My next notable foray into the MMO style of game was with one that was a far cry away from anything else I had experienced thus far. Through Asheron's Call and Everquest, my fantasy tastes had been well satisfied (or so I had thought), but NCSoft's City of Heroes reminded me that there was more to my interests than just dwarves, dragons and magic.
It's sleek, blue, near-future design was very appealing. The HUD and menus all made me feel like I was moving through the pages of a Marvel comic book. The characters around me were as varied as those in the comic universe; there were spandex-clad classic superheroes, like my own Ironfist, but there were also cybernetic soldiers, or clunky clockwork robots, or undead heroes, or celestial-born mental masters, or spirits and ghosts and demi-gods and aliens and mutants. Every team I joined had a vastly different composition, and I learned through this game that MMO's meant more than role-playing.
