OP If you have issues putting real life responsibilities before mmo gaming I don't think another mmo game would be a good idea.
If i were you i would buy a couple single player rpgs and play them very casually.
believe me any mmo you play it will be WoW all over again.
I could suggest Lotro which can be played solo the entire way and you could even get great great through skirmishes and crafting but it sounds like it may be "life-Destroying" also.
Yea, that was why I recommended Guild wars, it was built for non commitment, casual play.. so might be a good match.
It can be played casually but it can also be played quite hardcore where it takes quite a few hours out of your day.
Depending on the guild you join you could be running scheduled pve and GvG pvp.
It could become intense if you have an addictive personallity.
I honestly feel the best option is playing something that doesn't involve a community that may peer pressure a weaker willed person into feeling like they need to log in.
Many never " join" a guild. They create their own and just add family members. Many I met in the game were couples, and said they enjoyed it because they could spend quality time together in game without having to have a group at all. The henchmen made that possible.
It is the most non commitment, least addicting, solo friendly game I know of, I mean even single player rpgs like elder scrolls oblivion are more addictive than this, so it would depend on how you play it. I found even ages of empires more addicting than this, so It might be a viable option if they get their girl to play with them, and don't commit to any other guild events.
He could just play it with his girl and family and use npc henchmen. Create his own guild, make his own cape and not deal with other players at all.. which is what it sounds like he needs to do, to help him have some fun playing a game in his downtime, and yet still have time for loved ones.
OP If you have issues putting real life responsibilities before mmo gaming I don't think another mmo game would be a good idea.
If i were you i would buy a couple single player rpgs and play them very casually.
believe me any mmo you play it will be WoW all over again.
I could suggest Lotro which can be played solo the entire way and you could even get great great through skirmishes and crafting but it sounds like it may be "life-Destroying" also.
Yea, that was why I recommended Guild wars, it was built for non commitment, casual play.. so might be a good match.
It can be played casually but it can also be played quite hardcore where it takes quite a few hours out of your day.
Depending on the guild you join you could be running scheduled pve and GvG pvp.
It could become intense if you have an addictive personallity.
I honestly feel the best option is playing something that doesn't involve a community that may peer pressure a weaker willed person into feeling like they need to log in.
Many never " join" a guild. They create their own and just add family members. Many I met in the game were couples, and said they enjoyed it because they could spend quality time together in game without having to have a group at all. The henchmen made that possible.
It is the most non commitment, least addicting, solo friendly game I know of, I mean even single player rpgs like elder scrolls oblivion are more addictive than this, so it would depend on how you play it. I found even ages of empires more addicting than this, so It might be a viable option if they get their girl to play with them, and don't commit to any other guild events.
He could just play it with his girl and family and use npc henchmen. Create his own guild, make his own cape and not deal with other players at all.. which is what it sounds like he needs to do, to help him have some fun playing a game in his downtime, and yet still have time for loved ones.
I agree it is the least demanding and casual friendly Game i know of.
But if the OP has a problem it may not be the right choice.
@ Wasim470 thanks your description seems to fit perfectly with what I wanted! Especially the sure loot thing looks rewarding and less time-consuming than Wow loot farming, more casual-play friendly.
You suggest Age of Conan also, can you please list its characteristics well as you did with LOTRO? Thanks (my PC could handle it).
Thank you to the other posters, also. Please say your opinion, it would help me get a better idea. Right now I'm between LOTRO and AOC. EVE I discarded it: too much pvp, too time-consuming, too faction stuff. Guild Wars looks good but the lack of commands makes me turn in the direction of the above ones. With a good UI mod it could turn better, though. The other reason that makes me turn away from GW is the fact that GW2 is about to come out, which means GW should be short-lived. Please comment I'm not an expert the only thing I know is Wow and I'm so sick of it.
