>>369922813
You know that feeling you sometimes get in VRC that the person you're speaking to/you have no common ground and no way to connect and are just making small talk or can't even break the ice because you share no common ground whatsoever to relate to one another? 
MMOs and MUDs were the solution to this problem for cloistered nerds. Of course you have something to talk about there, you're playing a game filled with common ground that both players would understand. This is how RO and Maplestory raid groups grew out of nothing so quickly and organically back in their popular days: It's easy to slip into a group if you have a way to relate to them and a way to talk about something everyone would understand, in this case, the game they were playing. The game itself was really just filler and for the most part wasn't the most interesting part of the game when you had interesting people to talk with.