While graphic games seem to have taken over the commercial online multi-player gaming market, free-to-play text-based MUDs and their later incarnations (MUSHes, MUCKs, MOOs, etc) -- collectively referred to as MU*s -- still live on, both for roleplaying and for social chatting. I've been an occasional user of social MU*s since I created a character for the then uber-popular LambdaMOO in June of 1994 -- only a few days after I got my first dial-up Internet provider.