AOC is the game am in right now been ther for 4 months now and am gna go on since it's very casual friendly + i really love how detailed it is and graphics are amazing the ppl ther are Mostly nice and if u hate ganking go PVE server and u'll never pvp unless u feel like it
Age Of Conan :
PVE SOLO PLAYING/SMALL GROUPING
y AOC is just that i lvled 1-80 just solo qs, and i did enjoy it tbh ,since the qs are prety much detailed with story and stuf like a q chain i had to hunet a monster abducting Vilgers till u get to the monster cave and slay it )).
did some doungons as well.
at 80 it dosn't kill ur time the doungones in Khitai ( the new expantion ) are very short it's just a matter of tac and right play 1 boss every doungone no trash sometimes 5 mobs or so :P some doungons are longer ofc .
even raids T1 is 3 caves with one boss each :P, we cleared T2 in one night took 3h :P, to kill the boss with the right group needs like 10 - 15 min .
PVP:
u can pvp if u chose to ther's mini games for pvp like flag carry and team slayers and stuf and ther's the ganking on pvp servers .
LOOT:
ok tbh it's very rewarding as well even when u solo q u gna get lots of green drops u won't even bother selling them at AH XD.
CRAFTING:
Nice crafting not the best but nice and good change
PC Requirements:
it's a bit demanding but tbh i'v never seena better looking game till now
Money Requirements:
monthly Fee the uswal with very nice offers like 1 year sup if u call it u only pay 6 months same gos for 3 month sup it's like 2 month pay with 15 days free as well
Plz note : AOC is a Brutal game it has killing blows like cuting ppls heads wich gives a buff for all the group and a ver nice flaver to the game play hehe.
i hope u give these games a try i think they really worth it
ah sorry one more thing i forgot , u get an offline lvl every 4 days, wich u can put on any char u like, they stack up to 30 lvls, it makes csual player much faster to hit cap if he likes to, i did lvl till 73 and had 7 offline lvls by then did put them on y char and BOOM am 80 :P, and when u hit 50 with ur first char u can make a new lvl 50 char any time u like starts at lvl 50 only once ofc, at any server u like so i guess it can't get any better for thos who can't spend thir time lvling all day long :P.
I've heard in LOTRO you can potentially craft items of the same level of the best drop of the badassest raid boss. Which would be neat 'cause I almost lost a life because of raids so I'd like to skip them completly if possible. Also I'd like to ask, how far can I go in LOTRO my myself (solo play)and a maximum of 5 people joining my party? Would it be possible to complete the game?
Then I would like to ask the same questions above for what concerns AOC.
Thank you again for your kindness, this is very important to me. I think I'll play MMos again sooner or later, and seen my past experience this one I'd like it to be the good choice.
well in LOTRO u can solo play anything till the cap ,and even ther as i heard u can solo a hole raid ,just at the time u like that's coz the skirmish system is scaled like this .... solo .... 3ppl .... 6ppl .... and 12 the other instances or group qs will need 6 ppl to do it.
about AOC well it's not that much into solo, still u can skip all the raids and get the best gear in the game, by doing Instanes and Hard mood instances and it needs 1 group = 6 man and it's easy and fast to get .at 80 u gna get some kind of tokens wich u can trade for faction Gear epics wich is the best gear i'v seen, since geting the faction rep needed takes some time + the new AA system will keep u busy at 80 even if u are solo player it's a new talnet tree u get for ur char at 80, wich gna need points to spend in them, u get these points by doing PVE stuff like doungons and qs and u get pvp points by doing PVP kills.
@ Wasim470 thanks your description seems to fit perfectly with what I wanted! Especially the sure loot thing looks rewarding and less time-consuming than Wow loot farming, more casual-play friendly.
You suggest Age of Conan also, can you please list its characteristics well as you did with LOTRO? Thanks (my PC could handle it).
Thank you to the other posters, also. Please say your opinion, it would help me get a better idea. Right now I'm between LOTRO and AOC. EVE I discarded it: too much pvp, too time-consuming, too faction stuff. Guild Wars looks good but the lack of commands makes me turn in the direction of the above ones. With a good UI mod it could turn better, though. The other reason that makes me turn away from GW is the fact that GW2 is about to come out, which means GW should be short-lived. Please comment I'm not an expert the only thing I know is Wow and I'm so sick of it.
as far as i know then arena net havnt announced any release date for GW2, but lets say ½ a year, then your money on GW1 is well spend anyway ... since u got no sub to pay, any mmo would cost you more
and imo, what your saying then GW suits you perfect.
another thing that would be "nice" about playing GW1 even tho GW2 is on the way, is you might understand alot more of GW2 when it comes out, as the skills are quite uniq from any other game, and skill builds and such. - just 1 example oh u will also stuff in GW2 if u do certern stuff in GW1.
i would seriously recommend giving it a go!
for the little ammount i payed for GW when it came out.... gotta say i never exspected to get this much out of a game for the small ammount of money.
