Face-Time is Important (Score 1)

I've tried several MMORPGs and could sustain my interest no longer than 3 weeks on any of them. In the text-based realm, though, when I combine my time on each MUD, MUX, MOO and MUSH I've played over the years, I've clocked well over a couple of decades.

The generally smaller playerbase of a text-based game provides a number of advantages (when viewed through the lens of my personal tastes): greater attention from GMs, greater opportunity for non-combat roleplay, greater visibility as a player and a stronger sense of common interest among the players. With a smaller base of players, a text game relies more on each individual member of the game, driving up each individual's "screen time" (no pun intended) in the stories and their value to the game, those running it and their fellow players.

When playing M** games I've formed and strengthened what I felt were genuine friendships, both offline and on (some RL friends would join the same games and some fellow players would turn out to be local and become RL friends as well). When playing MMORPGs, I felt lost in an immense crowd. Even when I had friends playing DAoC, it seemed to take impossible acts just to get together to group. For my money, they're too much a pain and leave me too much another face in the oversized crowd.

I get why people enjoy MMORPGs, and that not everyone has the same difficulty trying to navigate the B1ff-screaming tweens to find friends, but the more ascetic environment of your average M** seems to do a lot of that weeding out for me.