The Best MMORPGs To Play RIGHT NOW In 2017

I want to go over what I believe are the Best MMORPGs available to play right now.
This very second.
As of 2017.
Not upcoming MMORPGs. Noooo.
MMORPGs that are already out and fully playable right now.

That way – if you’ve never heard about one of these games before or just wanna get back into playing them again you can go right ahead and download them.

The list won’t be in any specific order as they, honestly, cater to different kinds of players in different niches. Instead, they’ll be listed as they pop into my head.

Just one quick question before we get into this list though: What is your favorite MMORPG?

Alright, so let’s kick this off with a good, but often overlooked MMORPG:

Let me just start off by saying that The Secret World is a helluva lot of fun to play.
I had my doubts initially when going in, but after taking the time to both play and enjoy the game, I found it to be significantly more entertaining than I thought it could be.
The story in The Secret World is great. More than great. The story-telling, how they craft the story and world is top tier.
But what do you expect from a game that requires you to pay money to play it right?
Combat is probably the main area the game lacks in to be completely honest with you. Graphically, the game looks good, but the combat definitely leaves a lot to be desired.
If you’re into fast combat, or even traditional combat like WoW, then you’ll probably find The Secret World to be clunky and awkward.
Is that enough to make the game bad though? Hardly.
The Secret World is one of multiple examples of a great quality paid MMORPG – it does have its flaws, but it is worth playing if you haven’t already tried it.
I mean, hey. It might surprise you like it did me.
I doubt you’ll find many MMORPGs with as fun ‘a story as The Secret World has, nor will you find many that execute it nearly half as well.

So everyone knows about Final Fantasy XIV – I know. You don’t need to remind me. I actively play it every week after all.
Final Fantasy XIV is one of the only popular Japanese MMORPGs on the market and that’s due to it being a really good MMORPG.
It went through a rough patch when it launched originally but has since turned itself around into one of the most popular MMORPGs on the market.
Now, people often find the main fault with the game is its combat as the global cooldown on skills is longer than most MMORPGs and that in turn makes combat a lot slower.
At least early on, when you don’t have many skills and there aren’t many mechanics to follow in dungeons and raids.
Graphically, the game looks fantastic. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and some people may think it looks fairly inferior in comparison to newer MMORPGs like Bless, and it may well be.
Final Fantasy XIV is getting its second expansion, Stormblood, this June and it looks damn amazing.
Graphics overhauls, combat overhauls, new areas, new classes.
If you’re not a fan of Final Fantasy XIV but want to get in before the expansion hits then now’s your chance!
You have a few months before everything is packed, the queue times make you want to kill yourself and when you finally make it in the servers crash.
The reason Final Fantasy XIV is here is because it’s one of the most complete, traditional MMORPGs out there with no pay to win BS, a great class trinity system, and a hard working dev team.

I’m sure a lotta you guys have either played RuneScape 3 or Old School RuneScape at one point if you’re an avid MMORPG player.
Therefore you no doubt saw this one coming.
Now, RuneScape is a much older MMORPG than some of the other games in this list but that is part of its charm.
That’s also where the communities divide between Old School RuneScape and RuneScape 3.
See, Old School RuneScape is where the majority of the longtime players ended up migrating to as they’d been playing the game for so long and didn’t like the direction ReneScape 3 went in terms of streamlining and polishing a lot of the features and gameplay.
Now, it’s difficult for me to say which of the two is the better.. iteration of the game, but they each have their own selling points.
One of the reasons RuneScape, to me at least, is worth mentioning is that the game itself is more than your “sink a week or two into it and hit max level” kinda MMORPG.
Instead, taking quite a bit more time invested into making it to max level.
Adding on to that is the fact that unlike most MMORPGs, the real game isn’t locked behind the “current endgame”, RuneScape allows you to take your time and enjoy the leveling experience.

