Best MMO

[Fencers]

Final Fantasy XIV in my opinion.

[Icecat]

FFXIV is in it's heyday now, but take it from a long time player. Shadowbringers is the Cataclysm of FFXIV, in that it is immensely popular but it also blatantly sowing the seeds that will kill the game's uniqueness.

It's ironic that only now, after years and years of me trying to get people to play, there is a huge influx of popularity when the game is very much at its lowest point since 1.0. The class pruning is awful, the homogenization of job roles (most notably healers) is well underway, and much of the advanced gameplay has been utterly stripped away. Furthermore, 99% of content is undertuned. This kills replayability for me because there are simply not enough challenges in the game. It is literally almost impossible to reach a fail state if you play a tank or healer and know what you're doing. I'm not just flexing here - I'm calling out that infinite mana pools, being able to rez consistently in combat, and a billion defensive/preventive/reactive cooldowns amongst a party trivialize any encounter outside of Savage raids. PvP provides a nice distraction but it lacks the depth and community energy that you can really get lost in.

As for the story, I'll say this: The actual beat-by-beat narrative is the best in MMORPG history. Everyone has different tastes when it comes to story, but FFXIV simply provides a core linear narrative that out-does every contemporary MMORPG on the market, because it is their biggest priority. But even that has taken a backseat to pop entertainment, in my mind. The Heavensward expansion, an insular, character-driven story with clear poignant themes has only been followed up with stagnation, two-dimensional characters, or just sheer convolution. The high moments of the story in Shadowbringers still hit hard, but the meat of everything in-between lacks what the story used to have. It's kind of like comparing the original FFVII to the later Kingdom Hearts games. I wanted a story from Shadowbringers that felt more grounded, more human, instead of a cheap shonen.

Also, FFXIV has the gall to triple dip as WoW does, with sub fees, exorbitant microtransactions, and expansion fees. We should hold Square to account for how much damage they are doing to this industry in continuing Blizzard's precedent that MMORPG's should cost this much to players.

I'm not saying here that FFXIV is definitely worse than WoW, but when you look at the WoW legacy versus FFXIV, I think it's clear that WoW carries more cultural weight. A more nuanced discussion would be Shadowbringers versus BFA. BFA is mired by shitty design decisions, confusing plot elements, a designed-by-committee story, and overburdened by systems. But BFA is also a technical feat, with one of the greatest game soundtracks ever, and represents Blizzard's commitment to delivering on an entirely unique aesthetic experience. Shadowbringers is better designed than BFA as a package; the new player experience is vastly better, the social elements are well designed so that people aren't terrible to each other, it is often easier to connect to your character mechanically, and the aesthetics are appealing. But there is also a lack of endgame drive, pruning and homogenization of classes, and an overall lack of challenge once the luster wears off.

I know it's impossible to be truly objective about this, and the conversation itself can't have a definitive end, but there's my two cents.

[Cosmic Janitor]

As pretty much everyone with a lick of sense (and/or experience) has pointed out, it's complicated.

WoW is the perfect middle of the road game. It doesn't do anything particularily well, besides some niche raiding content if you are into that. I would argue the weakest part of WoW is sandbox gameplay and story/narrative (by far, which is sad, since as a themepark it has no excuse to have shit story). Bonus points if you think floaty combat equals fluid combat.

FFXIV has great story, probably the best music, good housing and good crafting. The combat and raiding are a bit of an aquired taste though and alot of the fundamental aspects of the game are outdated. The game practically needs to be rewritten in a modern engine if it ever wants to leave it's niche. I love the game, but I share alot of the sentiments Icecat voiced.

Tera has nice combat and okay (lewd) graphics, but everything else about the game is forgetable. Massive minus points if you are in the EU and have to deal with casino lootboxes because Gameforge is pure cancer.

Black Desert Online would be nice if it actually had any PvE content and wasn't just a thinnly veiled grind/timewaster with too much focus on PvP at endgame.

ESO is even more complicated. I have only played it before Tamriel Unlimited but there were alot of good ideas and alot of poor ideas. The shallow heroes tale was okay and entertaining enough in the original, but alot of the attempts to mix skyrim with tab target MMO never really gelled with me. At least back then caster were also kinda shit, which broke my heart and forced me to play tank.

