I played EQ and EQ2 for many years. The biggest selling point for me (aside from the huge world and all the exploration you can do) is the community.

The community in these games is the complete opposite from the blizzard games, which is unfortunate (for blizz not for SOE). For the most part the players are very mature and in fact if you act like one of the Bnet kiddies in EQ/EQ2, chances are you won't last very long as they will chew you up and spit you out.

Aside from that, the game world is just so amazingly detailed and there are tons of things to explore and do. The crafting system, although a pain at times, is pretty useful as well and can be very rewarding. For me, EQ2 has a much more "organic" feel to it than WoW does. I'm playing WoW now because for one its waayyy easier to multibox in my opinion, and doesn't chew up my PC as bad as EQ2 did even only 2boxing it. Plus I have much more to accomplish in WoW than in EQ2, which is funny because it's harder to progress really far in EQ2 than it is in WoW. Anyway..im rambling...