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Best B2P or F2P MMO for Someone New to MMO's?
fat_taddler
Member Posts: 286
One of my co-workers wants to try out an MMO and has been asking which one(s) I think he should check out. I suggested SWTOR and GW2 but are there any other MMO's out there that offer an easy entry point into the genre?
Personally, I think WoW is probably the easiest MMO to get started with but he doesn't want to deal with subs at this point.
Comments
I would disagree with your WoW comments. WoW is probably one of the more expensive mmos to get into. Vanilla+Burning Crusade+Wrath of the Lich King will run you $20 USD. Cataclysm runs $20 UD, and Mists of Pandaria is still $40 USD. Unless you can find a sale, you're looking minimally $80 to get into WoW (so that you have all of the content).
You could just get the Battlechest and work your way up to 80 which may take you a month or so if you never played before, and dabble in the different classes to see what one you like.
Lord of the Rings Online offers free to play gameplay, but you'll eventually need to pony up some cash, unless you really don't mind grinding Turbine Points.
The Secret World is a buy to play experience now, and you can find that for as cheap at $20 USD (on sale). Just looked at amazon, the box will run you $27 with the digial download running you $30.
There's a ton of options for you guys though. I guess the better question to ask yourselves is what you want to get out of the game. Raiding, PvP, PvE, Exploration, Crafting, Specific Setting, etc. Then choose the game from those expectations.
Best B2P : GW2
Best F2P : Tera
In my opinion.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Good point Kaneth and thanks for the response. I forgot about LOTRO, that might be a good option. Not sure TSW is "noob" friendly enough as I'd hate for my buddy to get overwhelmed with options, builds, etc.
I recommend EQ2
have access to all content under level 85 without spending anything or grinding faction
soe removed the coin/bag/bank/race/class restrictions
can use mounts at level one
EQ2 fan sites
I'd suggest LOTRO for new to the genre. The gameplay seems pretty standard, it's not a gankfest, the IP is very well known, the system requirements are reasonable, and there's no payment barrier to start playing.
My only argument against gw2 is the whole holy trinity thing. gw2 is a fine game if that's your thing but teach a new player something like that may ruin them for other mmos. Not because it's so great and fixes every problem!! but people tend to latch onto what they first learn as " normal " and everything else is just doing it wrong.
Trying to find other games like that may be problimatic once you're bored of gw2.
LotR would be a pretty solid choice for a first.
wow would also be a good choice and they wouldn't have to buy everything all at once. It would have that long term cost and a sub though.
Heck even Anet had said this and are working to fix it.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
imo go for TERA.
Best F2P model in mmo market and at least a very descent game.
Give it a try before give money to buy something else
Best truly free MMO: Star Trek Online, hands down, sorry but you can get everything and they're getting an expansion for it in May which adds a third faction.
Best Buy to play... hmmm... I'd go with Guild Wars 1, he can pick it up on the cheap and it's still, by what I hear, going strong
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Depends on what kind of games he already likes, is he a fps or a rpg type of gamer or is he totally new to all game genres? Then there's the kind of settings he would prefer, medieval fantasy, modern fantasy, sci-fi etc.
From experience I would say for a f2p probably LoTRO is one of the easiest to ease into, it offers a small quest driven beginner instance(up to level 7/8) before you get dropped into Tolkien's world where you can then either become a hobbit bard just dancing the nights away at the numerous festivals and taverns or an adventurer that takes up enough crafting skills to help outfit themselves and any alts he may make as he moves around the world or opts for trying to become the ultimate hero rivaling Aragorn as he takes on the epic story and concentrates on battle goals to try and defeat Sauron and save middle-earth.
Should he prefer more of a battle driven game and doesn't mind plunking down $50+, then GW2 is probably not a bad choice, even I've levelled two characters to max level without even trying....
Re WoW, I dispute the cost of getting into it, they now have a free trial up to level 20 that you can essentially just play forever, albeit with some pretty hard restrictions, and the BattleChest is only $19.99 that gives you:
The World of Warcraft Battle Chest includes everything you need to begin the adventure:
World of Warcraft complete game
The Burning Crusade expansion set
The Wrath of the Lich King expansion set
Includes first month of game time
256-Page beginner's guide from Brady Games
Cata is another $19.99 and honestly unless he's a power endgame player he doesn't need Pandaria for a long time(he really doesn't need Cata right away either and I would recommend just playing without it for at least a month) unless he just wants to make a panda or a monk in which case it will cost another $39.99 which is pretty cheap for a new expansion.
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Anyway, those would be my picks but then I'm more into open world medieval type mmorpgs when I can find them(I've since gone back to old UO) so if that's not his thing then follow some of the more sci-fi oriented replies and g'luck!