Some of these groups have dozens or hundreds of people on them, no way I’ll get even a fraction of them to. I don’t have the time or desire to start a new community from scratch.

As much as I hate it, people join Discord because that’s where all the communities are and they stay because all their other communities are there.

A lot of communities only exist on Discord. And no, you can’t just find alternatives if they’re locally based or similar.

Apparently there are quite a few art majors who turn their “useless” art degree into a living by making hentai, especially furry stuff.

OP already mentioned the .hack games, but someone else may be interested.

Most of these don’t fit “offline MMO” super closely, but are games I’ve played that share various aspects that I enjoyed in MMOs:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Minecraft with mods

Hytale

Various Bethesda games with mods

Sword Art Online games

V Rising

Big screen. Watching something on my phone in bed is not comfortable in the slightest. If I want comfort, I’ll go sit on my reclining sofa and cuddle with my pup.

I typically don’t do early access games either, but added to the watch list.

Check out the Youtube channel Let’s Game It Out. Josh is very creative in finding ways to torment the NPCs of various simulator and tycoon games.