NCsoft has announced that Aion 2 will enter early access in the West on September 30, 2026, for PC. This date specifically refers to the game’s early access launch, available to players who purchase a Founder’s Pack. The full free-to-play release will follow on October 5, 2026.

Three Founder’s Pack editions are available :

• The Standard Pack $24.99 includes early access, a resource chest, and the exclusive Vanguard of Atreia title.
• The Deluxe Pack $49.99 also features an armor appearance and the Eternal Sun weapon skin.
• The Ultimate Pack $99.99 includes the Moonlight Aria outfit, the Black Dragon pet, and the Blazing Sun wings.

10 years ago, even 20 years ago, there were a huge number of MMOs where you could do everything every isekai anime showcases. You'd play the tutorial, meet someone, they'd ask you to join their guild, you joined, made new friends, then eventually joined the TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, forum, or whatever social platform they used to arrange raids, parties, and everything related to the game.

You could genuinely make real life friends that lasted for years or even decades. While there was always a "big" MMO like WoW, there was enough room for everyone. Almost every month a new MMO was announced, and it had a healthy enough population.

I remember some of my best memories from that era were just sitting at 2 AM with people, fishing and talking about life, or meeting someone while doing PvP and becoming friends, or just helping random newbies. Even those martial arts MMOs that suddenly came out, where you could run while holding hands with random party members or people you married IG lol. I even joined RP-heavy servers and enjoyed them a lot.

Nowadays, all online games feel empty. I really don't know how, but even the most popular online games lack that social element that made you fall in love with old MMOs. I've tried modern games, but I always end up getting bored because everyone is hyper-focused on PvP or the solo PvE experience, and you can do everything by yourself, so you never really need to interact with anyone.

I think the closest I've come to feeling that vibe again was with New World and Hardcore Classic Wow, but even then... New World came out 5 years ago and is already dead.

Is there any current MMO that still has this? Or any game? I've tried the cozy, chill games, but I just can't connect with them. They feel boring in the long run. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe the games still have it, and I'm just old.

My first MMORPG was Ultima Online. I was around 10 years old, and although I barely understood the game, one thing amazed me: almost every character I met was another real person. That felt magical.

A few years later, I discovered World of Warcraft.

As a teenager, I was insecure about my appearance, so meeting new people in real life wasn't easy. In WoW, nobody knew what I looked like. We met while questing, added each other to our friends lists, and logged in after school hoping the other person was online.

When I played Lineage II and many other MMORPGs. Eventually life got busy, and games faded into the background.

Years later, after a difficult period in my life, I found myself back in an MMORPG. This time, it's LU4. Different people. Same feeling.

I still enjoy wandering through towns full of player shops, teaming up with random people for quests, and inspecting high-level players, wondering how long it'll take me to get there.

Some places just feel familiar, no matter how much time passes. For me, MMORPGs have always been one of those places.

After 10 years of mostly solo and then eventually duo development, as well as a dozen playtests, my free-to-play indie 2D platformer MMORPG Soul's Remnant finally launches into Early Access on August 13th via Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3451980/Souls_Remnant

If you enjoyed classic MMOs like MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, and Mabinogi, then this game is for you.

Soul's Remnant features a classless skill system, hundreds of items to hunt down, dungeons and bosses to take on with friends, crafting and gathering, and a killer 40+ song original soundtrack written by myself! The game is built for players who love grinding, partying up, trading, and building a character your own way, all within a fully player-driven economy. And to top it all off, there’s absolutely no pay-to-win as monetization is only through cosmetics and convenience.

Wishlist Soul's Remnant on Steam and join us come August 13th!

The crave to play mmo again hits me and I thought of downloading rift but sadly the game is dead.

I was thinking to make a full party of people who want to start from scratch as a group and do all the content together with no rush or anything, take it slow and enjoy the ride. Newbies, old players, doesn't matter who and what you are. Everyone is welcome (idk how many people can be in a group) worst case we can have 2 parties or something.

[EUROPE] but NA people are welcome aswell, we will manage it somehow.

Will make a discord if there is a demand.

Edit: we can try other games and try to find the mmo that hits the best for all of us, feel free to suggest something different.

Game from the early 2000s was big in Korea, China and had good following in Europe.

Old School grind fest, currently still up and running with a recent update and a lot of returning players.

Build your warrior/mage or craft.

https://myth-of-soma.com

Anyone else have memories of this game?

Just a random thought I had while playing Guild Wars, thinking of how a big thing is that there is not much of a power creep and the whole horizontal progression thing. Of course there is some vertical progression trying to get legendaries and all that, but you can get up to speed very quickly to do a lot of content fast, which is really cool.

I am also playing a game called Farever which is an MMO light and so far every new weapon you get even if it is the same type of weapon like there are two different great axes right now one is named world splitter, one is Judgment and they have the same attack chain animation but totally different abilities and buffs and passives and skills attached and those have different inimations and styles.

What if there was a game where the grind was not necessarily for new and better stats gear but for new abilities and gear that might be better or worse depending on what role you want or how you want to play. Like, sure, you get your base class or weapon skills, but the incentive to go and kill enemies and bosses would be new skills and/or new gear that has special new abilities. The skills would not necessarily do more damage, but they would broaden your playstyle and give you more choices and freedom on how to play. Maybe there is some way to level them once you get them so there is some power creep because I like the idea of getting stronger, but I also feel like in some games the power gap is just too much. You would still have to choose between what skills to equip, but you get a broad selection.

I am not too well-versed in the complexities of how games are made, but I am sure it is more difficult to build skills than to just build different armors and weapons with different states. But games have different bosses with a ton of different attacks, so if there is a way they can just transfer those abilities and animations to the playable characters.

Just food for thought. What do you guys think?