I need a game to fill a Guild Wars 2 shaped hole in my heart.

Guild Wars 2 has been my go-to comfort game since launch. It's usually not too challenging, has real-time combat and a lot of PvE stuff I can mindlessly do while I watch Netflix or listen to podcasts, which is how I like to play MMOs. But the controversy surrounding ArenaNet has left me feeling uncomfortable with the notion of continuing to support them and got me thinking about finding a replacement MMO. Here's what I'm looking for:

• Quick, real-time combat with some twitch elements. I never liked WoWs combat and how it never let you move and attack at the same time and it still seems like a lot of MMOs are still following this model.
• No subscription fee. I'm fine with an up-front cost, bonus points if it has a trial period, but because I might only play an MMO for a few hours a month or not play at all for months at a time a subscription would be poor value for me.
• PvE focused. I don't dislike PvP but because the way I play MMOs means they never have my full attention, getting ganked because I was watching Star Trek instead of my game would just be annoying.

It would also be nice, but not essential if there was an active GB guild I could join. Not a problem if there isn't since I play MMOs like singleplayer games for the most part anyway, but it would be nice to have good people to interact with on occasion.

I'm open to any and all suggestions, so let me hear your ideas and why you think its a good pick. Thanks!

Doesn't Rift have similar combat to WoW? I played that game at launch for about 3 hours and never went back.

You might want to check out Elder Scrolls Online. Recently got back into it after not playing since launch and its pretty good now. Very good for just exploring the world and clearing dungeons while you listen to a podcast or watch tv. The Summerset expansion has some surprisingly good quest writing too. If you don't want to buy it and have an Xbox the base game is on gamepass right now.

Maybe..TERA?

"no sub" and "free 2 play" are different things but I'm thinking of your action-y combat games like Tera, Blade and Soul and Black Desert Online.

I don't have much to say about any of them. I played tera a bunch at release, went back to it way later after it went f2p, it's a fun mmo to play, was at a time very pretty and I was able to grind out solo until the garbage f2p style roulette wheel end game of upgrading gear. I didn't know people in the game or had a guild plus the crappy pray to the gods style of upgrading gear means it was no fun to stick around at the end game but tons of fun to get there.

Blade and Soul I played some on the original servers, it was laggy. I played a bit when it came out in the west and seems completely competent but really didn't stick with me at all.

BDO is gorgeous and seems cool but every time I hear about it being a sandbox is another mark off for me, and the crazy weird pop in that game has (regardless of settings/rig) really turned me off. The combat and gorgeousness OF said combat can't have enough said about it though, if only the gameplay/UI didn't push me away and the pop in wasn't such a deal breaker for me.

Do you like Elder Scrolls? If so, ESO might be a pretty good replacement.

I played BDO a while back and didn't stick with it past a few hours, it was much, much too grindy for me which seems to be the case with a lot of Korean MMOs.

I have no idea where it is at nowadays but Wildstar was a decent middle ground between Action MMO and older style. It's probably free by now if it still exists.

I was also going to recommend Wildstar, but as someone with over 400 hours in it, the community aspect is pretty much dead. It's not hard to find a group for dungeons or whatever if you ask in chat, but the LFG tools are useless because of the lower player count. I still think the combat would be up your alley though.

The equipment grind at endgame is terrible, but TERA has good combat that meaningfully changes between classes too so there's plenty there to occupy your time with.

Defiance 2050

@therealseaman: Even if one believes disciplinary action was required of someones personal twitter that they were previously told they were allowed to say whatever on they decidedly chose the worst option available to them and have just emboldened shitty fans into being even shittier and demonstrated that sometimes harassment gets exactly the outcome that you want.

I wondered how long it would take for someone like you to show up.

You don't have to agree with how Price reacted, even she admitted that she was too aggressive in her response and with more context, it seems clear that what she thought was some "asshat" talking down to her was actually someone who respected her work and just wanted to have a dialogue with her which, clearly, she wasn't interested in having. All the other stuff you mentioned trying to paint her as Satan's Bride is irrelevant. What IS relevant is that Anet reacted in the absolute worst possible. Despite being well aware of how she used social media and how outspoken she was, they never talked to her about her past behavior and never warned her that her conduct was an issue for them, they even encouraged it. Her job was to write stories, not be nice to fans and "influencers", and yet rather than meeting with her, raising the issue and finding a resolution, they fired and a co-worker that supported her. THAT sends a clear message: we care more about keeping our fans happy than we do about the health and well-being of our employees. If you don't put on a face, kiss ass and play nice or you're gone.

That fact that anyone thinks this is an appropriate way to handle a situation like this is deeply troubling.

This event has empowered the most toxic players to think that if they raise enough of a stink they have the power to remove anyone they don't like. Regardless of what you think of Price as a person, that should be unacceptable to any reasonable person.

@mars92: I'm throwing my hat in for TERA, it's fast and fun. Lots of interesting classes and based on my experience you may not need to adhere too strongly to the Tank DPS etc roles. Because it's Action based if you want to go in a dungeon with a bunch of warriors or rangers eschewing healers or tank you will still have a good time as long as everyone know when to dodge. But does it needs to be an MMO? GB has a large Warframe community. Maybe you could check them out.

That's completely baseless and even if it were true, they never once raised the issue with her prior to firing her.

Nothing else she ever said or did is relevant to this story, this event alone is the sole reason she was canned and it's a terrible justification.

"You don't know that, and neither do I. But I'm pretty sure I'm right."

