I'm looking for a decent MMORPG with a medium to high playerbase with a sense of community. It doesn't matter to me whether it is free-to-play or pay-to-play, money is not a concern to me. I'm sure everyone knows that the largest MMORPG with the most players are on WoW, but I personally do not like WoW. It's just too cartoony for me. I have tried almost every MMORPGs you could name and so far, the best MMORPG in my opinion is FFXI. But I personally feel that FFXI is dying with a very low playerbase and more will leave for SW:TOR, Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, Blade & Soul, ArcheAge, and TERA. To be honest, I am not hyped about any of those new games. RIFT is still pretty new, but it's still too much like WoW. EVE Online was great, but I'm more leaning towards to the medieval and fantasy themed MMORPGs. FFXIV has a much lower playerbase and it might increase once the finished version comes out for the PS3, but it will take months before they announce it after a couple major updates and months more before its release. Runes of Magic is a great MMORPG with about 3-4 million players, but the endgame seems to be driving players out, from what I've read due to the milking cash shops. DC Universe Online seems highly popular, but superheroes in underwears are not for me. I loved Aion: Tower of Eternity, but I am unsure about the current playerbase of that MMORPG now. I don't like Runescape at all due to its low graphics, however popular it may be. I'm unsure about Forsaken World and many of the Perfect World products because they seem cliched like many of the typical MMORPGs. I could name more MMORPGs, but I think I've pretty much covered it all. 

So my current dilemma is between FFXI and Aion at the moment to play until something catches my interest or if a MMORPG has a very high playerbase where there's a lot of people to socialize and party together. It's ironic that WoW and SW:TOR should have the highest playerbase, but they're just not for me. So I should want something that still has a large population, but not as high like those two overrated monsters. 

Someone once quoted, "A MMORPG lives or dies by the strength of its community." 

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community.

Pretty much this. But, I noticed you didn't mention LOTRO. It's got a fairly large playerbase yet it actually has a good community.

There's also Eden Eternal if you're into Asian grindfests. Again it has a lot of players but a good community.

(I don't actually play either of these games but I've heard a lot about how good the communites are in them.)

Play EU AoC. NA has a okay playerbase but EU is double.

Originally posted by ArmoredBird

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

 

Not that hard to understand really, the more people there are the more likely there is to be a higher number of douche bags and therefore making a bad community.

You pretty much covered or played all the games with large playerbases though, if I were you I would just wait for GW 2 because it sounds like your going through the same thing I went through, searching for that perfect MMO with the feeling of a large community along with polished quality gameplay and fun. Never found that game and wasted alot of time looking lol.. so I'm just going to wait for GW 2 and the many other new MMO's set to launch this year. Good luck with your search though sorry I couldn't be much help.

Originally posted by ArmoredBird

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

 

You find it hard to believe? If there is a huge community, you can be an asshole to everyone you meet and continue to find people to group with forever. This is the case in every game I have ever played with a huge community. In smaller communities you can get a bad rep fast... thus the communities tend to be much better.

Also as others have said, there is no big great game out right now... I'd wait for one of the bigger games coming out although because of above they probably aren't going to have the greatest communities. The only solution to this whether the game is WoW or GW2 is a good guild.

Originally posted by EndDream

Originally posted by ArmoredBird

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

 

You find it hard to believe? If there is a huge community, you can be am asshole to everyone you meet and continue to find people to group with forever. This is the case in every game I have ever played with a huge community. In smaller communities you can get a bad rep fast... thus the communities tend to be much better.

It depends on the game.  In some games, you stick with your friends, and only occasionally would you take on a newcomer.  If you behave like a d-bag, you will stay solo for a long time.  EQ1, DAoC ...

Yeah you can say that population for these games in the past is much lower, but for each server, you only got like 1000 or so players to interact with during your usual playing hours.  11millions means nothing to me cos 99+% of these people will never meet me, they are in another server.

Even in WoW, I typically interact with 100 or less regulars during raids, some 10+ suppliers for my crafter alts, and I do not know who buys my AH posts.  My friend list has around 30 regulars and a few temporary trading friends.  Guild members are another story.

Quality of gamers decline a bit, in some aspects, notably social aspects, largely because of gameplay, spreading of MMO to larger population base, and most important of all, decline of social values in education and upbringing.  It is seen in many areas, from online to bars to walking on the streets.  Online community is a victim.

