People were still playing MUDs long after EverQuest was huge.

There is an interesting thing.
The original Legend of Zelda took a lot of effort to craft and make work on such a (small, slow, GPUpitaful) system.
But now, there game development systems to make your own Map centric, top down 2D world MMO.
(and also side sliders)

Now there is a lot of 3D models that are just lying around to be used.
And several 3D world engines.

So, it will not be long before building 3D mmos is a common-place one man show.

But what is the magic ingredient to get a new MMO off the ground?
That is a real question. And the answer may actually be magic.

Now, what are your thoughts on:
poor kid: lots of time to game, no money to spend on in game stuff.
rich dude: very little time to game, lots of money to spend.

The average working dude, sees a game. Hey i can fly around space and shoot things.
But if he has to work for hours to get a space ship, well, he would rather pay to get there.

BUT, the kid who spent hours building up his space ship feels cheated.

These two types of players want a different experience.
It is hard to reconcile this.
Except, make the game hella fun to play even as a newb.