For a weird reason i can't start any threads so i'll use this since i'm looking for something similar. So nostalgia kicked me in the face real hard and my gaming laptop is broken at the moment so i'm stuck with a macbook pro and i'm looking for some 8 bit - 16 bit mmorpg with little to no paywall or grind as OP said. I wanted to get NEStalgia and Kingdom of Loot but they both are for Windows only, i'm stuck playing with emulators FFTA, FFVI and such, i'm looking for something like Ecol Tactics (shutdown) or Final Fantasy Tactics A2, or just something around those lines that is an MMORPG and that i can play on MAC OS X, if anyone has any suggestions let me know.
Regarding OP you can try Dofus Touch or Wakfu, those are the games i always recommend since they are the only MMORPG's i see myself coming back to on and off throughout the years.
