Can you suggest a decent free MMORPG fantasy based PC game?

Try Cabal Online, Pirate Galaxy, Aion (there are private servers so you can play for free, though a bit buggy and a lot of quests and features are not implemented yet, but it does have servers with increased xp rates up to 20x the normal rate, so you will level up quickly, and there is a patch to enable flying everywhere), Project torque (an MMO racing game), Megaten, Air Rivals.

Oh, and Granado Espada.

Being a long time player of the first MMORPG (Ultima Online) I’d like to point out that there are plenty of player-run shards out there. That can be and offer are better than the official server experience. Sure, it’s isometric etc etc, but it’s a beautiful game and one that started it all. Still much more complex and enjoyable gameplay-wise than a lot of recent ones.

A way to find shards: http://www.gamesites200.com/ultimaonline/
Most have directions as to how to download the client, and their files to be able to play on their server.

Personally I enjoyed hardcore RP shards. Where personal story and character development through the world your character resides in is a main focus. They often feature many unique mechanics and ideas about how to do things. I’ve worked on www.etheria.org but it’s now a dead project though open source.
I would recommend: http://requiem.darkenedrealmstudios.com/

Also try this site: http://www.mmorpg.com/ I use it to keep up with this world.

There are private servers for many other games such as WoW etc, worth checking out.

Stay away from World of Warcraft, that’s all I have to say.

Fiesta Online is a very fun game with a wide variety of classes, quests, and monsters. There are even events that the developers run every once in a while. It’s definitely worth a look at.

@phoebusg Zomg massive list of games. Thank you. Hopefully I can find something from there.