LFG to play w/ wife w/o monthly fees, nor the need for item shops

Achenar459

Hey. First off I'm a casual gamer...so there won't be many nights where I can play for more than a few hours at a time. For now, i'm looking for a MMORPG style game to play with my wife, so cooperative story play would be nice. I need something that has no monthly subscriptions but i don't mind buying a boxed version of the game or expansions and the like. If a "free" game requires spending real cash for in-game items/abilities/etc to do the real fun parts of the games, or if the "free" game is a downgraded version of the full game that is supposed to give you just enough of a taste of the game to want to pay, forget it.

Looking for:

- Cooperative PvE style gameplay. Not as much PvP, although some would be ok.

- Preferably a 1st person style view similar to elder scroll games (good luck, right?) but if 3rd person controlled, something where the combat doesn't involve leaving your character in one spot and clicking the mouse a bunch. I like to be interactive and required to move my character around while clicking or at least where if you do, you get some sort of advantage.

- Something where you can buy/build/design/customize a home. Not sure what games if any has thisfeature.

- Ability to customize equipment/clothing/etc. (girls love playing dress-up at every age)

- Pets are a bonus...summoning is good too.

- Good quest/storylines.

- No need to 'grind' unless you want to craft some cool weapons/armor or are looking for a specific item drop

- Good graphics, but the option to downplay them for older computers if needed (which it is) and hopefully the 'cool' feel to your characters if you want it

- Ease in ability to find people to quest with of the same level (LFG)

- No sci-fi or comic-style games...looking for fantasy game w/ swordfighting and magic, although something really fun to play that's entirely it's own kind of game would be fine too.

- Not a fan of 'raid' style missions. I do, however, like questing in small parties of 2-8 companions.

I've really been hunting, but don't have forever to look, and can't find good in-gameplay videos of everything. So far I'm considering:

Guild Wars - not exactly the gameplay style i'm looking for, but i figure it's got enough time under it's belt to provide fun missions for quite sometime. How is it for 2 player coop style questing? Looks promising, but I don't want to buy the game for both of us and decide later I should have gone with a 100% free game.

Rappelz or Perfect World - FREE....Rappelz looks to have good character customization, and having pets would be fun for the wife. Read that Perfect World is less 'grinding' which is a major plus, and you can jump...i assumed most games would allow you to JUMP these days, but guess i was wrong. The ad at http://rappelz.gpotato.com/ad/ made it look like a really good free game....before seeing that I figured anything free had to be really bad. Although I haven't played it yet.

Flyff - Looks like it could be fun, if not entirely serious, and she'll probably like it. If the gameplay is decent it could be a competitor....we'll see.

Are there any other games like Guild Wars where you buy the game, but there aren't any subscription fees?

I bought D&D Online, and reallly enjoyed the game..but it had a subscription. The gameplay mechanics were REALLY close to what I'm looking for in a 3rd person game if you can't have 1st person view. But the game was limited in scope, and the world was very small. I would love a game like DDO but with an expansive world like WOW. I want to hold off on getting any subscription games until there's something like that, or closer to Elder Scrolls style games in an MMO environment. Vanguard sounds very close to what I might like, but I don't know about trying a game controlled by Sony >_> and I've no idea how the gameplay is. I absolutely HATE the fact that games like WOW have a fighting system where you swing your sword from 10 feet away from the enemy, yet you hit it. I really liked how in DDO, if i was able to avoid the enemy, i wouldn't get hit and that if i swung my sword, but he moved to miss it, damage was not inflicted. I also liked having small parties. It's not too hard to get 6 people together to run some quests. It's a nice bonus if there are raid style dungeons for end-game play, or for when you have a large clan/guild that you game with. But I want to play something where the focus is on you gaming with your closest friends....

 

Any suggestions for a free to play game to tide my wife and i over until a good enough MMORPG is developed that will actually be worth paying multiple monthly subscriptions to play? Hoping that one will come out within the next 8-10 years seems like an eternity. If Guild Wars had the gameplay style of DDO I'd be all over it....

Maybe you can help me make a decision, cuz for now I'm at an impasse.

