KoL is a free to
play (and pretty much so as these things go) text- and
browser-based game which I've played since 2008 and which is my
most regular check-in, as well as the home of my favorite Internet
radio station and one of my sources for calendars. If you can't
get a good feel of the game from my character's pages (again,
there are many tooltips), there are links to plenty of reviews on
the game's
Wikipedia article.
I'm technically the founder of a one-person clan there. I can't
be bothered to actually recruit or run events, but if I know you,
feel free to request whitelisting so you can pass through the clan
halls.
BvS is a free to
play (very much so) text- and browser-based game I've played for
slightly less time and also check into quite often. It's set in a
universe which is a mashup of a number of manga and anime sources,
with a loose framework they all fit and mix within. If you happen
to be familiar with Naruto, Bleach, Touhou, Death Note, Initial D, Code Geass, and similar
works (links are to the TVTropes wiki, which I make minor
contributions to) you can play "spot the reference" with character
expies and plot elements; if not, everything will still eventually
make a twisted sort of sense. The gameplay's more partitioned than
KoL's, with expansions usually being effectively subgames with
their own statistics and development (I've written a number of
Java apps to help me with calculations for one or another), and it
takes more time upon starting to get a feel for what depth is
there.
I'm a longstanding member there of the Immortal Realm of
Hakurei, formerly Touhou Village before they/we nuked it.
(Literally. It makes sense in context - if you play and can reach
it to the heart of the Wasteland, matters should become clear.) I
don't control admissions (and we're usually almost full), but let
me know if you need a sparring partner or (if you're in a place I
can reach) to have some version of you expediently made dead. (And
you will need this. Eventually.) And if for some reason
you not only decide to create a character on BvS but want to be
listed in your profile as my student (although I've mostly retired
as a genjutsu proctor), follow the signature image at the bottom
of my profile page or this link.
DFO is a fairly
free to play (no subscription system, and I've so far seen no
vital pay-to-unlock content) MMO with the novelty of being built
on a beat-em-up engine. It's Korean, and the U.S. version lags a
couple of years behind (but the translation is well done). The guide on the
website contains some inaccuracies and typos, but nothing too bad.
While I find the user interface occasionally irritating (it's not
good for displaying a lot of text, in particular, although the
improved screen resolution of the July 2012 patch has helped), the
game has a lot of charm. And being built around arcade mechanics
probably makes it the most practical to solo across class
boundaries that I've yet seen. There's a Flash demo/tutorial for
the game which emulates it quite well as far as it actually goes,
available on the website (direct link here).
The game client itself can be downloaded at their website (still
requires launching through their website that way) or (as of July
2012) within Steam, if you use that. These days I go through
Steam.
Given the need for character spritesets and thus the
unusually detailed default backstories for character classes, the
game managed to inspire a (good, in my opinion) 26-episode anime
(I believe Japanese, though fans have long since produced English
subtitles) set in its world, called "Slap
Up Party: Arad Senki". While the former link doesn't seem to
be good for all episodes, it's not hard to search for the show by
name. (And there's at least one torrent containing good-quality
copies of the whole series out there.) Another odd consequence of
the arcade heritage is that a character's sex actually becomes a
significant part of their class, somewhat affecting background,
training style, and subtly affecting skill sets.
I have no guild affiliations in DFO as I don't regularly
play the game. There are
friend lists, though you'd have to add me to one by each
individual character name rather than account, and I tend to
altitis. While the game doesn't use a traditional server system,
that also means there's no need for character transfer to play
with somebody - just find out what channel they're currently in
(visible on said friends list) and relog into it.profile as my
student (although I've mostly retired as a genjutsu proctor),
follow the signature image at the bottom of my profile page or this link.
Mabinogi is also
Korean, run by the same people as DFO, no vital pay-to-unlock
content (though the cosmetic stuff can be seriously expensive
here), also available under Steam (which I'm again using), and I
log in a bit more often to it. The game's graphical in a way
familiar to any MMO player, through the interface and underlying
engine is more idiosyncratic than World of Warcraft, Guild Wars,
Aion, or the like. It's also somewhat weirder, the original world
being effectively Celtic mythology run through an anime filter,
with some Shakespeare and less-recognizable things mixed in, and
then presented in a way which makes it harder to recognize.
The game system's effectively classless, with the need for
equipment and inventory limits basically replacing "class
balance". It's not that you can't be good at everything, it's just
a real pain to try and will take forever. At the same time,
character level is far less important than the skills
you've trained in, especially as rebirthing to level 1 is
something you'll repeatedly do. (This also means your character's
age, appearance, and even sex may change from time to time. The
NPCs know this.) This affects the way the world is laid out - you
can create a new character and travel across the continent pretty
safely if you don't do anything stupid. You won't be hunted down
by aggressive monsters as soon as you leave some "newbie zone".
It's fairly practical to develop a character as a noncombatant as
well, and combat is based as much on familiarity with AI behavior
(which is far more varied than normal for this sort of game, and
even somewhat editable in the case of player pets) and how to
exploit the AI as on numerical statistics. There are a vast number
of dirty tricks available, and the game developers usually allow
them. And expensive and rare equipment isn't so much better than
the cheapest stuff that you really need to worry about constantly
buying or making new things.
On the other hand, you need to learn survival skills for this
game; you can't expect character statistics to do your work for
you. Most fights are decided in a handful of blows, and autoattack
is such a bad idea that the feature doesn't always work from patch
to patch - nobody cares enough to test it. Whatever your level, if
you aren't wearing thick armor and hiding behind a huge shield, a
single arrow from a low-level goblin archer is a serious threat to
your life. (To some extent, even if you are.) Weapons in general
are dangerous, and fighting two opponents who individually are no
threat at all to you is also dangerous. There are some monsters
who don't fight fairly at all. Potions are easily spammable - and
can make you sick, and healing magic of any form is a poor
substitute for actual medical attention or extended rest, just as
rest isn't a perfect substitute for food. And everything (with the
exception of clothing which is affecting your appearance but not
really being worn, and having the option to do that with clothing
is a real-money service) breaks down, and repairs aren't perfect,
so it's just as well you don't absolutely need any of your
material possessions.
There seems to always be at least one limited-time event
running. Whether these are worth participating in, or even
possible for a given player to practically participate in, varies
widely. The game's also usually selling some limited-time only
thing. I'd recommend staying away from anything whose description
suggests it's a box if its contents are listed as a possibility
rather than a certainty. Your odds of getting anything actually
listed on the website, or that you'd want, aren't good at all, and
as common as interplayer trading is, it's still not easy.
I'm in the fairly inactive guild Equestria, on the Alexina
server.