[johnzim]

Ah yes, I had forgotten about that stuff. A bunch of it was before my time and I only knew about it from other players' stories. Thank you for posting it!

Even with so much of that removed, UO always had the feeling of a living breathing world more than almost any other game.

[jghn]

I've heard stories that the Star Wars MMO captured a lot of the same aspects, at least the positive ones. Not surprising considering Koster's influence on both.

I never played it however, I was too hung up on the notion that anything short of a full on sandbox which allowed all the behaviors people were fleeing would be good enough for me. Took me a while to realize that the only people showing any interest in the types of games I was looking for were the people I hated.

[tialaramex]

Too late now but you might have enjoyed A Tale In The Desert, a very niche MMO where social dynamics were key. As an extreme example, the players could hold an election for Demi-Pharoah and the winner was entitled to ban one player from the game. Not a character, the player. Campaigns might claim they would just never use this power. On the other hand if someone is a total asshole (e.g. building penis shaped art in your farm and deliberately distracting people from group efforts like moving bits of pyramid) maybe a DP campaign could just promise to ban them.