I don’t really want to say “best of”, because I don’t think I played any MMOs that actually came out in 2024. I played several that aren’t officially out yet.
As time has passed, I find I want to spend less and less time playing MMOs. They are so hungry for your free time. Those who read the blog know I have a lot of other gaming-related stuff going on – family game nights one or two nights a week, Malifaux nights, all those RPGs I play, retro handheld games I play, mobile games I play that I should probably write about someday. MMOs demand too much and give too little.
That said… I played some MMOs in 2024.
Honorable Mention: Nexus, the Kingdom of the Winds (1996)
This Korean MMO went live in 1996, coming to the West in 1998. It’s older than Ultima Online, older than EverQuest, and the same age as the venerable Meridian 59. I’d played text-based MMOs and MUDs to this point, but was looking for something a little more exciting. In 1998, there were really just two choices for me – Ultima Online or Nexus. I knew EverQuest would be out in a year and felt playing Ultima Online would be a betrayal. I dunno why. Nexus seemed to be just the ticket.
Character classes were the few that have become standard over the years – warrior, thief, mage, priest, monk. Each could solo, but each had abilities that made them shine in groups. The world map was based on Korea itself, and the game’s plot was heavily steeped in Korean myth. In the years to come, Korean MMOs would at times try to become generic enough to hide their origins; Nexus glorifies it.
The game is still live after all this time. I have no idea if my original characters are still around somewhere. I’d guess not. I dropped this game so hard when EQ went live, but I still remember the fun I had.
Honorable Mention: Legends of Kesmai (1985)
The first MMO I ever played was Islands of Kesmai, back on the CompuServe timesharing system. It was an MMO that cost money for every minute played. I don’t remember how much it was, but we had to use CIS on a timer to control the costs. Still, Kesmai was worth it. I can’t remember if the graphics were even real time; I think it only updated who was in a room with you when you moved or did something. CompuServe allowed graphical clients, but the default was just scrolling text on your monitor.
For all that, it had everything you’d expect to find in an MMO. Many players, a huge world map, a plot of sorts, group content, chatting.
I was hoping to find the original text-based game around somewhere, but no luck. I did find Legends of Kesmai, a graphical version of the game by the original developers after they left CompuServe. That MMO also died a long time ago. But! It’s been resurrected by fans and can be played today. I can’t say I really enjoyed the MMO, as it exists today, that much.
Honorable Mention: Mythos (2011)
Our last honorable mention is Mythos. Mythos isn’t even an MMO… but, it was, once. Mythos was an MMO built on the graphics engine for Hellgate: London. It mixed Diablo-style ARPG hack and slash in instanced dungeons with shared open world cities and other areas – essentially the Guild Wars model. The hub model made finding groups easy; the fighting in the dungeons was fast and exciting.
Turbulent times killed most MMOs, including Mythos. It was resurrected as a single player game, and that’s how I found it on Steam.
Shorn of its multiplayer systems, the game as it stands now is a fairly standard hack and slasher, reminding me quite a lot of another dearly departed MMO from yesteryear, Dungeon Runners. I wouldn’t really recommend it. Mythos could have been great, in its original form. I was sorry to see it die.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen (Early Access 2024)
Last year was a bit confusing for Pantheon, briefly being reimagined as an 24/7 extraction game. That’s one where you and others dive into an instance, fight to the exit, and leave. I actually didn’t have a problem with it; I was in favor of anything that would get Pantheon out in front of the world. Having never played a 24/7 extraction game, I was excited about trying something new.
The community came down hard on it, though, and Visionary Realms quickly backed off and promised to deliver the old school RPG they’d initially promised. As a backer, I had the opportunity to play it several times before it went to Early Access in December.
I wasn’t underwhelmed. I wasn’t overwhelmed. I was just… whelmed. They did what they said they’d do. It was an MMO that felt like vanilla EQ from 1999. I found I hadn’t the slightest desire to see what was over the next hill, because it would probably kill me. Grouping was difficult, especially in trying to find each other over the huge maps.
I liked the graphics. I liked the teleporters that let you cross the map more quickly. The town looked nice. The huge castle area was closed off when I played, but looked cool from the outside. I just felt the game should have tried harder to set itself apart from EverQuest.
