Also there's the fact that many of those games had their server software leaked or emualted and thus private servers existed

RO is the only MMO I've seriously played
I did a super novice build on a server that had better drop rates, still a lonely grind. I actually made an account somewhere and played a few hours earlier this year, lovely aesthetic

I only played RO for the first time bout a year ago and honestly i thought it was really cozy. Alot of the classes are super fun to play and I got addicted to the grind