AE requires one to be a hardcore masochist to enjoy imho, has nice ideas but most of them would work well on a server with <50 people and tightly knit community, not so much if you have to deal with random shitheads all the time.

Not even going to mention ultra niche games like RS or the half-arsed rip-offs from other games like Rift.

[Strawberry]

Man I miss Rift, and also Warhammer MMORPG. I have fond memories from those games.

Voted for Elder Scrolls Online. That game has some massive content.
Final Fantasy XIV is also a good MMO, I played it quite a bit, but Sony being Sony and like most Japanese companies, the whole website is a nightmare.
I sometimes fire up Black Desert, but I'm not the grinding teen anymore.

[kail]

Every MMO does something great or is set in a well-known IP (like SWTOR or LOTRO), I can't comment on the current best because ATM none of them appeal to me. My award goes to WoW for obvious reasons but this is including the past expansions when the game was in a better state (IMO).

One game that truly captures the "MMO spirit" is/was EVE online. A mix of many where you can set various goals depending on how you want to play the game. Want to travel mats around for profit? Can do. Sit around and AFK mine for cash flow? Go ahead. Grind out npc and contract missions for money? Do it. PvP? Congrats, that's EVE's endgame. This was how I remembered the game when I was playing around 2012-2015ish.

[Nachturnal]

I would say WoW, yes I am mega biased given that I have been playing it since 2005 but thats my opinion.

Doesn't mean there aren't other good MMOs, I quite enjoy playing Guild Wars 2 on the side, but it is not a game I'd favor over WoW, even if I think it is a great game.

This is my general feeling. I haven't played WoW as long as you, I came in launch of Cataclysm. Before that, I had did private servers as there was no way I could convince my mom to pay for a monthly subscription game. It made no sense to her.

But WoW was the first of it's kind and still thrives to this day. 15 years running. It's got so much developed. I enjoy Final Fantasy 14. I really enjoy how strong the classes feel. A mage hurling glaciers of of ice and actual explosions. Flashy spells reflective of your power as the protaganist of this expansive story. And you can be every class/job in the game on a single character. You're truly a powerful character.

I've played dozens of other MMOs for bits of time. I don't shy away from trying them out and playing them for little chunks of time. There really are a lot of good ones and I'm happy the genre is thriving.

Wow just hits it on every level. Even if it's got some mechanics and systems that flop here and there, it just has no comparison.

[fluffhead]

Maplestory

[Hyral]

Best MMO? Ragnarok Online

Finally, a cultured fellow.


Out of the list, nowadays FFXIV by far. WoW has rest on its old, old laurels for too long.

[McNeil]

I haven't played all of them. From the ones I played its quite obvious going to be WoW (older versions) because of the amount of time I invested and had a lot of great memories with my friends and guild. Guild Wars 2 was also a lot of fun, but it didn't hold me as long. ESO is probably my 2nd favorite because it has a lot of what I wanted in a MMORPG, they do need to improve their gameplay. I never played Final Fantasy XIV as of yet, but I'm willing to try it out at some point and hopefully some friends will join me. I'm not sure if its artstyle is going to be to my liking.

[Yunru]

Maplestory

Stay away from that.

Also Maplestory 2 died.

[Jinpachi]

Ultima Online, The Second Age, pre trammel. Get shit on.

[Dzugaru]

What the... Where the f is Eve Online?!

[prwraith]

Everquest is the way.

[Mardux]

Is it though? What with the many, many, many negative threads on all the things that WoW does wrong for whatever reasons.. Sure...there are ppl going into these threads saying how they like the features or WoW, but I hardly see a "I love this about WoW" thread

Probably because the people that do still enjoy playing wow are too busy playing it to be bothered to come to the troll infested waters of mmoc (or even worse, r/wow) to defend their thoughts from the people who act like if they dont enjoy wow, no one should enjoy wow.

God forbid someone actually speak up about how something in the game isnt nearly as bad as the people with blizzard hateboners make it out to be. That shit will get you threats in your inbox (and reporting it does fuck all).

