I've added the F2P ( Free to Play ), cross-playable , MMORPG game SAO:IF , or Sword Art Online: Integral Factor to our list of " Associated Games ". Which originally began as a mobile game on Android & IOS in 2017 , and was just ported to the Steam platform in August 2023 .

A couple of us have been playing & enjoying SAO:IF lately. So, I wrote it a short review & placed it in it's own Discussion Topic here in the GreyMane Group area, please check it out...

Some of our friends we play games with complain that the problem is that older games, like WOW, DDO, LOTRO, & SWTOR, with their slower style of play is more of a true RPG & less action-oriented experience, use more keyboard & mouse interactions to deal with these games' many menus & dialogue boxes.

Thus, these older games don't lend themselves well to lean-back, controller play. A controller actually makes me feel more restricted when playing some of these games, thus I've actually started enjoying mouse driven games more.

Plus, we've found that our hands, wrist, & shoulders experience less pain after long play sessions using mouse & keyboard, than when using a controller the same length of time...

As Christine & I got into FFXIV's first 50-60th level expansion, Heavensward, we found the dungeon/trial duties were getting too difficult for us to Tank/Heal through. Plus the game's Main Story Quest required even more dungeon/trial duties to progress. So, we started to lose interest in FFXIV.

That's why Christine & I are mostly playing LOTRO at the moment, most of it's dungeon/trial duties are paid-for add-ons & NOT required for players to progress in LOTRO's Epic Story Quest line, thus are completely optional to play...

Another reason Christine & I are favoring the 14 year old Lord of the Rings Online PC MMORPG, LOTRO is Free-to-Play (F2P), works acceptably well on most gaming PC/GPUs, it doesn't require a huge download (only 28 GB), & has epic story-driven quest-line based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth books...

In addition to the Steam MMORPG's I mentioned playing in my prior post, I've also spent time playing the following as well,

ARK: Survival Evolved: 19 hours played
Black Desert Online: 11 hours played
Secret Worlds Legends: 11 hours played
Dungeon & Dragons Online: 10 hours played

As you can see, I play a MMO game at least 10 hours before I tend to pass a personal judgement on them, and I will spend many more hours in some, if any of my friends already play them.

I try not to play any MMORPG by myself, if at all possible, since the multiplayer experience is a major component of enjoying such games. These games are doubly fun if they can be played together with family & real-world friends.

Christine & I have discussed our time budget for online games going forward into the future.

Given the time consuming, grindy nature of most MMORPGs, the two of us are going to be very selective about which online games we invest our time in from now on.

I have spent a tremendous amount of Total Play Time in many MMORPG's to the current day, which I tally here,

Final Fantasy XIV: 3,787 hours played
Lord of the Rings Online: 901 hours played
Phantasy Star Online 2: 375 hours played
Elder Scrolls Online: 277 hours played
Fallout 76: 176 hours played
Star Wars: The Old Republic: 14 hours played

Based on our experience with these games, here's how we rank them, based on our previous enjoyment playing them, these are the games we are going to limit our time to play.

#1 - Lord of the Rings Online
#2 - Online Board Games (Like, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, etc.)
#3 - Elder Scrolls Online
#4 - Fallout 76
#5 - Final Fantasy XIV

I know this is a little late in noting, but I did add the below mentioned MMO games, Star Wars: The Old Republic ( SWTOR ) & Sea of Thieves ( SoT ) as associated games for this group, since they are now officially available in the Steam store.

I also added 2 other MMO entries as associated games, Conan Exiles & Phantasy Star Online 2 ( PSO2 ). I have played these last 2 MMO games lately & figured they should be included in our group.

With it's Wastelanders DLC release on Steam, this April 7, 2020, I can finally add the MMORPG, Fallout 76 to the GreyMane Group's list of official Associated Games... Yay!

I want to include Fallout 76 (FO76) as another MMORPG game to post about here. Though it is currently not a Steam game, I hear there are plans to add it later this year, probably as part of FO76's 1st anniversary celebration in November.

I know FO76 has gotten a lot of grief from the gaming community. But, Bill, Chris, Joe, & I all have given it a spin when it's price started hitting the $25 range, and most of us have had a lot of fun playing it. But, we didn't have really high expectations either.

If you're interested, there seem to be semi-regular 50% off sales on FO76 on Humble, Fanatical, Amazon, & even GameStop. So, check it out & let us know what you think.

I've added DDO, or Dugeons & Dragons Online to our list of "Associated Games". I haven't played it yet myself. But since it's run by the same fine folk as LOTRO, it's only a matter of time before I start my 1st DDO character...

There are other MMORPG's I'd like to list here as "Associated Games", but I can't, because they're not official Steam Games.

These Include World of Warcraft (WoW), Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR), & Sea of Thieves (SoT).

So, feel free to post here about them too, or any other MMORPG you've played & deem worthy of comment...

Grey mantles denotes individuals with a life policy that tries to exclude premature deaths...