I remember visiting SK back in 2005-6, and the only way to get online was to install an IE plugin.
I stopped when my cousin told me it was illegal
Have a lot of fond memories when there was a mini mmorpg bubble in korea
N-age still going strong it seems in 2024 ! So many rare unique korean mmorpg that will never see the light of the day!
Then the cheating got out of hand so they added some anti-cheat software, and shortly after they wanted people to verify their identity by sending a scan of their id/passport. This is when 99% of players left.
I know of one place where there is zero spam and it’s because of the identity vetting infrastructure.
Even source codes were stolen and Chinese mmorpgs would appear with the exact same gameplay but different skins and names.
Wild times.
Eventually was made illegal and what ended up happening was a huge korean social security numbers being traded online in Chinese forums (who had economic incentives to farm, hack, cheat items from korean mmorpgs)