The Guide to Free MMOs, Update: 10/24/08

First off these are my opinions on each game listed here as to the pros and cons of each and how they effect my style of play and preference in MMO games. I'm only listing free to play MMOs, some may still require purchase of game but none of these require that retarded monthly fee that sucks money out of your wallet.

Current Fav: Dungeon Fighter Online
RPG based MMOs

Dungeon Runners

Pros: Easy to pick up and play. Arcade feel. Fast combat. Loads of loot. Randomly generated dungeons. Funny for an hour or so till it gets old.

Cons: Dated graphics, repetitive gameplay, rehashed dungeon themes. Character creation is limited and all character look fugly.

Info: Free to download and play, optional premium membership for 4.99 a month.

Overall score: 6/10

Guild Wars

Pros: Huge world, two additional campaigns and one expansion. Loads of skills, classes, and jobs. Best guild vs guild leagues. Excellent graphics. Good character creation options. Can recruit heroes or henchmen to form parties for solo players.

Cons: Leveling is completely skill based. Targeting system can be annoying for long range fighters. Can never seem to find a perfect view point in game (I honestly don't know why might just be me). Additional campaigns and expansions get pricey.

Info: Can be purchased individually or bundled with expansion or the Factions campaign. Each campaign runs for 30-40 bucks. Placing all content well over 100 bucks.

Overall score: 7/10

Requiem: Bloodymare

Pros: Dark themed horror style setting. Bloody very bloody. Great graphics. Uses Havok physics engine. DNA and Beast transformations make leveling up and building your character more complex rather than just the usual get skills crap. Which you still get skills.

Cons: A little laggy at times. Skills don't always activate like they should or delay when they shouldn't. Limited character creation options.

Info: Free download though its about 3 hours on cable. Optional basic, and premium memberships as well as the free one.

Overall score: 7/10

9 Dragons

Pros: Martial arts based instead of D&D style. Decent graphics.

Cons: Have to point and click to move your character. Limited character creation.

Info: Free download, not very huge.

Overall score: 5/10

Xiah: Rebirth

Pros: Another martial arts MMO. Quick stylish combat.

Cons: Graphics are dated, environments are sort of bland. Limited character creation.

Info: Free download. More fun so far than 9 Dragons if your after Martial Arts mmo.

Overall score: 6/10

Hellgate London

Pros: Awesome graphics. Fully interactive action/fps style combat. Awesome skills, and classes. Blood + havok engine. Breakdown junk into parts to enhance or build weapons. Loads of loot and randomly generated dungeons.

Cons: MMO part has no campaign. Repetitive level designs. Somewhat limited character creation. System hog! Combat heavy = lag from hell. Glitchy.

Info: Cost 19.99 but is free to play online. Optional premium membership unlocks more in game content.

Overall score: 8/10

Last Chaos

Pros: Easy to jump into, tough to master. Nice selection of classes. Solid graphics.

Cons: Limited character creation. Point and click movement. Solo play is difficult due to overwhelming numbers of enemies.

Info: Free downlaod, another large one.

Overall score: 6/10

Perfect World International

Pros: Beautiful huge game world. Great combat and targeting system. Fast gameplay. Stable with no lag. Ability to fly/fight in air. Extensive character creation. Uses both earned skills, bought skill and skill trees. Any class/job can use any classes weapons!

Cons: Only three classes each with two jobs. Two to four hour DL on cable, not really a con cause its worth it.

Info: Free to download and play. Can purchase in game currency with real money! Only thing this one is missing is a small increase in graphics, still gorgeous though.

Overall score: 9/10

Atlantica Online

Pros: Huge world, lots of different enemies. Fun turnbased battle engine. Excellent graphics. Money is fast. Open market where every player can sell their items for everyone else to buy at the price they choose to sell them. Loads of items and customization. You gain mercenaries to increase your party and can then party with other players and their mercenaries for huge battles.

Cons: In open beta so a little lag at times otherwise stable. Most of the best features come in licenses that can be purchased with in game currency although they expire after set number of days. Some require certain level to use.

