I would say you have two options: 1) look for a free trial on some of the most played pay-2-play : - World of Warcraft - Lord of the Rings online : mostly PVE - Champions online : superheroes, cartoon style - EVE : spaceship, very praised and complete, lot of freedom - Guild Wars : mostly PVP, no montlhy fee, you just buy the box - Warhammer Age of Reckoning : mostly RVR PVP, but lot of players ran away for problems at startup - Age of Conan : innovative fighting style, but lot of players run away as well - Aion : just got out, all the players I know are quite happy about it, but I think it's not possible to get any free trial since atm. 2) look for free-2-play games. Most of them have micro-transactions but you're not obliged to purchase anything. Real-money spenders have some advantage to non spenders of course, but usually those items can be bought with in-game currency and should not be unbalancing. I agree on Vagrant advice, but only if you try to be *VERY* competitive in the enviornment, not if you just play for fun and aggregation. Anyway: - Aeria Games has some of them: e.g.Shaiya, Last Chaos. I played Shaiya for some time, but it is extremely grinding/farming based at high levels, it bored me too much so I quit. - Runes of Magic : nice, I'm playing it since some weeks, quest based, mostly PVE. - The Chronicles of Spellborn : was a pay-2-play and has been released as free because of no commercial success. I think is a good game, but my PC is quite old and doesn't support it, shame on it. The dev team has been fired, though, so a grey future is expected, unfortunately... - Perfect World : some like it, but grinding based as well. Try having a look at www.mmorpg.com for more info on those I mentioned and more games, it lists everything, both free and pay 2 play.