Thats is maybe I still enjoyed it and it is without question the most succesfull MMO out there. I never said it was the best but it is certainly one of the better ones IMO. Yes WoW has its flaws all games do but as I have said before the main reason I consider it the only MMO worth paying the subscription for is that there is such a high volume of fun stuff to do in the game that even if you get tired of one aspect you can go do something else. I expect some people will disagree with me but hey they have the right to.

I must say that after reading the forums and the features about Talisman Online I expected that it would try and rip off/copy World of Warcraft. After playing for about an hour I am now convinced that this is indeed what the developers of Talisman Online were trying to do and as f2p MMOs go they did a fairly good job. So far ive only gotten to about lvl 8 but the skills seem to be nice, the talisman system is interesting, the quests are grinding but then again I expect them to be. The community seems at least fairly nice so far and there are several functions in the game built towards getting people to work together and party.

The only two gripes I have about this game so far are that you cannot move your character with the standard awsd controls (all point and click movement but this is actually done fairly well so you dont automatically attack a monster by accidently clicking on it when trying to move.) My other problem is that the camera seems stuck at an odd angle looking down diagonally at your character. This is workable most of the time but I would sometimes like to zoom in or go to a ground level camera for a closer look and other times the camera makes it hard to see enemies but the minimap at least lets you know where they are generally so its not too big a problem.

Im going to keep playing this game and I recommend you try it if you have not.

Oh yeah ive played Anarchy Online and I agree completely. AO's only problem is that it badly needs a graphics overhaul and Funcom needs to give it more attention instead of wetnursing Age of Conan...or they could do with AoC what they did with AO, release it as a f2p and then release some expansions and hope people buy them. (I know this will never ever happen but Im allowed to dream arent I?)

Ok in all honesty WoW has how many MILLIONS of users (ok some of them are probably bots or alt accounts but all games count those anyway)? Look I played Asheron's Call when I was young so I know WoW isnt the first MMO. Greatest? Hmm possibly but not a shoo in. Most successful? HELL YES! Saying that WoW is not awesome because it ripped off other games is like saying that the Japanese are not awesome because they ripped off other cultures (For the record I love the Japanese and I meant this as a compliment so no flaming). I used to play WoW (before my account got hacked) and I admit that there were only a few things that it did which had not been done before. The reason WoW is so amazing is that it did all the things that worked for past games and did them all at the same time.

When people ask me why I consider World of Warcraft to be the only MMO worth paying the subscription fee for, I answer "Because of the sheer amount of fun stuff you can do in WoW, you know that you will get your moneys worth (unless you go into a coma or something the day after you pay the next month's fee).

Hmm Talisman Online...looks like World of Warcraft...and thats a good thing in my book, ill give it a go and get back to you if I dont like it. If I do like it there is a chance you wont hear from me for a while .

Look people I know it looks kinda like WoW but thats a good thing. Ever since WoW's success became apparent everyone, their dog, their cat, their goldfish, and their hamster has been trying to be like World of Warcraft. If a free MMO does a decent job of being like WoW then thats a good thing.

*sigh* why does that not surprise me *leers at Funcom* hell even Runescape lets free players use their "high definition" settings (Granted for some reason you have to be a member to use HD full screen but still.)

If AO isnt going to cut it anymore than can someone recommend another decent to good free MMO that has a good community?

But of course I have never subscribed to AO or any free MMO out of principle nor do I plan to.

All I want to know is, is Anarchy Online still an active community?

Anarchy Online is one of the few free MMOs that I have had a good deal of fun playing and have come back to fairly often. The only things I can say bad about the game is that it really could use better graphics and I dont like the quests all that much but none of these come close to ruining the game. What I want to know though before I get back into AO is the game still alive? Are the Clan Wars still active? If not then is there another game that anyone here might recommend?

