Lilybet Skatilar is a level 9 human bard wearing a shimmering rainbow cloak, fur-lined snow boots, a stylish purple scarf, sunstone earrings, baggy blue polka dot pants, a blue ruby ring, a jeweled engagement ring, and various other accessories accumulated in the town of Wehnimer's Landing in 1997. If you checked her out by typing "LOOK LILYBET," you would get a large descriptive paragraph of text--no images, just words that made the world come to life. I played this character in GemStone III, an early online role-playing game, for a precious six-month period when I was a 13-year-old learning how to relate to friends and strangers in my newfound teenage skin. What I didn't know at the time was that GemStone and similar titles from Simutronics Corporation represented a pivotal moment in the history of gaming. Simutronics' GemStone and its sister game DragonRealms helped build a bridge between the primordial single-player text adventure and what we now call MMORPGs, massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

In 2001, the video-game studio Jagex launched Runescape, an online role-playing game. This week, the developers announced that the original version of the game, one that consumed vast quantities of my time as a middle schooler and remained online until now, is shutting down. In 8th grade I desperately wanted to play Everquest, the dominant online role playing game at the time, but I didn't have a credit card, and my parents wouldn't let me use theirs. So I typed in "free online RPG" into a search bar and my brief, fiery affair with Runescape began. I played it in a browser, and it was archaic looking even then compared to Everquest's graphics.

Over the past few years now, World of Warcraft subscribers have been drifting away from the game, canceling their accounts or putting them on hold. The question as to whether there was a game still worth playing, or even content really worth exploring, hung in the air. With the release of the World of Warcraft: Legion expansion ( 50 on Amazon), these questions appear to have been put to rest. From its very outset, Legion means to grab your attention and keep it. The opening cinematic of a combined aerial and naval invasion between the Horde and the Alliance against the Burning Legion creates a feeling of dramatic tension.