Once upon a time I invested a shitton of time and effort in a MMORPG that is now dead. The friends I made were more important than the ingame treats and it was really harsh to have it all switched off one day. Some of us exchanged emails etc before the shutdown but the community was forever scattered.

I will never forget that lesson. It was like somebody came and deleted every chessboard in existence and we were all left with our chess pieces and nowhere to place them.