When I was growing up, I played on MUD games, which were text-based massively multiplayer games 100% free to play, with no ads or any other kind of monetization, with full staffs of admins, programmers (!!), level designers, and moderators, all 100% volunteers.
Reading that now, it sounds like I'm describing some kind of crazy sci-fi utopia that couldn't even get published because it's too unbelievable.
Realms Of Despair (http://www.smaug.org/) is still running - last major update 2002, last update at all 2010 :P
`nc realmsofdespair.com 4000`
A CLI interface with no readline support; an MMO where you need to manually save your game to avoid losing progress whenever the network glitches for a second; very nostalgic :D
Ah, that's one of the main MUDs I played. I even built an area there. I did tons of runs there (even participated in successful runs on Hastur and Divine Retribution) until I got balzhur'd for cheating :P (I was just a high school kid back then).
Reading that now, it sounds like I'm describing some kind of crazy sci-fi utopia that couldn't even get published because it's too unbelievable.