Info: Free download (another pretty big one), free to play. Optional item mall with special items purchased with real money. Runs flawlessly on dial up.

Overall score: 9/10

Non RPG based MMOs

Exteel

Pros: Mech based MMO in the vane of Gundam. Action based gameplay.

Cons: No campaign. Not very stable. Graphics need some work. Only PvP.

Info: Free download.

Overall score: 4/10

Dance! Online

Pros: Good graphics. Nice song selection. True DDR style gameplay.

Cons: Limited character creation. Tough to play with a keyboard.

Info: Free download, can purchase items from in game item mall.

Overall Score: 5/10

Audition Online

Pros: Bust a Groove/Space Channel 5 style dance game. Easy to play on keyboard. Huge list of songs. Somewhat addicting.

Cons: Dated graphics. Very limited character creation.

Info: Free download, in game item mall.

Overall score: 7/10

Gold Slam

Pros: Tennis MMO. Excellent gameplay and graphics.

Cons: No character creation you use in game currency to buy characters. Sometimes laggy which = fail.

Info: Free to download. Is in beta.

Overall score: 6/10




Will update this guide as changes occur and with new games I test out.

S4 League is also a quite good online only shooter. Current isn't playable as the open beta ended a couple days ago, should be up around next Monday.

Realms of Kaos

It's a pretty fun RPG, built upon a MUD system, but it's got some graphics that help the overall gameplay experience (also, so you don't go crazy having to type everything in).

It's a free game, and all the staff and game wardens work on a volunteer basis. It's a pretty small community, with only about 100 players on at any given time, but they're not hateful towards new people, in fact as far as I've seen, most of the veteran players are quick to offer help when they can.

And it runs quite easily on Dial-up, too. Unfortunately, the server has been down for a few days now.

EDIT - Found out they had a hardware crash on the server and the guy who made the game is in the process of buying a new one.

Back on dial up and testing all these on that.

So far Perfect World still runs just as flawlessly as it did on Cable.

Requiem I haven't gotten to test since it has to update....again! And the update kept dropping so when I get it I'll test it.

About to test Last Chaos, the dance games, and the tennis MMO.

Guild Wars
Dungeon Runners
Hellgate London
Exteel

I've already played on dial up.

Edit:

Last Chaos - A little lag especially in towns where players gather. Completely playable.
Audition - No lag, runs perfectly.
Dance Online - Connecting to server....(doesn't look good)
Gold Slam - Lag. And even small lag in a game where timing is everything makes it unplayable.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine has been in open beta for a bit and I played some of it. I don't know if it's enough to give an opinion. I only managed level 7 or 8 with its painful experience rates.

EDIT: Here's a game I've spent a lot of time with. Rohan: Blood Feud. It's a good, interesting game. You got different races and a specific class assigned to them.

Humans- Knights capable of wielding a sword and shield or a sword and dagger.
Half-Elves- Archer who can use bows or crossbows.
Elves- healers that use wands and shields or staffs.
Dhans ("rogue" human)- Assassins skilled in the use of katar (dual wielded) and nothing says "I'm serious about my job as an assassin" like an afro puff.
Dekan- A race of I guess you could say half-dragons who fight using what the game calls Zhen, which is just a double blade, and have the power to transform into dragons and fight but before that, they are Dragon Fighters.
Dark Elves- Magicians that use the same equipment as Elves but resemble vampires (paleness included) and dress like they got somewhere to go. It's very classy.

I also dig the design of the characters and monsters. It's fantasy but isn't over blown to try to look cool. Speaking of cool, there's this feature called level refining. Basically, if you have enough cash, a level 5 can use a level 50 weapon or any piece of armor which includes helmets, gauntles, boots, upper body (armor) and lower body (tasset) armor. You can also forge unique, rare, ancient armor and weapons but the whole refining and forging process has a chance of failing too much but only refining won't break your items.

