cesarsuki wrote some interesting views on the evolution of MMORPG genre.  Based on his article, i would like to write some history facts on crpg (computer role playing games).

For those too young to know - For those too old to remember
RPG as a game (and term), first appeared in mid 70's, as a table-top, pen and paper game. This was the first game were there were no winners. You could keep playing forever, never actually beaten the game itself. A handbook with some rules, some sets of dices, pencils and paper and an infinite amount of imagination were the game's needs.
The game was (and still is) based on a story and how players could interact with the story. One player (usually the leader or the most experienced) writtes down a story in his imaginary world. Then the players are called to participate in the events and try to alter them to their own needs and beliefs.

Some terms
GameMaster,Storyteller,DungeonMaster etc: the person who runs the gaming session. responcible for creating the story (or campaing), enforcing some rules and keep the game going. He word is final, no judgement (during gaming session) and as a general rule he/she, tries to keep a neutral attitude towards the gamers and the gaming world.
Player: the person who participates in the story, playing a gaming character to his best of his abilities, giving life to some imaginary hero and trying to survive. A Player has a mind of his own and make his own decisions.
NPC,Wold,Monster, etc: all of of world's inhabitants, played by the Gamemster. In an ideal situation, each one will have a unique personality, memorable by the players
Campaign: the setting the story is taking place. One can have medieval setting, space exporation setting, post-apocalyptic setting, exploration, far-east setting, gothic setting and many more. Most settings are based on some myth or legend or a real historical season, giving a new perspective and many imaginary elements.

First Games - Ancient History
The first memorable game, was the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), first edition, by TSR, with many thousads gamers, during the mid 70's. 4-6 players some dices and an endless medieval setting, made this one a best seller game for nearly a decade.
At the same time, the first computer action rpg came. It's legendary name: Rogue. It was based on unix system, 2D enviroment, no sound other than the beeper of the computer (PC were not even close to be an imaginary idea at those times). Rogue used ascii characters to describe its enviroment. So, during your exploration, if you saw a C on screen it mean an encounter with a Cobolt. Rogue was the first and only one game to offer: infinite dungeons and permadeath. Based on its algorith, each visit to the game was a unique one. Not one dungeon was similar to the next or a previous one. Never. And if your character ened dead, you were forced to start all over again from 1st floor dungeon. If you ever thought of shutting down your computer... permadeath... no saving feature/routine at those times :)
Yet Rogue is the only game (along with pacman and tetris) that is still out there with countless variations. People still playing this game and to my opinion, we will still play it for some decades more.

Evolution? Nah...
We are now in mid 80's. After a decade of rpg, players have started to ask for more. Many rpg games are out there, but D&D is still a best seller. TSR makes a move that will turn the gaming world upside down. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) is published. More details, more classes, more settigns, more monsters, more items, rules to create your own monster, your own items, your own classes, just about anything. Rules, rules, rules rules.
In a few years of existence, AD&D handbooks were sold like crazy. Rules for elves, rules for humans, rules for a particular city, rules for one monster type. You could find rulebook for just about anything.
Major mistake.... you wouldnt need to imagine anything... you just read those books and bam... anything you wished for is there for you to use.

Still in mid 80's, SSI (a gaming company that produced turn based strategy games) made a deal with TSR and publish a series of computer games based on the AD&D campaing world. (reminder for the youner: at that time we have Amigas, Ataris, Amstrad 6128, Commodore 64 and a couple more machines i cant remember now. Max specs were: 512kb ram, no hd, 4096 colors, 4-channel stereo sound).
Back to games. SSI series were a huge sucess. With so may millions of gamers on the AD&D setting, it was only natural.
But... no more teams, no imagination and the lack of programming language/storage space, forced the game to be a hack & slash turn-based one. Talk to npc, get quest, go to dungeon, clear all mobs, get treasure, report success, repeat.
From this time on, player start to compete who had the higher level team or who had found a unique item. For me, this was a critical point. I could play my favorite setting whenever i wanted. I could no longer depend on my team/friends, only to myself. I create teams to my tastes. I play by my rules. I listen to noone. I do whatever i want.
And this attitude is the worst in an rpg. RPGs were made to enforce player's cooperation. Many players, many ideas, many solutions. Sure, there are some players you dont like, but inside the game, you all try to cooperate to achieve some goal of your team.
With computer rpg, you dont have to tolerate anyone. You are alone.
Yet, those games were popular beyond expectations.

During late 80's the first mmorpg games came alive. These were the famous MUD games (Multi-User Dungeon). Text based rpgs, where for each action you must type a set of commands. Yet a great evolution to the gaming industry (simple note: at those times, we measure internet speed in bytes -     we had 4400 bytes modem, 9900 bytes modem, 12k modem, up to late 90's we had 56kn modem. ISDN connections appear at those times and later the DSL/Cable ones).
With such low speed capacity, only text based games could be played via internet. Later MUDs were involded. Some offer some map in-game, others some functions with the F keys, others some animated graphs, These games are your gaming ancestors, MMO fanatics.

