Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 made two decisions in 2012 that still set it apart. There is no subscription, and the gear treadmill has a ceiling you can actually reach, ascended gear is attainable and then permanently relevant. What that buys is an MMO you can leave for a year and return to without a catch-up grind, which is a rarer thing than it sounds.

The world itself is built around open events that anyone nearby joins automatically, with no grouping step and no loot competition. That makes the overworld genuinely social in a way most modern MMOs are not. Its expansions added gliding, mounts and skiffs that changed how the older maps are traversed, and the mount design in particular is among the best in the genre.