I forgot I had this article in the queue last month before our move. Might as well release it, even if I didn’t get to a lot of the games.
Scoring
5.50+ Top Tier / Best-of-All-Time
4.00 to 5.49 Recommended
3.00 to 3.99 Borderline / Neutral
2.99- Not Recommended
[6.0] Star Wars Galaxies (Legends — Post-CU/NGE)
The changes to combat with the combat upgrade in Star Wars Galaxies actually makes combat quite a bit faster-paced and enjoyable, albeit change from free form character builds to a class-based leveling system is not my personal preference. I still loved the experience, though, and it’s possible that with the late changes that Star Wars Galaxies, at least in this form, might be a game that Meg will enjoy.
[4.0] Astroflux
Astroflux seemed to be a standard overhead 2D space shooter at first, with collectable components and ship upgrades. The combat is legitimately challenging and the worlds are interesting to explore. While I prefer Steambirds Alliance or Gangs of Space, it’s still a solid title in an underrepresented sub-genre of MMOs.
A fan game MMORPG that allows you to play modified versions of Ultima 1, 2, 3, and 4 in an MMORPG format. It’s quite a bit of fun, if not a bit dated, and facilitates the sharing of these classic CRPGs with new generations.
[4.0] Ultima VI Online
Ultima 6 turned into an MMORPG by a fan. It’s a bit grindy and slow going for someone not accustomed to the Ultima series, but once you get used to the design of the world and general gameplay loop — it’s quite a fun game and quite the impressive fan project.
[3.0] Cronous
Cronous is somewhere between an action RPG and a classic MMORPG, performing neither duty all that well. The various environments and dungeons are interesting to explore the first time through but once you hit level 50, the grind becomes unbearable. The starting gear is overpowered as well, making it quite easy to kill creatures way above your level. Despite this, you’ll still spend hours-upon-hours grinding, with mindless combat.
[3.0] 8BitMMO
8bitMMO has a building component and lets players create content in the world. These features help salvage what would otherwise be a quite random, incoherent, and boring pixel art MMORPG. The playerbase is essentially non-existent, too. Meg enjoyed playing it at first but also became bored quite quickly when it was discovered the basic gameplay loop changes very little as the game progresses.
This is a stretch for inclusion but it does involve potentially thousands of players connecting to a server and playing the same game. Definitely not an MMORPG or shared world in any way despite Steam recommending it to me as an MMORPG. As a mobile tower defense / base builder game, it’s serviceable with an above average soundtrack and the typical semi-predatory cash shop.
A browser-based idle game focused on sociopolitics with a questionable-at-best cash shop. I really, really wanted to like this game, but it’s long wait times, design flaws creating issues like nations being controlled by a few inactive players without an easy mechanism for prompt removal, and repetitive gameplay definitely hurt the experience.
[2.0] 3-on-3 Freestyle: Rebound
Want a competitive basketball MMO with pay-to-win cash shop items and unresponsive controls? That’s 3-on-3 Freestyle: Rebound, the predecessor to FreeStyle 2. It’s playable in a sub-genre essentially devoid of titles (basketball MMOs) but unless you are desperate for a basketball MMO, I’d avoid this one. At least play FreeStyle 2.
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