Long List
This is a developing list of previously suggested games. Research to determine whether these titles are playable and suitable is ongoing. Feel free to suggest more in the thread.
Jade Dynasty – Martial arts themed MMO with a classless leveling system. Official is dead but it has a few private servers. [JDOriginX], [Jade Dynasty Lumen], [Jade Dynasty Reborn], [Jade Dynasty Reborn Classic].
UO Outlands – A fan-made overhaul of Ultima Online.
Darkeden – Horror-themed PvP Diablo-like MMO. Has more private servers out there. [Lilith], [Nostalgic].
Shroud of the Avatar – 3D MMO heavily inspired by the Ultima series. No private servers.
Shroud of the Avatar pitch (Click to read)
It’s an MMO created by Lord British (Richard Garriott) of Ultima (Online) fame, back before he got wrapped up in crypto-autism a few years ago and basically handed it over to others to develop and maintain. It’s actually great if you want the RP aspect, but its old school as fuck in some ways, but surprisingly charming once you get into it. Much of the main storyline elements have traditional Ultima style “values” and you make choices that may or may not fuck with your alignment etc. You communicate with NPCs with a keyword system (highlighted and clicked, or typed) and stuff like a city guard you just met is A_City_Guard, but if you Hail him and ask What is your Name? he’ll introduce himself as Guard_Nevell which is now his nameplate etc. there’s a lot of neat shit like that, including having hidden prompts that unlock new stuff. There’s player created content, housing is a big NON-instanced thing etc. Plots of land can be acquired provided they’re not already claimed and you have the proper Deed and then can put one or more buildings on it depending the size. Deeds come in different sizes (Row, Village, Town, City, Castle/Manor in increasing sizes) and other properties (You can only claim waterfront property with a Waterfront deed, unrestricted deeds are rare can be placed even in main NPC cities, where POT/player owned town only deeds are more common, tax-free deeds require no-in game taxes to maintain and are very rare comparatively). There’s lots of other weird, neat, and/or janky stuff and its rather niche, but its updated with frequency and there seems to be a lot of community and dev live events where the devs show up in game.
Sky: Children of the Light – Super comfy MMO featuring a bit of exploration and some quest lines. Might not have enough content for two weeks so it may be better as an extended minigame.
Anarchy Online – Norwegian sci-fi MMO. A good amount of the content in the official servers is tied to a subscription plan. Only private server is in beta and requires a Discord account.
Crystal Saga – 2.5D Flash MMO. No private servers.
FOnline – A fan-made PvP MMORPG based on the original Fallout games by Black Isle. [More info], [Fonline 2], [Reloaded], [Fonline 3].
Broken Ranks – Story-driven Polish MMO in a dark fantasy setting. Official only.
Broken Ranks description (Click to read)
Since the developers are finally implementing some QoLs that many have been waiting for, here is a new game suggestion – Broken Ranks – Official only
Trailer – [YouTube] Broken Ranks – Official Launch Trailer
WTF is Broken Ranks
A unique, turn-based combat system similar to that of Heroes of Might & Magic, combined with an isometric view like in Baldur’s Gate. Need more? The game features a non-linear storyline, an open world, and is great for both veterans of the genre and those who are just starting their adventures with RPGs.
Think of Adventure Quest meets Baldur’s Gate with a quest system similar to Elder Scrolls games that have choices with consequence. There are seven character classes, each with eight base abilities and nine unique to their class, and you can play either solo or in a party. PvP and PvE maps, challenges, dungeons, raids etc.
Soul Saver Online – MapleStory clone. Seems quite buggy.
Saga of Ryzom – 2004 sandbox MMO that still has an official server up. Eurojank grindfest with a lot of perceived depth and complexity to mask the fact that it shipped woefully incomplete and will never be finished. Could be interesting in the same way Ferentus or Spellborn was, as more of a knowingly unfinished place to explore and soak in the vibes while they last.
Saga of Ryzom description (Click to read)
It uses a system similar to Morrowind. The more you do something, the more that skill levels up and when it does, you get points that you can spend on stats and abilities. Similar to spellcrafting in MW, every action can be customized, one player might make their firebolt slow enemies, another might make theirs cost hp to cast, etc.
Crafting is pretty unique, you can make a mace using bone which gives +dmg/-speed or make the same type of mace with wood and get the reverse. Gathering can optionally be a group event, one person gathers while another keeps the node stable and the rest keep enemies off them.