Originally posted by LisXia

Originally posted by EndDream

Originally posted by ArmoredBird

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

 

You find it hard to believe? If there is a huge community, you can be am asshole to everyone you meet and continue to find people to group with forever. This is the case in every game I have ever played with a huge community. In smaller communities you can get a bad rep fast... thus the communities tend to be much better.

It depends on the game.  In some games, you stick with your friends, and only occasionally would you take on a newcomer.  If you behave like a d-bag, you will stay solo for a long time.  EQ1, DAoC ...

Yeah you can say that population for these games in the past is much lower, but for each server, you only got like 1000 or so players to interact with during your usual playing hours.  11millions means nothing to me cos 99+% of these people will never meet me, they are in another server.

Even in WoW, I typically interact with 100 or less regulars during raids, some 10+ suppliers for my crafter alts, and I do not know who buys my AH posts.  My friend list has around 30 regulars and a few temporary trading friends.  Guild members are another story.

Quality of gamers decline a bit, in some aspects, notably social aspects, largely because of gameplay, spreading of MMO to larger population base, and most important of all, decline of social values in education and upbringing.  It is seen in many areas, from online to bars to walking on the streets.  Online community is a victim.

But in EQ, DAoC, Uo etc you couldn't transfer servers or change your name, or make a new character in a few weeks. Also, the games fostered much more community interaction so you learned peoples names. This is not the case in modern games, and it probably will never be again unfortunatly.

Originally posted by EndDream

Originally posted by LisXia

Originally posted by EndDream

Originally posted by ArmoredBird

Originally posted by Palebane

Kind of an oxymoron as large playerbases usually end up fostering poor community. You could try Farmville, I guess.

 

 Please elaborate on this. I find this contradiction a bit hard to believe. As for Farmville, I don't do Facebook games. Thanks, though.

 

You find it hard to believe? If there is a huge community, you can be am asshole to everyone you meet and continue to find people to group with forever. This is the case in every game I have ever played with a huge community. In smaller communities you can get a bad rep fast... thus the communities tend to be much better.

It depends on the game.  In some games, you stick with your friends, and only occasionally would you take on a newcomer.  If you behave like a d-bag, you will stay solo for a long time.  EQ1, DAoC ...

Yeah you can say that population for these games in the past is much lower, but for each server, you only got like 1000 or so players to interact with during your usual playing hours.  11millions means nothing to me cos 99+% of these people will never meet me, they are in another server.

Even in WoW, I typically interact with 100 or less regulars during raids, some 10+ suppliers for my crafter alts, and I do not know who buys my AH posts.  My friend list has around 30 regulars and a few temporary trading friends.  Guild members are another story.

Quality of gamers decline a bit, in some aspects, notably social aspects, largely because of gameplay, spreading of MMO to larger population base, and most important of all, decline of social values in education and upbringing.  It is seen in many areas, from online to bars to walking on the streets.  Online community is a victim.

But in EQ, DAoC, Uo etc you couldn't transfer servers or change your name, or make a new character in a few weeks. Also, the games fostered much more community interaction so you learned peoples names. This is not the case in modern games, and it probably will never be again unfortunatly.

Very very true, that is why I said, it depends on the game.  In some games I hardly care for anything beyond the 30 I play with.  I raid with them, craft for them, trade with them, and for all practical purpose, they are all I play with regularly.

Of course, it is nice to run into nice people all the time to say hi, but it is just extras.

And I think I have developed very thick skin.  As a person who roleplay a "weak docile" character, I am used to people trying to bully me, intimidate me ("stop pulling my mobs or I will train you"), cheating my low level trading alts ("that belt of almighty wonders is not good for your lowbie, trade it for my "belt for level 1", it suits you better").  I will pretend I am stupid and keep them talking while I move on.  I have enough stress at work to feel the need to be stressed by some pixel representation of whoever I do not know.  Fact is, I am roleplaying a noob, maybe he is roleplaying a bastard.  :-P

actual suggestions:

EQ2 has a very strong playerbase on about 2 servers, maybe 3. Antonia Bayle, Lucan DLere, and Nagafen (pvp).

FFXI, i agree with you, even when i last played the game over a year or more ago, it was dying in NA.

Aion, last i played was a week ago and there were people all over the Asmodae starter zones, due to the xp increase. there were still plenty of folks once i reached the capital city as well.

between the 2 you mentioned wrestling over, FFXI and Aion, i would go with Aion for pop size. however, FFXI is forced grouping, so its up to you.