Have you looked into trying Mabinogi? This is another MMORPG that is published by Nexon but it is still heavily rooted in the design of when it launched back in 2003, before WoW. The game is heavy on the social elements too.
You might be wondering why suggest such an old game? Well, a few weeks ago they announced that they’re working on porting the game to Unreal Engine such that they can future proof it and continue development all of these years later. Not sure if there is a Fediverse board/magazine/community for the game yet but there is an official Discord as well.
Probably the impetus for the mass exodus at my old job was the “We’ll Miss You” Zoom call we had for a beloved senior developer. The company had recently added a new manager role that hadnt existed before and things were fine. The new guy started micromanaging like crazy. The SD who was leaving basically went off during the call about how the company didn’t need NG’s role and how it was burning people out.
I stuck around for another year-ish, and NG managed to make a group of about 20 developers dwindle to 5-ish. Saw the writing on the wall after getting shafted, changed jobs and am now making double that salary along with far less stress.
Its basically the intro to the original Half-Life game. If you haven’t I’d highly suggest playing the original or getting Black Mesa which is a remake of the original by a third-party company but with Valve’s blessing to do so.
I’d say to jump right into the 124v124. At that level, one player is not going to change the tide too much. (Its more akin to the battles in Planetside 2 than your standard Battlefield due to the sheer scope.)
@messem10
@lemmy.world