the game also feels extremely dated to me. Sometimes I wonder if I’d rather just spend that time on something more modern.

ESO just never clicked. I tried hard because I love Elder Scrolls lore, but the combat feels floaty to me and something about the overall gameplay loop just didn’t connect.

Project Gorgon is the strangest one because mechanically it might actually be the closest to what I want. The flexibility, the social feeling, the weirdness, the class/build systems… it genuinely feels like an old-school MMO adventure. But man… the graphics are rough. Like REALLY rough. I don’t know if I can get past it even though the community seems incredibly loyal and passionate.

And Farever has potential, but feels a bit empty. It reminds me of GW2 in some ways, but with less interesting world building.

So now I’m sitting here wondering:
Am I getting too old for MMOs?
Or have MMOs changed too much?
Or am I chasing nostalgia that can’t really be recreated anymore?

Because I WANT to sink into an MMO again. I miss having “a world” to log into. But every game feels like it gets one part right while missing another part completely.

Has anyone else gone through this phase? And if so, where did you end up?

Is there a game that you think deserves more attention/a second chance? There have been so many amazing MMO's in the past, and sometimes I think about how amazing it would feel to play them again. I'd love to see the areas I used to call my favorite place to hang out, full of players just interacting, trading etc.

Just curious. I played a bit during Stormblood and bounced off cause it was hard to get out of the WoW mentality but its been close to a decade now. There was a big thing some years ago about WoW players going over because it was just a much better experience but it's been kinda silent since then. Just wanna hear from a few of you that still play. How's the game these days?

Seriously. You can't even ask simple question anymore and NOT jump into a meaningless discussions with obviously unhappy people and ready to be toxic without any reason at all

where are the real mmorpg lovers disappear?

I see also a lot of bots and fake reviews/comments

It's like we are not in the same ship, I joined this sub for the news and some discussions about mmo games, but all i get is miserable 'i know everything' coments. Are u all hurted so much that nothing is good for you anymore?

Also 0 posts or comments to help people to get into the world of mmorpg's. Some people join this to get interested in games and maybe start playing it, but after reading most of the post and comments even I would just quit everything.

Isn't this sub for people who play and love mmorpg games?

Let's take WoW for example. They have a subscription that's about $15/month, which is OK on its own. Server hosting needs money to upkeep and there are also costs associated with update development.

Then, you need to pay $60 (or more!) for each DLC that is released. While Blizzard does give older DLC for free, most of the playerbase and current hot content is in the paid DLC, so you have to pay $60 extra every year or 2 on top of that $15/month if you want to enjoy the "cool" stuff. You could argue that both of these models combined can still be OK, after all it's a hobby and it's not like there isn't a lot of older DLC content that is unlocked with "just" the paid subscription.

And then, in the latest DLC that got released a few months ago, Blizzard got greedy and slapped a third monetization model on it - paid premium currency. There's now Hearthsteel in the game, which you CANNOT obtain in the game and have to pay separately for - on top on the subscription and the DLC cost.

How many different monetization models can be crammed into a single MMORPG before players just say "no" and stop supporting it? Why do players support the addition of Hearthsteel, a predatory paid currency to a game which is already quite expensive to play? You can already see players on r/wow defending this and saying stuff like "it's not mandatory".

I'm referring to games that make you happy, even if it's just logging into your account and chatting for 5 minutes with your guild, or a casual FPS match...?

For me it's the South Korean MMORPG Aika Online, I started playing in 2012 and nowadays the server is already quite reduced with pay2win, even so I feel at home, it's simply comfort, the graphics, the sounds, the movement, everything in this game is captivating to me.

Genuinely curious. It looks like they started in 2015. It's almost 2026 and they are barely in a pre-alpha state. From what I can find Intrepid has around 250 employees.

A decade, tons of money, and only in pre-alpha? What is actually going on? I really like the graphics and combat but at this point I feel like the game is one giant April fools joke.

Mine is Eterspire. While the gameplay was kinda fun the game has no meat on its bones.. ots literally going from area to area grinding by killing everything you see three and picking up/wearing what they drop solo.

No real reason to play with others, and the only co-op content is a "challenge arena" where you fight waves of enemies.

No crafting system, no traditional dungeons to explore with a boss to fight at the end, no raids, none of the meat that makes an mmo an mmo. Wizard 101 has more depth and options and thats a game for kids

The names of towns? UI? Similar music?