Thanks,

-Ach

sanders01

You want a lot of requirements out of a free game bud. And all free games either run off a Cash shop or have a alternate subscription program. There really is no such thing as a good free game, in nearly every Good Free one, you have to pay to be "good". Most Free games are PvP, and have little or no crafting. Storylines? If you mind the worst storylines in RPG history. and as for First person gameplay, Wurm online has it, but it may or may not be your taste.

The only things that come to mind is: Runescape, Wurm online.

Pepsipwnzgod

You my friend, want Guild wars. You buy the box + expansions but it's f2p with no cash shop, there is literally no grind to hit 20 except a bit of the story and almost every mission can be done with a partner, you roll dps your wife rolls a healer, you have kids just so they can be a tank!!! lol, it really is a game made for casual gamers especially since there is a ton of pve but pvp whenever you need it.

Rebn77

If your willing to try out a subscription based game I would suggest LotRO.

It has many of the things you're looking for: Housing, the best storyline in any MMO to date, an open world with instanced dungeons, a pvp system where you can pvp if you want (Monster play), and a mature community.

 

*Edit*

LotRO also has a system where you can equip what you want the world to see while wearing your "leet" armor. As well as the LoreMaster class that can summon pets. There are also factions you can work with towards getting different looking mounts, plus seasonal events that reward mounts.

nytlemgr

I aslo agree GW is the way to go. Almost all of what you have requested is present. I'm sure you will, if you already have not, figured out that you need to make some compromises with your wishes in a game. 

The options you have to group in GW to complete missions is really extensive. You can join a PUG, add henchman, heros (depanding on what game), or any combination of them all. Point being you can complete all missions by yourself and npcs, in a group or ppl, or with the wife.

All and all, it's a game I thinkyou should look into more.

 

Added:

To the above post, I agree LOTRO is also a great option but due to the sub. I didn't mention it. If you can get past that, it may be even more to your liking that GW.

I have and do play both!

 

More Added:

While it is still far from being released, let alone being in beta, keep an eye out for Guild Wars 2.  May be all your dreams come true!

Rebn77

Guild Wars is so instance intensive though. I found running around outside of town and never bumping into another player sort of disturbing . It was like "Eww you got some single player RPG stuck in my MMO!".

Achenar459

Thanks for all the input I'll probably give Guild Wars a go...I almost bought it, but hesitated since I hadn't done any research yet ^_^ I did notice GW2 is in development, but that could be a while with the way games are going these days. I'll probably look into getting into the beta. I was part of the DDO beta, which is probably the only reason i actually played the game lol but it was thoroughly enjoyable...especially when they had a glitch that let you jump extremely high and i was able to spend hours scaling all the buildings in the game and jumping outside of the city. i had a friend who actually lost his character because he ran outside of the city and couldn't log back in because there was no spawn point for his character from where he was LOL anyways off-topic.

i noticed LoTRO has a free 14 day trial...i might check that out just for fun.

sounds like you guys all agree that the fully 'free to play' games are not at all the way to go then...probably for good reason.

<looking at Guild Wars 2 info>

if GW2 is really being released end of 2008 then we might as well wait for that to be released....decisions decisions...

 

if i were to start with Guild Wars, which version would you recommend? I noticed they are selling a Platinum version (Original Guild Wars + Eye of the North), Factions Platinum Edition, but no Nightfall Platinum Edition wonder why that is...

mrcalhou

It would say get the original + eye of the north. I haven't played any of the expansions, but eye of the north would be a good continuation of the original story or so it seems to me.

Achenar459

ya i went w/ original + eye of the north...installing now.

we'll see how it goes

xagent

I sent you a PM Achenar459.

xagent

LOL should of read entire poste first...

I see you are already trying  Guild Wars lol

xagent

Yeah, if you just want to stick with the original story line go with Guild Wars plus Eye of the North expansion.

The other two, stand-alone games {Factions and Nightfall} aren't too bad though if you decided to wanna try out the other places/classes.

Not sure when Guild Wars 2 will be coming out; however they said they will be keeping Guild Wars up even after Guild Wars 2 comes out.

icedout06

give shaiya online a try

voyage century online

silkroad online

those are some of the best free mmos out

 

kingbloop

Oh if you get factions or nightfall, you can get heros instead of just mercs. The heros are stronger and have access to all the skills you have unlocked. Guild Wars is a decent game. but would be better if it wasnt instanced.