Oh! I just remembered, Path of Exile (POE) is, I believe, and entirely free to play MMO. It works a little differently than a traditional MMO, and is more fun (easier, lol) to play with a group rather than solo (I played necro to get around that a bit, because you could raise your own mob to help fight big mobs), but that’s also maybe something to look into. I used to play quite a bit but haven’t in a long time. I am pretty sure it is still current and active? I need to download it onto my new laptop, but the internet here is balls, so I have to wait to install anything new until I get up north (seriously, I tried to download something I already own from Steam and it told me it would take TWO DAYS ).
I am a sucker for crafting, even in games where it makes no logical sense to do it (because it doesn’t get you all that much). Both GW2 and POE have crafting systems.
(These two are really the only MMOs I have played seriously.)
Oh! I thought of another one. I used to play Neverwinter a LOT, and that one is also free to play. If you’ve ever played Neverwinter Nights on the PC it is related to it. (Neverwinter Nights is quite old, released in 2002.) Although I recently went back to it to check it out, and it seems much less populated than when I used to play, and there are a bunch of new areas that apparently came out after I stopped playing. I didn’t keep it up after I went back (GW2 taking up all my time). That game definitely had crafting, though not as good as GW2 (which is quite an extensive system). The graphics is substantially less advanced than GW2 (which makes sense, since Neverwinter has always been free, and GW2 has always been paid and only a year or two ago introduced free accounts). There’s a lot of talk online about how it is trash. It was definitely fun back in the day, there was a PUG specifically for teaching new people dungeons, and another daily kind of even that you would PUG that would usually be successful (I think 5 man?) but I’ve heard since it isn’t very populated now these things are tough or impossible. It still might be fun to play though for a while just through the story, if you know the Neverwinter lore, but probably not if you really want to get into it and spend a lot of time (ESO or GW2 are much better).
I also remembered that the POE crafting is a little different in that I think it involved mainly transmuting things into other things using orbs, rather than crafting in the traditional sense. (But like I said, it’s been quite some time.)
OMG I forgot all about this game! Kid and I used to play this at the library when he was little!
CalBal, kiddo once racked up a $300 electricity bill downloading games on our old crap internet for many days 24/7 He would check progress when he woke up, after school, and before bed, and he’d leave me reminders if he wasn’t going to be home. I love fiberoptic internet sooooo much!
I can get it in a few hours on my sister’s. And they only have DSL. The internet at my parents’is TRULY crap (although they are getting fiber in a few months!!! I want!!!)
OHHHHH I also played RIFT back in the day, and it was fun and I think entirely free to play, but I haven’t been in some time and don’t know if it is still active or not. And I can’t remember if there was crafting. But it was fun? So, a possibility to check out.
If you do end up playing GW2 let me know, I am on most days for at least a little while and can help with leveling and story instances stuff.
I may need to check out guild wars again. I played the original, back when the level cap was 20, but that was… 15+ years ago? Kind of over WoW, it’s been 7 years since that one too.
GW2 is great (my opinion ). Lots of people play, even after 8 years. New expansion (supposedly) in the works, supposedly set in Cantha! Yay! GW2 takes place 250 years after the original, so you don’t need to know the lore, but it adds to it. If you play, also hit me up. I’m in a guild but it is depopulated now, so there is a guild bank but not much else (don’t even have a hall, since it is like me and one other person who plays regularly, lol). I mostly do PvE and WvW (I kind of suck at WvW but it’s fun enough and the only way to get certain currencies and you get credit for just participating even if you suck). I hate PvP because I suck at it, but it is also very popular in the game. Dungeons and raids area also popular but I don’t do them because you kind of need an active guild to do them. I currently don’t do Fractals (which are set up for 5 man groups) but would like to more, some people basically only do fractals. But there is SO MUCH CONTENT it doesn’t really matter.
There has been some talk about possibly factions being introduced in the new expansion as well (maybe?). ALSO, after Path of Fire came out (which was the second expansion), after about a year they made a package deal if you bought POF you also got Core plus Heart of Thorns (the first expansion), which would have been a GREAT deal to get all 3 for the price of one. The same thing might happen with expansion 3, though that might be a few years off.
I never got into WoW when it first started (and also not thrilled with the subscription model), and by the time I might have been interested it would have been HARD to “catch up”. GW2 model makes catching up not really a thing because there is not the same power creep. The things at end game that most people grind for is cosmetic mainly. or items to make you slightly better (useful for PvP but not necessary for like anything else).
