MMORPG to play in long distance relationship

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Mod: could you make this a double topic also in the love & dating section?

[Mod. edit: sorry, no - that would mean creating a duplicate thread, contrary to the site rules]

Hi,

The good news is that I've got a super nice girlfriend of which I'm very proud, w've lived together for 4 months now. The bad news is that she has to move back to her middle-American country (I'm from Europe) to finish her PHD and work afterwards. I'll be visiting her every 4 months, and the love is strong, so we are hopeful to survive until she can come again.

In my search to do things together while having the Atlantic ocean in between, I was thinking of picking up an MMO to casually play together, and she liked the idea. I've some experience with them in the past (RF online, Guildwars) although I mainly play other games. My question for y'all is the following:

Do you have suggestions for titles we could try?

Here is a list of directions:
- Something immersing and accessible for newcomers
- questing together is a must.
- We don't care at all for end game and pvp, will prolly spend under 100 hours on this
- Should run on a laptop (mac) for her, so not state of art graphics.
- Not WoW & not SecondLife, she didn't want that.

So I title a non-gamer girl would like to play now and then.

Final Fantasy 11 or 14 would fit nicely. They're not free to play but the quest and storylines are top notch.

FF14 requires a modern computer and I doubt it would run on a low end laptop... and the gameplay of FF14 is rather wow-like until end game.

FF11 on the other hand will run on an old laptop, the graphics are from 2002'ish (but still VERY good for the game imo), the gameplay is 100% interactive in the sense that enemies are CHALLENGING and those of = or higher level than you require not only teamwork but teamwork by people that know how to play their class. Button mashing/dps spamming doesn't work in FF11. You can solo or duo in FF11 on slightly lower level monsters but even then they are challenging and can still take you down if you don't play your class right.

If you're looking for an F2P game.. you can look at SWG EMU or if you like the card game, magic the gathering online is a free player vs player (not exactly MMO) game.

Star Trek Online is also F2P and entertaining but you have to be a trekkie to like it..and it may not run on older laptops. You'd need something from 2012+ tech to run it ok.

I met my ex-boyfriend for the first time in Perfect World MMO and our relationship started there. You might try it, its free to play (+real money item mall, but you can buy any of them if you grind enough in-game money anyway).
Be careful though... once I started playing it it become my special interest for a few years.

- The gameplay is quite easy. Even for newbies. They even give out free item packs for new chars - or at least they did when I played.
- There is a lot of quests and almost all (I know only one exception, but it is high lvl one) can be done with a team. There is a few races (was 5 when I played last time but they could add some), each has 2 classes. If you start as the same race (for example elf priest + elf archer, it's a decent team for 2 people) you will have the same quests from lvl 1. If you choose different classes (for example elf priest+human warrior, a good team for 2 people) you will met when you reach lvl 20 (a few hours of play) and get the same quest since then.
- You can choose a non-pvp server so get on one if you don't plan to pvp. On pvp servers there is a problem with bullies hunting for low level characters when they do quests.
- It works on my grandma computer that got only 756MB RAM and an integrated graphic card of 128MB memory so it should run on anything I quess...
There is no specific client for Mac but I heard the game runs when you use something called "Boot Camp". I don't know anything about Mac though so you would have to look for more info yourself.
- The game got some similarities with WOW (its a fantasy mmorpg) but it runs more smoothly and the graphics looks more real(WOW is just too "candy"). I bet the girl will like characters customization though. You can choose hair color, facial features, body proportions and the game won't make you look for them all around the world as it does in Second Life!

Special thing for couples: There is a marriage system and couples get daily quests to do together. But to get married you must pay real money (or grind like a chinese bot for months ) so it isn't worth it.
But even regular, not-married couples can hug and kiss if they want. And the boy can carry girl all around the world (except dungeons) on his arms. It looks quite nice, especially when you fly (elfs can fly from lvl 1, other races from lvl 30, if you make the elf male you can fly with the girl on arms no matter what race she is). And it is practical during traveling from one quest location to another - the boy controls the move so the girl don't have to worry where to go. And there is a lot of beautiful places to visit just for fun, lots of plants, waterfalls etc. The world is well done, even with it's technically simple graphic.

Btw. If you play from Europe and she is going to play from USA there can be a problem with time difference. 6-8h ahead, right? So when in US will be 8PM in Europe will be 2-4AM and 8PM in Europe = 12AM-2PM in America if I count right. If you want to participate in daily events (not nessesary, but fun) you need to consider what time zone is better to you. There is an European server (England time) and a few American servers (2 or 3 time zones). Events start about 8-9PM server time (and most people get in game then too - more people, more player shops, better chance for buying a nice EQ/selling stuffs.. but also more lags in the main city markets area ). So either you stay up till morning (American server) or she gets in game early afternoon (European server). But of course hour doesn't matter for regular questing.

Am I talking too much? I guess old special interest don't just disappear even when you are already free of it.... Well. At least I don't remember all the info I used to. When I was into it I was considered a walking game-wiki. Other players preferred to ask me than check anything in google. Since I could answer faster...

