I feel like Outer Worlds becomes a lot more enjoyable after a mindset shift from “this should be a Fallout clone” to “this is like an FPS version of KotOR.” Avowed might turn out the same way since there is already so much expectation that it’ll play as a Skyrim 2.0
Obsidian didn’t make Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, that was Bioware. Obsidian only made its sequel.
My budget was 20 bucks and I got Cleo - a pirates tale, Vendetta - Curse of the Ravens Cry, Horizon’s Gate, Sea Dogs, Sea Dogs: City of Abandoned Ships and Sea Dogs: Caribbean Tales. Went over my budget a bit to get the pack of Rusty Lake games as a Christmas present for my brother.
So far out of the bunch I’ve only played Horizon’s Gate and by itself is worth more than what I spent on all the games collectively.
I seem to remember (unmodded) Morrowind having a small section of vampire quests between different factions of clans. I think Daggerfall as well.
The two ‘Cattails’ games come to mind, singleplayer sort of ‘warriors cats’ type town-sim rpgs. I havn’t played the second but the first reminded me of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing but themed around feral cat clan wars.
The ‘Shelter’ series also comes to mind, specifically ‘Meadow’ is online, the others are singleplayer.
More loosely theres a bunch of online dinosaur simulator games like ‘The Isle,’ though I think they only let you play as dinosaurs and not other animals.
As far as games specifically like Animal Jam I’d recommend keeping an eye on ‘Frog Paradise.’ It’s an upcoming Club Penguin clone that looks promising.