My last hope for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games is Mortal Online; I've lost faith in everything else...

Every game since EverQuest has followed the same basic formula: Levels with caps that constantly rise, PVP that is neither free or risky, PVE that is more grind than game, gear that requires certain stats and levels, skills that players instantly become capable of performing at certain levels, and all the boring fetch and kill quests that have become the staple vehicle for moving players through a cardboard plot that boasts YOU to be the hero of the game... Alongside millions of other heroes equally important and heroic and, oddly enough, on all the same quests as you.

I'm sure most of you are quite afraid of having your game any other way, but I've come from a different era in gaming than you have--not all of you, thankfully, but most of you. Let me take you back to where it all began for me...

I remember my first MMO; Ultima Online. Back then, Ultima Online was absolutely stunning.

I knew of Meridian 59 before it but didn't try it until afterwards, but it just didn't compare. Ultima Online was a game where you could do anything you wanted, and that included killing the guy who just said "Hi!" Of course, the love didn't stop there; in Ultima Online you were able to take every single possession your unfortunate prey had on him, or her. It was the risk that made adventuring so much more fun and interesting--murderers at every major highway and dungeon, and warriors of the Order willing to risk life and limb to keep the reds from running rampant--and the community itself kept the law and order and chaos all in a lovely balance. That was my oldschool Ultima Online, and then came the split... Felucca, the lawless plane, and Trammel, the carebear base of operations; the PVP world became devoid of life and the purely-PVE Trammel was brimming with players seeking safety. Ultima Online just wasn't the same from then on.

From there it was EverQuest, then Dark Age of Camelot, then Asherons Call, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Neocron, World of Warcraft, GuildWars, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies, and so on. There's also all the free-2-play titles that don't make the headlines. They're all the same in my eyes--different settings, stories, art designs, and slight variation in game mechanics but far from what I regard as the best MMORPG formula ever; Ultima Online's first couple of years.