Overall outta 10 I'd give it an 8. Unfortunately, the thing that kills it is open PK. If you can deal with it then fine. If you can't then it's a certified deal breaker. Personally I can't stand PKers and if you're over level 30 then it's open season on your hide. It's a shame too cuz I was just starting to have fun.

This post has been edited by Fantome on Feb 3 2009, 12:38 AM

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

This post has been edited by Cloud3514 on Mar 4 2009, 09:07 PM

Dark Throne - Text based war game. You have to recruit citizens every day, which requires clicking, and then train them where you want them to go. Its a lot of sitting and waiting really. But its interesting, specially if you get into going on to the forums, which is not well modded IMO, but then again I'm a tad spoiled on that point. Any time I have suggested that mods aren't around enough I have gotten fairly upset replies from the mods fairly soon afterwards.

No mention of RuneScape? I'm surprised.

I play it, and although it gets a lot of crap it's actually a solid game.

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

Um, actually I was playing it for a bit heh heh. Probably should've said something. It was a lot of fun but my GOD the lag I'd get was unreal! If I wanted to leave a room I had to either git while the gittin's good or shutdown the entire game through task manager. That was why I stopped playing. Plus, I would like to OWN my weapons. Last I booted this game up, you could only "rent" them different weapons and clothes.

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

Um, actually I was playing it for a bit heh heh. Probably should've said something. It was a lot of fun but my GOD the lag I'd get was unreal! If I wanted to leave a room I had to either git while the gittin's good or shutdown the entire game through task manager. That was why I stopped playing. Plus, I would like to OWN my weapons. Last I booted this game up, you could only "rent" them different weapons and clothes.

You can buy weapons and clothes, its just stupidly expensive for the really low income you get. All my equipment minus one gun is permanent. Plus, the first rental is free and time only goes down while you're playing with that item.

This post has been edited by Cloud3514 on Mar 17 2009, 08:24 PM

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

Um, actually I was playing it for a bit heh heh. Probably should've said something. It was a lot of fun but my GOD the lag I'd get was unreal! If I wanted to leave a room I had to either git while the gittin's good or shutdown the entire game through task manager. That was why I stopped playing. Plus, I would like to OWN my weapons. Last I booted this game up, you could only "rent" them different weapons and clothes.

You can buy weapons and clothes, its just stupidly expensive for the really low income you get. All my equipment minus one gun is permanent. Plus, the first rental is free and time only goes down while you're playing with that item.

Sucks to know I'm eventually going to lose my super sweet gatling gun. Just gotta keep playing matches. Although they've pretty much deduced it's me causing the lag. Until they get a server state side there's nothing I can do so I ignore them.

Gunz Online - I myself haven't played this yet, but I've seen gameplay videos and it looks promising. A classmate showed it to me last week and I've been meaning to try it out though I haven't gotten around to it just yet.

Toribash - Not an MMO but I thought I'd mention it while I'm here. Very intricate fighting game where you control literally EVERY part of your character. Bit of a steep learning curve but it's actually quite entertaining once you get the hang of it, and the online play is a lot of fun. Made by the same people who made Sumotori Dreams.

The (been in development for years) MMO The Chronicles of Spellborn finally got released state side in beta form. Haven't had a chance to check it out yet. It got an 8/10 from Eurogamer back in December and thats before all the patches and tweaks to the beta. So sounds promising. The combat is suppose to rely more on gameplay from the player and how you react instead of fancy armor and stats like most MMO's so grinding ridiculous levels isn't as crucial. No behind the scenes dice rolls to determine hits or misses instead you have to aim manually at what your attacking. Sounds pretty fun.


Also Huxley should be launching soon. Think Unreal Tournament/Quake 3 on an MMO scale. Its even powered by the Unreal 3 Engine. I hope I can run it.

