This is the best MMO you have never played.

Project Gorgon is an indie MMORPG with a one-time-pay monetization scheme which essentially is run off of a number of donation packages and a subscription service that exists primarily to let players keep the game alive after making their initial purpose.

The writing of the game is stellar, often incredibly humorous, and pulling off the old "sarcastic internet tone" without being particularly cringeworthy. And also often very serious, involving covering a variety of philosophical and practical ideas from a number of different perspectives and tones. Throughout the game, despite this, it manages to maintain a consistent and reasonably compelling set of narratives over the course of the story.

As for the gameplay, it harkens back to the Golden Age of MMOs, Using 3 total ability bars with 6 slots (a more modest number of total skills in combat, but much needed to retain sanity) Two of these bars are dedicated to one combat skill each, which you can mix & match among 29 different ones, with far more individual skills than can fit on the bar. Along with a Sidebar for various individual skills to be used in & out of combat or used as Item shortcuts. Targeting can be done with mouse and/or hotkeys, and there are a number of UI elements that can make supporting much easier. There are a lot of interesting design and gameplay spaces here, and the crafting system engages with every aspect of the gameplay, including being important to being as successful as possible in combat as possible along with getting the most out of whatever you are doing as possible.

The game itself creates a lot of situational comedy, such as the cow polymorph being the "best" tanking combat skill in the game, and the fact that you can milk players in this form. Or using psychology to force a nonsapient bear to tell you about its mother as a 4 second mesmerise effect. The list can and will go on, but I will leave that all for you to experience.

The Graphics are not amazing, even at the highest settings, and the optimization at those levels leaves a lot to be desired, however; This is a 2-person development team. Optimization is not necessarily easy to do while trying to hold to a content release schedule with any degree of promptness. Which, somehow, even with one of the devs fighting through cancer, they have released an entire new dungeon as of this last week. There's nothing that the VIP package gives that you need to get enjoyment out of the game, and only one single piece of content is inaccessible without it. That piece of content being an offline advancement system that also can't be used at the same time as the normal offline advancement system other players have, and isn't even nessecarily better, as you cannot gain favor or get other rewards with it.