I actually still play a couple of PC games that are older than this: Descent, 20 years old (source port setup instructions at http://descentchampions.org/new_p

I actually still play a couple of PC games that are older than this: Descent, 20 years old (source port setup instructions at http://descentchampions.org/new_player.php http://descentchampions.org/new_player.php ; 20th anniversary LAN party, July 16-19 in Denver, at http://descentchampions.org/20th/ http://descentchampions.org/20th/), and DooMII, 21 years old (source port at https://zandronum.com/ https://zandronum.com/ ). What keeps me coming back to these old games? They strike a balance between simplicity and complexity that leads to more interesting emergent gameplay than I've been able to find in newer games. DooMII single player has just enough balance between puzzle elements and raw combat, and with the majority of enemies firing non-instantaneous projectiles, dodging and weaving between waves of incoming shots becomes something of an art form. Competitive Descent is all about using the space, outthinking your opponent, using small elements of position and orientation in order to force engagements on your term. A high-level match is like a combination between chess and poker, all inside of an FPS (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb63KIotMMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb63KIotMMM ). There are some other factors that helped, which both games have in common and some of which UO also has. They had fantastic player communities and player-run organizations. Both were open sourced a few years after release, allowing the communities to maintain and update the games -- keeping the fundamentals the same while building modern capabilities (like game trackers) around them. Both had relatively easy-to-use content creation tools; making new levels for DooMII or Descent didn't require a high-end PC or a 3D modeling suite, but simply downloading the level editor. And the game makes no particular demands of you -- you can play it on a wide variety of difficulty levels, against computer-controlled enemies or with or against other human players, in new levels or old, for a few minutes or for hours. And for those who played with other people, it was possible to develop deep friendships -- I actually met my wife in Descent, and we named our son for another player.