That game rocks until you reach about lvl 25. At this point, the script kiddy "hackers", the ping spikers and the elitist dicks that proclaim "k-style" the only non-cheap way to play the game will make you retreat to quest mode, then leave the game altogether when you find that you can't even join a boss quest without being stuck with an infinite health cheater. In fact, I once asked one of the infinite health cheaters what the point of cheating is in a free game as it ruins the fun. Their response: "I don't play for fun." They didn't answer my next question which was "Then what the hell are you playing for?"

Also, prepare to be called a noob if you use ANYTHING except advanced sword techniques and a shot gun. Even if you nail someone with 14 hits in the face without missing with an assault rifle (AKA, the MOST ACCURATE TYPE OF GUN IN THE FUCKING GAME), you're spray and praying and they'll still be too "pro" (FUCK I hate the GunZ community's use of this term) to have been killed by anything but sheer luck.... Even if you win.... by killing them 30 times to only a handful of deaths.

S4 is by far a better alternative, though GunZ 2 is looking to show that Maiet learned a lot from GunZ 1, so it will hopefully be a huge improvement.

And speaking of S4: www.s4league.com
A North American version run by Pentavision themselves is on its way.

This post has been edited by Cloud3514 on May 20 2009, 09:45 PM

I find it more relaxing to know I'm not playing with Americans in S4 League. I'd like to keep playing in Europe but they keep calling me a lagger.

And has anyone played a Atlantica Online? I've I was reading a post on another forum with 2 people that have played it and know it but no one want to say anything about it.

This post has been edited by Fantome on May 22 2009, 01:22 PM

From my first post in the thread:

I had a lot of fun playing it but the updates got to big to keep going on dial up. If you like classic FF battle system then its worth checking out.

Oh. DUH! Sorry, I have selective blindness


OK I think it's time I posted this. It's embarrassing but lets talk Free Realms. Honestly, it's not bad. It's not perfect but it's not bad. Graphics are cartoony (it's a game for kids after all) and you can choose between being a human or pixie who, when meshed with the art style, look kinda odd (I chose pixie cuz humans are boring). The world is big and you'll find no shortage of things to do thanks to numerous quests and minigames. There are also job specific quests that you can take on when you want. You can switch between jobs whenever you want and level them individually but they have to be unlocked through quests and some can only be unlocked if you have a subscription. In my opinion, changing jobs on the fly in a great feature that I wish more games would work with. It was fun in Final Fantasy III and it was fun in Final Fantasy X-2. It gives the player more to experiment with. As far as the community goes, I don't know. I haven't heard a peep out of anyone. In one month I've heard nothing. Not "hi" not "hello". Just silence (it's golden).

Some stuff about it: there's like one thing to download and it's small. The rest of the stuff gets streamed directly from the Free Realms server so I'm guessing it's not dial-up friendly. I found myself streaming up to 26 megs. When choosing a name you have to construct one from a slot machine type selector with a first name and a compound last name (i.e. Alex Rosewater) or you can enter your own but it has to be approved.


Edit:
~Battlefield Heroes~ (told ya it was comin')
OK. So after over a year waiting for this game. I finally got to play. Being a Battlefield game, I believe it was right for me to expect a lot or at least the usual Battlefield mechanics (interchangeable character classes, using anything that ain't tied down, ect). As expected all conditions were met EXCEPT the interchangeable character classes. Even before you dive into the game you have to create a character. No problem there. Everyone has different ways of doing thing BUT when creating you choose a class and that's it. No changing on the fly, no adapting to present situation. Already the game seems pretty much doomed. For me, it was. I chose to be a Nationalist Commando (sniper). As cool as it is, it was worthless. I'm not upset about no one-hit kill with headshots. It's useful for shootin' swimmin' folk but that's about it. Cloaking is good for stealthy escapes from a doomed vehicle and not much else. Ammo is infinite though. That's good. But to clarify, it's a limited clip. It wasn't much fun in the end. I was just dieing. That's common for everyone I've known who's first time it was at this game.

