I feel like jumping into an MMO to play just for the story and vibing. I want to get lost in some cool universe and have an adventure with some social elements. Don't really want to grind and sweat too much. Here's my shortlist so far which one should I play?

>Guild Wars 2
>SW TOR
>LOTRO
>FF14
>Secret World

Any of these games good for this or maybe something else?

>>1780492 (OP)
>LOTRO
A loving tribute to Middle Earth and its lore, possibly one of the comfiest zones in a MMO due to The Shire, friendly welcoming community that seem very active and helpful. Dated UI, and combat is pretty bog standard.

>SW TOR
If you play as an Imperial Agent it is has one of the best stories in a MMO, combat is standard, however the entire game can be played without ever partying with someone else.

>GW2
Due to the world event nature of the game, it feels a little different to the other games you've listed, you just sort of gravitate towards other players, pretty nice world map with lots to explore and do, combat is pretty standard with skills being per weapon. Story is pretty terrible in the original game map.

>Secret World
Amazing worldbuilding and atmosphere, has some of the greatest quests I've ever done in an MMO thanks to the investigation quests. The Combat overhaul shat all over the games combat system and made it trash. Social stuff was pretty extinct when I played it.

I highly recommend LOTRO, you can just vibe with others strumming on your lute and enjoying the scenery.

Mabinogi has lovely writing and worldbuilding and is very comfy, but you don't need to party for the vast majority of content. That being said, you will always see people around, even in towns that aren't the main town, so it doesn't feel like a dead game

>>1780671
His shortlist doesn't have any grindslop games on it, why would you think he wants to play that?

>>1780492 (OP)
Guild Wars 2 was made by devs who openly bragged on social media about never playing Guild Wars so while I would recommend Guild Wars as a game to play through for the story, I would strongly suggest staying away from Guild Wars 2.
Star Wars is shit.
LOTRO's story follows the Fellowship so it's about what you expect.
I didn't much care for vanilla XIV when I played it. I did like the concept of the incoming meteor whatever thing in 1.0 but that was more of a single concept than a 'story'. RIFT did something similar with an expansion which takes place on a comet that you could observe growing larger in the sky with each expansion beforehand.
The Secret World is a 10/10 game for story and atmosphere, and you should put that at the very top of your list no matter what anybody else suggests.

>>1780492 (OP)
secret world is the game you're looking for. played it solo a couple years back and it was really good. beat everything and the expansion in 2-4 weeks

>>1780492 (OP)
consider Dofus

>>1780492 (OP)
>MMO to play just for the story and vibing

>>1782095
What do you play MMOs for if not that? The fun and enriching experience of grinding for levels and doing raids for the 9000th time?

whats a comfy non dead weeb mmo to get into?

>>1789583
meant non weeb non dead oops

>>1789583
GW1 is only a little dead

>>1780492 (OP)
MMOs lost that magic long ago. they're all skinner box cashgrabs now

>>1789583
>>1790037
Come join us, GW1 is in that state online games sometimes achieve where they don't have nearly the player count as their prime, but the community for the game is strong and they organize well to let people get together and play.
>>/vg/1754525

>>1791308
Well fuck I've forgotten how to quote other boards. You get the idea.

>>1791308
>>1791324
>>1754525

The playerbase hit a peak in 2022, tripling their numbers from 2018. And I believe they hit another peak with the most recent 20th anniversary event but I cannot find anything specific. There are three individual and unique campaigns to start from with only one expansion (which requires you to have completed one of the three campaigns).

Other than Guild War 1/2 which only has 8 skill slots

What other MMOs are simple and don't require 36 hotkeys to play?

>>1780492 (OP)
ffxiv is a fantastic story based game, massive free trial that let's you get easily 100hrs+ of content without paying. try that out and see how you enjoy it. takes a while to get going but the art, graphics and world are beautiful. story can be really neat too and goes apeshit when you hit expansions.

>>1803185
I'm watching some gameplay and the skill rotation is so complex. Some of the classes have 24+ skills just to run.

How do you play ff14 casual ezmode?

>>1797497
FF11 uses a menu system and even though combat is real-time they designed it to feel somewhat turn based. You can easily make lots of macros for your character but you don't need to, to enjoy the game.

I'd suggest low rate private servers if you want to interact with other players, or retail if you'd rather play solo and be able to experience all the story.

>>1785943
just play a single player game then retard, mmos are for the social aspect and making your own story

>>1780492 (OP)
I was honestly blown away with Thone and liberty, While there's plenty bad about the game to be sure, it's very hard to knock the MSQ.

Pros
It's free to install and play, so zero risk in at least trying it and literally no reason at all to spend any money just playing the main story.
The production value is insane on every technical aspect of the game.
Graphics are very good, especially on a nice rig, it's beautiful and more importantly immersive world. Like New World there's many really amazing vistas, and if you can see it, you can just travel and explore there.
Score is very good, the music kicking in for big battles and spectacles is fantastic.
Combat is more engaging than themepark MMOs, it's tab target under the hood but more fast paced with active dodges and blocks.
Production value in the cutscenes in the MSQ is very good, fully voice acted, cinematic feel, it blends in game cutscenes and gameplay well, and uses a lot of the unreal engines features and effects, much of that cool feeling you get from a hand crafted cutscene is just done in engine and looks amazing.
Variance in missions is nice, it's not an endless list of just kill 12 boars
MSQ isn't a rug pull, it doesn't drop off in quality at level 20 and leave you with genetic crap until 55.
Singleplayer story mission rewards is all the resources you need to level with

Cons
The story is more of an ongoing adventure rather than having a strict end, because they're still expanding it into new area, etc.
You can "brick" your character very easily if you want to swap roles mid game, pick one early and stick with it and you're good.
I hear healers and tanks felt the storyline was more annoying to level due to lower damage output so i'd recommend one of the DPS builds for MSQ
Community are introverted autists, there's no real banter on global, if you want community you have to find a guild and be proactive with that, there's loads of casual guilds, but if you can level with friends, all the better.

>>1780492 (OP)
I really want to like lotro because it seems the most f2p friendly of all the f2p mmos, letting you grind out the cash shop currency, but it looks like shit because they haven't updated the scaling for higher resolutions. I need to lean in every time there's text on the screen.

tsw

What MMO has a small skillslot?

I can't deal with 20+ hotkey autismo

I only know Guild Wars keeps it at 8 spells max

>>1848348
ESO gives you 5 skills (plus an ultimate) and you swap your hotkey bar to use another 5 skills if you ever get into any endgame rotation but it's still the same keys.
GW is great.