When I was a preteen, finding RuneScape felt like discovering magic. However simplistic its visuals or its click-and-wait combat might have been, it was—as it was for so many wide-eyed youths gazing into the web browser of their family computers—my first taste of a world where I could gather alongside strangers in the sacred act of pretending to be cool medieval guys. It was a wonder: an expanse of goblins, barbarians, and armor-trimming scammers that I could wander at my leisure, whether I'd...