Planet Explorers vs Salem
Planet Explorers
Planet Explorers is an exploration-driven, sci-fi-themed sandbox RPG where you play as one of the several pioneers who made it to the new planet, Maria… well, barely since you crashed landed on the planet. Here, you’ll need to work with your fellow pioneers to build a life and a colony for yourselves.This game is nothing short of amazing for a completely free-to-play title. Its crafting system is incredibly convenient for the player and despite the grind, gathering resources from the environment can be quite a relaxing endeavor, all thanks to the beautiful music and the immersive ambiance. Besides crafting and gathering materials like wood, rubber, and minerals, you can also hunt the local fauna for animal-based items like meat and animal fat which are needed to craft certain items. You can even tame these creatures and turn them into mounts!
Planet Explorers also comes with a rather nice storyline, an MMO-like questing system, sandbox features which allow you to build magnificent structures similar, in some ways, to Minecraft; and even build your own custom vehicles from scratch and take it out for a spin by driving around the massive map in this game.
Although the game seems to fall short of its potential of being a pretty darn great MMO game because the developers done messed up the codes, Planet Explorers still manages to offer a rather decent single-player experience. Plus, the game's completely free to play now and it doesn't contain any of those annoying ads or micro-transactions since the game was not built that way. Definitely worth a try!
Salem
Salem is an old-school and somewhat obscure (but fun) sandbox MMORPG that unlike Wurm Online has a stronger emphasis on its in-depth crafting system and survival aspect rather than building.Similar to Wurm Online though, Salem is not a voxel-based game, but you are still able to mold the game environment through resource gathering, mining and digging in a way that reminds me of the currently-shelved MMORPG, EverQuest Next: Landmark. Of course, although not exactly the focus of the game, you can still build your homestead and the process is quite similar to Wurm Online except that it occurs at a much higher speed.
Not to mention, the game world in Salem is simply humongous to the point where it feels like an actual world. Salem also borrowed some features from ArcheAge where open-world PvP is the norm, so you'll need to be vigilant at all times, but players who kill and steal for no reason will be labelled as criminals and can be punished.
However, as good as it is despite being an indie MMO and all, Salem does have its fair share of flaws due to its low development budget. So, we'd recommend you to take a look at Salem without carrying along any high expectations. It's a pretty good MMORPG like Minecraft, but if you're expecting a Minecraft clone, you may end up disappointing yourself.