Recent History
Welcome to the 90's. As a synopsis we have: PC systems came alive, windows, hard disks, cdrom were terms on our everyday vocabulary. Colors, sound and storage space are in everyday conversations, on how to improve your PC gaming experience.
Games evolved also. Better graphs, sounds, in some cases even better stories. TSR is sold to the Wizard of the Coast (creator of Magic the Gathering card game). Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition is published (and followed by the 3.5 editio). First MMO with graphs appear (if i recall it must be Ultima Online, but i may be wrong here). And a gamer realizes that she is no longer alone. She can re-found her lost team in the face of a gaming avatar, in some multi-player game. Keep dreaming

Lets face it: players are the most greed type of consumers. We always ask for more, in many cases we demand it also. More graphs, more sound, more missions, more dungeons, more avatars, more more more more.
Of course a gaming company has to keep its customers happy. What is the one thing players do not ask? Story. Lets cut it then. What do gamers never ask? Interactivity with the gaming world, the NPCs, the enviroment. Cut them also. What DO players ask? Visual upgrades. Give them that.
What do we have in the end? A nice looking, highly customizable avatar game, with many monsters, dungeons, instances and ..... well thats it.
Get a team to kill a boss, get a team to grrind faster, say hello, pleased to meet you , add a couple of them in friend list, create a guild and you are set.
(I think i have described 95% of mmo gamers just now). This is what majority likes. This is what a company will offer.

We have come to a point where a super duper game is based on how many people are allowed in a guild.
Who cares on storyline? After all, no quests are based on this, and if they do, we can always found the answer in forums.
Who cares if the team's wizard casts a fireball in the forest? Big deal as long as the mob dies. (well casting a fireball in forest can be dangerous for you also.. forest on fire, paniced animals can trumble you, angry elfves or fairies will hunt you down to kill you and mamy more plots a real-life GameMaster could implement on that instance to punish the foolish players). Fireball on dungeon? Boom team dies (well an explotion on an enclosed space behaves like this: fire gets feed on oxygen. Meaning that the flames will move towards the nearest source of air, consuming all oxygene on its path. If players dont die on lack of it, they will die on burns. Who said that mages are easy to play?)
Of course we lack the knowledge to set-up such a game (unless we find a way to implement an A.I.) in the games, this time is still far ahead of us.
But you get my point. Kick some monster's butts, PvP to prove that you are a mean-kill fighting machine and at the end of day... nothing. Tommorow some other player will kick your butt or steal your drop. Repeat to infinity and you have today's mmorpgs.

Sure some bosses need strategy to beat them. Sure PvP is a delicate technique. Sure MMO's are involving as years are passing. But the original feeling of the first rpgs is gone for ever. Today's majority of players are 10-25 years old. Meaning that they were born way after mid 80's. Most of them never experienced the feeling of pen & paer rpgs. Most of them lack the imagination to give birth to a unique avatar in their gaming sessions. If i cant see something, i cant imagine it.
Not their fault. Companies give them anyhting they want. If a gaming community asks for flyihng elephants, the company will give them some. Customers are right and as long as they pay they can have anything they want.

Lets break apart today's mmo needs (as i understand them).
Better graphs: why? so i can show of my new armor and its glow
Better sound: why? i like to hear the scream of my kills
Better maps: why? 2 maps the size of europe are little. I play 15 hours per day and i have explore all maps in beta testing, and i am bored to death
More monsters: why? hey more monsters, better chances for that rare drop
More quests: why? i am tired of grind solo and i like some break and some rewards

the same things 20 years ago:
Better graphs: why? i am perfectly capable to describe my appearance to my teamates
Better sound: why? i am perfectly capable to imagine how a dragon's roar is
Better maps: why? my gamemaster can create all the maps we will need for our campaign
More monsters: why? how many monsters can co-exist in a limited enviroment before they start killing each other apart? Monsters are not mindless. Each has its personality and needs and hunting grounds.
More quests: why? we play on weekends for 4-10 hours, enough time to complete one quest. Between sessions we talk with team, we find our weakness and we try to eliminate them with strategies.

I know that for many younger players its hard to imagine things. And when they do, they get help from some comics, or games or tv series. Back then, we had none of those. Our help were the books in libraries. So we read, and we have learned something.
(yesterday while i was on Perfect World, a player asked us where the name of the guid comes from (the guild name is Excalibur). We reply to her that Excalibur is the name of the legendary sword of Kinf Arthur, given to him by the Lady of the Lake. Her next questions was: "how would you know?". The player had no knowledge on this classic medieval legend, despite the fact that countless movies are out there based on the same legend. This fact made me feel old... way too old.)

So.. as a cocnlusion... try to use some imagination beyond the narrow scopes of each game. Try to create a story on your character/avatar. Or even better, try to read some books about the world you are playing, its ,mythology, its deities etc.
When you do this you will see how stupid the game is (companies tend to ignore those things and just create a game to get your money).
When you do this you will find yourselves asking the companies to implement those things into the game.
And then, perhaps, the companies will start creating some quality games.

We are the sole responcibles on todays gaming industry. Its our fault that the games look alike (beyond graphs, check game mechanics and you will see that each and every one mmorpg is actually the same - kill mobs, gain exp, level char, get better equip, repeat).
We have the power to change this - we only need to ask.
But ask for something you know that it is essencial - do not ask for pink horses just because you find them cute.

PS: i think i will get flaming a lot on this :)