best online game, any suggestions? thanks.... both free and not

Is Path of Exile still going?

I mean, I know it is, but is it still worth playing; does it have an active community?

there is no "best online game" since everyone have different taste

Starcraft II is great, the whole competive aspect of the game is totally free. Just click on the "PLAY FREE NOW" button in the corner. https://starcraft2.com/en-us/game

New Player's Guide to Starcraft 2 (Beginner Multiplayer/Choosing Race)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLR_DRS8LLU

Still extremely active. A new 3 month league is starting early March, so that's a great time to get back into it (or try it for the first time).

Non-competitive = Stardew Valley

Competitive = Battlefront 2 Classic

I suggest Stendhal RPG. It looks like a nearly two decade old Java game because it is.

Best online game for me - Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Overwatch is pretty good.

Last I played was Elder Scrolls Online. It's pretty good, and very soloable for an mmo.

Hearthstone was a lot of fun as well. But might be expensive to get into nowadays after all the expansions.

Team Fortress 2 I'd guess is still as ridiculously fun as ever.

Another shoutout for Path of Exile.

i agree, but i assume there is a consenses about what are considered the really good online games...

World of Warcraft isn't too bad. It's under a lot of fire right now, but it's still pretty fun.

Of course, it does require a subscription.

Starmade.

Hearthstone suuuuuuuucks. It sucks worse than my high school poetry. It sucks worse than playing D&D with drunk people... ok no, I take it back, nothing sucks worse than that. But still, it blows. If anyone really wants to play an online CCG, I recommend Magic the Gathering Arena. I mean, Hearthstone is basically just a dumbed down Magic with way crappier artwork and annoying random chance elements. And Arena is... well, simply MtG, which still means about as good as it gets wit CCGs.

And yeah, I also recommend Path of Exile. To be perfectly honest it's been a long time since I played it so I've no idea if it changed a lot, but back then it was a ton of fun, and best of all it didn't feel like an online game at all (though that may well mean that it's not what the OP wants).

If you are looking for the best online game, you need to try League of Legends, this is the best MOBA RPG game in the whole world, and it will be a perfect solution for spending some time after work with your friends. This is what I am telling this to all my friends when they are asking me about online games. Most of them are playing Dota and this is pissing me off, so I am trying to demonstrate them that League of Legends is better. One of them wanted to try League of Legends but as far as I know he did not want to play with bots as he wanted to take a look at the game dynamic and how the tactics is working. I was really interested in that so that's why I bought him a 30 level League of Legends account from a well known site lolfinity.com to be sure that me and my friend won't face any issue like bans or unexpected reports. More than that, I thought it would be really nice to have all the champions, so my friend would be able to choose from a bigger variety of champs to play. To cut it short, now my friend is playing League of Legends, and he is not loving Dota anymore