I miss playing MMO’s, but micro transactions ruin any sense of progression for me.
Any mmo’s out there that fit the bill?
Cosmetics are fine, as long as you can’t just turn around and sell said cosmetics in game.
Really think you should give FFXIV a deeper thought beyond just looking at the store and finding the level skips.
Even if you were to buy a skip, there’s still a considerable amount of game in front of you to play. They are only meant to get people to modern content without having to (to some people) slog through hundreds of hours of older stuff. It’s not a p2e micro-transaction by any means — far from it.
I agree with this whole-heartedly, there’s simply no way any reasonable person would consider skipping story content as buying power in the context of how FFXIV works as an MMO.
It lets players jump right into the new content without worrying about dozens or hundreds of hours of prior story they may or may not want to play through to get to the latest content at the same level as everyone else starting out, that’s all.
Absolutely, it’s absurd to conflate XIV’s level skips with being able to buy gold in other games.
XIV was actually my first thought re: the OP’s query.
Hopefully you understand why I was a little suspicious!
But I tried it out, and holy moly it feels like a different era. My brain can’t compute the fact that I just got a free to play game (Just have the demo, which honestly sounds like a ton of game) and it’s not trying to sell me anything in game? The tutorial was all about game play in universe, and never once told me about premium currency? My ui doesn’t have 5 different things? Crafting doesn’t involve long cool downs that I can 5 gems to speed up?
Like it feels like a different era of game, thank you for being persistent! I’ve only played a couple hours, but so far it feels like it’s going to become a comfort game at the very least.
Starwars: The old Republic.
Totally free for eight excellent epic stories with no pay wall to overcome or excessive difficulties without subscriber benefits.
Subscription unlocks more content.
Microtransactions are for cosmetic only, and there’s plenty of cosmetic options without them too.
Keep meaning to check these out before it dies (how healthy is it? / how long do I have?).
The game was just reassigned to a new studio for maintainance, it’ll be around for a few years yet.
If the game has any way to trade, it’s possible to buy power. Wow Classic or Guild Wars 2 are probably your only really options.
Clan Lord. It’s a place that’s special in my heart. I’ve been playing on and off since 2001.
Phroon you were always my favorite healer.
Not sure if it’s my cup of tea, but that is a really good answer!
It is not a normal suggestion because the base game is probably the most pay to win mmo that has lasted more than a year or two. But both versions of Runescape (both old school and Runescape 3) have a game mode called ironman mode.
Ironman mode is an official account type that you can create where you can not trade other players items or money. Everything is earned and gathered yourself. If you want to make a bow you need to gather the flax to spin a bow string and chop logs to fletch an unstrung bow and then string it.
It is a slower mmo with most skills in the game having methods to train where you don’t need to pay much attention and you can mostly watch youtube.
Both games also have very mechanically different and difficult combat encounters you can work your way up to.
Maxing out every skill in the game takes year(s) to do and there are hundreds of incredibly unique quests that in my own opinion set the bar for mmo questing. There are no kill 30 boar quests or fetch quests (really) they are mostly very in depth stories with character archs and so much lore if you are into that.
Would recommend OS over RS3, because much as I love archaeology, RS3 is overmonetised (I think most of the community agrees with that?), and that seems like a big part of what OP wanted to get away from.
If you’re interested in games that aren’t MMORPGs, Path of Exile fits your criteria for monetization. You can only purchase cosmetics and bank storage upgrades. It’s an online ARPG but it’s mostly single player.
It is pretty much unplayable without the bank storage upgrades though. Given the amount of time they can save you, you may as well say that they are power.
Right but there is no whale bait that impacts your sense of progression. All you really need is a one time purchase. Maybe $30 max to get all you need to out of storage and trading?
Runescape was like that for the longest time and tbh k dont think bonds really impact my experience all that much
Ironmen stand alone. No trading with other players means no way to p2w.
Yep, OSRS ironman involves so little non-social interaction with other players* that their power from bond gold is almost irrelevant.
(* outside cooperative and competitive minigames etc.)
Guild Wars 2 basically makes it impossible to buy power – once you’ve purchased all the expansions, at least. Which is incredibly impressive considering there’s an official way in-game to trade real-world cash for in-game gold.
That’s one of the benefits of having gear be horizontal, you can get a build geared from a fresh account in a few days, and then there’s only minor optimizations you can make (there’s a gear rarity that’s higher than the readily-accessible exotic gear but basically you have to earn it, and then there’s legendary gear which is there for fashion and qol because you can change the stats on it at any time).
There’s other quality-of-life upgrades available in the gem store (real world money store) like infinite gathering tools and inventory expansions. That’s what I spent my IRL money on. But yeah, not really accurate to call that a “power” improvement.
Can you buy fractals infusions or other equipment upgrades with gems or gold, or do you have to acquire them through fractal dailies? I never had enough friends to do the fractals content.
I see you can buy gems, are gems nothing?
Gems are the premium currency and what you can turn into gold by way of the black lion trading company. They’re almost entirely used for cosmetics or convenience items, because a lot of the stuff in game that you spend gold on that WOULD be a power boost is almost always associated with a resource that cannot be purchased with gold, and usually you get the lions share of the gold you would need by way of working towards whatever those resources are.
