I used to play a shard called Novus Opiate. It was the biggest early shard.
After it died I went on to run a couple of servers and teaching myself to code. Alphanine and Sacred.
When I wanted to drop out of school I wanted to do 3d animation to make a game like UO. But realised I have 0 talent in design but I love programming. So ended up doing that. Thankfully I never became a game dev tho. The stories scare me.
Years later I heard that there were good studios which treat you right so I left my job in surgical simulation and finally started as a game developer. That was seven years ago. It's tough at times but I haven't ever regretted it. There are plenty of good employers out there, these days.
I'm also really happy when people ask me what I do for a living and I can link a flashy trailer instead of trying to describe some web backend thing for a service they never heard about.
edit: probably the biggest advantage in game development is the unique atmosphere brought about by the shared deep passion for games throughout the company.
I think the problem now is I would like to build a game similar to UO but unless I did it myself I don't think it will ever happen. Kinda like the plot of Mythic Quest on Apple TV. He starts his own company to make the game of his vision.