I'm bored waiting for Cataclysm to come out so I've been trying some Free to play MMOs.
I've played:
Everquest 2 F2P version - Terrible
DDO online - Mediocre, got boring quick.
Maplestory - it was decent. Better than EQ2 F2P version at least.
AND
Allods Online. I wasn't expecting what I experienced. When I logged on, I was amazed. This game is KICK ASS. Go play it. It's fucking awesome. Especially since it's FREE. It's a steampunk MMO, with two factions, the Empire and the league. The league is the stereotypical good guys, and the empire are reminiscent of the Nazi's. The Orcs can look just like Hitler, with the paintbrush mustache being a facial hair option. The human's also look german. It's awesome. Other races include:
Gibberlings - Furry, tiny creatuers. You don't just play 1, you play 3 at a time.
Arisen - Zombie/Cyborg hybrid.
Elves - Not just your typical elf, these have wings.
The graphics are also awesome. Better than WoW's. Even though the graphics are nice, it surprisingly ran very smoothly on my crappy gateway laptop. Oh, and did I mention there are 27 classes?
tl;dr - This game is awesome, go play it while you wait for Cataclysm to release. It's free and probably the best F2P game out.
I just started playing this one today and let me just say... DAMN
I can't wait to get further into this game it is hard to believe it is F2P plus it doesn't feel like they are constantly forcing you to buy crap in their store like a lot of others that are F2P
Yeah, Allods is by far the best F2P MMO on the market IMO. It is in fact one of the best period. There are flaws with it, but for a free game that hasn't been around very long it feels pretty polished. The "27 Classes" thing is quite misleading, all the different races have a different special ability depending on Race/Class combo, but are not unique classes. If you are bored and just killing time til Cata and want something to do you should download it. +1 For not being Korean (It's Russian made), and +50 for being able to jump.
I played Allods Online a little a while ago. The leveling process quickly became boring for me as I was tired of questing after completing Loremaster achievement, so I started trolling people in the starting zone.
A friend of mine also played AO. A lot. He stated that it's almost impossible to obtain max level without buying something in the store (a mount, items that double experience gain) unless you're chineese farmer. Leveling process involves endless mob grinding which makes leveling process way slower than one in WoW. When you ding in WoW, you just think "oh ok, another level, gonna put new talent point here and learn new spells", when you ding in AO you feel major sense of accomplishment which gets stronger with getting closer to max level (which is 42. nice number).
This store I wrote about before not only sells mounts and exp rate increasing items. I'm not certain, but I think you can also purchase extra talent points for RL money. Lastly, you can buy vanity items and ability to talk in world chat. It gives some players unfair advantages.
On the other hand, the atmosphere of game is somewhat different from that of other MMOs I played. The cities look cool. Starting questchain is way better than ones we have in WoW now and is more like those we're gonna see in Cata. While AO store truly somewhat imbalances the game, you can still play without items/services purchased from it, you'll just level way slower. Game devs have to make money to maintain servers after all. So yeah, it's pretty good for F2P. If you are tired of WoW and want to play some free MMO, Allods Online is a nice choice.