Hi all,

I've been a long time WOWer, but I'm looking for a change.  I'm tiring of the WOW experience, but still looking to play MMOs.  I've been searching for the past few hours for a new game to pick up, but I'm having trouble weeding through the vast selection of MMOs out there to play; so I thought I'd post to see if anyone in these forums could help me nagivate my choices.

Things I'm looking for in an MMO:

- I enjoy a fantasy environment, full of magic and swordplay and mythical creatures.

- As my work schedule contains a lot of odd hours, I need a game that will give me plenty of soloable content.

- I prefer a PVE experience to a PVP one.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Give LOTR online a look

Lord of the Rings Online is probably your best choice, considering your criteria.

Guild Wars (proff, factions, nightfall, eye of the north)

Solo Content - You can literally solo everything with npcs you can hire to run with you throughout the world. Eye of the North and Nightfall also have Heros which you can control and do with as you please (their basically another player under your control)

Free to play every month- With little time to play you won't feel obligated to login if you don't feel like it

pvp/pve - GWs offers both of these although is more focused on pvp if you choice to take that route. I was more then impressed with the pve the series offers

You might want to consider Vanguard.  Vanguard has arguably the best core mechanics in Combat, Classes and Crafting of any MMO.  It;s weakness is the game is buggy, unfinished, unpolished and not being funded by SOE so expect almost no new content.  By unpolished I mean the game lacks direction or explanation and many players simply give up as they do not know how many of the systems work or even where to go to find the next quest hub.  Fortunately the community is very good and if you ask nicely people generally will go out of their way to help.

In terms of soloability Vanguard is very friendly solo (with the exception of the rogue class which has a very hard time soloing).  The problem for soloing for a new player is finding the quest hubs and a proper leveling path.  There are 4 areas to level for each level range and if your going to solo you will need to hop back and forth between them using the riftways.  The secret is to do as many quests as possible so you do not fall behind the quest curve always doing green and yellow quests.  If one knows where to level he can go 1-50 in 5-6 days played solo and faster for the most part than grouping.  Although your gear will suffer a bit.  But Vanguard is a lot like most new games in that it lacks challenge and you really do not need much gear to gain xp fast.  The level 20 group quest rewards will be sufficient to see you all the way to level 45 if not 50.

1-50 Vanguard is arguably the best game on the market.  the classes are wonderfully done and unique. Combat requires a bit more thought and skill than other games.  Skilled thoughtful players can really differentiate themselves from poor or average players.  The endgame is where Vanguard fails to deliver.  Raid content is limited, always released in amazingly unfinished and buggy state, and lacking in quantity.  But if your not looking to be in a guild on the cutting edge of content Vanguard's flaws are often hidden.  It is certainly a game everyone should try and play.  It is a great game for what it is.  It is to bad that SOE has failed to support it.  But then again if one does not cry for what Vanguard could have been it can be a pretty enjoyable game even in its current state.