izigame.me

A smaller more intimate "M"MO
Is there a point in leaving a review for a 5 year old MMO? I suppose there is, and figured I'd throw out a few observations based on a couple of assumptions.

This isn't your first rodeo (i.e. your first MMO for non-English speakers)
The age demographic for Fallout76 is a bit more older than some of the other games.

I'm an old-skool EQ1 MMO player with well over a year in /played time (in-game), and have been through a number of MMOs since then. I've struggled to define what is the hook that keeps me coming back. Let's face it, all MMOs are treadmills that get steeper as you get closer to the end. For me personally, I find that MMOs solely defined by the story or gear drops don't have the longevity for me.
What makes an MMO fun to you? Is it getting the rarest gear so your gearscore/e-peen is higher than the scrubs? Is it ganking newbs and teabagging them? Is it competitive PVE raiding and doing world firsts? Is it competitive PVP raiding and wiping out some guilds base that took them weeks to build and stealing their resources?
For me personally I'm after something that lets me keep investing in my character, and getting incrementally stronger even after the content is "complete". For EQ1 that was their Alternate Advancement (AA) system. In Fallout76 it's their legendary perk system. There were a number of great MMOs that I just quit playing without ever finishing the story or seeing the final zones because I hit max level and character development just stopped. Looking at you Rift, SWToR.
Don't get me wrong. I was an endgame PVE raider in EQ1, back in the Planes of Power days where we need a 70 man raid to do the Plane of Time. Life has changed since then. I don't have the inclination or time to be able to devote to something like that any longer.
Fallout76 is a much smaller-scale MMO, with a max of 24 players per nameless "server" and currently having the most (arguably) difficult encounter capped at 8 people.
I joined after the wastelanders and steel dawn expansions, so I never had to experience the complete wasteland that was the initial launch.
Some things to throw out for people who are coming from other MMOs:

Fallout76 was apparently designed to be single character. You create a character and name them, but no one ever sees their name. Ever. You can make alts, but it's a bit pointless except for twinking/muling. No one will know if you're playing your Alt or your Main other than via the level of the character. There are no classes, instead your abilities are defined by your perk card loadouts. Also the initial username if you're on steam is a alphanumeric of your steam ID. You need to go login on bethesda.net to make it something more human readable.
There is no text chat, and voice chat is fairly rare. I think that was intentional to limit griefing and harassment. Communication is mostly done through emotes off a wheel dialog. It's not great but it works.
The game suffers a bit from console-itis, even though there is no cross play. The UI was clearly designed to be console friendly and on PC it suffers a bit from that, but you can mod it and make things a bit easier.

You have to set some goals and decide what the endgame for you will be in Fallout76. You can likely do most of the "raids" fairly early on with whatever group of filthy casuals that shows up to help. Endgame is likely you versus the RNG on getting the perfect weapon/armor combination for your build that will make you maybe 5-10% better than a weaker version.
Fallout76 loves it's RNG. There are a number of weapons, items and clothing that have minuscule drop rates. As in 1/10th of a percent or less. You can engage in as much or as little of that as you choose. For me I enjoy it but I don't obsess about it.
Fallout76 is a live service game, and they're designed around FOMO. They want to keep you coming back daily. There are daily rewards, limited time seasonal events in addition to the live service season series.
I am a Fallout 1st subscriber and I believe it's mandatory for full enjoyment of the game. It gives you access to additional capabilities like increased resource and ammo storage that F2P don't have, although I believe those can be permanently unlocked via a 1-month sub/trial. You can also create private servers so you can twink/mule somewhat safely as long as you're an active subscriber. The servers live for 10 minutes or so after you swap characters/logout so as long as your internet doesn't drop mid-transfer you should be fine.
I've been playing about a year and a half and I'm still enjoying it. There's a great amount of Youtube content creators with fantastic content out there, and one of the best suggestions that I've taken to heart is that you need to change up your playstyle every once in a while so it doesn't get stale. I played over a year as a full health build, and now I'm exploring what Fallout76 calls a "bloody" build, the stereotypical glass cannon high damage low health class/build from other games.
I'm having a great time with the game, but ultimately it's about deciding what you enjoy on the treadmill grind. For me Fallout76 hits the sweet spot, and hopefully this gave you some clarity if you took this long to read it.
See you if in the wasteland!