I've never spent any significant time with an MMO, played a few hours of WoW and Star Wars Galaxies back in the day. Seeing some positive buzz and considering the Final Fantasy trappings I might pick it up. The question: how suited is it for the inexperienced MMO-player?

@stuvning: This is my first actual MMO as well, I'd say it does a good job of easing you into the game. The game slowly opens up to you over the first 20 or so levels, so you're not immediately bombared with a ton of things you don't understand. It does a decent job of teachng you the basics of dungeon crawling through guildleves and a few easy dungeons, and your class quests will teach you a little on how to play your class properly.

this. They do a good job teaching you the mechanics of an MMO without overwhelming you. The problem is that a lot of the tutorial stuff is easily missed because you might close the box that teaches you about the instance.

Probably the best entry MMO. Everything about the game up to level 20 or so is set up to teach you how to play an MMO and there are tutorial boxes for everything.

I feel that a lot of the way the game eases you into its systems makes it look like it's supposed to be "my first MMO." Which is naturally good for a new player! Whether playing with mouse and keyboard or with a gamepad it's pretty simple to pick up.

That said not everything will be incredibly simple, but with a good free company, googling stuff, and plain old practice you should be able to do fine :)

Agreed, it is a great mmo for new comers and if you get stuck join up with some other players in an Free Company and they will help you through, dosent matter how many guides you read online, actuallly learning as you play is the best way.

@stuvning: Non-ironically I think that Tera is a fairly good entry level MMORPG. Everything is very well labeled and there is a decent progression even if you're playing solo. A lot of it is simply killing X amount of a creature, but like I said almost everything is marked on your map which is great since you don't have to waste time looking for the thing you'll need to kill two dozens of.

The active combat system and abilities are also pretty cool - and personally I like the art style and armor a lot, even though playing as a female character you barely see any armor at all.

Yep, it's fine. All the early game stuff Rorie and Brad have talked about being boring, such as the town fetch quests, is put there exactly for new players.

Yeah this is perhaps the best mmo to play for a first time mmo player, maybe WoW might be slightly better but it starts you out with a little too over the top in my opinion. This is an mmo that knows the basics and does them right, yes all those initial fetch quests suck and are lame..... but when you are done you will have visited every craft/job training area, unlocked every shortcut portal, seen the market area and been told how to use it, etc etc. That's the real point of those quests, to just move you around and teach you where everything is. Most mmo's don't bother with that anymore and just assume you will know to roll up to a town guard and ask where XYZ is, or zoom in your minimap and stare at it to figure out where things are.

In short most MMO's are not friendly to people who are not already MMO indoctrinated, this one is.