The game is free to play but subscribers get bonuses, the main one being their skill cap goes from 125 to 250. It won’t matter for us because it takes longer than two weeks to hit 125. The mmo is actually open source, so if someone wants to host their own server for two weeks, that’s an option.
>Server
https://www.ryzom.com/
>Wiki
https://en.wiki.ryzom.com/wiki/Portal:Game
>Gameplay Video
Free To Play – Ryzom Gameplay
City of Heroes – Superhero-themed MMO. Has a bunch of private servers. [Thunderspy], [Victory].
Wurm Online – Open sandbox MMO.
Soul Worker – Anime action game with a focus on combos and fluid combat. The 8 man raids have mechanics and stuff that required certain compositions. The game has no open world to explore and you just grind dungeons to get BIS stuff then there is nothing else to do. Has a daily cap on actions.
The 4th Coming – 1999 2D isometric MMORPG inspired by games like Diablo and Ultima Online. Difficult, old-school gameplay. Servers are language-specific due to technical limitations, the English servers are “Realmud” and “4th Saga”. [Gameplay]. [T4CFantasy].
Perpetuum – Sandbox indie EVE clone. Population is more or less dead.
Asheron’s Call – Western MMO created in 1999. [Emulator site], [Server list].
Reutopia – Browser-based JRPG/TRPG hybrid.
Retopia Info
How do we feel about browser games? There’s a Japanese SRPGMO called Reutopia that appears to have enough depth for a 2 week visit
Some features
>find your own niche game with no MSQ. progress in battle, crafting, merchanting etc
>3-5 niggas on a grid turn based strategy game with option to program units like ffxi gambits
>some monsters you can tame as battle units
>party and chat through battles
>has dungeons, and dungeon bosses
>weekly kingdom vs kingdom wars, castle defense pvp or something
>bunch of other weird jrpg mechanics
The game is in moonrunes, but it appears 95% translatable through browser, except for a few image buttons. I wonder if anyone’s played this.
Plays like a mix of early JRPGs/TRPGs. You explore the world on overworld maps built from 2D grids. Random encounters take place on their own 2D grid and the player can command their party from here. Probably has minimal player-player interaction.
An add-on for translation highly recommended: https://github.com/FilipePS/Traduzir-paginas-web
Pop-ups will translate if kept up for a period of time. There is a small amount of text on images, which remains untranslated. Has map chat, whisper, group chat (up to seven players), and maybe nation chat.
World of Kung Fu – 3D MMORPG inspired by Chinese culture. [Private Server], [Video].
Pirates of the Burning Seas – 2008 naval themed MMO. Players captain their own ships, game focuses on PvE & PvP scenarios. No private servers. [Video].
Legend of Ares – [Licensed Private Server], [Video].
Legend of Ares Info
Ownership of Legend of Ares has passed hands several times in its lifetime to the point where the version on Steam doesn’t even work anymore so you have to get it from their website. the most notable achievement of the current dev team is they have reworked the game client so that it no longer presumes fullscreen on a 4:3 CRT monitor is the only way people play MMOs. The game is in the style where at character creation you choose one of two conflicting factions to join, there are 4 classes and everyone is human, and the gameplay is simple kill things, get loot and levels.
Minions of Mirth Reborn – 2003 MMO. Has multi-classing systems through which you can utilize spells and abilities from different classes. Private server download link in Discord, you make an account in the launcher. [Discord], [Retrospective Video].
Risk Your Life/RYL/Return of the Warrior – Old 3d KMMO. Looks very similar to Ferentus. [Rowplayon], [Playrowonline].
Rusty Hearts – Instanced anime-styled beat-em-up KMMO with max 4-player parties. You can’t create a character, you must select an existing one from nine to play as, only four unique movesets, though. The private server runs old official server software. It works for clients from about a year before the game’s shutdown and has been heavily modified. This server is functional, not in beta, and is available to the public.
Age of Wushu – Wuxia-inspired game released in 2013.
Sun Classic – 2007 MMO, had very good graphics for its time, got a reboot a few years ago that makes the game more bearable like being able to farm endgame stuff and premium items in dungeons. Webzen runs it currently.
Adventure Quest 3D – Sequel to Adventure Quest [Steam] [Site].
