MMOs suck. There, that's out of the way. :p

I've been thinking lately about the MMOs I've played in the past and the ones I'm currently playing, and it occurs to me that what I really want out of these games is different now than it used to be. Trouble is, I'm not sure that what I want actually exists (I know - we're talking MMOs here, so join the club), so I'm looking for recommendations.

I could actually talk at length about all the little features I'd like to have, but rather than crush everyone under a wall of text, I'll whittle it down to the following brief list:

- No mandatory PVP. I have no interest in competitive play.
- Twitch or semi-twitch combat. I am pretty tired of the "stand still and press your fifty-seven hotkeys" mode of combat, and want something different. If it's something really different (e.g. Atlantica), that's good too.
- No Everquest-style tank-heal-dps paradigm. I don't think you should have to abort a dungeon run because you can't find a cleric.
- If 'tanking' is relevant, I'd rather it be simple - I like playing tanks, but I'm really tired of the tab-taunt fight-for-aggro nonsense.
- Solo-friendly. If some content requires grouping, that's okay, but the more I can do alone or with a friend, the better.
- More persistent than instanced. I know, it's a bit hard to find a persistent world with twitch combat. This is a lower priority than the previous items.
- Either P2P or F2P is fine.

Overall, I would say that Chronicles of Spellborn is the one game I've played that comes closest to nailing what I really want. Unfortunately, Spellborn was a pretty mediocre game in the end (and is long dead, at any rate), but I really respect what it tried to do.

I've played enough MMOs to know I'm just about asking for the moon here, but hey, it's worth a shot. If you know of a decent game that fits some of these criteria, but not all, throw it out here. I'll check it out.

Have you ever played Eve Online? Its not exactly noob friendly but if you can get into it it could be a great game for you. Or if you wanted to you could always wait for The Old Republic to come out.

Isn't EVE Online kinda straight up PVP game?

other than the persistence Guild Wars fits the bill, unfortunately it's entirely instanced. However Guild Wars 2 is coming out in the next couple of years and that sounds like what you are looking for so far assuming there are no major changes before it's released.

Try fallen earth. It may not be exactly what your after but its worth a try

I'm going to say Guild Wars as well. I liked it pretty well, and it is definitely twitch/player-skill based, with the ability to fill in gaps in your party with (relatively) brilliant AI henchman. And by brilliant, I mean more competent than your average PUG.

dude, you're looking for guild wars 2. if they deliver on their promises. but check out a video, there are a couple 20 minute long clips where they check off the list of cool innovations and it's like... identical to yours

Here's a clip that's nearly an hour long of pure game play, aside from the intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoICk5E9X7g

Their channel also has some other videos with some explanations.

I'll skip Warhammer Online since the entire point is PVP and WOW since I'm pretty sure you don't want that one.

That leaves DDO:
- No mandatory PVP. I have no interest in competitive play.
The pvp sucks and is an unbalanced tack on, no one plays it and it can only be done in tavern arenas, you're safe from pvp in this game.

- Twitch or semi-twitch combat. I am pretty tired of the "stand still and press your fifty-seven hotkeys" mode of combat, and want something different. If it's something really different (e.g. Atlantica), that's good too.
Umm, it's more strategic, but depends on class, good paladins rotate a set of skills every 5 seconds, good Barbs just make sure to use their skills when needed and do way more auto attack and pick/eliminate target. Healers heal and and support in various ways, more interesting than WOW, but not outstanding. I don't think I'd call it twitch but you can pick your poison somewhat as to how much micro you want, some classes have a lot and some not very much at all.

- No Everquest-style tank-heal-dps paradigm. I don't think you should have to abort a dungeon run because you can't find a cleric.
DDO has hirelings, these work in anything but the hardest scenarios, many players manage okay with cure medium wounds wands. There's not lack of healers, normally, as they are strong classes. You can have tanks, but this just means they've dumped points into Intimidate and can throw that extra skill on the boss every few seconds. There's not much such outside Epic (which you may never do, I haven't) that requires a tank.

- Solo-friendly. If some content requires grouping, that's okay, but the more I can do alone or with a friend, the better.
A fighter with hireling clerics can solo up to level 10 or so. Paladins can also solo through some stuff that is meant to be group. Most classes can do this to some degree.

- More persistent than instanced. I know, it's a bit hard to find a persistent world with twitch combat. This is a lower priority than the previous items.
You're boned there in DDO, all adventures are instanced.

- Either P2P or F2P is fine.
It's f2p, which I recommend until level 10 or so, then pay for a month or two, see if it's worth it, most probably drop back to f2p afterward.

DDO is probably not what you want, it's just the only one besides the big, obvious ones you clearly don't want that I have experience with.

you could try champions online. pvp is totaly optional

DDO may be worth a try because combat tends to be different from the regular MMOs - there are still skills and buttons you press for them but the tank/dps classes especially (as opposed to casters) have less reliance on skill/spell buttons and more on swinging the weapon via left mouse button. There's a lot of reliance on avoidance die rolls though even when you are say caught in a trap, and some classes have an abundance of buttons (though aiming is required too in that I think you can dodge projectiles that are mid-flight). And though there are basic classes, you can hybrid them and come up with a mix so there are a lot of class combos that can self-heal and/or heal others. I don't consider the game very soloable though past the first 6-7 levels or so, everything past a certain level is essentially group content.

Vindictus is one you can try but like DDO, it also consists of instanced dungeons. There's no PVP in the game and combat is just about all twitch - the bosses and minibosses of each instance (there are a lot of them, but each one at least in the lower levels is about 15-20 minutes long) have attack animations that you learn and then avoid. Attacks are mostly left click/right click/pick up world items and toss at/smash monsters, with a few slottable items/skills that you can change. There are classes but most of the content is soloable by every class (and scales up if you have extra people) and while I think two of the five classes can heal, neither are thus essential to most of the quests and neither is a "healer" per se.

Hmm. That may be the closest I have. Not sure what else comes to mind except a survival-based (as opposed to building-sandbox-based) Minecraft server. :P Which I'm not sure exists anyway. Most of the others I can think of break the tank-heal-dps or plethora-of-skill-buttons requirements.

Darkwind's all you need, bruddah. You've probably seen me recommend this in a bajillion threads already, but no harm in me pushing it again ;)