Not sure if this goes here or not?

Ive played a little bit of mmorpgs back int he day, that stars wars one to be exact, which felt more like walking sim more than anything. Im considering picking up old school runescape but im not sure if its good choice or not? What mmorpg that is free would you like to suggest to me a beginner?

  • aksdb@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    If you like Lord of the Rings: Lord of the Rings Online is extremely nice story wise. It’s an old school MMO, but that shouldn’t shock you when you only know old school ones anyway.

    If a low initial fee is fine, wait for Elder Scrolls Online sale. You can regularly get the base game for $5 or so. It has no forced monthly cost so those $5 are worth hundreds of hours or quest content.

  • zero@feddit.xyz
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    9 hours ago

    I played Albion for a bit, it’s quite fun and its free to play. I just started WoW Classic a couple of weeks back and I have never played it before, not too difficult and like some have said its free until level 20.

  • MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Old School Runescape i’ve had a decent bit of fun with and i’d recommend it. It takes a lot of reading, but there’s a free option for you to try if you’re unsure and it runs on damn near anything. Granted i’m not the target audience for MMOs. I usually hop in and dick around a little bit then pop out

  • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    I’d suggest Guild Wars 2. It’s an MMO that can be played quite casually and doesn’t require massive time investment or grinding. It has a fun gameplay loop that encourages free exploration. Collaboration with other players arises freely from gameplay.

    • etchinghillside@reddthat.com
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      21 hours ago

      I vaguely recall getting about 30 days out of the free tier until I decided to start purchasing base/expansions.

      So, I think I’d just say be aware that it’s probably not an “indefinitely free” kind of thing – but will give you a sufficient amount of entertainment until you want to consider if you want more.

    • Nefara@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yep absolutely seconding this one. Everything is very much a play-as-you-want playground, with many ways to level and a low stress, community based world. Pretty much everything that causes friction against other players in other MMOs (kill stealing, limited resource mining, open world pvp etc) just isn’t in the game or in its own place you don’t have to go.

      I will say that it has a lot of complexity and systems on systems that have built up over time that can be opaque and overwhelming. But again, you have the choice not to engage, and can do perfectly well running your character around maps exploring and picking cabbages and pumpkins and doing whatever you think looks interesting. Just remember to change out your armor and weapons every few levels on your way to 80.

      • Thassodar@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        It’s one of the few MMOs I bought at launch and made it from level one to the cap without ever actually teaming up with anyone. And the story was good too!

  • Defaced@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Guild wars 2, it’s free to start and B2P for every season and expansion with no FOMO or P2W mechanics, only convenience. I see a lot of recommendations for FF14, but one thing most people don’t tell you is that the vanilla game is absolutely terrible. The main story quest (MSQ) for vanilla is just bad and boring, to the point where they actually cut some content out of it because that content was unnecessary. It’s still long and boring though, and I really wish they would just give people the option to freely skip the vanilla game with a recap video and go straight into Heavensward because that’s when the game gets really good. If you can power through the vanilla story of FF14, then I guess try it out, but my vote is GW2.

  • orenj@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 day ago

    Warframe is an unconventional mmo, and there’s actually a bit of rpg in there too, moreso than I would’ve expected coming in. It’s great fun though.

    I will say the mandatory trading for weapon and frame slots is kinda annoying, but gets less annoying as you progress and get more access to better grinds.

      • orenj@lemmy.sdf.org
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        20 hours ago

        oh fuck i forgot about that. I had to stop playing atlas altogether because his 1 spam was brutal.

        • GriffinClaw@lemmy.zip
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          10 hours ago

          A simple and earnest request to all Warframe players. Please Change. Your. Keybindings.

          Damn near broke my pinky from pressing ctrl for bullet jumping. Had to change movement keys to ESDF and ctrl key to A.

          Dont actually like playing frames where only 1 ability was viable, but I knew some who did. They’d bind that particular ability to the mouse wheel.

  • simple@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    I found Final Fantasy XIV easy to get into. The full game requires a monthly payment but there is a “free trial”, which contains the entire base game and the first expansion for free and can last you at least a few hundred hours.

    I tried old school runescape a while ago again but did not enjoy it. It’s a very grindy game, and unless you like clicking on a tree for 30 minutes then you aren’t going to like it either.

