That's very impressive. I'll surely be on the lookout for a trial.

Yeah I was looking at Youtube videos and have the first Guild Wars, and I can just imagine that world with dynamic events and other new things from Guild Wars 2 and...yeah probably get that for Christmas Probably not for me but inside contacts are tempting...
They do trails for one-time events and your trial character is boosted up to lvl80 for the one-time event so you can take part. The last one was something about an ancient race returns from the sea and everyone has to stop them. It was one-time to keep up "your changes to the world matter" attitude that the game is famous for.

Anything NCSOFT does is top notch - Personally Lineage II and Guild Wars 1 and 2

Guild Wars 2 is pretty good, if you've got friends to play with (as it's all about playing with multiple people, alone it's a boring game).

If you want a free MMO that's fun, PlanetSide 2 is good (it's a MMOFPS with an open world (as in, you don't click "join match" you just get thrown into a large world and run around trying to capture territory)).

City of Steam. Don't think it will be out for xmas since its still in beta. I played the last couple betas and its pretty fun, kinda different.

I would say to avoid anything with the NCSoft logo on it. After what happened with City of Heroes, I wouldn't touch anything they do with a ten mile pole. Just expressing my opinion about them.

I'm going to be giving The Secret World a shot. Looks interesting.

GW2, I really don't think they will be pulling the plug on that game anytime soon ;)

(although, I do agree that was a dick move to take down COX and not even give the employees a heads up ahead of time)

Worse than a dick move, Thunderstone. They do it on the Friday before a three day weekend, had posted screenshots from the upcoming new content release that morning, had sold brand new powersets the week before, doesn't seem interested in selling the property to anyone else, and made no indication whatsoever prior to the shutdown that there was any trouble.

CoH is the fifth MMO they've shut down. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, and Exteel all join CoH in the dustbin of history. But unlike those four, CoH was still profitable (yes, it was, their own released financials showed it as such).

I was under the impression that the studio that supported CoH that NCSoft bought was closing down, so NCSoft figured they had(?) to shut down a game they would need to spend extra to support.

Uh, no.

Paragon Studios (the house responsible for all CoH development work) was wholly owned by NCSoft and in fact, created solely for the support and work of CoH. NCSoft were the ones that made the decision to fire everyone and suspend work in the middle of development. Up to the day of firing, the official website for the game had a "We're Hiring!" message on it. The shutdown was as much a surprise to the development staff as to the players, iirc.

Not a sign of a studio in trouble.

If you are looking for an old-school MMO gameplay then I guess nothing can beat Lineage II to this day.
But if you want a beatiful and more casual experience then, in my opinion, TERA is the best way to go. It has best graphics ever and best combat ever in any MMO. The art is beautiful, playable characters and their armors are extremely detailed, locations are stunning, most of them being fairy-tale like pieces of 3D art.. Big monsters (called BAMs) and named bosses are masterpieces, each type with unique combat-moves and skills, requiring timed dodges or blocking and giving tons of fun and satisfaction. Combat is a very hack&slash feeling with dozens of showable skills, greatly animated and requiring aiming and distance estimation. No cheap tab-targetting like in Guild Wars 1&2, SWTOR, The Secret World and most of other MMOs. Last awesome thing worth mentioning are dungeons and especially those late in the game. Many of them have their unique mechanics and require some tactics and cooperation from players.
Now some downsides. The publisher in EU (Frogster / Gameforge) has been "ruining" the game from the start (censorship, half-assed patches, some annoying bugs not being fixed). I don't think they consider TERA seriously and many people are very afraid of its future. There hasn't been any new content since September and many people has left the game. Sometimes it's pretty hard to find someone for a dungeon run or to get some company for questing. Joining a guild seems to be a best solution for that.. Other thing is that end-game content isn''t as rich as one would like it to be. Hi-level dungeons are great and fun, but Raids and Battlegrounds can become boring very fast. One last problem is optimization: Nexus events are very laggy with terribly low FPS. This kills the fun of raiding pretty much...
And about other things you might want to know:
1) if you prefer a gamepad (PS3 or XBOX layout) to the keyboard then TERA is definitely better for you. I don't think GW2 supports gamepad in anyway.
2) I've been playing the game in stereo 3D a lot. Believe me that fighting BAMs with a melee class in stereo 3D is unforgettable experience :)
3) Look for Game cards (instead of subscription), this way TERA might be much cheaper in your country than you could expect.
I've been playing the game for over 6 months and still I find a lot of fun in it and loads of stuff to do. But I was never a hardcore MMO player, I take the game lightly and digest it slowly. I don't feel urge to own a very best gear nor to beat the crap out of other players, mostly because there is so much more to this game...

The trouble is that people tend to be extremely particular about their MMOs. I certainly am. What sort of game are you looking for?

I abandoned my longtime favorite MMO this year, but I have yet to find a replacement that suits me. In such a crowded market, surely there must be some other game I can attach myself to.

What was it, just curious?

Btw, actually surprised no-one has said WoW yet.
I was reading on the website, loving the monthly updates.

Im not, id hope people had better taste than that >.>

lol