Rift, its a Triple A MMO that is f2p, VERY user friendly and with the souls and roles, just one character can have a huge variety of playstyles, eg a Cleric can be a chainmail wearing mace weilding baddass, or a chainmail wearing nuker or a chainmal wearing healer!

It really is F2P too, no gimmicks, all content is available for f2p, there may be a restriction on the auction hall, but thats mainly to stop gold farmers.

So... You made a decision yet ?

Note that most of this isn't free. Most races and classes need to be bought, and mercenaries are available only if you buy the Age of Discovery expansion. There are quite a few limitations to F2P, but if you upgrade from Bronze (free) to Silver, which costs $5 (or less, I'll explain in a moment), the game is quite playable, even if still limited. It's possible to play Bronze, and it's a good way to check out the game, but buying Silver is definitely worth it to get more bag slots, more character slots and fewer restrictions.

EQ2 is the game I played most after (the unfortunately dead) City of Heroes, and unfortunately I never got far into it. It's pretty easy these days to play it solo (it's a lot easier than it was in 2005-6 which was the first time I played it) and the early levels are generally fun, but I find that after level 20 it's not that easy to find story content, and you fall on a lot of "I'm too lazy or afraid to do this myself, so do it for me" type of quests. Not that it's impossible, but it requires some work, and it's a turn-off for me.

Still, I think it's an enjoyable game, and if you decide to play it then I'd suggest waiting for a double or triple SC sale. That's Sony's virtual currency and buying it at a triple SC sale basically means that you're paying a third of the normal price for what you buy in the game. There are also game sales, which can mean that you can end up paying a sixth of the normal price if you buy at a triple SC sale and then buy items at 50% off.

Between work, the kids (= more work), and the number of recommedations, it's going to take me a couple of days.

Still haven't gotten your priorities straight, I see...

I am up-repping this observation because it is admittedly 100% accurate. :-)

Okay, so I've decided to give Rift a shot. It came down to Rift, Neverwinter and LOTR. All three games looked appealing and I may try the other two at some point. But in the end, I'm going with Rift because I know I'll get some help via CymTyr's thread.

I appreciate all of the suggestions and now feel like a flower in full bloom.

Awesome, I do not think you'll be disappointed. :)

EVE is great but it can be a steep learning curve

It is PvP focussed but you can limit your exposure to PvP to a certain degree, space is separated into 4 distinct area's Highsec(1.0-0.5 rated systems) lowsec (0.4-0.1 rated systems) Nullsec (0.0 rated areas) and WH space

If you want to PvP then lowsec, nullsec and WH space are for you, Highsec is the "safest" area, you can only legally be shot if you are in a war, however people die in highsec all the time, mainly what is called suicide ganking where a person fits a ship to do as much damage in as short a space of time as they can in the hopes of destroying the ship they are attacking before the "police" arrive and blow them up.

One of the things with eve is that its not just combat that can be PvP, the market is almost completely player controlled, the only exceptions being skillbooks and Blueprint originals that are seeded on the market, traders PvP eachother to buy items or sell them, but that also means that players can dictate the market, an example of this that was recent was with the announcement of a buff to medium turret based weapons was announced and the whole of the Jita(main trade hub) was bought out of one of the medium hybrid platforms gunss, basically the people/person is hoping that with the buff the prices of that weapon will go up so he can later turn a profit on the purchases.

Not man enough for World of Tanks I see. Well, at least you're away from that "real world" crap...