I'm going to try...

[friznit]

Fallen Earth. It's F2P. I know absolutely nothing about it other than apparently it has horses. Will report back if I find anything interesting.

[Dog Pants]

I think Anery gave this a shot for a while. He didn't really say if he liked it or not (I think SWTOR distracted him) but he did mention spending a lot of time looking for his horse. So it might work for you

[Anery]

Once you get to grips with the controls and work out which end of the mouse to attack things with it all slots in rather nicely, shooting things is the same as a FPS, though the rest of the game is in first person (you move into the aim) headshots are auto-crits and your mounts can run out of fuel/food/life.
Sadly it lacks content and depth, once I started to roam beyone the starter town I was at I started to get bored, sure looking for my mount gave me some much needed focus but once I had found it again I stopped playing.
Had promise, lacked execution. Nice trainers though

[friznit]

I quite enjoy the setting. It's not floppy eared fantasy nor overdone pseudo cyberpunk, so the change to zombie infested post-apoplectic world with a not-so-subtle nod to Fallout is quite refreshing. For anyone whose played any MMO ever it's all very familiar - the badgers in this case are lizards, but they still don't all have arses. The bits that make it interesting are:

1. Open world (including open world 'dungeons') - spelunking across the desert can be quite fun. Harvest crap as you go along and turn it into stuff to blow shit up with. Which leads me onto:

2. The crafting system - possibly one of the most comprehensive trade skills systems I've come across. The sheer amount of different things to make is mind boggling but fun. Bright pink pants, an eye patch and stetson go beautifully with my lurid green dreadlocks (character's built in the FJ School of Slider Application: everything to the right).

3. It has horses. And headshotting rabbits from Waffles whilst gallivanting the desert around is amusing.

The levelling system is worth a note - there's no classes to speak of, you just apply points where you feel like. But as with all these things there's only really a few build combinations that work well together, so you quickly resort to looking up the cookie cutter on a forum, applying that build and becoming a dual pistol wielding combat crafter. At least I do anyway.

Although there's apparently been a lot of content and events added (and the areas are huge), I imagine it will eventually resolve into your standard MMO grind for skills, gear and levelling. Thankfully the community isn't very carebearing, which can lead to some hilarious mob kiting and trolling of afkers.

[friznit]

Level 20. Bored now. The game repeats itself every 5 levels when you get kit upgrades, then it's back to ununspiring questing until you do another 5 levels. The crafting system just becomes an annoyingly complex barrier to getting stuff in the end, rather than a decent multi tiered economy like Eve's manufacturing supply chain.

Going to go tribble hunting in STO next, as I work my way through a succession of half terrible F2P MMOs.

[spoodie]

I just started playing and think I'll stop now, after reading the above. I have got decent, non-MMOs games that need playing. Fallen Earth seemed alright though, after a couple of hours of play.

[friznit]

Star Geeks Online actually isn't all that shabby. Quite enjoying it so far...

[friznit]

So I'm now level 25 and still enjoying this rather more than I expected. I'm no Trekky, so I can't say whether the Lore is any good, but for a casual muck around it's fairly engaging. The quests and stories are probably the best I've encountered in an MMO, and only the dailies get a bit repetitive. Levelling is easy and goes almost unnoticed as you follow the storyline, and you get enough credits and reasonably decent stuff for free that you don't need to grind at all - that's pretty rare in MMOs. Even then, space combat is actually pretty fun so just warping into a battle zone to shoot shit up for a break from questing is pretty cool, and still nets some XP, cash and the occasional goochy bit of kit.

There's a fairly decent amount of incidental content to make exploring rewarding, but the game is almost too forgiving - zero death penalty rather takes the edge off combat and you get most of the ships for free as you level (at least, the ones you can access without paying real monies). I'm told the end game content is fairly limited - there's a thing called STF's, equivalent to 10 man raids, and PvP in the form of your usual CTF or arena bash. It apparently get's a bit Pay To Win at the top end of things, but if like me you're just after a casual romp around in space without the steep learning curve of [Other Space Games With Spreadsheet Involvement], then that doesn't really matter much.

Also, awesome clothing options.

[friznit]

Well STO lasted quite well. I levelled a Fed dude to 50, a wrinkly headed chap about half way and learnt all the acronyms before losing interest. The endgame consists of grinding the same few instances over and over for better gear to use in PvP tournaments, which Klingons always win because they're generally much more powerful, and ultimately results in being Pay To Win. There is the occasional event, which can be amusing, and quite a few more storyline quests but these can get very samey and general exploration is fairly limited. Not too shabby at all though, given it's free.

So what's next?

I'm looking at LoTRO as a possible contender, as it's a world I've not explored yet and several people seem to have enjoyed it muchly.

[Dog Pants]

LotRO is supposed to be pretty good. I played it for a while but was too similar to Warcraft for my liking, but having experienced a good many more since on reflection it was one of the better ones.

[Anery]

I tried the trekky thing but it bored the crap out of me. Combat was of the Tabular Rasa type (for away missions) and bloody boring (ship combat) Still, not bad for a freebie

[FatherJack]

I'm looking at LoTRO as a possible contender, as it's a world I've not explored yet and several people seem to have enjoyed it muchly.

Exploring the Shire is quite fun, but a Dwarven Guardian or Elf LoreMaster are more fun character choices than a Hobbit Bungler, but sadly their start areas aren't that inspiring. Human Captain is an okay choice, as it's quite fun plus you start near Bree, which is kind of where the game proper starts.

Hobbits start west of Hobbiton, Bree is quite a way to the east of it. North of Hobbiton is the Elves start and west of that is where the Dwarves begin.

[Sheriff Fatman]

I played LotRO for many years and really rate it, the quests and main story are fantastic and the detail in the world sucks you in. That said, it is just another fantasy MMO, so if you've played WoW to death there might not be much to keep you interested beyond the initial oohnewshinything. My biggest gripe with the game though is the legendary weapon system - it's been a year or so since I last played so it might have improved - but it is soul destroying and *very* repetitive.