World of Warcraft or as MikeIT calls it "World of Warcrack"
After nearly 5 hours of downloading and clicking on user agreements and more downloading of patches. I was finally able to log in to my 14 day trial account of World of Warcraft. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com
The graphics are incredible. Granted it's been a long time since I've played a computer game. Technology has advanced a lot in the last 5 years. When WoW first came out I stayed away from it. I've been told it is very addictive for gamers. Heck even non-gamers. I watched a Tyra banks episode that had a girl threaten to leave her boyfriend if he didn't stop.
I've visted websites like www.gamewidow.com
I also know that ANYTHING can be addictive not just games. So I take it with a grain of salt. My personality is inclined to games so I also know I need to set boundaries for myself with a game that could potentially eat up hours of my time.
That being said I decided the 14 day trial would be enough to gauge if I can handle a true WoW account or not. Plus it only cost me $1.99 and half a day of downloading time. 
I decided that I wanted to play Horde because a lot of people I know say that the 14 year olds are all playing Alliance. Plus the Horde have these really cool characters called Tauren's. They look like part man part Bovine and I was intrigued by their tribal culture. So I created a Tauren Hunter.
So far I haven't interacted with anyone in the game other than NPC's. There are so many things to figure out still. I managed to complete two quests and I'm at level 2 already.
I don't know how to do anything more than run around, shoot a gun and attack with my axe. I've got a bunch of "loot" in my inventory that I don't know how to use.
It would be really cool if I had a friend to sit by me and tutor me through the first couple things. MikeIT was very helpful because he knew some of the lingo and was teaching me things like "the spooky music just started so that might mean you are in a dangerous area..."
Anyhow I enjoyed my first romp in Warcraft land and I know I'll have even more fun once I get the hang of things.
online gaming
The only online multi-player gaming I have done is mudding and pogo.com. I own Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Siege but I've never been interested in playing multiplayer online. I bought City of Heroes and haven't tried it yet. I'm bothered by the idea of paying for the game and then paying a monthly fee to play said game.
I started playing morpg on
I started playing morpg on aol when they first had a few one called magestorm and another called splatterball they were pretty fun and I've since played 10 days worth of warcraft since it was a free trial but never paid them after that to keep the account. and MUD's? Last i heard of those i had to telnet into the server and I could just never understand how people liked those I would honestly rather watch paint dry then play one of those and have to read a question and select a response. Anyway WOW is fun but i dont want to pay what they charge to play so I settle for playing online backgammon and occasionally some pool online.
So far, they aren't a lot different
I've played Evercrack, City of Crack, and Anarchy On-Crack, but I haven't played World of Warcrack or others like Dark Age of Crack or Star Wars: Crack. Apart from the appearance and the mechanics, they are not a lot different. The constant grind of working for XP to reach the next level or get the latest piece of equipment is addictive in many ways.
So why play them?
I think the real joy for me comes from interacting with other players and a bit from the theme. The difficult part is that there are a lot of kids on many of these as well as adults that act like kids. There are lessons to be learned along the way, so I'll be really interested to see what you take away from the experience.