We jumped ship to DAoC when it came out and it was pretty awesome. Three different realms of characters and races to choose from, three different paths per class with mix and match options, quest rewards that were actually worthwhile, epic quests that were achievable with little to no bottlenecks, etc.
CoH was also awesome and one of the reasons it caught on so well was that it worked almost perfectly from the get go. Also flight and teleportation. I suspect it continues to have a dedicated player base because of both its simplicity of play and its ultimately customizable fashion quest. It got a little 'looty' after several years, but it's still pretty low key on that front.
Of course, I also play a fair bit of LotRO and that looks like it has pretty low numbers these days.
EQ really led the way, but even by 2004 it was graphically deficient and fugly compared to the competition. And as already implied, EQ (isn't exactly challenging) is far more punishing of player mistakes. When it was the only real game in town, people dealt with that and many left for more rewarding games when the opportunities opened up.
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