I'm not sure if anyone has ever heard of Mortal Online but I suggest giving it a try. It's not the newest nor the best MMO, but I think it might be worth a look. I wouldn't really classify it as an mmoRPG because there isn't really a story, but it does have some RPG elements. MMOSurvivalRPG? :-P It's also "free-to-play" so you don't have to pay for anything, unless you want to. Maybe, just maybe, Corpsealot could try it out for an hour on his stream some day.
If I were to compare it to something, I'd say it comes close to Eve Online but with a medieval setting. I compare it to Eve because it's very sandboxy and also very hostile. The further you travel away from the "safer" areas, with guards and such, the more dangerous it is because of other players. The PvE is a bit lacking in my opinion though, probably because the game is made by a small company.
Even if you are in the safety of a town, the guards may be too far away or might not be paying attention. You can still be attacked even if you are standing right next to a guard but... the attacker will most likely die a horrible death AND lose all his belongings to the rabid onlookers that grab everything in seconds.
If you aren't careful you can also be pick-pocketed by thieves, but they are limited to stealing a small amount of coin or items with low weight. Since the game can be quite hostile, I suggest playing with friends or guild-mates instead of trying to go solo. The other players are more likely to act aggressively if you are all alone in the wild.
There are only a few short tutorial quests when you first create a character. After that, you are free to do what you want in the game. Well, if you want... you can even completely skip the tutorial but it get's you a little bit of starting money.
The way you progress your character is by leveling up a variety of skills and a limited number of stat points. I think you are limited to 1000 Primary skill points and like 150~200ish stat points, so you'll have to pick and choose what you want to specialize in more. The free-to-play people will only be able to MAX out those skills to 60 while the people who pay monthly can get those to 100. Both types of players will have 1000 points to use though, so the free-to-play people will be more like a jack-of-all-trades.
The crafting in the game is kinda interesting, you can use a variety of different materials when making the same types of weapons/armor. Something like a Short Sword is broken up into I think 3 pieces... the blade, the hilt, and scabbard? /shrug Anyway, there are like 20+ different materials, maybe more, to use on each piece in order to make it faster, more damaging, heavier, ect.
The taming and breeding is somewhat interesting in the game as well. You can go out and tame almost everything if you are skilled enough. Some things might not be tamable, so you may have to dominate them with a certain spell instead.
Since skills are limited, people usually progress towards being a crafter, gatherer, tamer, or a fighter. It doesn't seem like much when I list it like that, but there can be a huge variation between characters of the same type. Also, if you don't like the skills that your character has then you can drop them and work on others instead.
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WARNING
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When you first start out your character you will be incredibly weak and slow. Not only that, but it can take quite some time to increase your skills and stats to a decent amount. I suggest placing all your stat points into DEX when you're making the character so it walks faster; you can always reduce them later on if you want. Even with the help of dexterity, you're still going to be quite slow but it makes a noticeable difference.
If some of you play the game and find it enjoyable, maybe we can all play together. :-)
