[jnem]

I always feel it's my duty to chime in whenever the subject of original MMORPGS comes up-- anybody remember Meridian 59? Y'know the mmorpg that came out BEFORE Ultima online?

A great many people love UO because it's organic feeling community (and I'm one of em ), but nothing tops the experience of interacting with people in an online game for the first time. Checkout an article I wrote about it awhile back: http://mmocadet.com/being-a-rookie-for-the-100th-time/

[Macsenour]

I played that... what I loved about it was that we all looked alike. Cracked me up! I think maybe we could have different colored clothes, but the faces were identical. It might just have been that there were few face options.

[jnem]

I loved how negotiable everything was, how organic the relationships were. For example, in the case of dealing with PKers. You could go out and band together to just outright kill the PK--which was dangerous because if you accidentally hit someone else, you would then turn yellow(neutral) and then red (pk) if you hit them to many times. Alternatively, you could gather a posse, corner a PK and "arrest" them (an informal arrangement). You would negotiate the arrest, and escort that person back to the jail. The PKs friends would then organize a rescue attempt on the way, often resulting in a pitched battle on the jailhouse steps. Good times.