One of the other MMORPGs I happen to spend quite a few hours in each week, Guild Wars 2 is a very different kind of MMORPG to the traditional ones you’re used to.
This can either be a good thing for you or a very bad one.
Now, most traditional MMORPGs have you explore a fantasy world filled with NPCs that offer a variety of quests for you to do.
Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a normal questing system at all.
Instead, you are able to participate in local “events” that happen around the zone you’re in in essence removing the need to search out quest hubs and the need to really interact with the NPC at all.
Which is where some people may dislike this specific aspect of the game.
I found it strange the first time I played Guild Wars 2; y’know, not being able to go to quest hubs, take the 4 or so quests from NPCs there, then run around trying to do them all.
This isn’t a bad thing though – at least for most. It definitely makes things simpler and faster.
The combat in Guild Wars 2 is great as well, giving you different sets of skills depending on which weapon type you have equipped allowing for some fantastic class-building combinations.
One of the things I find sets Guild Wars 2 apart the most is the incredibly friendly community and its densely populated zones. The game is always just so.. full.

Some of you might hate the fact that this game is on here and I would completely get that. I’m sure I’ll get some flack for including it to be honest. Maybe even lose a few subs.
But hey, the fact is that Black Desert is actually a damn good game to play.
Its combat is top tier. Its graphics, excluding the often complained about popping in are ridiculously good looking.
There is a large variety of unique classes to choose from with the exception of them being gender locked and the world is a huge open sandbox.
Technically this game should be selling itself.
However, the main complaint that has stopped it from being truly competitive as a title is the fact that people claim the pay to win aspects make the game unbalanced.
Let me clear this up real quick by saying that it may be a little pay to win in respect that you can pay for items that don’t necessarily benefit you or give you an advantage, but you can sell for in-game gold, which in turn is used to get further ahead through, for example, upgrades. So technically it could be pay to win, but at the same it doesn’t offer anything that would technically be classified as pay to win.
Regardless, Black Desert is fun. We’ve made it to our mid 50s but we ended up not enjoying our classes as much so we kinda stopped, temporarily at least.
The thing that stands out about Black Desert is the fact that you don’t have to play it the same way as everyone else.
You can become a farmer – you can raise horses – you can spend all day grinding – you can fish until your brain bleeds – you can just spend time exploring everything and everywhere.
Black Desert offers you so much freedom and I guess some people forget about that and would rather just criticize it.

Definitely worth being in here as it has one of the greatest combat systems of all time.
Plus, if it weren’t for TERA, we probably wouldn’t have all the perverts we currently do in our MMOs, amirite?
Alright alright, so TERA, barring Black Desert has some of the greatest action combat in an MMORPG. It does. There’s no real questioning that.
It’s a little dated, sure, and the graphics aren’t as amazing as they once were but TERA is still a gorgeous game to this very day.
With the exception of the early zones, TERA offers some amazing opn exploration coupled with fun, fast combat while sticking surprisingly well to the traditional MMORPG forumla.
TERA is a very, very polished MMORPG and the dev team that works on it are amazing, pulling out constant updates, class overhauls, and additional classes at that.
However, recently they seem a little too obsessed with the race and gender locked classes. I like playing female characters, sure. But I also enjoy playing male ones as well.
Therefore I naturally want to try the new classes out but at the same time don’t want to be forced to remake my Castanic female for the fourth time.
Regardless, TERA is one of the most complete action MMORPG on the market right now and the fact that it’s free to play is a bonus!

I know all of you guys knew this was coming.
Whether you love WoW or hate WoW the fact is that the MMORPG market wouldn’t be anything like it is today without it.
WoW is about as traditional as MMORPGs can get whilst simultaneously attempting to bring out new ideas and push new features into the world.
Granted, it may end up turning out terribly, (hello Garrisons?) but the fact is that for every thing WoW, or Blizzard does wrong, they do multiple things right.
WoW has been one of the most copied games, or at least MMORPGs ever, with MMORPGs like Aion, Rift, Allods to name a few attempting to clone it.
However people always found WoW more entertaining. More engaging. Even though it doesn’t have the best combat – even though it doesn’t have the greatest graphics.
Even with all the things Blizzard do wrong with the game nowadays, the fact is that WoW is probably the most complete, the most updated, the most talked about MMORPG on the market.
Not even games like Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV, or The Elder Scrolls Online can compete with it even though they’re the closest games that can.
That is why World of Warcraft is on this list.
Also, PS: I still play and enjoy Legion. It’s a great expansion. Much better than Warlords of Draenor in my opinion. ;^) Except the PvP.. but that’s a whoooole nother video.