Used to play a ton of MMOs. Ffxiv was probably my favourite. Tons to do though I mostly focussed on trying to do the difficult boss content. Non existent PvP though which is probably the only downside. New world was quite fun, looks like they added a bunch of new stuff there too but it's probably not a game that will keep you entertained for a long time. I played archeage as well. Had a very modular class system and the combat was very entertaining imo though it became a p2w type of game.
You might want to check out FFXIV again, when End walker dropped they redid the PvP systems. I mostly just like to run content and hang with my FC, but a lot of people seem to enjoy the new PvP.
Yeah I also heard about that, with MMOs it always depend what's company is in charge. A lot of MMOs are made by Tencent or NCSoft, and they are all P2W
I feel like NCSoft was OK back in the day. My main experience with NCSoft was via Aion. I played when it came out and thought it was a great game at the time. And coulda sworn they had a decent reputation back then.
Now, like you said, they're just another terrible MMO P2W company. I have no desire to touch any of their games.
I do feel the early/mid 2000s was the like the Golden Era of MMOs. Then things kinda went south as the MMO space got oversaturated with WoW clones and F2Ps with P2W & cash shops proliferated. I played and trialed so many MMOs during that time. Chasing the proverbial dragon, but with MMOs!
And now we're sorta going through a renaissance with MMOs, given the recent more high profile titles that have been released or are coming soon: New World, Lost Ark, T&L, Blue Protocol, etc.
But it remains to be seen if these games measure up. Still an exciting time though.