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...
Xsyon is a new game coming out where you can truly do what you want. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world where we have to 'start from scratch' so to speak. It's based in the Lake Tahoe region of California/Nevada using real geographical data (which is cool because I live 2 1/2 hours away from there IRL and have been snowboarding there for a decade). Combat kinda sucks right now because it's not their primary focus at the minute. Right now the game is in closed beta only available to those who pre-order, but as far as I know you can get a refund if you don't like the game. If you don't want to play it just yet I highly suggest keeping your eye on it.
You have complete freedom in this game to do whatever you want. You get experience for practically anything in the game--talking to other players, running, chopping down a tree, combat, etc.--not to say leveling is fast at all, which is OK because leveling really isn't important, at least not now. You can build a house anywhere in the game world. You can modify the terrain if you wish (to an extent, not completely). The game is made to be very realistic--if you chop a tree down, it won't just respawn in 20 minutes. You can gain weight by eating too much and you can gain muscle by doing activities that are more strength dependent. The game will be very heavily tribe based--players form tribes and start making cities (when they implement construction of buildings in a week or two).
I kinda keep jumping around and not explaining much about each thing I said up there but you should really head on over to xsyon.com and read through the features list. The game, when finished, is going to be the firstactually good sandbox game.
I tried LOTRO and I didn't like it at all..maybe I'm too used to a more fantasy world. I'm downloading Age of Conan trial, let's see how it turns out to be. Then maybe I'll give GW a go, too. One of the things I'll miss will be flying mounts... I really liked to fly over entire continents... that's why I was looking for AION, where you can fly, but everyone says it's a grindfest so I'll keep away from that one. Vanguard? any players here? is it good?
Apocalyptic scenary? thanks for the suggestion but that's really not my cup of tea.
Oh and to the poster who told me I'm not ready for mmos, I made a mistake once, maybe I can learn to be a better player and have a good real life with some good mmo play. In the Wow period I had 1 university examination in a whole year...that was a very hard time, my parents even contacted a physician. But nothing was working. One day, after the 1453845th ninjaed epic item in a 25m raid (an epic tank trinket in trial of the crusader)I quit. All of a sudden and without any valid explaination. I just got sick of it. Talked in teamspeak with the gm, donated something like 17k gold in the guild bank and never saw wow again.
1 year has passed, I don't even want to hear the word wow again... I recovered from my university loss and trying to be a better player, and a better person. I'm so afraid of becoming what I was that I'm going to give my wife the password of the account I'll create, so that she can always prevent me from doing something like camping for the Time-Lost Proto-Drake and such. I know it's childlish but I'm not ashamed, I just wanna make the things work.
Few online games are less life stealing, most of them are the same in that way.
Try Guildwars, it has 3 massive campaigns and an expansion to the first one. What makes it different from the rest is that all the campaigns actually have an ending there. No monthly fees are of course a bonus.
The bad things is that the graphics are pretty old in the early part of the game (the first 2 campaigns) and it is really instanced.
But it is pretty fun without being quite as addictive since you eventually finish the game even if there are some high end things you can do.
Honestly DDO and LotRO are probably your best choices at the moment for a fantasy pve focused game. AoC has pvp in ways that'll probably make you crap your pants from the description you gave.
EQ2 isn't a bad choice either. Pretty world, lots of lore, pve solo friendly now a days. Seems like it's enjoying a bit more life.
Age of Conan is a horrendous gear grind when you hit 80 and go to Khitai to start doing faction quests. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
I like the game, tbh, but the endgame is grindtastic to the extreme.
Edit: Forgot to mention the crafting. It sucks, one of the worst implementations I've ever seen in a AAA MMO. Not only is the system itself extremely simplistic (and grindy as fuck to get materials for), you can't even master it unless you join a guild with a tier 3 city. Also, crafting advancement is tied to your combat level, so you can't go and craft for two weeks because you're tired of combat. You have to hit your adventuring level milestones every ten levels before you can advance your crafting.
