#1 has gotta be Guild Wars 2. The content is engaging and fun, I adore the combat, and the COMMUNITY is the best! Such friendly folks there. It’s definitely the MMO that has held my attention longest, and I recommend it to literally everyone. It’s free to get started, so you can decide if it’s for you without any monetary cost. Then, the price of the game is the cost of the expansions. No subscriptions like other MMOs, or xpaks + subs (looking at you, WoW!).

#2 is WoW. 😅 Been playing it since I was a kid. My whole family plays, actually, which is how I got into MMOs to begin with. It irks me that there’s a substantial sub fee plus the cost of the new xpaks every time. Especially since I got back into it, I was going to hit max level before I picked up Dragonflight but the game actually stopped me from doing so. Couldn’t go the last 10 levels to max until I bought the expansion.

#3 right now has to be Dungeons and Dragons Online. DDO is a lot of fun! I love the “dungeon master” narration of quests and things, I think it’s a great gimmick.

Outside of that, my tier list really falls apart, lol. I have ESO, but I haven’t given it enough time to actually decide if I like it. FF14 seems so much fun, but it’s also a sub fee game and… I only have space in my life for one of those right now. 😅

Guild wars 2, just one that I’ve been playing for years

My main MMO is Guild Wars 2. I like that since there’s no sub fee I don’t feel pressured to “get my money’s worth” every month, keeps it from feeling like a job. Of course I do buy some cosmetics from the shop on occasion when I’m actively playing to make up for the lack of a fee.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

It’s not as expansive as many MMORPGs are for dungeons and raiding (flashpoints and operations) unless you subscribe and join an active guild. However, the RPG storylines with player choices are fabulous.

The base game is free and there are a ton of activities to participate in without having to spend any money. Events rotating on a regular basis, PVE, PVP, start-fighter action, or just play solo and explore a ton of planets and storylines. If you want to dip your toes further into the expansions, subscribe for one month and they all become available permanently.

Definitely worth a try for someone looking for casual entertainment with end-game playability if one wishes to do so.

Lotro - great community, great designs on raid encounters in endgame, where you will die if not everyone plays their role, starting from tier 2. Tier 1 is always designed as a learning experience before moving to tier 2, which makes it great for casuals like myself to get into. Only issue I have is the bloat of leveling, where you now have to go endless hours untill reaching endgame, almost mostly without seeing other players, as those areas are now empty. Feels more like a mediocre Singleplayer game during that time. Otherwise I have started recently on tWoW, lots of people to quest with, which is great 😃

Warframe is in my favourite. Be a space ninja doing flips while electrocuting a whole room of enemies before blowing them up with your hand carried cannon. Also fair monetisation and a very friendly community.

Star Trek Online - I really like the ship combat. It does get a bit repetitive after a while, so I take breaks to reset mentally.

Used to play a ton of MMOs. Ffxiv was probably my favourite. Tons to do though I mostly focussed on trying to do the difficult boss content. Non existent PvP though which is probably the only downside. New world was quite fun, looks like they added a bunch of new stuff there too but it’s probably not a game that will keep you entertained for a long time. I played archeage as well. Had a very modular class system and the combat was very entertaining imo though it became a p2w type of game.