What got you interested in MMO's?

[Kaurie]

As the title says, what got you interested in MMO's - and what was your first MMO?

For me, the main things are:

-having a character that I can develop and have the choices I make last with me for a long time (rather than in a single player game where I make a choice and 5 hours later I'm done the game)

-the social atmosphere and running in to people, playing with different people

-exploring new and gorgeous scenery and dungeons

EDIT: I completely forgot to answer the 2nd half of my own question lol. I would argue it is an MMO and would say Guild Wars 1, but if you don't count GW1 then WoW was my first MMO.