Runes of Magic (in Off-topic)

Does anyone play this game? It looks a bit like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft but it's also completely free.

I'm going to try it now, will let you know my in-game name soon...

I didn't like guild wars too much. There wasn't too much interaction with other players, especially considering everybody has their own personal playing field and the only way to see other people is in towns or you party with them.
I didn't like WoW either because it's a questfest and it gives you the illusion of freedom. There is no player based economy, the crafting is a joke, every weapon that has the same name has the exact same stats, etc. etc. There just wasn't any freedom.

If it isn't a quest fest, I might give it a shot though. Let me know how it goes! I'm always keeping my eyes out for a good MMO.

"I'm always keeping my eyes out for a good MMO."

I can send a 21-day trial automated email invite for EVE if you want (any EVE player can, actually) :)
The default trial is 14 days long, so you get one extra week (and the inviter also gets some benefits if you decide to subscribe after or during your trial).

That is, if you haven't tried EVE yet and not liked it...
http://www.eve-online.com/
http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Category:Guides
etc

Main issue with me is not wanting to pay monthly fees for such an RPG.

I'm just trying this game, it's now in open beta so I think it should be worthwhile. At least until I have my new pc ;)

Well, EVE is one of the few games that in some way allows you to pay for gametime with ingame cash, so if you're reasonably decent at it and active (or very good even if not very active) you never have to pay real money.

Basically, you can now buy/sell an ingame item from other players (just like anything else in EVE) that can be applied to your account whenever you want, adding 30 days of subscription... the price is set only by the players and keeps changing all the time.
Personally, I could probably pay right now for about 2 years of subscription with the in-game cash just sitting in my in-game wallet :)

Probably 21 days isn't enough to get enough in-game cash solo especially if you have to learn everything first, but stranger things have happened...

Usually I seem to be quite good in such games. On my first day of WoW trial I already had maxed both my professions and was level 19 or so...

Besides, can you name any other MMO (let alone one with a sci-fi/spaceship theme) with roughly 250k active subscriptions in a SINGLE game world, with up to 40k players online at the same time in it ?
I know many WoW servers that have less total accounts on them than people online at the same time in EVE :)

"Usually I seem to be quite good in such games. On my first day of WoW trial I already had maxed both my professions and was level 19 or so... "

Well, EVE is a bit stranger here... all skills train in real-time, wether you're online or offline, you only need to be online to switch to a new one when a level finishes, so you can't exactly "powergame" it so much.
On the other hand, selling a character (like in CB) is allowed for in-game cash, so you CAN get a really good character if you have the in-game cash for it (and you can get in-game cash from other players by selling them gametime paid with real money - but you CAN'T sell anything ingame FOR real money, that's forbidden).

So, overall, it's a bit like CB, but also a lot different... and a bit weird to powergame.
But the adrenalin levels you get from it (especially in PvP) are not paralleled in any other game, due to the fact everything you own DOES matter, a lot :)

I don't want monthly fees, period. Which rules out EVE. You don't have to keep advertising.

I'll try Runes of Magic, but if it's like most free MMOs I've played... I'm probably not going to stay with it more than a week or so.

www.perfectworld.com

WoW like in essence of quest and PvP
3 servers, working on the 4th
completely FREE with items that are USD/PayPal
kinda like CB you don't need to have supportership but its great to have.
In PW its not supportership just items for purchase

look me up if you want to play together, I'm a Elf-Cleric named ReBuff

Leave him alone i was actually thinking about trying EVE. =P

Eve was horrible. You can fight ships or mine... And it takes too much time to learn new things, also the joy of other MMOs is seeing how fast you can level so when there is a set amount of time all you're doing is trying to make money to buy stuff to make more money. It gives you the illusion that you can do a lot by having a complicated UI but it really is a quite boring game. It's pretty though...

I've tried Runes of Magic but I'd rather pay for World of Warcraft than playing this.

1: laggish from time to time
2: I got beaten by a level 1 foe up to 3 times before finally knowing how to attack it
3: Too hard system requirements on the graphics
4: Pretty much everything is stolen from WoW...