I've been researching F2P MMOs recently to see if there's anything that doesn't suck. And someone pointed me to TCoS. I DLed it and was amazed at how fun and how polished it is. The only problem is that there aren't too many players due to a lack of marketing.

The combat is engaging and the design doesn't lose out to many P2P MMOs (because it WAS a P2P game). So give it a try, and drop me a message if you're in the game. My character nick is
Mlad, hope to see people give this deserving game a chance!

Here's the official site:
http://spellborn.acclaim.com

I had tried this game about 3 months ago...Had abandoned it in a day after played it. The reason is simply, messy quest info and poor response by mobs and the characters when being hit...
However, the background looks wonderful, characters look nice too.

Hey Chris, the learning curve is very high for this game, you'll have to stick with it for a while before it clicks. I agree with the quest info point though, the map kinda sucks and doesn't point you to your location. There's a DB site for that if you need it though: http://spellborndb.net. Hope you'll give it another chance!