Henriquejr spotted this arcticle on PC Gamer:

A brief history of MMO games

 

By creating worlds for thousands to play, MMOs are as impressive as they are audacious. We explore the genre’s best.

When sci-fi ’s first writers imagined virtual realities, they’d never have guessed the ease with which we could access them. With just a few clicks of a mouse, we can step into online worlds filled with adventure. We populate fictional cities, we create digital cultures and we tell stories together while exploring strange new horizons. 

MMOs are defined by their immense scope. They take the basic foundations of roleplaying games and stretch them over massive worlds where countless players coexist together. Whether you’re diving into dungeons, hawking goods in a market or plotting the downfall of a rival guild, MMOs are at their best when they inspire us to be social. Here, I’m going to explore the history of this genre by touching on ten of its greatest examples. These are the games that pioneered online roleplaying, building the template that all others would conform to. Some of these worlds have diminished with time, but their legacy continues to shape the genre.

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