There are a lot of games out there that you can play that are way less involved than WoW. And by all means please disregard the idiots here that feel the need to judge you while ignoring your question. Which wasn't, "Hey do you guys think I'm a big boy and can handle a game?"
I love how people like warmaster and grunty preach taking responsibility and then others tell him to take a break for awhile before doing anything. Did nobody catch the first sentence where he said "1 year ago I quit Wow"? I think a year is plenty of time to evaluate and even then what business is it of ours to tell him that he should not a play a game!?
The funny part of this is that whole pot calling the kettle black thing. Most people that play games in the first place either A) Want to escape their shitty life or are bored. I wish that the MODs on this site would start *gasp* moderating threads for when people are unnecessarily catty to others. He asked for a game suggestion on his first post and gets flamed by a bunch of "holier than thous." Good for the rest of you that actually answered the question!
As to some game suggestions - the new Vindictus sounds like a good pick up - put down kind of game. Others suggested Guild Wars which is also a good one. Sadly most of the games I like to play are the all inclusive time killers so I can't think of much!
Age of Conan is a horrendous gear grind when you hit 80 and go to Khitai to start doing faction quests. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
I like the game, tbh, but the endgame is grindtastic to the extreme.
Edit: Forgot to mention the crafting. It sucks, one of the worst implementations I've ever seen in a AAA MMO. Not only is the system itself extremely simplistic (and grindy as fuck to get materials for), you can't even master it unless you join a guild with a tier 3 city. Also, crafting advancement is tied to your combat level, so you can't go and craft for two weeks because you're tired of combat. You have to hit your adventuring level milestones every ten levels before you can advance your crafting.
None said it's not but we enjoy it, doing instances that needs skils and Group working is much fun for me, and i go ther waiting for the next drop i love it , wow end game was the same i did it for 3 years .
Coming from someone who has a wife, kids, and an mmo addiction.. Age of Conan fits my bill atm. Jump on Cim rp-pvp server we are just moving over from some other games if you want to hang out with people who come from a similar background. Look up Radok when your there and jump on TS and chat a bit
I did little research on everquest 2 extended. It is Everquest with an item shop. You get a few classes( out of over 20 I think) , and a few races (again, out of a huge selection), and you must buy the rest. Items, races, classes, etc. It is possible to play EQ2 completely for free, but I imagine it would be hard to get enjoyment out of it without buying a few things.
ty on the EQ II question. Even if everyone will disagree, I'd like to try AION also. Unfortunately no trial accoult is possible atm, only members subscribed for 3 months can send trial keys. I tried to ask for one in the aion forum but it doesn't seem very lively atm. If an aion player passes by here, can please he or she send me a trial key?
before anything else, i just want to say that no games take a person's life away, it's the person it'self taking their life with the game because they can't control themself
anyway i think that Vanguard is a good game for casual play, and it has LOTS and LOTS of deep crafting ( ships, houses, and almost anything in the game ).
It has a small group oriented dungeons
above all, the Community in Vanguard, although not very massive, but most of them are very helpful and they can sometimes just talk about anything which is fine
but again, even playin Vanguard can still be a problematic with your issue which you stated, so yeah
play it wisely, and even better, often take your lovely wife for fine dinner, better than playing MMO at house =P
Comments
Many never " join" a guild. They create their own and just add family members. Many I met in the game were couples, and said they enjoyed it because they could spend quality time together in game without having to have a group at all. The henchmen made that possible.
It is the most non commitment, least addicting, solo friendly game I know of, I mean even single player rpgs like elder scrolls oblivion are more addictive than this, so it would depend on how you play it. I found even ages of empires more addicting than this, so It might be a viable option if they get their girl to play with them, and don't commit to any other guild events.
He could just play it with his girl and family and use npc henchmen. Create his own guild, make his own cape and not deal with other players at all.. which is what it sounds like he needs to do, to help him have some fun playing a game in his downtime, and yet still have time for loved ones.
I agree it is the least demanding and casual friendly Game i know of.
But if the OP has a problem it may not be the right choice.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
@ Wasim470 thanks your description seems to fit perfectly with what I wanted! Especially the sure loot thing looks rewarding and less time-consuming than Wow loot farming, more casual-play friendly.