[Onikaroshi]

FFXIV is in it's heyday now, but take it from a long time player. Shadowbringers is the Cataclysm of FFXIV, in that it is immensely popular but it also blatantly sowing the seeds that will kill the game's uniqueness.

It's ironic that only now, after years and years of me trying to get people to play, there is a huge influx of popularity when the game is very much at its lowest point since 1.0. The class pruning is awful, the homogenization of job roles (most notably healers) is well underway, and much of the advanced gameplay has been utterly stripped away. Furthermore, 99% of content is undertuned. This kills replayability for me because there are simply not enough challenges in the game. It is literally almost impossible to reach a fail state if you play a tank or healer and know what you're doing. I'm not just flexing here - I'm calling out that infinite mana pools, being able to rez consistently in combat, and a billion defensive/preventive/reactive cooldowns amongst a party trivialize any encounter outside of Savage raids. PvP provides a nice distraction but it lacks the depth and community energy that you can really get lost in.

As for the story, I'll say this: The actual beat-by-beat narrative is the best in MMORPG history. Everyone has different tastes when it comes to story, but FFXIV simply provides a core linear narrative that out-does every contemporary MMORPG on the market, because it is their biggest priority. But even that has taken a backseat to pop entertainment, in my mind. The Heavensward expansion, an insular, character-driven story with clear poignant themes has only been followed up with stagnation, two-dimensional characters, or just sheer convolution. The high moments of the story in Shadowbringers still hit hard, but the meat of everything in-between lacks what the story used to have. It's kind of like comparing the original FFVII to the later Kingdom Hearts games. I wanted a story from Shadowbringers that felt more grounded, more human, instead of a cheap shonen.

Also, FFXIV has the gall to triple dip as WoW does, with sub fees, exorbitant microtransactions, and expansion fees. We should hold Square to account for how much damage they are doing to this industry in continuing Blizzard's precedent that MMORPG's should cost this much to players.

I'm not saying here that FFXIV is definitely worse than WoW, but when you look at the WoW legacy versus FFXIV, I think it's clear that WoW carries more cultural weight. A more nuanced discussion would be Shadowbringers versus BFA. BFA is mired by shitty design decisions, confusing plot elements, a designed-by-committee story, and overburdened by systems. But BFA is also a technical feat, with one of the greatest game soundtracks ever, and represents Blizzard's commitment to delivering on an entirely unique aesthetic experience. Shadowbringers is better designed than BFA as a package; the new player experience is vastly better, the social elements are well designed so that people aren't terrible to each other, it is often easier to connect to your character mechanically, and the aesthetics are appealing. But there is also a lack of endgame drive, pruning and homogenization of classes, and an overall lack of challenge once the luster wears off.

I know it's impossible to be truly objective about this, and the conversation itself can't have a definitive end, but there's my two cents.

I can't really agree. As a player since 1.0 (somewhat, it was BAD) I find the classes for the most part to be at their best. I can agree with the dps rotations of Healers being the same, but the rest of the kit is very different.

[Araxie]

Wildstar /sniff

Came here in the hopes to find this; leaving with a tear in my eye.


Also, this thread is crazy. They're all different, with pros and cons. Play what you like, there isn't one "BEST MMO"

Play them all or play one that you enjoy more than the rest. Iunno, show love to what you love.

[Onikaroshi]

Came here in the hopes to find this; leaving with a tear in my eye.


Also, this thread is crazy. They're all different, with pros and cons. Play what you like, there isn't one "BEST MMO"

That game had so much ruined potential.

[Araxie]

That game had so much ruined potential.

Oh yeah, there were a lot of big missteps in a lot of different areas. It had a lot of diamonds in the rough though.

[Hadriker]

Man I miss Rift, and also Warhammer MMORPG. I have fond memories from those games.

Rift was great before it got ruined. One of my favorite iterations of a bard in any MMO.

[Risale]

That game had so much ruined potential.

I know right, if they had only listened and looked at how the market was changing it would have been fantastic.
Wildstar vs WoW during Classic or TBC now that would have been a solid match between properties but alas.
I still miss my homicidal psychotic sociopathic furball.