I generally agree that p2p MMOs are almost always going to simply be better than f2p but I am looking for a f2p MMO that is just fun. As I have said many times the only MMO that I could ever justify paying a subscription fee for would be World of Warcraft and that is simply because it is the only game where I know that I will get my moneys worth. However when something is free and good enough then I feel like ive gotten more than my moneys worth and that is what I am looking for.

Nah if its like you say then I have no reason to keep playing and will probably uninstall this game to make room for a better MMO but thank you for your swift reply.

Having spent years playing or at least trying out several free MMOs I have found that most of them suffer from the same problems while a few of them were actually fun and made me play them for an extended period of time. As such I would like to list some of the ones that I find more memorable and give a brief impression of them.

Anarchy Online:

Ah now this was a fun game, the large amount of stat customization which was actually explained fairly well. The community was fairly nice and the territorial battle system was also fun. Lots of neat dungeons full of interesting creatures to kill that then dropped interesting loot. So much about this game kept me interested and on at least 3 occasions in my life I have played it for a month or more before I lost interest but only for a short time. The main reason I am not still playing this game is that it is in bad nead of a graphics update. I mean seriously I may not remember Asheron's Call that much but some of the AO graphics do not look much better. In all fairness though I highly recommend this game to those who have not played it. Its free and it is not necessary to actually shell out money to be able to succeed at this game. There is alot to do here and it should keep you hooked longer than most free MMOs at least.

Dream of Mirror Online:

Ah DOMO. This is a charming game. I played it a while back so I dont remember too many details about it but I do remember that I played it for about a month and had fun...at least up until the point that I realized that a character could not continue after a certain level until they paid actual money. Someone please set me straight if I am thinking of another game or if they have changed this but I seem to recall to deadly flaws this game had, 1. The classes were not very well balanced. 2. A character could not advance above level 15 or level 20 unless they became a member which meant they had to actually pay to play which in my book is a cardinal sin unless you are World of Warcraft. I recommend playing this game because it is fun for a while but dont expect to spend more than a month on it if you are like me here. The amazing thing is that this is an Aeria Game, you know Aeria; the guys who release a new MMO like every other month. DOMO is in my opinion the closest they have come to a good MMO.

Fiesta Online:

I am still playing this game and have gotten my mage to about level 15. I recommend this game because its fun. The cartoon like characters and the music is enough to make you at least grin assuming you still have a pulse. The one thing that may get me to stop playing Fiesta soon is the fact that I see little reward in continuing. The community doesnt really strike me as interactive and there are few tools to help out here. Ive never been able to play with a good party even when I was a cleric. The chat options are a little lacking and whenever you feel get about yourself you are passed by a member who used the item shop and so they are wearing a kimono and riding a dragon while you are wearing the same cookie cutter armor as most everyone else and riding a stick horse! One interesting thing to note is that the game allows you from the get go to rest in a mushroom to heal...yeah thats a little unique.

KAL Online:

The perfect example of the Korean grind fest MMO. This was one of the first free MMOs I played and for a while it was fun until I realized that I had spent the first 20 levels grinding and had a good feeling that the only thing I would be able to do for the next 20 levels would be grind. In the end I just stopped playing because I saw no reason to continue. Also please apply the above paragraph to most every other Korean grind fest MMO.

Knight Online:

I think I played this around the same time I played KAL Online. KO was good but had some flaws that I still remember even now years after I played it. The most glaring is that you soon realize that you will never be able to succeed in this game at higher levels unless you pay for it. As I said before I refuse to pay a subscription fee for any MMO that is not World of Warcraft (and after my level 52 Nightelf Hunter was hacked in that game while I was away at college leaving me to find it replaced by a level 1 Gnome Warrior named "Ugothax" upon my return I refuse to pay for WoW as well even though I have found it to be simply the best MMO out there simply for the sheer amount of fun things that it allow you to do). Anyway back to KO. I tried to play it again recently and found that it has now sinned once more by being like Adventure Quest with (slightly) better graphics and reserving spots on the server for members first meaning that unless you pay to play there is no guarantee that you will be able to log in and the odds of that are very very slim. Therefore I cannot recommend Knight Online from my experience with it. If the game has changed since I played it then please someone set me straight about it.

