DAoC was my first persistent-world game. I hadn't really considered MMORPG's before, because I never saw a point to developing my character, even though I saw how a persistent world would be cool and immersive.
But DAoC hooked me when I looked at the screens, first of all. It had (*gasp*) real production value! The content looked good! The look was CONSISTENT across the game! EQ never had that . . .
And combat.
I had never liked EQ (played it at a friend's house and laughed him nearly to the point of tears . . . ok, he never really was much of a friend anyways). But if you would have tossed in better production value and combat between players, and a way to track battle stats, I would have played it.
Of course, that's really all DAoC was. And I played it.
What swung me over were the posts by people that started playing the game, people on Tribalwar. Hey, Tribes still kicks ass -- but that still leaves us with plenty of time to try new games.
It was too much. I had never experienced a game like that before. I went under. :P Took me 4 months to wean myself off of it.