PlaneShift – 2002 fantasy sandbox MMO created and run by its community for free. The combat is similar to Gothic with Morrowind style skills and an open world. It’s one for the enjoyers of old crappy crpgs and games like AO. Quite esoteric, there’s no clear leveling path or korean style guiderails. It’s a sandbox in the form of Ultima or classic OSRS. Their latest patch added the ability to upload real images for the art skill so your character can draw and place them in the world so that’s the kind of game it is.
ToonTown – Classic kid-friendly 3D MMO created by Disney in 2003.
Raycity – Racing MMO. There’s apparently a Thai private server. [Gameplay video].
Animyst – Bizarro first-person open world indie MMO. Has gathering, crafting, and persistant structure building.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNtE9QYhciY
Mirage Online Classic – Indie classic-styled browser-based 2D MMO. Reviews warn of power-hunrgy moderators, might be safe if we don’t interact with the locals.
Xenimus – Indie old school 3d MMO made by a single developer. Over 10 years old and still receving updates.
Archlord – Fantasy-themed (realistic visuals, not cute sadly) game where the gimmick is that the strongest in the server (chosen by a pvp tournament I assume) gets to be “the archlord”, transforming into and playing as a giant demon. The official servers are dead and there are some private ones, although I imagine that unless they are completely empty, there’s guaranteed to be some autists and the chance of someone from our guild becoming the archlord are next to zero.
Other than that, I think it was pretty standard, and it was apparently made by the same company as C9, which isn’t a good sign. Has private servers.
DK Online – 2019 KMMO. Low player count. I don’t think crossplay with China is supported. 3D quest/grinder with a large PvP slant, similar to something like Shaiya or Knight Online. Combat model is closer to something like Skyforge rather than Lineage II. It’s a PvP MMO, so it’d be a coinflip as to whether or not it’d fit this group’s tastes.
Helbreath – 2003 2D isometric MMORPG with large scale open PvP and PvM. Has a bunch of private servers.
Red Stone – 2D isometric KMMO created in 2003. Focuses on transformation mechanics.
The Realm Online – 1996 turn-based 2D MMO initially launched by Sierra. The legacy server Despothes Grove is free to play and contains the cumulative content from its many owners throughout the game’s history. Takes a bit of inspiration from Sierra’s point-and-click titles.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BX_wP_Kwvg
Saint Seiya Online – 2013 MMO made by Perfect World Games, never officially published in the west. The private server has an English translation.
Ashen Empires – Old top-down free-form open world MMO. Seems to be the successor to Dransik. Has mechanics such as sailing, player housing, and a classless skill system.
Eudemons Online – Isometric KMMO creature collector where you can fight with your pets or fuse with them, has many private servers.
Earth and Beyond – EA’s bizarre attempt at making a casual version of EVE Online. I can only find one private server, ENB Emulator. Supposedly, they have an agreement with EA to run a private server as long as they don’t modify the game.
You have to make a forum account before you can make a game account, and it looks like you can have multiple game accounts. If multiple accounts are a built in feature I have to wonder if this is a multibox autism type of game
https://www.net-7.org/
https://forum.enb-emulator.com/
Hero Online –
https://hero.netgame.com/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/747920/Hero_Plus/
Tantra Online – Indian mythology themed MMO, ally with Shiva, Brahma or Vishnu. 4 (?) classes to play. Currently hosted officially.
Redmoon Online – Isometric 3D MMO from 2000. Based on a manhwa. Cool urban scifi art and aesthetic, play as 9 individual characters each with different skills dependant on your karma. Ran an english server back in the day but was destroyed by hackers in 2001. Runs on a private server (there are two private servers but I forget the second one)
Nin Online – (recent re release)
Freelancer Discovery – I actually completed a run of Freelancer sp yesterday. I was looking into discovery, and it seems like they take RP somewhat seriously. I have also read stories about PvPers chasing new players through multiple systems and player cops constantly stopping you and asking for money regardless of if you have committed a crime. Would be fun to try and fight them off, but we would probably just get banned.
Thang –
HighSpell – Browser-based MMORPG heavily inspired by RuneScape Classic. The game is built with 3D environments and 2D sprites, replicating the look and feel of early 2000s browser-based MMOs while introducing quality-of-life improvements and modern design sensibilities. Made by one dev! [Wiki].
Kaetram – Runescape-like indie MMORPG.