You suggest Age of Conan also, can you please list its characteristics well as you did with LOTRO? Thanks (my PC could handle it).
Thank you to the other posters, also. Please say your opinion, it would help me get a better idea. Right now I'm between LOTRO and AOC. EVE I discarded it: too much pvp, too time-consuming, too faction stuff. Guild Wars looks good but the lack of commands makes me turn in the direction of the above ones. With a good UI mod it could turn better, though. The other reason that makes me turn away from GW is the fact that GW2 is about to come out, which means GW should be short-lived. Please comment I'm not an expert the only thing I know is Wow and I'm so sick of it.
Sure m8
AOC is the game am in right now been ther for 4 months now and am gna go on since it's very casual friendly + i really love how detailed it is and graphics are amazing the ppl ther are Mostly nice and if u hate ganking go PVE server and u'll never pvp unless u feel like it
Age Of Conan :
PVE SOLO PLAYING/SMALL GROUPING
y AOC is just that i lvled 1-80 just solo qs, and i did enjoy it tbh ,since the qs are prety much detailed with story and stuf like a q chain i had to hunet a monster abducting Vilgers till u get to the monster cave and slay it
)).
did some doungons as well.
at 80 it dosn't kill ur time the doungones in Khitai ( the new expantion ) are very short it's just a matter of tac and right play 1 boss every doungone
no trash sometimes 5 mobs or so :P some doungons are longer ofc .
even raids T1 is 3 caves with one boss each :P, we cleared T2 in one night took 3h :P, to kill the boss with the right group needs like 10 - 15 min
.
PVP:
u can pvp if u chose to ther's mini games for pvp like flag carry and team slayers and stuf and ther's the ganking on pvp servers .
LOOT:
ok tbh it's very rewarding as well even when u solo q u gna get lots of green drops u won't even bother selling them at AH XD.
CRAFTING:
Nice crafting not the best but nice and good change
PC Requirements:
it's a bit demanding but tbh i'v never seena better looking game
till now
Money Requirements:
monthly Fee the uswal with very nice offers like 1 year sup if u call it u only pay 6 months same gos for 3 month sup it's like 2 month pay with 15 days free as well
Plz note : AOC is a Brutal game it has killing blows like cuting ppls heads wich gives a buff for all the group
and a ver nice flaver to the game play hehe.
i hope u give these games a try i think they really worth it
Good luck m8
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
ah sorry one more thing i forgot , u get an offline lvl every 4 days, wich u can put on any char u like, they stack up to 30 lvls, it makes csual player much faster to hit cap if he likes to, i did lvl till 73 and had 7 offline lvls by then did put them on y char and BOOM am 80 :P, and when u hit 50 with ur first char u can make a new lvl 50 char any time u like starts at lvl 50 only once ofc, at any server u like so i guess it can't get any better for thos who can't spend thir time lvling all day long :P.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Thanks great descriptions.
I've heard in LOTRO you can potentially craft items of the same level of the best drop of the badassest raid boss. Which would be neat 'cause I almost lost a life because of raids so I'd like to skip them completly if possible. Also I'd like to ask, how far can I go in LOTRO my myself (solo play)and a maximum of 5 people joining my party? Would it be possible to complete the game?
Then I would like to ask the same questions above for what concerns AOC.
Thank you again for your kindness, this is very important to me. I think I'll play MMos again sooner or later, and seen my past experience this one I'd like it to be the good choice.
well in LOTRO u can solo play anything till the cap ,and even ther as i heard u can solo a hole raid ,just at the time u like
that's coz the skirmish system is scaled like this .... solo .... 3ppl .... 6ppl .... and 12 the other instances or group qs will need 6 ppl to do it.
about AOC well it's not that much into solo, still u can skip all the raids and get the best gear in the game, by doing Instanes and Hard mood instances and it needs 1 group = 6 man and it's easy and fast to get .at 80 u gna get some kind of tokens wich u can trade for faction Gear epics wich is the best gear i'v seen, since geting the faction rep needed takes some time + the new AA system will keep u busy at 80 even if u are solo player it's a new talnet tree u get for ur char at 80, wich gna need points to spend in them, u get these points by doing PVE stuff like doungons and qs and u get pvp points by doing PVP kills.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
as far as i know then arena net havnt announced any release date for GW2, but lets say ½ a year, then your money on GW1 is well spend anyway ... since u got no sub to pay, any mmo would cost you more
and imo, what your saying then GW suits you perfect.
another thing that would be "nice" about playing GW1 even tho GW2 is on the way, is you might understand alot more of GW2 when it comes out, as the skills are quite uniq from any other game, and skill builds and such. - just 1 example
oh u will also stuff in GW2 if u do certern stuff in GW1.
i would seriously recommend giving it a go!
for the little ammount i payed for GW when it came out.... gotta say i never exspected to get this much out of a game for the small ammount of money.
Check out Xsyon.
www.xsyon.com
Wait for tera, Rift, Tor, or Gw2.
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...
To expand more on what I said:
Xsyon is a new game coming out where you can truly do what you want. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world where we have to 'start from scratch' so to speak. It's based in the Lake Tahoe region of California/Nevada using real geographical data (which is cool because I live 2 1/2 hours away from there IRL and have been snowboarding there for a decade). Combat kinda sucks right now because it's not their primary focus at the minute. Right now the game is in closed beta only available to those who pre-order, but as far as I know you can get a refund if you don't like the game. If you don't want to play it just yet I highly suggest keeping your eye on it.
You have complete freedom in this game to do whatever you want. You get experience for practically anything in the game--talking to other players, running, chopping down a tree, combat, etc.--not to say leveling is fast at all, which is OK because leveling really isn't important, at least not now. You can build a house anywhere in the game world. You can modify the terrain if you wish (to an extent, not completely). The game is made to be very realistic--if you chop a tree down, it won't just respawn in 20 minutes. You can gain weight by eating too much and you can gain muscle by doing activities that are more strength dependent. The game will be very heavily tribe based--players form tribes and start making cities (when they implement construction of buildings in a week or two).
I kinda keep jumping around and not explaining much about each thing I said up there but you should really head on over to xsyon.com and read through the features list. The game, when finished, is going to be the first actually good sandbox game.
I tried LOTRO and I didn't like it at all..maybe I'm too used to a more fantasy world. I'm downloading Age of Conan trial, let's see how it turns out to be. Then maybe I'll give GW a go, too. One of the things I'll miss will be flying mounts... I really liked to fly over entire continents... that's why I was looking for AION, where you can fly, but everyone says it's a grindfest so I'll keep away from that one. Vanguard? any players here? is it good?
Apocalyptic scenary? thanks for the suggestion but that's really not my cup of tea.
Oh and to the poster who told me I'm not ready for mmos, I made a mistake once, maybe I can learn to be a better player and have a good real life with some good mmo play. In the Wow period I had 1 university examination in a whole year...that was a very hard time, my parents even contacted a physician. But nothing was working. One day, after the 1453845th ninjaed epic item in a 25m raid (an epic tank trinket in trial of the crusader)I quit. All of a sudden and without any valid explaination. I just got sick of it. Talked in teamspeak with the gm, donated something like 17k gold in the guild bank and never saw wow again.
1 year has passed, I don't even want to hear the word wow again... I recovered from my university loss and trying to be a better player, and a better person. I'm so afraid of becoming what I was that I'm going to give my wife the password of the account I'll create, so that she can always prevent me from doing something like camping for the Time-Lost Proto-Drake and such. I know it's childlish but I'm not ashamed, I just wanna make the things work.
Few online games are less life stealing, most of them are the same in that way.
Try Guildwars, it has 3 massive campaigns and an expansion to the first one. What makes it different from the rest is that all the campaigns actually have an ending there. No monthly fees are of course a bonus.
The bad things is that the graphics are pretty old in the early part of the game (the first 2 campaigns) and it is really instanced.
But it is pretty fun without being quite as addictive since you eventually finish the game even if there are some high end things you can do.
Honestly DDO and LotRO are probably your best choices at the moment for a fantasy pve focused game. AoC has pvp in ways that'll probably make you crap your pants from the description you gave.
EQ2 isn't a bad choice either. Pretty world, lots of lore, pve solo friendly now a days. Seems like it's enjoying a bit more life.