Coming back to this discussion, I just discovered the #OwnVoices section of my library, which, from their own description, is,
#OwnVoices is a term coined by the writer Corinne Duyvis, and refers to an author from a marginalized or under-represented group writing about their own experiences/from their own perspective, rather than someone from an outside perspective writing as a character from an underrepresented group. Note: Not all literature with diverse perspectives is own voices literature, which is important to consider when you’re reading to broaden your point of view. This list only scratches the surface, but it will get you off to a good start!
There are some fantasy/scifi novels in there that your friend and maybe many of the other interested parties would find interesting. They’re not necessarily about specific religious points of view but are definitely more perspectives and new series.
There are lots of other really interesting looking books there too, but it reminded me of this specific conversation so I wanted to share here too.
You (and everyone) should come play City of Heroes (and City of Villains).
Video on How To Install because it’s not through the original company any more - it’s currently run on private servers and the people involved have met with the original company, OC said it basically wasn’t worth their time to officially bring back the game or to sue the people running it now. There’s a monthly fundraiser for server costs and they usually get their money within twenty minutes. So everyone else gets to play for free!
It’s a lot of fun, there’s a CRAZY amount of options just in the costume creator. I love it. If anyone wants to hit me up, I usually play in the evenings a bit (around work/kid) on I think Everlast? I think that’s the name of the server? My global is Persephone, feel free to shoot me a tell or an email in game.
Same here - happy to help out folks in-game! I enjoy playing GW2 casually and I definitely prefer the open endgame goals to WoW where you have to play all the time to keep up. I held off on it for a long time because it was paid but with the free account option I finally jumped in and ended up buying the expansions/previous seasons.
I also like how lots of people have dedicated characters for silly names and customizations. There is so much creative in game cosplay and I love it!
I love how diverse the characters are! And the mount skins! And I love the festivals that happen periodically (especially Halloween)! I just think it’s a fun game with pretty low pressure and tons of options of things to do at end game and the people are generally pretty nice too. I love doing collections and achievements piecemeal over time so there’s no pressure. It’s even pretty easy to get people to come help you with hard champions that are only really done for achievements. And the guilds that run World Boss trains or Bounty trains or run Triple Trouble or Teqlatl all the time and very helpfully explain how it all works so that they (usually) don’t fail. Just a fun time all around.
I’m hoping hoping hoping for a new tengu playable race coming with expansion 3. There’s a lot of reasons why they might not do that, since the game is so well developed already (it would be a TON of work), but damn if I don’t want to play as a big bird person.
We should connect in the game if you want to hang out casually - I’ll message you my handle (I’ll have to check to see what it is when I log in later).
Depends on age, but you can certainly bike with small children – there are both little kids’ seats that are specially made for bikes and trailers that can be used. Your options would vary based on your traffic situation, your risk tolerance, and the actual kids involved (how old? how big? how squirmy?).
I’ve seen people put infant seats into the bucket style cargo bikes - I’m not sure how they’re securing them and making them safe. Short of that, I think most recommendations are to wait until kiddos are at least 6 months before putting them on a bike. My kiddo had some gross motor stuff going on and he was not at all ready to hold his head up with a helmet on in a seat when we started early intervention at 9 months, but riding with him was one of our goals (and we do now, daily, on e-bikes, although we definitely keep our speed capped at 15 mph even though we can go much faster, when we have him with us).
I think the best helmet for very small heads is the Giro one for little ones. Our kiddo is on the small end of everything and even at 12 months was one of the only helmets small enough for him. We’ve done both a trailer and a seat and he very much prefers the seat up on the bike with the wind on his face.
If you’re not already the proud owner of an e-bike, I recommend getting one with a double kickstand (or adding the kickstand) as the stability is amazing when you’re dealing with a squirmy toddler. Before we had that, I was glad we were doing a trailer because I would have found it stressful to get him onto my bike that has just the single kickstand.
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He would check progress when he woke up, after school, and before bed, and he’d leave me reminders if he wasn’t going to be home. I love fiberoptic internet sooooo much!
I currently don’t do Fractals (which are set up for 5 man groups) but would like to more, some people basically only do fractals. But there is SO MUCH CONTENT it doesn’t really matter.