Perfect World:

Perfect World represents the best thing to come out of China since...ok the best thing ever to come out of China. Seriously playing as an elf with wings and being able to fly from the get go is worth at least a week of gameplay on its own. Yeah most of the quest are grinding but the combat is fairly done. The community is decent (I managed to find and play with a few successful parties) and I dont remember the item shop being forced on you that much since several of the items you can get from are actually sold by some capitalistic players (Irony of capitalism in a Chinese made game is not lost on me) and bought with in game money (granted its expensive as all hell but at least its available). I highly recommend this game but the International Version does not start until August and it will be closed Beta so you will have to sign up now to play it then I think. You can still play the game now though, just look for the Filipino or Malaysian game site (can be found on the Perfect World wiki near the bottom). These version of the game are in broken english but the NPCs can be understood well enough, just assume that they want you to kill a certain amount of the monster they talk about. Once again if you havnt played this game I highly recommend that you do.

RF Online:

I played this a while back and it was good but the controls felt a bit clunky, the user interface was not friendly but its was not mean either. It was more like being in school and told to do a group project with the emo kid in the class who doesnt care about anything and makes you do all the work while he writes poems about how things suck. The community was a combination of Runescape-like assholes who spent their time in the newbie zones killing everything, and a few good souls who tried in vain to rally their race during the periodic mining wars that go on every few hours. These are actually not as fun as they might sound though. I was never able to find a working party in this game and so spend most of my time solo grinding before I quit after losing interest. I will say this about the game it is fairly pretty to look at. I understand the game is dying right now and am not surprised but if you want to check it out I would not try to turn you away from it but I will say dont get your hopes up.

Runescape:

Most everyone on here has at one point or another played runescape. For the few of you who havnt Runescape's better points are that it is entirely browser based and that it is free. Its bad points cannot be listed here since there are too many ranging from the fact that 75% of the content is unavaliable to you unless you want to subscribe to the game (I refuse the pay $5 a month for a game this badly made and that has graphics that make Habbo Hotel look polished) to the fact that mining in the game is liable to cause some people to lose their faith in humanity and is probably responsible for the deaths of at least of few people either due to suicide or homocide by the guy whom they stole the adamantine ore from. Let me make this clear, the game seems to giggle everytime you come across something neat only to click on it to find out that its for members online. Everytime you gain a skill level the game congratulates you but then says if you were a member you could use fletching. So much of the content is locked away and avaliable only to those suckers who pay $5 a month for it. To the games credit it is still playable for free as long as you are willing to accept that the only class that you will be able to play is a warrior (techincally there are no classes in the game but too much of the archery and magic content are locked IMO to make playing as an archer or magic user effective). I honestly still play this from time to time but only when im waiting on something to finish downloading and need to waste some time.

Second Life:

Second Life is a game I have been playing off and on since the year 2005 and thus holds the record for the MMO that has held my attention for the longest. The best thing about Second Life is that you can do pretty much anything. The worst thing about Second Life is that you can do pretty much anything. Most people walk in expecting this to be like most MMOs and leave after finding that there is no drive to play it. Those who stay a little longer soon realize that this is perhaps the most community driven program (I hesistate to call it a game) in existence. Almost everything in Second Life is made by a user like you. Yes there is an option to become a premium member but the only thing this allows you to do that regular members cannot is own land and there are ways around this such as renting land that are easy to do. Now the game does have a big underbelly and some places are like three dimensional porn but the grid (the term used to describe the world of Second Life) is so huge that there is something for everyone. I understand that several colleges and universities (not just little ones but big name ones) have online operations in Second Life and I know at least 5 countries have embassies in Second Life. If you have not experienced it then I highly recommend it. If nothing else you may find yourself comming back whenever you get tired of grinding.

