There seems to be a certain sense of indiscriminate labeling applied to online character based games and Role Playing Games of yore which, admittedly, share a lot of similarities, but are fundamentally quite different experiences. Granted, a lot of online RPGs derive their inspiration and content directly from pencil and dice based RPGs, but the difference I'm talking about has more to do with the experiencing of gaming, not the game itself. I personally think that it is misleading to label these games as RPGs for the simple reason that by definition, you MUST actually be engaged in Role Playing. Simply selecting a character class then acting like every other jackass who use the veil of anonymity to engage in infantile name calling does not qualify a game as an RPG. As any experienced RPGer knows, playing a character well involves making decisions in the game world from the perspective of the character. To do this well requires the complete engagement of a player's imagination. It is this complete dissociation of the imagination which separates old school RPGs from their digital equivalents. It's as if by explicitly depicting the game world, a player's imagination is stifled. At the very least, imagination is homogenized. Until this disconnect is addressed in current virtual game environments, the experience will always be a pale imitation of what our imagination's can conjure up.