    • zedgeist@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      It’s also worth noting that FFXIV is practically single-player if you want it to be. Any group content can be played with random match-ups using the party finder. It’s got a great story, too

    • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      Was about to suggest the same! I feel in love with it 4 years ago and subscribed after beating the base game. Turns out that I had a JP service account, so I had to do the whole base story again on a new NA account (since they don’t allow cross region payments).

    • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I played through it when they released this version, and honestly its an insane amount of free content. I completed the base game but never did complete the 100 quest wall that was in the first expansion. I had a lot of fun, and I agree this is the perfect MMO to pick up. I probably had about 3 months of time spent in it and was not disappointed.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    If you enjoy the old school vibe, City of Heroes has been revived through a community effort, and is free with all of the original content plus some new stuff. This has been given official blessing so it’s not going to disappear suddenly.

  • ProfessorPeregrine@reddthat.com
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    24 hours ago

    City of heroes is still available for free and is a lot of fun. Pre-WOW but the graphics are decent. A great community too.

  • Moose@moose.best
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    1 day ago

    Depends what you like, but I’m still nostalgic for old school WoW and find myself wanting to play every now and again but don’t want to subscribe for a whole month. My recommendation for that would be Turtle WoW, it’s an expanded vanilla private server that has it’s own launcher and everything so it’s pretty simple to get started with.

    • heschlie@lemmy.schlunker.com
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      24 hours ago

      Been playing on twow for about a month now, it scratches the vanilla itch better than classic did, folks seem reasonably friendly and it’s nice to have a community on the server vs modern WoW of never seeing the same person twice

    • Bademantel@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Interesting. How likely is it that Blizzard throws another tantrum and files a lawsuit? I heard they’ve done that before against people running private servers.

      • Moose@moose.best
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        1 day ago

        That’s what worries me a bit as well. As far as I’m aware, they seem to be pretty safe for now? Nostalrius WoW was a big private server that got shut down by Blizzard, but they were located in the USA. Turtle WoW is based in Europe (UK if what I found is accurate) and has done transformative work to the game, including working on a whole new compatible client in UE5 that should be releasing this year. But the issue still remains that they primarily have Blizzards assets, story, etc as the base of their game. I guess time will tell, I’m hoping it sticks around though.

  • hisao@ani.social
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    1 day ago

    Pirated old WoW on pirate servers is quite nice imo. Vanilla, The Burning Crusade and The Wrath of the Lich King. Never give Microsoft-ActivisionBlizzard a single cent btw. OSRS seems nice, but I never played it myself. It’s not free at all though.

    Old School RuneScape (OSRS) membership prices in USD as of June 2025 are: 1‑month plan: $13.99/month 6‑month plan: $11.99/month (total $71.94) 12‑month Premier plan: $8.29/month (total $99.48)-

    • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There’s a new one coming out, project epoch, that has me interested. Also there was ascension servers that had build your own class. These are free old wow alternatives.

      • hisao@ani.social
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        24 hours ago

        Last time I’ve played on Ascension they also had another project in development, called World of Runescape (basically total conversion fully-custom WoW). Don’t know its current status but it looked amazing in videos.

    • zmrl@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      You can play OSRS for free. Its just got some features locked behind membership. But you can also get membership through items in the game. As an enjoyer of vanilla wow, I’d recommend giving it a shot.

      • hisao@ani.social
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        1 day ago

        Good to know, because it doesn’t make it clear on the site, I always assumed it’s the same membership model as WoW.

        • zmrl@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Ya I will say they do tend to try and push you towards the membership in a few different ways but its not too bad overall.

    • simple@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      OSRS has a free version that lets you access most of the game, but the paid premium version nets you more content

    • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I played pirate servers for a little bit after a LONG break of not playing WoW. It was a little buggy, but it was enough to scratch the itch, explore some new things, and realize I didn’t want to get back into WoW.

      • hisao@ani.social
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        1 day ago

        Yep, but also some pservers offer new content (like new locations, classes, skills), and some offer different gameplay altogether, like classless servers where you roll skills for any classes as you level and try to build something that makes sense.

  • MrQuallzin@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Final Fantasy 14. It’s base game and first couple expansions are free to play. No subscription needed unless you keep playing after that