Silkroad:

Silkroad was a fun game and had a good deal of promise but it is hampered by its unfriendly controls, constant grind questing, lack of clear class definitions (there are no classes so the character growth is confusing and does not make it easy to party since no one has defined roles). To top it all off the tech support is next to abysmal. The game is infested with bots and several times you will find that you cannot get on to any server for hours because the server is full and even if you can get on the lag almost makes the game unplayable. If you can play it, try it, you might like it but I simply did not.

These are not the only free MMO's I have played they are simply the only ones that I can write more than a few sentences about and that I actually remember playing for more than a week. I have also played: 9Dragons, Cabal Online, Entropia, Fly for Fun, Habbo Hotel, Mabinogi, Metin 2, Mu Online, Oz World, Ran Online, Rappelz, Scions of Fate, Shaiya, Granado Espada (Sword of the New World), Tantra Online, Thang Online, World of Kung Fu, Xiah, Zu Online, and probably a few others that I do not recall the names of. I did not talk about any of those games because I either did not play them long enough to justify giving my opinion of them (since I am not still playing them my opinion of them likely is not very good) or that I do not have anything to say about them that is very meaningful.

So I decided to try out Tantra online after reading about all its features. I go in make my mage character as usual in this case a Garuda. Then I go in follow some instructions and then take my level 1 character outside the city to start setting dogs on fire. About five minutes late I return to the city but now I am at LEVEL 15! I never thought I would say this about a game but Tantra makes it way too easy to level up. I mean seriously before I even realized it I had tons of skill and attribute points to use (the attributes are not explained and the skill explanations are not very clear) and then a guy told me to go find the priest for my first job change. Job Change? I just started playing less than 10 minutes ago and im already supposed to change jobs? Ok I no this sounds odd to be complaining about leveling up too fast but try it, to me it just feels like it was too easy, like I didnt earn it. Maybe it changes and becomes harder later on but the idea is to make the player feel like they earned it when they level up, at least thats my opinion anyway.

Tantra has some other problems too; it looks a bit better than Silkroad but handles worse than it (the awsd controls feel clunky). Almost nothing is explained to you about anything leaving you to guess which attributes raise what and hope that you arent making a mistake that will later cripple your character.

I heard that the community in this game was not very good and from what I saw I have to agree. Its not that they do not talk because they do, its just that no one talks to you. When you try to talk everyone just sort of stares at you until you feel like you are in the village from Wickerman.

What im trying to get at here is that a good MMO should sort of be like a strip tease in the beginning, by which I mean it should show you something that you want but cant have until you get to a higher level which should then make the player want to spend time leveling up in order to get what they want. A really good MMO will pull this trick/trap several times every 10 or so levels to keep a person playing. When an MMO makes it so easy that a player can gain 15 levels without even trying in their first 5 minutes of play it really just feels empty. Combine this with the fact that it really doesnt give me any reason to want to keep playing as I do not see anyone going around with mounts, everyone has pretty much the same looking armor and there are no obvious guild war messages flashing up on the screen, etc.

Maybe I am being too hard on the game, maybe it gets better later on but unless someone replies to set me straight about this game I see no reason to keep playing.

I am trying to find a good free MMO or MMORPG preferably with a strong emphasis on parties. Basically one where there are plenty of dungeons/instances and/or organized pvp/guild war kinds of things. Can anyone recommend a good free MMO like this...I mean besides Anarchy Online (AO was and is good but im looking for something else right now)?

I started playing Fiesta a little while ago and it seems to do most things right as far as Free MMOs go. Anyway I am having alot of fun playing it but I am beginning to wonder if its really worth it to keep playing. I am not seeing any big guild wars or organized pvp events or alot of instance quests. Its also hard to find a good party in this game and I may start to get bored of it after a while unless I can find some reason to keep playing in order to get to the higher levels.