Missions. The quest aspect of the game. No qualms about 'em (as far as I've seen). So instead of being just another straight forward team on team shooting match there's some individual objectives you can strive to complete. The one's I've seen were ones like damage infantry and damage vehicles. Like I said, it's nothing like what you would expect from Battlefield. Maybe all that will change later on sometime in the future but until then I'm not going back. You're better off waiting for the North American version of S4 League.

This post has been edited by Fantome on Jul 30 2009, 08:12 PM

Gonna go ahead and write this up before I forget to do so.

Dungeon Fighter Online

Type: Classic 2D Brawler MMO
Cost: Free to play - Optional Item Mall
Size: 1.2 GB - Compared to most MMOs this is small.
Runs On: Says it requires Highspeed, it doesn't. NO LAG on dial up or broadband that I've seen. Doesn't require a high end system either.

Official Site:
http://dungeonfighter.nexon.net/

A unique addictive MMO game based on classic 2D brawlers from the SNES/Genesis days. Think Final Fight or Streets Of Rage ON STEROIDS!

Pros: Five character classes all with unique fighting styles, Slayer, Fighter, Mage, Gunner, and Priest. When you think classes in a brawler like this you'd assume in the end each would feel pretty much the same. However, not the case the classes are very different from each other and so are the strategies for using each. Whether you want to run in with a fast close quarters fighter or a mage who relies more on keeping her distance and overwhelming the enemies with magic. There is a play style for everyone. Brawlers are usually frustrating on a keyboard but the layout here is extremely simple and easy to execute. Three keys set up the action. Skill, Attack, Jump. You can hot key skills, however finding the hot key for the right attack at the right moment is not as quick as most MMOs. No worries the dev team made it where the single Skill key can also activate one of your five equipped skills via the directional buttons + the skill key. So pulling of combos and powerful moves is easier here than it is to execute a Fireball in Street Fighter.

I've had virtually no problems brawling away using the keyboard so in that department its well designed. But what about the action? It's great! The depth is far more than anyone would expect from a classic brawler much less a free one on this scale. Once you've leveled a few times, earned some new skills you will easily be pulling off higher damage set ups and chaining combos that can easily break a 100 hits. This leads us to the stats. Each dungeon ranks your progress from beginning to end, similar to Devil May Cry. You get a grade score based on Style and Technique as well as how many hits you took. Style comes into play when you perform chain combos and juggles. You'll know you've hit a series of style moves cause the camera will zoom in on the beating you're laying down. Technique is based on how well you avoid attacks and land attacks without missing, as well as how you set up combos and other moves.

While the world is pretty huge and offers up a lot of dungeons you will find yourself going back to the same ones a few times for certain quest. However based on the quest the dungeon layout sometimes changes to keep things fresh, this combined with the Rankings for style and technique and the ability to change the difficulty after clearing a dungeon makes replaying the same dungeons not a chore but actually adds to the fun. This is not an MMO that says grind to the top level and be a god and your done. No this is an MMO that acts like a competitive arcade game. Sure you gain levels, get gear, craft items, all the usual stuff. But there is the rankings and the high scores that keep this in a league of its own.

There is also an arena mode for player vs player. However I haven't tried it out yet. I can't imagine it being any less fun than the main game though. Gather a group of friends or party up with the over 1 million active players and start kicking some ass.

Cons: Only has one, in order to change your appearance in game you have to purchase Nexxon cash (similar to MS points) in order to buy new looks for your characters. So everyone pretty much walks around looking the same. But hell the classics never let you change how you looked anyway. Plus the game has to draw money in from something. But that is the only gripe I have.

I honestly thought this game was going to be a waste of my time to DL and try. I was wrong and perhaps having low expectations and being treated with a very good and solid game is why I'm scoring this one the first, perfect...

Overall Score: 10/10

Phew.....that was a long one. Anyway if any of you try it out and like it let me know. I'd love to team up with a few people and take on some of the highest difficulty dungeons.

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

Finally played this, pretty damn good. I enjoy it. Gunz looks like ass in comparison. Also Gunz is now a ghost town...wonder why?