Age of Conan is a horrendous gear grind when you hit 80 and go to Khitai to start doing faction quests. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
I like the game, tbh, but the endgame is grindtastic to the extreme.
Edit: Forgot to mention the crafting. It sucks, one of the worst implementations I've ever seen in a AAA MMO. Not only is the system itself extremely simplistic (and grindy as fuck to get materials for), you can't even master it unless you join a guild with a tier 3 city. Also, crafting advancement is tied to your combat level, so you can't go and craft for two weeks because you're tired of combat. You have to hit your adventuring level milestones every ten levels before you can advance your crafting.
There are a lot of games out there that you can play that are way less involved than WoW. And by all means please disregard the idiots here that feel the need to judge you while ignoring your question. Which wasn't, "Hey do you guys think I'm a big boy and can handle a game?"
I love how people like warmaster and grunty preach taking responsibility and then others tell him to take a break for awhile before doing anything. Did nobody catch the first sentence where he said "1 year ago I quit Wow"? I think a year is plenty of time to evaluate and even then what business is it of ours to tell him that he should not a play a game!?
The funny part of this is that whole pot calling the kettle black thing. Most people that play games in the first place either A) Want to escape their shitty life or
are bored. I wish that the MODs on this site would start *gasp* moderating threads for when people are unnecessarily catty to others. He asked for a game suggestion on his first post and gets flamed by a bunch of "holier than thous." Good for the rest of you that actually answered the question! 
As to some game suggestions - the new Vindictus sounds like a good pick up - put down kind of game. Others suggested Guild Wars which is also a good one. Sadly most of the games I like to play are the all inclusive time killers so I can't think of much!
"This time it will be different."
That's what addicts tell themselves right before they go on a binge. In my opinion, cold turkey is the best way to stay safe and happy.
None said it's not but we enjoy it, doing instances that needs skils and Group working is much fun for me, and i go ther waiting for the next drop i love it , wow end game was the same i did it for 3 years .
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Fallen Earth, PERFECT for you :=) Best community ever seen in a MMO, incl the developers.
Coming from someone who has a wife, kids, and an mmo addiction.. Age of Conan fits my bill atm. Jump on Cim rp-pvp server we are just moving over from some other games if you want to hang out with people who come from a similar background. Look up Radok when your there and jump on TS and chat a bit
Tried GW, holy crap graphics really suck. Too bad because the setting was great
LOTRO: better graphics, but too few glowing things for my tastes...if you know what I mean.
AoC: I want a game where crafting counts and endgame is not a gear grindfest, like wow.
Fallen Earth? Apocalyptic environment really I don't like it...
I don't know... maybe I should wait for GW2 or TERA. But I'll try EQ2 for now and see how it turns out to be.
Edit: I'm totally confused about the difference between EQ II and EQ II: Extended... can anyone breefly list me the main differences? Thanks
I did little research on everquest 2 extended. It is Everquest with an item shop. You get a few classes( out of over 20 I think) , and a few races (again, out of a huge selection), and you must buy the rest. Items, races, classes, etc. It is possible to play EQ2 completely for free, but I imagine it would be hard to get enjoyment out of it without buying a few things.
ty on the EQ II question. Even if everyone will disagree, I'd like to try AION also. Unfortunately no trial accoult is possible atm, only members subscribed for 3 months can send trial keys. I tried to ask for one in the aion forum but it doesn't seem very lively atm. If an aion player passes by here, can please he or she send me a trial key?
[email protected]
Thanks
before anything else, i just want to say that no games take a person's life away, it's the person it'self taking their life with the game because they can't control themself
anyway i think that Vanguard is a good game for casual play, and it has LOTS and LOTS of deep crafting ( ships, houses, and almost anything in the game ).
It has a small group oriented dungeons
above all, the Community in Vanguard, although not very massive, but most of them are very helpful and they can sometimes just talk about anything which is fine
but again, even playin Vanguard can still be a problematic with your issue which you stated, so yeah
play it wisely, and even better, often take your lovely wife for fine dinner, better than playing MMO at house =P
peace~
So What Now?
Agreed with everyone who has posted about Fallen Earth. Sounds like it's in your ballpark.