Basically, I'm looking for a game I can have a second life in. Just finished the anime "Log Horizon" and started wanting to play a fun mmo of my own. These are the qualities im looking for:
Fantasy setting
Active, friendly community
A real sense of adventure
Active action combat requiring strategy. Nothing turns me off more than uninspired tank n spank raids
Player or guild housing
Decent crafting system
IDC about payment method but prefer to stray away from p2w and cash shop riddled f2p games
IDC a whole lot about grindyness unless it's over the top
Open world or sandbox
Currently waiting on Chronicals of Elyria and Star Citizen but it's gonna be a while on those.
Comments
The combat usually is in 3 different categories: Standard tank and spank trinity (Wow, Rift and so on), action combat (usually with less then optional focus on strategy, GW2, TERA and more) and FPS styled combat (could have worked but MMO powergap + FPS combat is a mess).
With your requirement no game out now fits the bill, if you havn't tried GW2 you probably should since it at least is well made and somewhat close. Another older option is to try Ryzom, it is somewhat old but a sandbox, the population is also so-so but it is pretty close to what you ask for.
Upcoming games you might want to keep your eyes on are: Pantheon, Crowfall, Shards and Shroud. I am not sure that either of them will fit the bill either since I havn't tried them.
Log Horizon is incredible popular with the Japanese gamer crowd though so it is not impossible that we actually get a game based on it eventually.
Until then: Read this fansub comic about the west wind brigade in LH? http://mangafox.me/manga/log_horizon_nishikaze_no_ryodan/
1) Everyone would rather pump out SAO games for some reason.
2) LH seems to be in a bit of a void, atm -- what with the author's recent criminal trouble and not much else going on with the series, and the fact that the anime is pretty much finished, etc.
I know he's still writing LH, though, and just finished another volume(12) recently, so who knows, maybe it'll get some attention back on it before long. The anime covered through Volume 10, for reference.
If they did produce one, it'd probably just be some crummy mobile game or something anyway, with the way things are going these days
Those appear to have gone extinct sometime prior to 2010, but no one is sure of the exact date.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Those Public Quests were the start of anonymous grouping.
People would just join in without exchanging a single word and leave as soon as the Mob was dead.
It was actually the first form of Group Finder which was then expanded to Dungeons and Raids in WoW.
But LH is clearly based on classic asian MMOs like Lineage more than anything else so you might check Archage, Black Desert, Bless etc as well.
Haven't tried FFXIV myself but keep hearing it's good and might just be an ideal cross if not for the trinity.
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FFXIV has really nice looking graphics and fantastic musical scores. However, the actual questing and crafting are a bit linear and not complex.
Wows community wasn't initially bad but it got worse as it rise in popularity (which was more mid 2005) and 1 idiot can scream and whine more then 100 normal people.
Small games at least usually have friendlier communities since the players feel more like a small sub group. But of course then you get the "active" problem instead.
The worst thing to mess up a community in my experience is the need or greed mechanics though, I heard more people upset on it during play then all other things put together. Some people always misuse it or have a different opinion what they "need" and it often get out the worst of people.
If you remember the old MMO called Darkfall Online (now defunct), there are now 2 companies that are currently developing their own versions of it. One of them is called Darkfall Rise of Agon, and is out in 2 months. The Darkfall-community isn't the friendliest though, and it's open-PvP, but I'm sure you can find a guild that would suit your needs.
For more info look here: https://www.darkfallriseofagon.com/
Otherwise the market is pretty dead nowadays, with only Crowfall and CU on the horizon that could spice things up. There's always EVE Online, but it's sci-fi.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon