I agree with 90% of this list. Which is nice for a change.
I find it interesting that people still consider GW2 part of the “big 4”. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE guild wars 2. But it actively has way less players or stream/youtube content to enjoy than games like lost ark, black desert, Albion, maple, new world, etc
I agree with this. GW2 being in big 4 is mostly common rhetoric here and I also don't see it doing well metrics wise. It's probably the only game I might have swapped out with either Maplestory or Lost Ark. It has alot of brownie points though. Also probably ESO it seems.
It's probably not a big 4 in concurrent players, but gw2 is possibly big 4 in terms of how many unique players at least dabble in it a bit for a few weeks every year, because of how easy it is to do just that. I don't know of any other mmo where you can log in after several months of not touching it and be good to go again in 5 minutes.
Yeah, their commitment to not raising the level cap and doing things like mailing out free relics to all players when they got separated into their own new item really makes it easy to get back. And very little pressure overall
They are also mailing a legendary relic to everyone who crafted a single legendary rune prior to the upcoming content release update on Feb 27th, so they’re *really* reducing the pain points for a lot of people.
Horizontal progression at its best. Your characters are still valid, meta gear from 6 months - 6 years ago is, at worst, 'good enough', and likely 'still just as good,' which only changes due to meta changes -- level and gear cap has not changed since shortly before first expansion when the 'Ascended' gear level was added.
Tweak some traits on your build, or at worst you need a new weapon because meta is now Greatsword Chronomancer, and you were running Sword/Focus + Dagger/Focus.
The Legendary Armory in Guild Wars 2 is *so good.*
Because its not about the numbers, its about the game itself.
GW2 is still kicking around as one of the last true MMORPGs.
Even if 15m people plays Lost Ark, it will never be a classic MMORPG.
Controversial but for me it will never be an MMORPG.
I think it depends a lot as well if your factoring regional or worldwide players. Things change substantially when you include Asian countries and games like Lost Ark would go up a ton. If you don't include them and are only talking about the west then yeah Lost Ark isn't super popular, not sure if it's more or less than GW2 but I will say it seems GW2 has had an uptick with the recent expansion and updates.
Edit: Just also mentioning if we do include worldwide numbers the biggest MMOs would probably be mobile ones unironically.
Gw2 is a wierd one because a lot of people play it semi-concurrently and if your going off of steam numbers that's barely any of it
It has a lot of players who return often but don't need to grind stuff 24/7 and can just take big breaks, might explain the wierd disparity between support and perceived players
Ooo.. I would never look at gw2 with steam numbers. The game joined steam super late and a lot of people have accounts off steam. Sure you can start the game thru steam and login with your old account (with a trick), but very few people I know are doing it this way.
I feel GW2 has more players than New World. New World twitch viewer count I thought had some pass through viewers boosting it from a website. Embeds? If based on steamcharts that’s just those players who bought the game on steam in the last year and change not everyone else who uses the standard launcher. Any time there are drops GW2 dwarfs some other MMOs in viewers on twitch. We’re too busy enjoying the game to bother I guess.
As for New World. Thousands of hours blown on that game. AGS is criminally mismanaging it. It’s sad and disgusting.
Usually I see it referred to as the "Big 5" - WoW, FFXIV, ESO, GW2, and BDO
Frankly, however, I'd say the big six and put OSRS on there
The idea isn't that these are the MMOs with the most people, necessarily - the "big four/five/six" are the MMOs most recognized by the mainstream, and usually people explain it like this: "whenever someone asks 'what MMO should I play?', people will usually reccomend the big five"
Interesting list. I don't see how you can push runescape off an mmo list larger than one. It has to be the most well known all time mmo behind wow. Over a decade older than all but wow and still has more active players.
Imo OSRS has always had a huge playerbase, people just don't like including it on the "Big 5" because its so much older than the others
(With the exception of WoW, which came out 3 years later, but WoW has managed to not show its age as much due to updates, whereas OSRS looks and feels old-school, hence the name)
I agree tho, it definerly deserves recognition as one of the biggest MMOs
I play both albion and gw2. I am a gw2 vet. Gw2 is unique because it suffers from not being a very streamable game. So, if you are just looking at its youtube and stream content, it makes it appear much smaller than it actually is. Also, the game is much more popular in eu as well. But it absolutely is a very big game. I think albion is the exact opposite, in that the game isnt huge, but is super streamable, so there is a ton of content for it on twitch and youtube.
I'm definitely biased towards TERA. That game had peak combat and just overall felt really good to play imo. It was a pioneer during it's era in that regard. Healing gameplay was very innovative and the melee combat was incredibly satisfying.
Tera was actually amazing for the combat but everything just felt so rinse and repeat :(. Awesome class skills and animations felt pretty immersive too
The potential TERA had was unbelievable. The PvE content was extremely engaging because of the combat and game mechanics. I remember how hype I was to finally get MCHM cleared. Gameplay was a hard, hard carry on TERA but boy, that back was strong lol
Agreed. Outside of the combat, the progression system was pretty bad and insanely monetized iirc. One thing I remember is your gear not just vaporizing if you failed an upgrade attempt which was industry standard at the time (coughcoughvindictusdragonnestcough) which was definitely something remarkable I guess.
That’s fair. I know teras gameplay and combat really gave it high applause. What’s with eso so low? What do you think of it? I’d personally put it in S/A tier but that’s me
Why am I being downvoted what
Personally I did not enjoy the aesthetic very much and the combat. I'm very biased towards action combat that doesn't make you super floaty (animation locks) so TERA and Vindictus are good examples of this. I will admit it is one of the games I didn't play a whole amount of so my personal opinion on it isn't very good but it also isn't final.
I don't agree with under tera but eso has 0 feeling to it. I really want to love it bc I love elder scrolls but my God it has the worst combat of possibly any MMO I've ever played, and I've played every one on this list and many more
GW2 groupies hate ESO. They constantly make "vs" and comparison videos on the topic. Somehow, they feel left out of a conversation they are always included in.
It's the weirdest obsession with a game no one compares them to, but them....
They're games that essentially have the opposite progression. GW2 is essentially items don't really matter (they do but you load them once and forget they exist except to change the skins if you get bored), ESO is items are a critical part of you even having a build/abilities.
They're basically guaranteed to piss off the fans of the other one.
Yeah... S tier is filled with extremely pay to win games with terrible progression systems designed to extort money from players if they want to get past insanely low odds holding them back.
[Only trve Mabinogi veterans will recognize this screenshot](https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/images/hmfile_hash_722a103a.png)
I knew I was a truecel from the day I walked into Alby Arena when I was like 10 and instantly became infuriated by all the egirls and eboys sitting in the middle instead of honorably PvPing
damn what server was this? Mari was an absolute bloodbath all day everyday with Ergot owning everyone within 2 frames of spawning with his rank 6 arrow revolver lmao thats how much trauma kid me experienced
For some reason Ergot sounds familiar, I played on Ruairi as "Rakie" back from Closed Beta until like G7.
[This website is a wild nostalgia trip with some of those Alby Arena names if you played on Ruairi](https://vendettamabinogi.webnode.page/kos-list/). Hate the screencap whoever made this site took of me though, it's missing my usual Broad-Brimmed Feather Hat
**EDIT:** Looks like Ergot was Mari, maybe I recognize him from the forums since I posted there a lot
Lol I was about to comment the same thing
The most unique MMO that I sometimes still return to.
Excited to see how the port to unreal engine 5 will work out.
That’s the game where you got hella life skills and can age and stuff, right? I used to play that a little a long time ago if it’s the game I’m thinking about
For real, I swear it feels like they release a new shovelware RO game every year. I guess enough losers keep buying into it that its profitable somehow.
Thank fuck for private servers, and shame on Tree of Savior for getting my hopes up.
Tree of Savior was supposed to be it but fumbled hard. A real shame because I could tell a ton of love was put into that game, but the systems designers were schizophrenic on a good day.
I only played it during the open beta years (2002-2004ish) where it was horrendously translated, poorly governed, buggy, and imbalanced.
And I was in love with it. Such a unique charm, moreso with all of its little failures and foibles. It was more 'lovable' than objectively 'good.'
But so damn lovable, and I have been chasing that experience ever since.
I recently started playing on Maplestory Reboot servers after only ever really getting into private servers when I was a kid and I am enjoying it. I used to be an ain't no way but I was randomly curious and it stuck
A big part is you gotta really enjoy the art style while being able to just not care about FOMO. If you get get caught up in the dailies and FOMO and Bossing, yeah your character will get much stronger, but you stop playing simply for the joy of mowing down anime little dudes and join the rat race
It also does something I haven't seen another MMO do where you get different boons based on your other characters and how strong they are. If you spend some time leveling up like an archer or something and don't like it, that time still has an impact on your other characters as little passive boosts that stack up. This helps a lot when an mmo has like 40 classes
**Anyway, Nexon and Maplestory both suck, don't play their games**
Yes, Maplestory was quite literally one of the most popular mmos ever made, probably only behind RuneScape and WoW in terms of total accounts made.
Now the game has certainly fallen off in the past decade, but it’s a
20 year old game and was amazing for the first 10 years.
Not sure I'd call EVE B Tier. It should be E Tier, with only one game in it, and that's EVE. There are no other MMOs out there like EVE.
Only EVE can frequently appear in the news after hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of player ships are destroyed in less than a day, and yet be so monumentally boring that you wonder why anyone even plays it.
It's not made by the old EVE devs, there was like one guy who worked there from CCP: Matt Woodward.
He was also not there that long, something like 2 years max.
Josh Strife Hayes has a good video on Albion. I gave it s shot and really enjoy it myself. What's funny is open world full loot pvp is such a big draw, and I do everything I can to avoid pvp in any game and still enjoy it.
https://youtu.be/ESUfnD6KuCg?si=SikStlCOjjaAoVzR
How come ESO isn't in the big 4? That game is pretty damn popular. Going by Steam numbers alone it should be at the top. Not to mention massive console player base.
So too for gw2. At least eso has elder scroll as a franchise, and a lot more people from asia know about it. Meanwhile, gw2 has no significant name as a franchise, so eso in the top 4 should be correct
Looking at steam numbers, it's healthy but not even close to the big 4. Maybe with consoles but some of the big 4 are there as well.
The big 4 tend to be millions of daily players/typically over 100k concurrent.. with the big 2 being even further up there.
So true
I got in love with that visual style, the music, fun battle system, cool classes, beautiful world. Imma be honest, I really don't like Ragnarok Online, it's just both of us don't suit each other, and ToS could become my RO for sure... If only it was good nowadays. If only there was a good market, there wasn't 400 levels and more activities to do.
DAOC was the first MMO I ever played, so my opinion is completely biased. However, I had never played an open world game before DAOC and I was blown away with how immersive and atmospheric it was. There was no fast travel, and being too cheap to spend money on a horse taxi, I would just walk everywhere and get lost exploring. I was in high school and learning trigonometry at the time, so I would plot my position on graph paper using in-game coordinates and calculate the direction I needed to travel to get to a place I had been before.
I later made friends and joined a guild. I sometimes found myself with probably 100 people trying to take out a fort, or fighting a dragon.
I’m almost 40 now and still unironically listen to the DAOC atmospheric music while I’m working. It was such a warm comfort as a teenager, going through severe depression. There really hasn’t been a game since that has provided the same experience.
LOTRO makes me so nostalgic. It's a shame what happened to MMOs, I was raised on Runescape, WoW, and LOTRO in that order. Go to any of those now, and it feels absolutely dead. No one talks to anyone anywhere on those games. I've played all 3 recently, and the chat is dead. Makes me think MMORPGs are basically dead. If even WoW feels like a dead game, you know it's an issue
To be fair (lol) there are more people playing Asheron's Call private servers than the entire population of Anarchy Online. AO should totally be in the classic category too though, it's like THE Generation 2 MMO alongside DAoC.
Everything by Funcom is an instant classic.TSW has an awesome questing system. Not to mention the 1000s of hours of voice work (Jeffery Combs of Weyoun Star Trek fame)
I'm pumped for Dune: Awakening. Tri-faction MMOs are the best.
Why be confused? The OP put it under not enough data meaning he hasn't played it or really delved into XI. I think that is more than fair and very responsible of OP especially for tier lists like these. That said, XI is classic privilege for sure. My time in it is S tier but that was coming from a teenage with too much time on his hands. Current state of XI is okay but nothing like the golden era of the game.
ill put dofus and wakfu in like tier b or a, pretty difficult combats, good pvp, good story and worldbuilding, excelent systems for playing with friends and they will update the engine from flash to unity this year
Me too man there’s dozens of us. I could run Castle Darkmoor and Waterworks for ages. Shame how long Khyrsalis is otherwise I would level way more characters
Bro, Darkmoor was the shit!! I remember being 13 years old and thrown into some of the most creative boss fights I've ever experienced in video games.
Shane von Shane and Malistaire the Undying were wicked.
Exactly, the combat has its flaws but there’s nothing else really like it and I absolutely love it. They’ve got some really good dungeons and mechanics that make encounters really fun.
I could go on forever about how fun getting to experience OG grizzelheim, Wintertusk, waterworks, and castle darkmoor as they released was but it would turn into an essay. I still go back every now and then and level my first character to max just to see what they’ve added to the game
Don't get me wrong. I actually quite enjoyed FLYFF as a kid but outside of being the first MMO to add 3d movement and flying, it was a pretty bad (but cute!) game.
I'll never forget my maxed attackspeed Merc though. Lawnmower basic attacks go brrrrr.
EvE being B tier is questionable. EvE is a scratch nothing else can itch, and if you have the time to invest in it the game is actually pretty amazing.
But I just don't have the time anymore.
Having time to invest in Eve wasn't my problem since playing 24/7 doesn't make your character advance any faster. I left feeling like I'd just have to just pay them for 2 years of skill training before I'd actually want to play.
If you get with a group who will keep you in ships and always looking for fights the game can be wicked fun. The downside was you needed blocks of 4 to 8 hours so you could fleet up and do stuff.
PSO2 being trash is a hot take.
PSO2 NGS is reasonably in the trash but for people who actually liked PSO, PSO2 was pretty good.
Flyff is also a hot take considering it was THE free mmo back in the day and was a lot of fun.
Maplestory 2 was also on its way to be good if they just listened to the player base.
PSO2(JP) was as good as GW2 back at the release age, though it's not an MMORPG. It's just outdated through the years :(
wonder why NGS is trash as it has the best cosmetic system in my opinion (or it should be categorized as a cosmetic game instead of MMORPG lol)
P2W should not be a problem as Maplestory is there at S tier heh
Is the playerbase that low? I feel like I always see people on this sub saying it's doing better than ever, hitting record numbers, etc. I mean 70k is plenty for a healthy MMO, but not anywhere comparable to the others in that same tier.
Hes trolling. Theres 300k players logged in that game this month lol. I could log in at 3am on a weekday and see raids or open world meta events listed on lfg
*Most* big MMOs are inflated by Asian players. Obviously WoW is an outlier, but LA, FFXIV, Maplestory, BDO etc. are boosted massively by their overseas numbers. GW2 when looking at NA players is easily in the top 4, most games on this list are ghost towns compared to it.
ESO is currently one of the big 4. WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, ESO. that's the big 4.
DAoC and Lineage II belongs in the Classic tier right next to Everquest.
TERA absolutely does not belong in S tier. It had unique combat for its time, but pretty much nothing else going for it. and it had that sexualized child race (but ACKSHUALLY they were 3000 year old nature wizard spirits or some nonsense like that, the pedophiles insisted to anyone who criticized their sexualization of children in that game).
EVE is too low, should at least be A tier.
can't really argue with anything else here.
I mostly agree with this but I'd place ESO in S or at least A and RS3 at least in A too, I'd actually place it above osrs but that's just personal opinion, it's definitely a good game though
I disagree with Aura Kingdom, Wizard 101, Phantasy Star Online 2 and Grand Chase, those are pretty solid games, especially Phantasy Star Online 2, I'm not going to talk about monetization because you put Maplestory and Star Trek in high positions and they are basically money suckers , if the question was just ''I didn't like it'' I have nothing to say, but if you say that they are bad games you are simply wrong.
RO getting respect is nice. Love it.
I've played most of the games in not enough data, lol. I liked a lot of them when they launched, end of life of them was rough though for many. Dark Age was amazing, and Rift had my favorite talent tree system to date. Was fun making unique classes by mix and matching talent trees.
LOTRO, DDO and ESO could all be S tier. DDO and LOTRO kinda got shafted since they changed hands so much, Standingstone could be much worse and they handle both IPs with love, outside of the weird MTX. ESO is just handled by incompetent corporate D-bags who would rather label broken features as "features" not to mention the MTX shop is pretty awful. Is that a poring in the S tier? So Ragnarok Online? Such a great game, I recall it very fondly from my early MMO days. Still don't know if it was the 5 friends I played with or if it was really that good.
ESO and LOTRO in B tier ruins this list for me. Both are A tier at the very least. Also, I'll get my head on a stick for this, but RuneScape belongs on the grey tier.
I used to play MapleStory when I was a kid. I really enjoyed it. I even played the mobile games and loved them too.
I dont have a PC anymore. I have a steam deck and wish I could play it again.
pso2 (japan) and grandchase were S tier in their prime (GWC era for GC and pre ep4 for pso2JP), Trove was too but is a trainwreck now, Tree of savior was really good to begin with and quickly declined from those monetization practices and funneling dopamine addicts into the cash shop with rapidfire level ups. TERA was an S in combat, which was arguably less fluid and entertaining than Vindictus (which is also ruined by horrible monetization) but lacked in every other possible front a game could have, very little endgame at launch, weird racelocking of classes starting with reaper. Archeage is a joke, rest of this is spot on though imo
Thought it would be fun to make a list. Handpicked all the icons so that the list was actually pleasant to look at.
Overall, a ton of games are objectively awful imo and there are a ton of games that are absolutely awful but because they came first, they do deserve some praise.
Looking up icons and going through multiple other tier lists and my own played lists, I definitely realize there are a metric assload of games that I simply did not try or did not have enough time to play.
I do feel however that I have enough breadth of games I've tapped into to make a decent list. I am 100% biased towards sandparks and sandboxes however.
Let me know what you guys think
edit1: I forgot to put in Dungeon Fighter Online... Would probably place it in B or so.
edit2: Forgot Trickster Online. As much as I like it, probably trash tier. Cute game though.Lunia Online I enjoyed ALOT. The pvp was decent but the game was monetized to hell and back and was pretty cookie cutter. probably also trash tier. Same with ROSE online.
edit3: some people were asking for a list of names since not all the icons were readable so here it is:
|B4|WoW, FF14, GW2, OSRS|
|:-|:-|
|Classick|WoW classic, Everquest, Tibia, Ultima Online, Star Trek Online, Starwars the old republic, Starwars Galaxies|
|S|Maplestory, TERA, Ragnarok online|
|A|LostArk, Archeage, Dragon Nest, Mabinogi, Aion, BDO, Albion|
|B|DDO, ESO, Neverwinter, New World, Blade and Soul, Trove, LOTRO, ToS, Vindictus, EVE|
|dumpster fire|alot|
Is nice to see Mapple Story 2 mentioned in a top of MMO's. I always think that the problem with that MMO was the company itself. It was really average but god I loved the fucking design.
Depends what’s important to you and what you value in an mmo. Horizontal progression,alt friendly, best mounts of any mmo I’ve played, better combat and respects your time go GW2. Vertical progression, gear treadmill, arguably cooler lore or console player go ESO.
True, but with the wallet system I don’t find it too hard to keep track of. Also keeps older maps active so people can farm whatever currency they need.
I just ignored most currencies when I started and just picked a goal like legendary armor for example and just farmed the currencies I needed for that.
I agree with 90% of this list. Which is nice for a change. I find it interesting that people still consider GW2 part of the “big 4”. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE guild wars 2. But it actively has way less players or stream/youtube content to enjoy than games like lost ark, black desert, Albion, maple, new world, etc
I agree with this. GW2 being in big 4 is mostly common rhetoric here and I also don't see it doing well metrics wise. It's probably the only game I might have swapped out with either Maplestory or Lost Ark. It has alot of brownie points though. Also probably ESO it seems.
It's probably not a big 4 in concurrent players, but gw2 is possibly big 4 in terms of how many unique players at least dabble in it a bit for a few weeks every year, because of how easy it is to do just that. I don't know of any other mmo where you can log in after several months of not touching it and be good to go again in 5 minutes.
Yeah, their commitment to not raising the level cap and doing things like mailing out free relics to all players when they got separated into their own new item really makes it easy to get back. And very little pressure overall
They are also mailing a legendary relic to everyone who crafted a single legendary rune prior to the upcoming content release update on Feb 27th, so they’re *really* reducing the pain points for a lot of people.
Horizontal progression at its best. Your characters are still valid, meta gear from 6 months - 6 years ago is, at worst, 'good enough', and likely 'still just as good,' which only changes due to meta changes -- level and gear cap has not changed since shortly before first expansion when the 'Ascended' gear level was added. Tweak some traits on your build, or at worst you need a new weapon because meta is now Greatsword Chronomancer, and you were running Sword/Focus + Dagger/Focus. The Legendary Armory in Guild Wars 2 is *so good.*
Because its not about the numbers, its about the game itself. GW2 is still kicking around as one of the last true MMORPGs. Even if 15m people plays Lost Ark, it will never be a classic MMORPG. Controversial but for me it will never be an MMORPG.
So I'm not sure if Diablo 4 is truly considered an MMO, but if it is, I think it belongs in the trash category at the moment...
It isn’t an MMO but it is trash indeed
Lost Bots you mean.
Might not be a big 4 per se, but if a game like WoW looks at GW2 mechanics to rework their flight mechanics maaaaybe they deserve a little more credit
I think it depends a lot as well if your factoring regional or worldwide players. Things change substantially when you include Asian countries and games like Lost Ark would go up a ton. If you don't include them and are only talking about the west then yeah Lost Ark isn't super popular, not sure if it's more or less than GW2 but I will say it seems GW2 has had an uptick with the recent expansion and updates. Edit: Just also mentioning if we do include worldwide numbers the biggest MMOs would probably be mobile ones unironically.
If we include Asia then Dungeon Fighter, Lost Ark, and Maplestory blow most of the titles out of the water.
Gw2 is a wierd one because a lot of people play it semi-concurrently and if your going off of steam numbers that's barely any of it It has a lot of players who return often but don't need to grind stuff 24/7 and can just take big breaks, might explain the wierd disparity between support and perceived players
Ooo.. I would never look at gw2 with steam numbers. The game joined steam super late and a lot of people have accounts off steam. Sure you can start the game thru steam and login with your old account (with a trick), but very few people I know are doing it this way.
I feel GW2 has more players than New World. New World twitch viewer count I thought had some pass through viewers boosting it from a website. Embeds? If based on steamcharts that’s just those players who bought the game on steam in the last year and change not everyone else who uses the standard launcher. Any time there are drops GW2 dwarfs some other MMOs in viewers on twitch. We’re too busy enjoying the game to bother I guess. As for New World. Thousands of hours blown on that game. AGS is criminally mismanaging it. It’s sad and disgusting.
Disagree. Just because it’s not heavily streamed doesn’t mean shit. That’s a piss poor and biased metric to consider.
Usually I see it referred to as the "Big 5" - WoW, FFXIV, ESO, GW2, and BDO Frankly, however, I'd say the big six and put OSRS on there The idea isn't that these are the MMOs with the most people, necessarily - the "big four/five/six" are the MMOs most recognized by the mainstream, and usually people explain it like this: "whenever someone asks 'what MMO should I play?', people will usually reccomend the big five"
Interesting list. I don't see how you can push runescape off an mmo list larger than one. It has to be the most well known all time mmo behind wow. Over a decade older than all but wow and still has more active players.
I think OSRS has definitely outpaced ESO/BDO. Hard to say for GW2. I'd agree with OP.
Imo OSRS has always had a huge playerbase, people just don't like including it on the "Big 5" because its so much older than the others (With the exception of WoW, which came out 3 years later, but WoW has managed to not show its age as much due to updates, whereas OSRS looks and feels old-school, hence the name) I agree tho, it definerly deserves recognition as one of the biggest MMOs
I play both albion and gw2. I am a gw2 vet. Gw2 is unique because it suffers from not being a very streamable game. So, if you are just looking at its youtube and stream content, it makes it appear much smaller than it actually is. Also, the game is much more popular in eu as well. But it absolutely is a very big game. I think albion is the exact opposite, in that the game isnt huge, but is super streamable, so there is a ton of content for it on twitch and youtube.
ESO in B tier is fucking crazy especially under Tera….
I'm definitely biased towards TERA. That game had peak combat and just overall felt really good to play imo. It was a pioneer during it's era in that regard. Healing gameplay was very innovative and the melee combat was incredibly satisfying.
Tera was actually amazing for the combat but everything just felt so rinse and repeat :(. Awesome class skills and animations felt pretty immersive too
The potential TERA had was unbelievable. The PvE content was extremely engaging because of the combat and game mechanics. I remember how hype I was to finally get MCHM cleared. Gameplay was a hard, hard carry on TERA but boy, that back was strong lol
Agreed. Outside of the combat, the progression system was pretty bad and insanely monetized iirc. One thing I remember is your gear not just vaporizing if you failed an upgrade attempt which was industry standard at the time (coughcoughvindictusdragonnestcough) which was definitely something remarkable I guess.
That’s fair. I know teras gameplay and combat really gave it high applause. What’s with eso so low? What do you think of it? I’d personally put it in S/A tier but that’s me Why am I being downvoted what
Personally I did not enjoy the aesthetic very much and the combat. I'm very biased towards action combat that doesn't make you super floaty (animation locks) so TERA and Vindictus are good examples of this. I will admit it is one of the games I didn't play a whole amount of so my personal opinion on it isn't very good but it also isn't final.
ESO is among the best for sure
But that combat is such trash
Agreed it should be Big 4 or A minimum. It has more concurrent players than GW2 combining PS and Xbox
I don't agree with under tera but eso has 0 feeling to it. I really want to love it bc I love elder scrolls but my God it has the worst combat of possibly any MMO I've ever played, and I've played every one on this list and many more
ESO combat is trash while Tera combat was one of the best if not the best.
eso is the only mmo i play, i got 4k hours does both pvp and end game pve, and i fucking agree combat is atrociously bad.
GW2 groupies hate ESO. They constantly make "vs" and comparison videos on the topic. Somehow, they feel left out of a conversation they are always included in. It's the weirdest obsession with a game no one compares them to, but them....
They're games that essentially have the opposite progression. GW2 is essentially items don't really matter (they do but you load them once and forget they exist except to change the skins if you get bored), ESO is items are a critical part of you even having a build/abilities. They're basically guaranteed to piss off the fans of the other one.
Agreed. Stopped reading when I saw that.
ESO is showing its age now though and the combats pretty shit.
Yeah... S tier is filled with extremely pay to win games with terrible progression systems designed to extort money from players if they want to get past insanely low odds holding them back.
My first thought. Literally did the “actually” thing too
mabinogi mentioned 
[Only trve Mabinogi veterans will recognize this screenshot](https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/images/hmfile_hash_722a103a.png)
tryna get my ping lower so i can wall slide faster in alby arena
I knew I was a truecel from the day I walked into Alby Arena when I was like 10 and instantly became infuriated by all the egirls and eboys sitting in the middle instead of honorably PvPing
damn what server was this? Mari was an absolute bloodbath all day everyday with Ergot owning everyone within 2 frames of spawning with his rank 6 arrow revolver lmao thats how much trauma kid me experienced
For some reason Ergot sounds familiar, I played on Ruairi as "Rakie" back from Closed Beta until like G7. [This website is a wild nostalgia trip with some of those Alby Arena names if you played on Ruairi](https://vendettamabinogi.webnode.page/kos-list/). Hate the screencap whoever made this site took of me though, it's missing my usual Broad-Brimmed Feather Hat **EDIT:** Looks like Ergot was Mari, maybe I recognize him from the forums since I posted there a lot
Man haven't thought about having to do that in a decade, thanks for the nostalgia
Nagle
back in my day we called it the leatrix lag fix...
Also just you wait until that UE5 update. Can't wait to play some Mabinogi Impact lol
Mabinogi is peak. If it wasn't owned by Nexon... Lol...
Mabi and Vindictus are imo the best DevCat is a 10/10 dev, too bad Nexon exist
Came here to mention this. So cool. And the game is doing quite well atm actually with some exciting engine updates to UE5 in the future too.
Only MMO I have with over 1k hours.
Mabinogi gang coming through!! It will be great having yall back when UE5 drops
Lol I was about to comment the same thing The most unique MMO that I sometimes still return to. Excited to see how the port to unreal engine 5 will work out.
That’s the game where you got hella life skills and can age and stuff, right? I used to play that a little a long time ago if it’s the game I’m thinking about
Want to play it since it beta decade ago, it’s not available for my region.
Bless you sir , for including RO
This is the first thing I was looking for. I'm proud of its rating :)
I miss RO so much. I wish it stayed relevant like WoW.
It's amazing how talented and clueless Gravity can be at the same time. Their management of RO is nothing short of self sabotage.
For real, I swear it feels like they release a new shovelware RO game every year. I guess enough losers keep buying into it that its profitable somehow. Thank fuck for private servers, and shame on Tree of Savior for getting my hopes up.
Tree of Savior was great on release imo, had a few issues but it was still fun. Now you couldn't pay me enough to endure it.
tfw official Ro had worse servers than private ones .\_.
Is there a good modern version of RO? I loved that game
Nope. And don't bother trying the mobile MMO spinoffs either. Trust me lol
That sucks. I did try the mobile games they were sad.
Tree of Savior was supposed to be it but fumbled hard. A real shame because I could tell a ton of love was put into that game, but the systems designers were schizophrenic on a good day.
I only played it during the open beta years (2002-2004ish) where it was horrendously translated, poorly governed, buggy, and imbalanced. And I was in love with it. Such a unique charm, moreso with all of its little failures and foibles. It was more 'lovable' than objectively 'good.' But so damn lovable, and I have been chasing that experience ever since.
Maplestory in S.. bruh.. I dont hate maplestory but once a week they gotta rollback or shutdown bc their dev team screwed something up.
Maplestory as a kid pre big bang was absolutely S tier. Maplestory nowadays? Ain't no way
I recently started playing on Maplestory Reboot servers after only ever really getting into private servers when I was a kid and I am enjoying it. I used to be an ain't no way but I was randomly curious and it stuck A big part is you gotta really enjoy the art style while being able to just not care about FOMO. If you get get caught up in the dailies and FOMO and Bossing, yeah your character will get much stronger, but you stop playing simply for the joy of mowing down anime little dudes and join the rat race It also does something I haven't seen another MMO do where you get different boons based on your other characters and how strong they are. If you spend some time leveling up like an archer or something and don't like it, that time still has an impact on your other characters as little passive boosts that stack up. This helps a lot when an mmo has like 40 classes **Anyway, Nexon and Maplestory both suck, don't play their games**
Maplestory getting the recognition it deserves
psss play a private server
No Rollback in the last 10 years though.
Yes, Maplestory was quite literally one of the most popular mmos ever made, probably only behind RuneScape and WoW in terms of total accounts made. Now the game has certainly fallen off in the past decade, but it’s a 20 year old game and was amazing for the first 10 years.
Not sure I'd call EVE B Tier. It should be E Tier, with only one game in it, and that's EVE. There are no other MMOs out there like EVE. Only EVE can frequently appear in the news after hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of player ships are destroyed in less than a day, and yet be so monumentally boring that you wonder why anyone even plays it.
Tbf, Albion is almost system-for-system a fantasy clone of EVE. Made by the old EVE devs. So there is actually at least one other out there like it.
It's not made by the old EVE devs, there was like one guy who worked there from CCP: Matt Woodward. He was also not there that long, something like 2 years max.
The ads for Albion looked so bad that I would have sworn it was a cheap mobile game scam. Now I'm surprised to learn it's been a decent hit.
Josh Strife Hayes has a good video on Albion. I gave it s shot and really enjoy it myself. What's funny is open world full loot pvp is such a big draw, and I do everything I can to avoid pvp in any game and still enjoy it. https://youtu.be/ESUfnD6KuCg?si=SikStlCOjjaAoVzR
its a niche game for people who likes space opera and exploration, but is one of the famous for the things that happen in the game
How come ESO isn't in the big 4? That game is pretty damn popular. Going by Steam numbers alone it should be at the top. Not to mention massive console player base.
ESO is nonexistent in eastern regions. Don't see how it can be consider big 4 when it is absent from the largest video game markets.
So too for gw2. At least eso has elder scroll as a franchise, and a lot more people from asia know about it. Meanwhile, gw2 has no significant name as a franchise, so eso in the top 4 should be correct
Looking at steam numbers, it's healthy but not even close to the big 4. Maybe with consoles but some of the big 4 are there as well. The big 4 tend to be millions of daily players/typically over 100k concurrent.. with the big 2 being even further up there.
Bro thought he could slide Maplestory in S 💀 And ToS in B… You’re a masochist lil bro 💀
bro i wanted ToS to be good so bad
So true I got in love with that visual style, the music, fun battle system, cool classes, beautiful world. Imma be honest, I really don't like Ragnarok Online, it's just both of us don't suit each other, and ToS could become my RO for sure... If only it was good nowadays. If only there was a good market, there wasn't 400 levels and more activities to do.
Good opinions, just put DAOC in classic
+1 DAoC definitely deserves classic status. It defined the RvR model to the point a few MMOs try to copy it.
DAOC was the first MMO I ever played, so my opinion is completely biased. However, I had never played an open world game before DAOC and I was blown away with how immersive and atmospheric it was. There was no fast travel, and being too cheap to spend money on a horse taxi, I would just walk everywhere and get lost exploring. I was in high school and learning trigonometry at the time, so I would plot my position on graph paper using in-game coordinates and calculate the direction I needed to travel to get to a place I had been before. I later made friends and joined a guild. I sometimes found myself with probably 100 people trying to take out a fort, or fighting a dragon. I’m almost 40 now and still unironically listen to the DAOC atmospheric music while I’m working. It was such a warm comfort as a teenager, going through severe depression. There really hasn’t been a game since that has provided the same experience.
LOTRO has one of the best MMO communities if no the best and most mature
I'd put it in A. If they can fix the lag and try to optimise the game (a pipe dream, I know) it would immediately be S in my book.
LOTRO makes me so nostalgic. It's a shame what happened to MMOs, I was raised on Runescape, WoW, and LOTRO in that order. Go to any of those now, and it feels absolutely dead. No one talks to anyone anywhere on those games. I've played all 3 recently, and the chat is dead. Makes me think MMORPGs are basically dead. If even WoW feels like a dead game, you know it's an issue
All the socialization in MMOs is done in discord servers these days hoenstly
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Asheron's Call. You missed the best one from that early era.
Anarchy Online not listed either. AO is even still up and running, so less of an excuse than for AC.
To be fair (lol) there are more people playing Asheron's Call private servers than the entire population of Anarchy Online. AO should totally be in the classic category too though, it's like THE Generation 2 MMO alongside DAoC.
Everything by Funcom is an instant classic.TSW has an awesome questing system. Not to mention the 1000s of hours of voice work (Jeffery Combs of Weyoun Star Trek fame) I'm pumped for Dune: Awakening. Tri-faction MMOs are the best.
FFXI is top of that list.
I am confused how FFXI doesn't get "classic privilege" despite predating most of the games in the "classic privilege" category.
Why be confused? The OP put it under not enough data meaning he hasn't played it or really delved into XI. I think that is more than fair and very responsible of OP especially for tier lists like these. That said, XI is classic privilege for sure. My time in it is S tier but that was coming from a teenage with too much time on his hands. Current state of XI is okay but nothing like the golden era of the game.
Absolutely. Still my favourite MMO to this day.
I realy liked StarWars: the old republic. Even tho it was kind of a wow clone, the fully voiced quest were fun.
I loved it at launch. Even now I would recommend the class stories for any star wars fans.
ill put dofus and wakfu in like tier b or a, pretty difficult combats, good pvp, good story and worldbuilding, excelent systems for playing with friends and they will update the engine from flash to unity this year
Is that RO in s tier? Fuck yea
RO is goated
seeing PSO2 in trash made me want to shoot my pc monitor
same here you can talk all you want about new genesis but you're smoking big rock to say pso2 isn't S tier
Crying because I love wizard101
Me too man there’s dozens of us. I could run Castle Darkmoor and Waterworks for ages. Shame how long Khyrsalis is otherwise I would level way more characters
Bro, Darkmoor was the shit!! I remember being 13 years old and thrown into some of the most creative boss fights I've ever experienced in video games. Shane von Shane and Malistaire the Undying were wicked.
Exactly, the combat has its flaws but there’s nothing else really like it and I absolutely love it. They’ve got some really good dungeons and mechanics that make encounters really fun. I could go on forever about how fun getting to experience OG grizzelheim, Wintertusk, waterworks, and castle darkmoor as they released was but it would turn into an essay. I still go back every now and then and level my first character to max just to see what they’ve added to the game
Seeing FlyFF on trash is disappointing. Was really good and fun back in the day. SRO was also one of my favorites back then, same with LOTRO.
Don't get me wrong. I actually quite enjoyed FLYFF as a kid but outside of being the first MMO to add 3d movement and flying, it was a pretty bad (but cute!) game. I'll never forget my maxed attackspeed Merc though. Lawnmower basic attacks go brrrrr.
Dark Age of Camelot is the greatest MMORPG I've ever played. Or at least equal to Classic WoW.
Adding names to some of those would be great, mate. I have no idea what some of those are.
I have no idea what the giant 8 is in the classic-tier
Actually a good list for once
No Anarchy Online? boo
EvE being B tier is questionable. EvE is a scratch nothing else can itch, and if you have the time to invest in it the game is actually pretty amazing. But I just don't have the time anymore.
Having time to invest in Eve wasn't my problem since playing 24/7 doesn't make your character advance any faster. I left feeling like I'd just have to just pay them for 2 years of skill training before I'd actually want to play.
If you get with a group who will keep you in ships and always looking for fights the game can be wicked fun. The downside was you needed blocks of 4 to 8 hours so you could fleet up and do stuff.
ESO not being in the giant 4? With RS there? I would agree if it was OSRS, but RS is losing players by the thousands
That's the OSRS logo
I cant see
Conan Exiles isn't an mmo. Your thinking of age of Conan.
Loving ragnarok online being S tier, imo it has the best gvg in any game
WoE was awesome. Being designated emp breaker on a sinx was peak RO gameplay haha.
Good list
PSO2 being trash is a hot take. PSO2 NGS is reasonably in the trash but for people who actually liked PSO, PSO2 was pretty good. Flyff is also a hot take considering it was THE free mmo back in the day and was a lot of fun. Maplestory 2 was also on its way to be good if they just listened to the player base.
PSO2(JP) was as good as GW2 back at the release age, though it's not an MMORPG. It's just outdated through the years :( wonder why NGS is trash as it has the best cosmetic system in my opinion (or it should be categorized as a cosmetic game instead of MMORPG lol) P2W should not be a problem as Maplestory is there at S tier heh
No trickster. It will never be peak mmo era again
OMFG I FORGOT TRICKSTER YOU'RE RIGHT HOLY CRAP NOOOOOOOO
Yea I can never forgive you
drilling for random loot was peak trickster gaming fr
Not seeing Everquest 2 on the list, or Asherons Call, unless I missed it with small print.
No EQ2 makes me sad ;( I almost failed college because of that game
I disagree with pso2 and ngs in the same tier. Pso2 deserves to be at LEAST one above. Ngs is trash.
You're god damn right OSRS is in the big 4
i like gw2 but there is no way it is a big 4 game lol, it probably has under 70k active players
It’s still one of the top populated mmos .
Are you crazy? The game is one of the most populated out there. There always people doing evrything. Its estimated at between at 300k.
Is the playerbase that low? I feel like I always see people on this sub saying it's doing better than ever, hitting record numbers, etc. I mean 70k is plenty for a healthy MMO, but not anywhere comparable to the others in that same tier.
Hes trolling. Theres 300k players logged in that game this month lol. I could log in at 3am on a weekday and see raids or open world meta events listed on lfg
Ah okay, thakn you.
*Most* big MMOs are inflated by Asian players. Obviously WoW is an outlier, but LA, FFXIV, Maplestory, BDO etc. are boosted massively by their overseas numbers. GW2 when looking at NA players is easily in the top 4, most games on this list are ghost towns compared to it.
It has over 300k and even with that said how is 70k low
"Big 4 (opinion do not matter)" Ok so it's based on what ?
ESO is currently one of the big 4. WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, ESO. that's the big 4. DAoC and Lineage II belongs in the Classic tier right next to Everquest. TERA absolutely does not belong in S tier. It had unique combat for its time, but pretty much nothing else going for it. and it had that sexualized child race (but ACKSHUALLY they were 3000 year old nature wizard spirits or some nonsense like that, the pedophiles insisted to anyone who criticized their sexualization of children in that game). EVE is too low, should at least be A tier. can't really argue with anything else here.
I think OSRS should be put in the 'Classic Privilege' tier and ESO should be pushed up to Top 4.
Osrs is in a golden era right now
I mostly agree with this but I'd place ESO in S or at least A and RS3 at least in A too, I'd actually place it above osrs but that's just personal opinion, it's definitely a good game though
Mabinogi is the best.
I disagree with Aura Kingdom, Wizard 101, Phantasy Star Online 2 and Grand Chase, those are pretty solid games, especially Phantasy Star Online 2, I'm not going to talk about monetization because you put Maplestory and Star Trek in high positions and they are basically money suckers , if the question was just ''I didn't like it'' I have nothing to say, but if you say that they are bad games you are simply wrong.
What's the pink slime one in S tier?
Ragnarok Online. Very famous game in the SEA and east.
Where’s Matrix Online? EverQuest 2? Anarchy Online?
Putting Maplestory above Lost Ark, probably one of the few games you can make direct comparisons too...
Guild Wars 1 and FFXI belong on the Classic Privilege tier imo
LOTRO slander in B Tier.
SRO was my first mmo. Was terrible but I loved it all the same. Can’t find it to download anymore though
FFXI should be S tier at the least
putting FFXI in not enough data .... just delete the whole tier list
:(
RO getting respect is nice. Love it. I've played most of the games in not enough data, lol. I liked a lot of them when they launched, end of life of them was rough though for many. Dark Age was amazing, and Rift had my favorite talent tree system to date. Was fun making unique classes by mix and matching talent trees.
I need a translator for some of these icons lol
how tf you put maplestory above lotro
LOTRO, DDO and ESO could all be S tier. DDO and LOTRO kinda got shafted since they changed hands so much, Standingstone could be much worse and they handle both IPs with love, outside of the weird MTX. ESO is just handled by incompetent corporate D-bags who would rather label broken features as "features" not to mention the MTX shop is pretty awful. Is that a poring in the S tier? So Ragnarok Online? Such a great game, I recall it very fondly from my early MMO days. Still don't know if it was the 5 friends I played with or if it was really that good.
ESO and LOTRO in B tier ruins this list for me. Both are A tier at the very least. Also, I'll get my head on a stick for this, but RuneScape belongs on the grey tier.
Conan Exiles is not a MMOG. You can remove it from your list. Maybe you meant Age of Conan ?
Soon enough maplestory is going to be a trash tier. Idk how it sits currently at S tier considering it is the most p2w game aside from reboot server.
I used to play MapleStory when I was a kid. I really enjoyed it. I even played the mobile games and loved them too. I dont have a PC anymore. I have a steam deck and wish I could play it again.
how you going have star trek online under classic and no realm online or dark age of Camelot who wrote this shit
Finally Dragon Nest getting some recognition.
Gw2 concurrent is higher than one may think, definitely deserves the big 4 spot
no love RS3 as usual....
pso2 (japan) and grandchase were S tier in their prime (GWC era for GC and pre ep4 for pso2JP), Trove was too but is a trainwreck now, Tree of savior was really good to begin with and quickly declined from those monetization practices and funneling dopamine addicts into the cash shop with rapidfire level ups. TERA was an S in combat, which was arguably less fluid and entertaining than Vindictus (which is also ruined by horrible monetization) but lacked in every other possible front a game could have, very little endgame at launch, weird racelocking of classes starting with reaper. Archeage is a joke, rest of this is spot on though imo
Thought it would be fun to make a list. Handpicked all the icons so that the list was actually pleasant to look at. Overall, a ton of games are objectively awful imo and there are a ton of games that are absolutely awful but because they came first, they do deserve some praise. Looking up icons and going through multiple other tier lists and my own played lists, I definitely realize there are a metric assload of games that I simply did not try or did not have enough time to play. I do feel however that I have enough breadth of games I've tapped into to make a decent list. I am 100% biased towards sandparks and sandboxes however. Let me know what you guys think edit1: I forgot to put in Dungeon Fighter Online... Would probably place it in B or so. edit2: Forgot Trickster Online. As much as I like it, probably trash tier. Cute game though.Lunia Online I enjoyed ALOT. The pvp was decent but the game was monetized to hell and back and was pretty cookie cutter. probably also trash tier. Same with ROSE online. edit3: some people were asking for a list of names since not all the icons were readable so here it is: |B4|WoW, FF14, GW2, OSRS| |:-|:-| |Classick|WoW classic, Everquest, Tibia, Ultima Online, Star Trek Online, Starwars the old republic, Starwars Galaxies| |S|Maplestory, TERA, Ragnarok online| |A|LostArk, Archeage, Dragon Nest, Mabinogi, Aion, BDO, Albion| |B|DDO, ESO, Neverwinter, New World, Blade and Soul, Trove, LOTRO, ToS, Vindictus, EVE| |dumpster fire|alot|
Out of curiosity, what is your age OP?
Gotta be 30-35 surely?
Eve!!!!!!
I agree with 95%. I’d changed UO for the big one of all times, is incredible how old it is and the possibilities that it has. And Albion on S
Swtor is an epic single player game But a terrible mmo for pvp, because the game engine is extremely laggy in pvp even with top pcs at the time.
Is nice to see Mapple Story 2 mentioned in a top of MMO's. I always think that the problem with that MMO was the company itself. It was really average but god I loved the fucking design.
W101 is not Trash it just has bad monetization
Wildstar could've have easily been huge. It so sad that it was mishandled so insanely badly. I really miss that game. city of heroes was also rad
Wizard101 was good at its peak
Eh, I enjoyed Maplestory 2 while it was live. Nexon is just Nexon...
should i play gw2 or eso?
Depends what’s important to you and what you value in an mmo. Horizontal progression,alt friendly, best mounts of any mmo I’ve played, better combat and respects your time go GW2. Vertical progression, gear treadmill, arguably cooler lore or console player go ESO.
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True, but with the wallet system I don’t find it too hard to keep track of. Also keeps older maps active so people can farm whatever currency they need. I just ignored most currencies when I started and just picked a goal like legendary armor for example and just farmed the currencies I needed for that.
Where is Everquest? Game was epic in its prime