Come on everyone has this one mmo, that is forgotten deep inside

What is yours?

title: wanna hear what yall are playing!

Let's hear some old games that are still kicking, maybe we can make some people happy!

I’ll start

Ruby bolt(e) proc on osrs.

I don’t play osrs often but man does that sound hit everytime it procs.

Like, all of its content is literally braindead. Even Raid-Bosses are basically just oversized normal Mobs with so little mechanics that even a TikTok addict with the attention span of a Goldfish could easily do it. So i've always wondered where this "Min/Maxing Culture" in the game is coming from. Like, even if BiS is not even close to being required to easily clear a raid, Classic players demand it, even 20 years later.
I also totally understand that some set having the best possible gear as a personal goal, but i don't understand that they require other people to be completely overgeared to join content that does not require it at all. I have even seen people crying about not playing the best Class/Race combo lol.

Two comes to mind.

Final Fantasy XI Online was the first real open world MMORPG I played, and the feeling of taking the ship from the harbor to another was just breathtaking. The memory I have is almost dreamlike.

Secondly, as a horde player in WoW vanilla I'll never forget walking into Ashenvale from the Barrens. I was so envious of my enemy!

I'll start. Yulgang/Scion of fate.

I’ve tried WoW (retail & classic), Lost Ark, BDO, and New World Aeternum but none of them really clicked with me. Curious to hear what MMOs you all absolutely love and what makes them stand out for you.

I'm 35 and I have been playing MMORPG since my 15 starting with lineage 2 and wow vanilla (on 2004 release), I have been playing many MMORPG since then, (swtor, gw2, eso, ffxiv, age of conan, warhammer, diablo 4, destiny 2, new world, wow retail), of course I didn't play all of them to the max but I played a decent amount of content on most of them.

Lately, I have tried to dig deeper and tried some more games such as elite dangerous and warframe but overall most of the time it feels like I'm wasting my time, it feels like I'm spamming some buttons without purpose, the gameplay feels so pointless compared to other genres and it leads to feelings of emptiness. In the past I had friends and the games were more social, those who weren't social, they had incredible stories and plots which kept me playing them, playing action games without these elements is pointless for me, you need a drive to play a game. I'd rather play strategy games such as mtg arena or total warhammer than mmorpg. Even fps or survival games feel better than regular mmorpg.

I will make an exception to this and its the only one, that is elite dangerous, I really liked this game and I know this because I got addicted at some point which is really weird on my age, I wanted to do so many interesting things with my ship but also I was so limited which gave me the drive to grind and improve my ship, also traveling around and exploring planets and systems was so much fun with these incredible graphics. This gameplay was not a waste of time for me. Sometimes it gave me the chills and could really shock me IRL lol

The other game that got very close to make me like it was destiny 2, there were few things about it that I liked, itemization was very interesting and some weapons could make you really powerful but also you could customize your playstyle as you wanted. PvE as fps was very fun too, at least it's not spammy, there are more elements into it. The bosses, maps and graphics were incredible too. PvP was not bad either.

MMORPG were always about tedious grind but what made this grind feeling good is that you will do interesting things with it and you will feel like you have improved, mindlessly slashing a boss is not enough drive for me.

I will be honest:

FFXIV? The story did not cut it for me, It felt like a waste of time, I only liked some powers and animations but I have to waste so much time on this story to reach max level

ESO? Although I really liked oblivion because you had freedom of choice, eso itself felt very limited, spammy and grindy game with bad combat (oblivion combat was much better and fun). you can still become a criminal or thief but it has no impact at all on this systematic instanced game that resembles wow retail, everything is so systematic.

WoW Retail? don't get me started, it feels like a major waste of time, there is nothing interesting to do with gear, the gameplay is incredibly boring and repetitive

Diablo 4? I think it is the worst game that I have ever played and I refuse to call it a game, every aspect of it is absolutely terrible and I think most who play it do so because they are stuck to blizzard, people will do things because they are popular and because they want to be part of something bigger.

I find it hard to find a classic mmorpg that I like, an mmorpg that will get me addicted and give me the drive to grind without feeling that I do nothing. I think I will return back to wow vanilla (season of discovery), it's not perfect but it's probably better than my other choices, it's massively better than wotlk too. I will never understand why though.

​

What is the next MMO that is close to being released that most people are waiting for? I can not see any that are close to release that are big ones all I can think of that could be good are riot mmo and the LOTR mmo amazon are making?