Non wow-like MMOs

[Banzhe]

Guild Wars is a decent MMO, it's free to play, and pretty casual. It's quite different in its playstyle as well your success depends on the variation of what 8 skills you use, rather than just your talent tree and your gear. Furthermore, attaining max gear is not an issue, and is customizable to an extent.

PvP-wise, its a lot more balanced than WoW, due to the fact that you get gear right off the bat. Also, if PvP is really all you are looking for, you can buy the pvp-pack instead of the game, which unlocks all skills, weapon upgrades and heroes for pvp.

That sounds AMAZING! No need to set goals or put effort into anything, just smack teh face wit da ep1cs n' evrythin els.., must resist..

[Qwell]

Dungeon Fighter Online was/is an awesome step forward into the realm of side-scroller beat-em-up MMO's (or whatever). Unfortunately it is run by Nexon, of whom sounds like they came form a damn random evil company name generator, but it's got some awesomely fun nostalgia all up in it. Seriously, if you like beat-em-up games like Golden Axe/AvP/Simpsons/Final Fight/X-men and all those my-quarter-is-next-so-ill-put-it-up-on-the-game-screen-next-to-a-button-a-nickel-and-the-fat-kids-bus-pass-nostalgic kind of games but with a heavy MMO style item/stat/chat/party system, DFO will make you yogurt onto your desktop. Or Laptop. Or lap. Or maybe you need to L2 wear pants.

[Lilicia30]

http://www.planetcalypso.com/home/

Cant believe no one mentioned Entropia. Game was lots of fun but its definitely not for the casual player. Takes a lot of time invested to get started if you dont deposit. But since its free to play even if you deposit only $10 a month its cheaper than WoW. If you ever heard about that guy spending like $300,000 RL money on some planet this is the game.

[Patrickstarr]

CoD: Black Ops?

Hey, its still an MMO.

[Yooya]

APB has been bought by K2 Network after RTW fell into financial troubles (read here) and is being resurrected as a F2P MMO in Q1 2011 - the closed beta is confirmed to start in the next couple weeks. To apply go here.

The game is/was great. You can hop-in-hop-out or you can play the game fairly hardcore. Its a completely different genre of MMO being an FPS so I found it ideal for playing in between big chunks of Warcraft as it was something completely different. Customization was the best -not possibly- but the best of any MMO.

Some felt the game was a bit unbalanced in matchmaking as well as in guns but it wasn't game breaking. I would go play on a secondary character with r50 beating up r100-150 guys - so really it boiled down to your own personal skill.

People had varying opinions on this game - plenty didn't like it, to some it was okay, and to a lot of others it was awesome. It was a very polarized game so you might find its not for you.

[Boloney]

well... you could try Tera, its an action based mmo which means its not a point and click, you gotta aim at stuff
its great if you want to try something different, but then, its still in beta...
a free alternative to Tera is Vindictus, which is a dungeon fighter style game, but uses real physics

[mordale]

CoD: Black Ops?

Hey, its still an MMO.

no its more like a frat house.

[darcrular]

City of Heroes / Villains is nothing like wow and it is a great mmo, i played it for 3 years but the end game content is different in feel because there is no gear only abilities and improvements that you can do to them

[splifone]

CoD: Black Ops?

Hey, its still an MMO.

u can leave now lolz

[Ighox]

well... you could try Tera, its an action based mmo which means its not a point and click, you gotta aim at stuff
its great if you want to try something different, but then, its still in beta...
a free alternative to Tera is Vindictus, which is a dungeon fighter style game, but uses real physics

Tera isn't even in beta yet in EU/US.

But it's released in KR, so you can still play if you have access to a korean SSN.

[The Little One]

Haven and Hearth ;D

I'll be the first to admit the game doesn't look like much, its in a very basic stage of Beta... but its actually alot of fun if you have some friends to play with and build your village.

[Deleted]

Well, Eve Online is the only one mature modern MMO on the market that does not follow the de-facto standard Everquest style. But I would agree that Eve is for a specific audience only, it is hard to play that game casually. From all the Everquest-style MMOs, WoW is undoubtedly the best one.

I'd like to see some new development in the MMO market, some new concepts and ideas. Although, the Star Wars MMO does seem very intriguing...

[Aerialdewd]

Haven and Hearth ;D

I'll be the first to admit the game doesn't look like much, its in a very basic stage of Beta... but its actually alot of fun if you have some friends to play with and build your village.

+1 to that
Checked it and I must say it has the best town system I've seen in MMOs and despite being ran by 2 people studio it does work rather well
Although similarly to biggies Eve or Darkfall it has no real taste unless you join a corp/clan/village

[Specops]

Silkroad online

<3!!

SRO is fun, but it's an absurd grind.

[Powerogue]

runescape, coming out before WoW, doesn't really copy it. the questing experience is certainly a lot better. there's more longevity to it, admittedly due to leveling skills requiring a lot of grinding.

still, the quests I emphasize as being fantastic. They focus more on storyline, puzzles, and fun useful rewards rather than "kill 10 pigs. you get 2 gold." bleh.

[Verdris]

That sounds AMAZING! No need to set goals or put effort into anything, just smack teh face wit da ep1cs n' evrythin els.., must resist..

Way to post about a game you know nothing about! Guild Wars doesn't have "epics", all max-level gear is equivalent. It truly is skill>gear. I have a feeling someone like you would get stomped in a game like that.

[mercutiouk]

Planetside next when they finally get their finger out.

[kharyll]

I will second some of the posts above and ask a second chance for Eve Online. It has a great atmosphere, activities (not achievements) unequaled by other games in number and more importantly depth. It's also worth mentioning that Eve has a sizable community with a maturity level that is unthinkably high.

Last but not the least, Eve is the only MMO I played that really promotes playing with people and not with their characters. The social aspect makes Eve a true MMO-rpg

Unlike some people say, it is very much possible to play Eve casually. It has many mechanisms that enable casual playstyle. It's just a matter of finding an activity, a pace and a community that you enjoy with casual playing. But isn't it the case for every other game too?

[brandon7evin]

I was wondering here what other good MMOs there are other than WOW. As I've looked up some most of them seems to be trying to copy WOW but I rather want something different to play alongside WOW. One different mmo I can name from top of my head is EVE Online and I've played it, but it wasn't really for me.

So any other suggestions to help out a fellow mmo addict? :P

mmo's have there differences but where 90% are similiar is the UI most mmo's you will find will be using the same one WoW uses, why? because its the UI that ppl can quickly learn and get in the game asap