On the Subject of MMos

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I’ve played a lot of MMOs over the years—LOTRO, STO, Secret World Legends, ESO, and a few others I can’t quite recall. I even tried Garando Esparada once (meh). After a lot of trial and error, I’ve resolved to stick mostly with LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online).

Here’s why:

Community: The player base is genuinely helpful. If you’re stuck, people on the server will jump in to assist. Trolls are rare, though there are occasional adult jokes that might look like trolling at first.

Maturity: Average player age ranges from 35 up to 60, so interactions tend to be more respectful.

RP Options: The old choice of server—RP or non-RP—still exists, so communities don’t get mixed up. From my experience, the RP community is actually more helpful and engaged.

ESO (Elder Scrolls Online), on the other hand… well, it’s a different story:

Toxic guilds are common. You’ll find people discussing offensive things on Discord, blaming you for speaking up, and just generally being unpleasant.

Random players (the “pudding brains”) will follow you trying to make illicit trades or ask for money you don’t have, often repeatedly follow you around trolling.

Group activity is rare. Calls in guild channels are often ignored. I ended up making my own guilds with just me and my partner so we could enjoy the game without the constant harassment.

If you’re looking for a friendly, supportive ESO community, particularly for neurodivergent players or LGBT-friendly spaces, I’m happy to chat on Discord and set you up to join.

Other MMOs:

No Man’s Sky is an incredible single-player experience that doubles as an online multiplayer game. Here’s why it stands out:

Massive Universe: The game features 256 galaxies, each with around 18 quintillion stars. That’s so vast that it would take the average player 5 trillion real-time years to stumble across your base—unless they have your Gate address.

Offline Multiplayer: You can join friends even while in offline mode, making exploration and base-building flexible and fun.

Gameplay: Think Minecraft, but in space. You explore planets, gather resources, build bases, trade, fight, and discover alien life—there’s endless freedom.

Exploration and Creativity: Every star system is procedurally generated, meaning the universe is practically infinite. No two players will have the exact same experience, which makes sharing coordinates or discovering new worlds exciting.

In short, No Man’s Sky combines the joy of sandbox building, exploration, and multiplayer collaboration into one vast, mind-blowing universe.

Star Trek Online—avoid it. It’s set up more like a mobile game, requires a lot of spending, and quickly becomes boring.

Overall, LOTRO remains my go-to because of its community, supportiveness, and engaging gameplay.

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Planet of the Pudding Brains

I've played several online multiplayer games as well. The first that I remember with clarity are Free Realms and Fusion Fall. I think I played Runescape exactly once. I played WoW once too and beta tested ESO, but didn't like either of them. I don't know if Meez counts. These days, for online multiplayer games at least, I mostly just play Fallout 76, Fortnite and VRChat.
This may seem ironic, but what I look for most on an online multiplayer game is the ability to easily play it solo. I don't like playing games with strangers and avoid interacting with them as much as possible. I will gladly play games with people I know and many of the online multiplayer games I own I have for that purpose alone. If nobody I already know is around to play with then I play alone.
The next thing I look for in a game is the story and lore. I don't generally care much for things like combat, special mechanics or gacha. I much prefer the story, lore, characters and worldbuilding aspects of a game and I hate it when the mechanics get in the way of that. If the game doesn't have those or I don't find what they do have interesting then I'm probably not going to be playing it. The exception to that are games like Sims 3, Second Life, Gmod or VRChat with a creativity and customization focus where I spend more time creating stuff for the game than actually playing it.
The next thing I consider are the graphics. If I have to look at it then I want it to look good. There are certain things I can only forgive in older games too. Stylistic choices like Genshin's anime look or Fortnite's more stylized look are fine, but outdated graphics in a modern game are a deal breaker. If something releases today and it looks like a ps2 game that's just inexcusable. I also like my character to look good, so I prefer alot of customization options.
Another factor I have to consider is whether or not the game has a third person option or, if it doesn't, can I mod it to. I can't play first person games at all. I can't play top down games either. In VRChat I can only use my own uploaded avatars since I have to move the camera in Unity to make it third person. That's one of the features I love about Fallout 76 - first and third person are both available and easy to switch between.