OK, quoting this simply because I'm tired of playing random lagging mooks from Europe. Seriously people, this game is fun and I'm lonely on it. And to Earl, this was the game I was playing the night Card kept kicking me out of the XBL party.

Finally played this, pretty damn good. I enjoy it. Gunz looks like ass in comparison. Also Gunz is now a ghost town...wonder why?

Maybe its the ridiculous glitch exploitation. Or maybe the ridiculous amount of cheaters. Or maybe that there are somewhat similar and far better games out there.

So I tried Wizard 101 sometime over a year ago. Here's what I found.

Let's start from the top: Character creation. When you first get in, you have the option of choosing your name from a wheel (a first name and a compound last name), gender, skin tone, ect. and what type of wizard you want to be. If you can't decide, they give you a personality profile to take and it suggests a type you might enjoy.

At Ravenwood School of Magical Arts there are 7 schools to choose from, each with their own defining colors, insignias, titles, teachers, gemstones (for bonus stats) and some have their own mystic tree type thing that acts as a recipe shop for making more powerful attack spells and other spells. Those schools are:

School of Storm
These are called Diviners. Their insignia is a storm cloud.
They deal the most damage but are the least successful in executing spells
The Diviner's colors are purple and yellow and the gemstone is amethyst.

School of Fire
These are called Pyromancers. Their insignia is a flame.
They do attrition damage with stackable effects for great damage. Their success rate is better but only slightly at 75%.
A Pyromancers colors are red and orange and the gemstone is ruby


School of Ice
These are called Thaumaturges. Their insignia is a snowflake.
These wizards are the tanks; high defense, high HP. Their success rate is an acceptable 80%.
Their colors are light blue and white and the gemstone is sapphire.

School of Death
These are called Necromancers. Their insignia is a skull.
They can sap the life out of their enemies and convert it to HP for themselves. Success rate is 85%.
Their colors are black and white and the gemstone is onyx.

School of Myth
This is what the quiz turned up for me. A Conjurer.
They specialize in summoning minions (golem, troll, cyclopes, and minotaur) and shattering defenses. They're average overall but the minions a conjurer summons can also use magic. Only downside is that you can only have one minion on the field at a time.
Their colors are yellow and royal blue and the gemstone is peridot (which is also my birthstone. Fancy that).

School of Life
These are called Theurgists. Their insignia is a leaf.
Healers. Plain and simple. They're the best at healing themselves and teammates. Theurgists have the highest success rate.
The colors are green and brown and the gemstone is jade.

School of Balance
They're called Balance Wizards. The insignia is a scale.
They have no specialty so they can heal, summon, debuff, ect. Success rate is 85%.
The school's colors are tan and maroon and the gemstone is citrine.

Wizard 101 is a card battle game with turn-based combat. At the beginning of each turn you are given a set of spells to use in battle from your spell deck and a pip which you need in order to use more powerful spell. With each turn you get 1 pip and on rare occasions you get a power pip which is worth 2 normal pips. When engaged in battle, a grid forms underneath the player's feet. There are ten slots in the grid, 5 for players and 5 for enemies. This means other plays can join you in battle at any point against a foe but if that happens, another enemy will join against both of you. This won't happen if you summon a minion, however. If you want to get through an area without having to kill everything between you and your destination, you can stay on the sidewalk and nothing will bother you.

The one downside to the game is that some areas are off limits. If you want to get into them, you have to buy a subscription. That's not unusual for games like this but it does get in the way on my enjoyment. Also MP doesn't regenerate. This is probably do to the fact this game was made primarily for kids and as a way to keep their interest you can play mini games at the fairground or collect wandering wisps (Red for HP, Blue for MP).

My final opinion on Wizard 101 is that it's a good game. I was pleased with it. I liked the aesthetic, the voice acting worked (for the exception of one), and the spell effects were nice to watch. I, personally, can't see myself playing it for a long period probably because it's not aimed at me or because there's something I like more but I would recommend this as at least a fun and interesting diversion. If you haven't played a turn-based MMO before, I think this would be a good starting point.