I guess you`re right. When I watched some videos of the player restarted star wars galaxies mmo (15 years old or so) I was completely blown away what you can do in that game.
I don`t know any other game that gives that amount of freedom! Compared to that SWTOR is a bad joke.

I really like the concept of online play and especially coop. Spend some of my best hours with payday 1 for example, although I am not a big shooterfan.
Would love to dunk into a whole world, but it becomes more and more evident that I have to stay away from most AAA and 99,9% of all MMO`s. Since big money got into it within the last 10 years it really got worse.
Just bought Game Dev Tycoon a week ago, and I had a blast with that tiny unpolished flawed game. More than Farcry 3 and Tombraider 2013 combined.

And very often I read new player reviews on steam about this or that MMO, that warns you about scam within that game. Hm.

Yeah, the old days of MMOs were something to see. It's true, it couldn't really last once the audience and budget got huge for these things--you technically have to put restrictions on a giant online community, or the jerks will ruin it for everyone and you'll lose your investment. Plus, old MMOs were ultra unpolished, and that doesn't draw in a lot of mainstream customers. But the new stuff just isn't the same.

There are still games that recapture the frontier spirit of the early MMOs, but sadly they aren't MMOs. Stuff like the original Arma Day-Z is much closer than you're going to get playing SWTOR.

There is Age of Wulin/Wushu. Very innovative, unique and unrivaled in PVP gameplay... Or at least it was 2 years ago.
That was the best MMO I've ever played, and most likely the last one too.

Sucking is kind of inherent to the formula. I like a game I can win, thanks.

This.

maybe you suck - ever think of that? there's tera online - both for NA and europe. and for korea too. it's very good

If you want to play WoW, go play a private server for TBC or WoTLK, Cata was really bad in that it ruined a whole bunch of the really beautiful and atmospheric old zones by filling them with volcanos, tornadoes, flooding and craters (see: Darkshore, Southshore, Auberdine, Westfall, Thousand Needles, beautiful Ashenvale even has a part which was burned to the ground with fire elementals).

Playing those zones in Cata is like watching a movie of deforestation in the Amazon, it's just sad.

Also Western PLAGUELANDS was turned into a nice happy green grass place, yeah that's right the heart of the Scourge plague which was creepy as hell is now all green, it's terrible. Cata was the worst expansion.

No idea why Blizz thought it would be a good idea to ruin some of the old zones just because some dragon no one cares about came back.

That's what hooked me on DayZ. Even the though the zombie thing was kinda new, the basic mechanics and atmosphere of DayZ gave me the same kind of thrill that the old MMOs from yesteryear did. Even with all its glitches, it was still a great game. I remember stalking a military camp from some apartments in Berezino. A couple of guys landed in a heli to meet up with a friend of theirs. I waited until everyone was on the ground and let 'er rip from my M4. I got two of them and the third one ran off into the woods. My shots spooked some zeds and I had to make a quick retreat from the entire area before I was swarmed. Got some of the dead guys' gear and made a hasty run for the woods... heading north to the airfield and greener pastures. The ambiance and tension of that game was off the charts. It was just you, zombies, a large map, and several dozen psychopathic humans playing in a giant walking dead sandbox.

Immersive, well designed, first time experience MMOs just don't come around much any more. I remember a friend of mine playing Everquest WAY back when it first came out. At one point he didn't even leave his house for 3 or 4 days. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I don't think we'll get back to those times again. We just see gaming, including MMOs, differently now.

I'm of the same opinion. But wow, what is was ten or more years ago. When it hadn't been squashed by a million people exploiting and grinding and griefing and camping and was just about the fun of playing with other people.

I mentioned Day-Z. And Final Fantasy 14 but I'm afraid your unlikely to find anything other than collect 10 wolf pelts or endgame grinding if your looking in the wrong places.

I can get banned for playing in a private server?

What do you mean?

I've played almost every MMO, big and small, for me there was only one I truly loved, and that was the original Everquest.

There is also a small relatively unknown one called Minions of Mirth which was made by just a few people. If you are the type who wants to 'beat' a game, then that is a good one because it can be beaten in just a few months, and it can also be played single player. It is very dated now though, but the game was special because it had some very unique features like having your own party which you control, and being able to multi class each of them.

Also there was one called Vanguard which was a big game but fell on hard times and ended up closing. It is being brought back to life by a small team who are emulating it, but it is going to take a while. Those are the only 3 I consider great. I had some fun in various others like The Secret World, Rift, and WoW, but it was hard to get too interested in them after being so spoilt by EverQuest. EQ was just so.... serious, compared to other MMO's. It was amazing, and I still play it sometimes, after 16 years. It just does some things so well and there are no other MMO's that work in quite the same way.

Sadly SOE turned it into a different game over the years, so the only way to play the version me and many others loved, is to play an emulator. But there are some good ones to choose from. It helps to know you want from it first though, but you can get almost any type of game out of the various emu's. For example one of them lets you multibox (load the game multiple times and you play multiple characters by yourself, at the same time), but it also lets you use MacroQuest which is software that will automate those other characters. The result is that you can basically have your own entire raid force that follows you around and you can do anything with this automated raid force, and you control everything. It is heavy... Or if you like to play it traditionally with just one character there are plenty of servers like that too, each with their own rules and twists.

It's crazy--everyone I've seen who played old Day-Z has an incredible/terrifying story like that. Usually more than one. I can't believe what those guys pulled off with that mod! It was like 90s Internet gaming was reborn for a short time.

Guild Wars 2