Ship of Heroes (Unreleased)
On the other end of the spectrum comes Ship of Heroes. Where Pantheon takes inspiration from EverQuest, Ship of Heroes (and other games, like City of Titans, City of Heroes: Homecoming) take inspiration from City of Heroes, one of the first superhero inspired MMOs.
Where Pantheon has decent graphics but unexciting gameplay, Ship of Heroes has ugly graphics but more exciting gameplay. In many ways, it improves upon City of Heroes; the instanced dungeons are usually less generic than the very rubber stamped dungeons (sewers, caves, office buildings) of its predecessor. All heroes can mix and match from two powersets to make a purely unique hero, and the character creator/costume designer is a true successor.
I last played in a special raid test with the devs participating. I came away believing they are passionate about making a superhero game where everyone is welcome to play what they like. I thought their raid was a little frenetic and hard to follow, but maybe that’s just the way things have to be when you have so much variety in the players.
Guild Wars 2 (2012)
I’ve been playing GW2, on and off, for over a decade now, but I write so little about it that many people might think I didn’t play it at all. But, I do! I’m even pretty much complete with the latest expansion, the Janthir Wilds!
Most active players have long since finished this content, and this is part of my problem. GW2 has everything you could want from an MMO. Active player base, regular content drops, instanced raids for lots of people, instanced group adventures, open world bosses, full crafting, enormous world, a vast number of classes and within those classes, the ability to change your build to handle a wide variety of roles. I could go on and on. I don’t understand why this game isn’t as popular as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.
And yet… I don’t play much more than the hour our static group meets to play each week.
Part of that, I believe, is that with so much freedom, I don’t feel I know where I fit, in a group. I can heal, and this is the role I usually fall into, but healing effectively means diving deep into healing gear, which lessens my ability to solo. Improving your gear is a gigantic, amazingly boring, grind. You can start GW2 new and be max level and in decent gear in a week or so. After that, you’re in the grind. Everything is a grind. Gear upgrades are a grind. Augments for your gear are a grind. Your mounts are grinds. Every new expansion gives you a new list of five or more grinds.
It’s a grind.
And this is why I don’t play.
Also, those Janthir Wilds bears talk way. Too. SLOOOOWWWWWLLLYYYYYY.
Monsters & Memories (Pre-Alpha)
If Pantheon was trying to be EverQuest, but updated to 2024, Monsters & Memories is content to stick with the low poly heaven of the elder game. The M&M devs, many of them previously EverQuest developers, leans into their inspiration, even going so far as to using the same fonts and font colors for player and monsters names. Take this back in time to 1999, show it to an EverQuest player, and they would assume this was someplace they could get to.
But it’s not.
Being a game that looks like a game that’s 26 years old this year means it has to work even harder to encourage new players to give it a shot. But new players who haven’t played EverQuest back in the day probably won’t find a lot to love here. This game is for EQ players nostalgic for the old days, and I think they’re okay with that. The dev guild is literally named “Niche Worlds Cult”. They know what they’re doing.
M&M has a list of races and classes that would make OG EQ players salivate, and those choices can be further refined by choosing four additional “feats” – major and minor combat abilities, major and minor support abilities – that serve to make your character unique.
All new players are dumped in the hub city of Night Harbor; evils on one side, goods on the other, but able to freely mingle. With so many people in one area, grouping is fast. Soloing is possible for all classes, at least at low levels, and the starter dungeons are literally within sight of the spawn point. Where Pantheon separates things, M&M jams everyone together.
One of last year’s open plays required visiting a dozen or so different zones. They were pretty empty and huge, but each one had something in it that just begged adventurers to discover its secrets. I’m pretty excited by it, but I know I’d have to find some friends to come with me.
EverCraft Online (Pre-Alpha)
I played this late in the year and it changed how I felt about EverQuest successors. The tag is simple – what if EverQuest, but in the MineCraft universe?
It doesn’t sound like that would work. It doesn’t sound like anything anyone would want. EQ was low poly enough; now it’s all blocks?
And yet, it does. The world is colorful and fun. The classes are lifted intact from EQ, so the game is instantly familiar. The quests are basic but decent enough. There are factions, and some race/class combinations are not going to be welcome everywhere. I went in as a Dark Elf Shadow Knight, and I didn’t have a lot of friends out there.
If all these games were available to play today, EverCraft Online would be the one I’d be playing. ECO is my (unreleased) best MMO of 2024.