For me its:
-
Ultima Online
-
Final Fantasy XI
-
Ragnarok Online
UO was a game I just recently discovered and it’s fantastic, best sandbox experience I’ve ever had in a game.
FFXI was another recent discovery. It took the formula from Everquest and made it better. The game is even less grindy today with the QOL changes.
RO was a big part of my teenage years. I love the look of the game, it reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s a great casual game to just pop into and grind out some levels or explore.
A sandbox sim that was far from perfect, but was the most enjoyable blend of “hang out in a chatroom” and “play this computer game” that I’ve ever gotten involved with. In particular I remember rolling with a big group of much higher-level players because the game didn’t really penalize you for having lower-level people in your group - like the XP they would get would be prorated but it was still more than you could get solo. It’s a shame they mangled it so bad the only remaining option was to kill it.
Hell yeah brother this game was the game that Battlefield wishes it could be. I loved rolling around in the Max suits, I loved getting a platoon together and doing Galaxy drops, and probably my favorite trick was knowing which parts of the map all of the would-be snipers liked to hang out at and go strafe them to death with an aircraft. I don’t often say this but this game was ruined by the addition of giant mechs.
Had the benefit of existing before the Marvel movies completely ruined cape slop for me, this game still has one of the benchmark character creators but my favorite thing about it by far was the “movement power” you unlocked at level fourteen - speed, jumping, flight or teleportation. Mounts suck and they’re boring, but having my character portal around never got old. There have been spiritual successors since it died but none that properly captured the vibe.