@therealseaman Citation given.

https://twitter.com/Gaohmee/status/1016887233515671552

https://twitter.com/Gaohmee/status/1016851564395294720

https://twitter.com/HazelMonforton/status/1016522814336225280

No doubt there are plenty of other cases of this happening that aren't publicized.

@therealseaman: Price literally said she was never given a warning, and that Anet was aware of why she was fired from Paizo before they hired her. Did you not read that 'biased' Polygon article?

If not her, then who? Reddit spectators? If she was lying, why wouldn't Anet publicly set the record straight?

I'm not supporting her, I'm against Anets response.

Let's hope the game industry unionizes soon so this doesn't happen again.

Much like Price, I never asked to have this conversation.

I just can't really see the support for ArenaNet, honestly. If you think that lady is a jerk then whatever but that doesn't really change that ArenaNet has bungled this whole thing from multiple angles. It's bad management, it's nightmare PR, it's incredibly avoidable.

They're just not really to be defended here, in my eyes.

I felt it was a harsh move but upon seeing more of her character I have to believe it was right to part ways with her. I personally feel worse for Peter, as he was a 13 year old vet who seemed to be more polite pre and post firing, he just tried to defend a co-worker, that is where I think they bungled it a little. I have to wonder how much more was going on behind the scenes or if it was really just this situation that led to the firings.

It's been surprising to see how dishonest some folks have been about the GW2 community, the incident itself, and ArenaNet's response. A good reminder though of how irrational, hypocritical, and petty industry professionals and audiences can be.

Try out Secret World! It's got some interesting not-your-standard-fare MMO quests and relatively twitchy combat (last I played, maybe moreso since their relaunch).

Skyforge is okay but somehow more janky when I gave it a shot on PS4 than it was when it first came out on PC. Decent way to pass the time I suppose.

Tera's okay, and definitely action-y. Not sure how co-operative it is, as my time with it was pretty much all solo. I dunno how important that is to you, but a big draw for me with Guild Wars 2 was how friendly it was with respect to co-operating with strangers who were out and about.

The Old Republic is fantastic if you can tolerate a bit of skimpishness from the free-to-play model. Not especially action-y, but you can run around and such and pretend it matters lol. Ranged characters (ranged with guns I mean) have a cover system where you can snap to cover spots in the environment, giving you access to different skills and such. That's kinda action-y.

There's also Warframe of course, which is a straight-up action game that seemingly insists on consistently getting better and better.

Finally, Neverwinter is a decent action-y MMO with some neat custom quest stuff last I played. I've heard talk of pay-to-win and a really unfriendly free-to-play model (er, I guess "pay-to-win" already implies that, but I think it's like extra bad for some reason I can't recall) so might want to look into that before diving in, if that matters much to you.

Good luck!

I'm going to voice support for Secret World as well. If I remember right, when they launched that redesign (Legends?) they made all of the DLC (story stuff, new areas specifically) free.

She insulted a customer who was respectfully replying to a public post she made. Then she tried to paint that person as a misogynist. Dude even apologized for respectfully wanting to start a dialogue. Could they have just reprimanded her and kept her on board? Sure. Was the firing justified? Sure. I can see both sides on this but just based off her twitter profile she doesn't seem like a pleasant person. The fact that a bunch of GG idiots rallied around this doesn't make her actions any more excusable and the reporting from various websites like kotaku and polygon is incredibly disingenuous. I don't think ANet did anything wrong but I also wont hold it against someone for not wanting to support them anymore. The whole situation is silly and those devs chose a really dumb hill to die on.

@gravelordnito1: Fine but that’s completely irrelevant to the issue. It’s just to let people sit back and say well she was mean so she probably deserved it.

Instead of considering whether ArenaNet actually tried to take any appropriate action instead.

Warframe is good.

Another recommendation for Warframe from me, although I did find it fairly dense going in cold so maybe look up some guides before jumping in with both feet.

On-topic: I'm not sure I'd classify Warframe as an MMORPG, but I'll reiterate others support for it. I just started it the other day, and it seems decent so far. Some of the controls can feel a bit loose (particularly the melee), but the sliding/jumping/wall-running is pretty fun!

EDIT: I've decided to remove my comment/thoughts on the ArenaNet thing. It's an important topic that probably deserves more time, thought, and discussion than just a quick 5 minute message board post.

Firing was not an an appropriate action for rudeness to a customer - per the Polygon article Price said she had 'zero warnings' about her use of social media, so the response from ArenaNet was obvious kowtowing to the usual angry mob of nerds instead of handling this internally through a reprimand. It doesn't matter if she's a "pleasant" person or not, that's got nothing to do with this specific situation.

Fries getting fired was even more ridiculous. All of this sends a terrible precedent in the games industry, and in any industry for that matter.

I'm not aware of any MMO's made by studios that allow developers to mock players, if that's what you're after.

I mean, feel free to move to another game, but keep in mind that the makers of whatever new game you play would also fire devs that mock fans who offer polite feedback.

@therealseaman: Of course they're not going to say that directly, but it's not hard to read between the lines. And what Price just said publicly about "zero warnings" and her social media conduct never being policed before can be easily refuted, whether you trust her word or not. Companies need to protect their employees, particularly in an industry where women are going to be scrutinized by fans more than men - that's just common sense.

As for the tenor of Price's comment to the GW2 streamer who questioned her - she's a professional with a decade plus of experience fielding a basic-ass comment about branching dialogue. One dev I saw compared it to telling a mechanic to use a wrench when fixing a car. Price could have ignored the guy, but she's probably sick of dealing with this type of well-meaning nonsense on a daily basis. Her comment may have been rude and dismissive, but again, not grounds for outright dismissal.