Tangaria – Multiplayer, permadeath rougelike forked from Angband. Has some spicy rules.
Defiance – Third person shooter MMO.
Fusion Fall – Cartoon Network MMO. Must look into this one.
Dungeon Blitz – Flash based side-scrolling MMO. Haven’t looked into it yet.
Currently Unplayable Games
ELOA – No servers are currently available.
Prius Online – Dead. No known private or official servers exist at this time.
An ill-fated rebrand/relaunch of the game known as “Arcane Saga Online” also came-and-went on Steam, and has been shut down since mid ~2013. There are no known private servers of this version either.
Holic – No servers are currently available.
Yogurting – Currently unplayable due to the servers shutting down and currently being untranslated. [Private server project].
Private server: https://www.ygt-rb.com Thai (?) server, site currently down
Seems like you have to DM the GM on discord to make an account but he seems pretty chill. server is mostly Korean but there’s an English channel.
Remember Server (untranslated) currently has several episodes of the first grade implemented. The main content is field hunting. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY1gVDfYZro
Fairyland – Likely unplayable if the sign-up is really that convoluted.
Private server technically exists (info.fairyland.online / Silent Gaming), but is so overly convoluted to access that it might as well not really exist (yet). Official servers have been dead for over half a decade.
Asda Story – No playable servers, though it may see an official re-release soon. [Link].
Chaos Online – I don’t think there are any servers up for this one.
Digimon Masters Online – Official release only available to USA residents.
Digimon Masters World – Requires Discord to make an account and download.
How to play DMW | Digimon Masters World Setup Tutorial
ai sp@ce – Official has shut down; no private servers currently exist.
Wonder King Online – This game isn’t currently available outside of Korea.
C21 Steel Battle Chronicles – No English servers are available. [English Retrospective].
Dynasty Warriors: Online – Only the Chinese servers are still online.
Wizardry Online – All servers are down, development on the private server has halted. [Link].
Wizard101 – Has paid membership walls early on.
Ghost Online – MapleStory clone. Private server in the works, probably won’t be available for a while – if ever.
Wind Slayer – MapleStory clone. Dead with no hope for a private server.
Fantasy Earth Zero – Private server never ever.
Souls Remnant Online – Indie MapleStory clone.
Description
Admin only turns his servers on for a few weeks out of the year, so you can’t just play it whenever you like, but it might be getting a 24/7 live release at some point in the future.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3451980/Souls_Remnant/
it was a fun little indie maplestory clone but the gameplay was server sided so it felt pretty bad, might have been changed by now.
platformer / maplestory style
skills level up as you use them
professions have a minigame, mining was an annoying OSU-style click the “circle”
guilds can “own” maps, ownership determined by points gathered within 15 min
points for map ownership given by killing mobs
mobs have rare drops like pets
dungeon randomizer thing where you use an item and it’ll generate a dungeon
rarer items generate harder dungeons
player/guild housing, limited plots, had an auction type thing last I played
no “classes” you can train any skill
skills need to be upgraded at certain levels, with rare items
with this even starting skills can become OP if you train them up
Nightmare/The Looking Stone – Judging by the reviews, it doesn’t look like it’s still online.
WildStar – From what I can tell the private server is in a very incomplete state. It probably doesn’t have enough content ready, though I can’t be sure.
Myst Online: Uru Live – Open source adventure MMO where players work together to solve puzzles and advance the story. Very open-ended and exploration based. Official server requires a phone number to register (Maximum of five accounts to one phone number).
Maplestory 2 – No servers.
Remnant Knights – No servers available.
Ruins of the Lost Kingdom – No translation.
The Matrix Online – Private server is very incomplete.
Bright Shadow Online – Needs VPN (radmin) and Discord approval to register.
Record of Lodoss War Online – English server taken offline in 2019.
Tabula Rasa – No servers.
Fractured Online – Open-world sandbox MMORPG. Has building and town takeovers. Very few players, poor QoL. Has been taken offline for a reboot, coming back Q1 2026.
Ragnarok Online 2 – Cutesy anime-styled 3D MMO, not available in Europe.
Description
Has six classes that can advance into one of 2 subclasses. You can pick one of four crafting professions.
[Character Creator] [Gameplay]
[Official only] – [Steam Release]
Ymirheim – The Gate of the World (RO2 Beta version) closed beta private server for anyone curious.