Ultima Online has been running since 1997. In many ways, this comparison is an indictment of real-life (Mckenzie Wark argues as such in her seminal book Gamer Theory.) But progression in these games can be a source of confidence to those who cannot find it in the real world. “If you’re in a world that feels chaotic, where you’ve lost your sense of place, where you’re never quite sure what the government is going to tell you the following day, sometimes it’s nice to go to a place where there is a bit more structure, where, if you want to get to level 55, you need 100 more experience points.” “There comes a point where you're not playing a character anymore – your avatar on the screen is a projection of yourself,” says Mark Ogilvie, design director of Jagex, the developer of RuneScape. Most people only stay in a job for four and a half years these games have been a constant in some player’s lives for more than a decade. Where modern life – particularly at present – can be unjust, chaotic and precarious, online worlds are reassuringly stable. The Realm is one of the oldest MMOs still online, running since 1996, but according to Atlas Obscura, no one knows who hosts its servers. World of Warcraft, the most famous MMORPG, is still running 17 years after release. The first commercial MMORPG was Island Of Kesami, released in 1985 – it featured a chat room, servers of up to 100 players and graphics that resembled the interface one might launch nukes from in the eighties. Though video games are still in their adolescence, some games have been going decades, and some players have been there from the start. “ was like discovering a cozy little world that had been flourishing without me, hidden within the walls of my house an entire cast of characters welcomed me to the troupe with great merriment as soon as I found the secret door.” “The idea of a community accessible only via my computer screen sounded cold to me at first,” Rheingold wrote.
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