I play World of Warcraft.

This week saw the release of Patch 2.4, which progressed the Burning Crusade narrative to its conclusion with the opening of the Isle of Quel'Danus (Sunwell Isle) and the final move of Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider in his quest to save his people--the Blood Elves--from ruin.

This patch introduced a new faction--the Shattered Sun Offensive--and a lot of new, repeatable (on a daily basis) quests that players need to complete in order for the SSO to successfully assault and conquer Sunwell Isle from Kael and his allies.  Every player, Horde and Alliance alike, that can contribute to the effort (i.e. every character capable of completing the quests, so all PCs of levels 68+, preferably 70th level) will see the progress of the offensive as it happens.  Once complete, all but a handful of locations will be pacified and reduced to mop-op operations.  In addition, there is a small-group dungeon instance (Magister's Terrace) and a raid-group dungeon (Sunwell Plateau) for players to explore and hostile leaders therein to terminate for the good of all concerned.

For a lot of gamers, events like this are what keeps them playing.  Partaking in a current, ongoing struggle as part of something bigger than themselves is exciting and wonderful to behold; being able to say, after it's over, that you were there and made it happen--along with hundreds or thousands of others--is a reward above and beyond whatever loot and gear garnered from those deeds.  This is something that tabletop RPGs don't provide for them, and I can see why they say that; it's one thing to say that there are other agents or actors out there doing other things of importance, but it's something else to see it first-hand and be in the thick of things with those other groups.  In ways that many tabletop RPG publishers don't acknowledge, games like WOW are what common RPG players want out of that category of game; beyond a superior level of convenience, MMORPGs offer the immersion and participation in a larger world that is (apparently) all too often absent in tabletop games.  (I think that this absence is a player problem, really, brought on by both the tighter schedules of gamers--when time is tight, fluff gets dumped and play focuses on the game's area of emphasis--as well as the habit to ignore all that isn't brought to the attention of players by GMs.)

It's not a solution; events like these tend to be short-lived and previously are half-assed efforts that fail to live up to their potential due to boss meddling or logistical shortages, but this one is a better effort than previous ones and is a closer approximation of what an MMORPG could be were it a living world.  Tabletop RPGs will have problems competiting with MMORPGs for players if the gaming culture doesn't make a persistant, concious effort to display and exploit its own ability to achieve this effect without half of the hassles that come with it for MMORPGs; the tolerance for a slower, but more vivid, pace of play must again become the norm.