I'm going to say it now, generic MMO's will probably not work too well for you. Servers aren't really great for multi country gaming sadly. If you're ok with just voice chat and gaming, i'd suggest Minecraft with your own dedicated server that you can survive in together. More importantly, modded minecraft as it gives you a more to do.

Now, for a list of a few Free to play MMO's, I'd suggest APB Reloaded which is more of a 3rd person shooter. They have multiple servers and tbh, a lot of people do play between multiple servers. Less questing, more opposed missions.
Tera Online is a pretty good game. The gameplay as a whole is odd for an MMO. The combat system is fun and easy to grasp and the most redeeming feature of the game however there is a minor issue... well... the higher the level you are, the less clothes you'll end up wearing. It's 100% anime in that aspect...
Dragons Prophet almost the same gameplay from my memory except it has pet dragons ^.^ yeah, from the very beginning of the game, you get to have a pet dragon who fights by your side. The questing is very generic as a MMO and you'll find yourself running back and forth killing "X amount of Y mobs". Bright side, it does have a similar Instant missions thing as Guild Wars 2 has :L
Archeage. This is a different kind of "Free to Play" suggestion. It's not currently released to play for the general public and is currently in Alpha & Beta Testing phase for those will to spend the money. I have been playing it recently and to tell the truth, the gameplay isn't all that redeeming. It's a generic Tab Target game so you'll find yourself just rinse repeating fights. Now, the reason the game is even considered to play. The big reason is the Character customization. For an MMO, it makes you wonder what other games are doing. Seriously, The Characters can be personalized so much and so long as you keep up with the game long enough, you can even have your own house! in fact, you can get a house as early as level 15 which is less than 1 days worth of gameplay. And yes, these houses are customizable, just remember to pay your taxes ^.^" I haven't actually tried Archeage CoOp yet but it's nice as a casual thing to do.

Pay to play suggestions... I'm a cheapskate, i don't even bother with them...

Conclusion, Dragons Prophet is a decent start, Tera Online has the best choice for low specs but ultimately, Minecraft, no matter how old you are, is the most compatible multiplayer game and honestly, with good company (that I expect you'll be having considering you're playing with your partner) the game is great fun and nice and... yeah...

Thank you all very much for the replies and suggestions, really appreciated. I always told myself the only way I'd ever get back to playing an MMO (I play fighting game & FPS) is if I had a girlfriend to play it with; and I never expected to end up with a Latina

One thing to clarify: her mac is not really low end, these are the specs:
- 2HGz Core2 Due
- 8 Gb ram ! (that's more than my pc)
- Nvidia 9400m , 256mb.

So we could run TERA? Doesn't seems like it runs on mac. I will look at the other options too. And we are not against WoW as a type of game, just don't want to join the biggest pack.

Ow and here's the cliffhanger: she haaaates spiders. Now I know they are practically unavoidable in this genre (besides RF online but never going back to that), but I'd appreciate if the game isn't loaded completely full of them.

ah, that's another point! the game client for downloads and updates is as buggy as f**k. as in seriously. you have to be patient and you have to go through many, many restarts of the download. also, not 100% sure it will work on mac without needing to use WINE or something :/

This one seems pretty cool: http://www.uosecondage.com/

I know a lot of my friends were into UO back in the day...this one is "back when it was good", and it's also free. I played the solo portion a tiny bit, but haven't jumped into the MMO portion of it. I've yet to find an MMO I actually like, but it doesn't stop me from looking (I just don't have a lot of time for that sort of thing, now that I have a job).

thx again for the suggestions.

I've noticed that almost no game runs on Mac AND is playable on a 254mb card (that excludes Guildwars2 & Elder scrolls online). Looks like I'm left with the following known 3D titles: Runescape (oh boy) , WoW , Dungeons & Dragons online, Lord of the Rings online. I guesss D&D and WoW are the best picks for a casual play.

Maybe was thinking of running the original guildwars with an emulator or smt, but thats dead

We decided on trying to run Guildwars 1 in an emulator; its old enough but still looking good. hope it works otherwise I guess WoW

Thx for the input anyway.

If it doesn't work out, there's always private servers.

I'm currently on a Maplestory private server that's still in beta called MapleCrystal. The game requires it's fair share of grind, but it's customization options are huge.

If you do want to try it out and look me up in-game (Always could use more people to play with.), IGN is Ashuu and Pendellin. IRC name is SirMaximusOwnage.

Try:
* Torchlight 1 & 2
* Minecraft
* Unturned
* Terraria

All should be able to run on a laptop. Not quite an MMORPG list, but in all of these you can both play together and quest/build/survive.

You could always try MapleStory.. it's a 2D side-scrolling MMO that's free to play and is quite casual. There are a lot of things and activities to do together as far as I remember. I don't play it anymore but it used to be my top MMO of choice for years and was always a highlight of my past relationships. It may not work on Mac though... but I remember someone saying they figured out how to make it work.