shadowbane back in its glory

Anarchy Online

SWG, pre-nge, pre-holocron, pre-them ruining it completely

DaoC

Very quickly on the rise and soon to join or surpass the others for my favorite is Fallen Earth.

Yep nothing wrong with liking wow, gotta say its one damn nice game. But for most, if wow wasn't your first MMO then you have a good chance of having those MMOs before it doing more justice for you. Memories just help make those games seem so much more than they were :).

SWG pre cu hands down

Earth & Beyond

Earth & Beyond (Sunrise) ;-)

DAOC

WOW .. hands down .. most polished & entertaining.

I have tried:

UO beta - horrible .. clicking on a rock for hours, PKed every 5 min, no sense of progression

EQ - too much camping, too much down time

Eve Online (trial) - Bad PvE, not polished for the beginning content

DDO - good second MMO when free, i like the instanced adventure focused dungeons but not polished enough

LOTRO - not bad .. i would play this if I am sick of WOW

Tabula Rasa - fun for a little while, not much variety.

Hellgate - too bad it is dead, i kindof like it

and a lot of F2P games not worth mentioning.

SWG pre cu, If they hadn't changed it, it might well be the best mmo out today :(

Guild Wars

I was born and raised on Guild Wars Prophecies. Though I do prefer games with more freedom to explore, I can't say that Guild Wars isn't my favorite of all time. It has so many great memories. :D

(I know, that's sad, right? haha)

Anarchy Online.

 eq1,eq2 then wow

undecided about aion yet

EQ2

I have tried so many and I have to say I dont have an all time fave due to the fact that my tastes change as time passes.

I started off in early UO and loved it for its ease to play but its complexity in other areas.  Sadly its expansions drove me and my fantastic treasure hunter away.  Long Live Lysander Threat of Trinsic .

But on the other hand(s)

DAOC's  RVR was fantasticly good fun.  Played it so much it cost me a girlfriend.

I thoroughly enjoyed PVE in EQ2 and  PVP in EVE (and rather liked mining although have no idea why)

LOTRO has a fantastic atmosphere

Age of Conan has the best first 20 levels of any MMORPG  EVER

Champions Online has the best character creation and variety of characters

I have beta tested and played many MMO and I have liked most of them.

EQ, not as polished as many games after it of course, but it came out in 1999.  Much more immersive and diverse than most games even today.  Unfortunately it is an old game and it's hard to play anymore after getting used to newer more fluid interfaces.  They need to bring back some of the mechanics and style EQ had to a newer graphic engine.

AO.  There was nothing like being knee deep in calculators, implants, and pillows trying to equip a level 200 gun on a level 40 toon =D

I'm more into sci-fi than fantasy, and I loved all the cool plasma rifles, shotguns, and gadgets.  Also the complex crafting recipes, the skill system, the world itself, including the starry sky before they broke it.  I have had dreams about AO's music =D   I remember building a system that would barely even boot into windows 98 and running AO on it like it was a beast haha!

Of course I have to mention EQ, I did log more than a years worth of actual play time on that game.  I still play sometimes on EMUs, and honestly I typically have more fun than on modern MMOs.

I just wish a decent modern MMO would come out, one that isn't so kiddy pool watered down.  Kinda sad but MO is the only thing I'm looking at, and I'm not even a huge PVP fan.

It would be EQ for me. Sure it had flaws. Sure it was a gind fest in the beginning. But it also did something I think most games has failed at since and that was form large communities. I know game still have this stuff. But in EQ, you HAD to know people.

After that, I would Say DAoC and CoX are up there for me.

it would have to be wow - started the day after launch

i've certainly played MUCH better games since then but it was a great starting place and i have fond memories - specially what seemed to be my individual story as a tauren ranger - then i got dumped into crossroads where every horde character got dumped and did the same quests - sadly

funny thing is i only played for 3 months before realizing that what i was doing was pointless as far as crafting was concerned and leveling meant getting to end game which turned out to be just an endless raid grind

lineage 2. During chronicles 1 thru i think 5. I only played during 2 of the chronicles, but i really wish i stuck with it. Great game, great pvp, great community.

EQ1 by far!

World of Warcraft

Star Wars Galaxies (PRE CU, still miss this game)

Even though it sucks now.. Ultima Online is and will always be my favorite. 

EQ ftw

World of Warcraft is the best MMORPG of all time. Blizzard's development team has proven that they will take any and all forms of criticism to revise their game to make it fun again. Blizzard learned from watching other MMORPGs that made mistakes with their expansion packs (force players to buy expansion packs was its peer developer business model). World of Warcraft's expansion packs made content by raising the level cap while allowing players who did not buy it to remain at the end of the content they wish to enjoy.

Ultima Online was really in the RTS MMORPG genre and it was by far the best in its genre. It doesn't belong in the same room with World of Warcraft like apples and oranges. Still UO was the first of its kind just as EverQuest was the first of its kind. That brings me to my next topic:

EverQuest was the first of the 3D MMORPG kind.

Everquest had horrible controls but its graphics had a charm. Still it was the first 3D MMORPG to ever come out. It was a Coop ONLY MMORPG with absolutely no WARring factions to speak of. Only dueling and eventually PvP servers. For that, it falls short of being only a first to come out achievement in my book. This game was ruined by forced expansion packs according to many. Honestly, this age of MMORPG was surpassed by a better one.

Sony Online Entertainment proceeded to ruin many other MMORPG titles with lack of feedback listening teams, lack of any vision to their games, and plenty of mistakes and plasticy 3D graphics that required an insane gaming rig to run their new games.

Dark Age of Camelot introduced better controls to the MMORPG genre. This MMORPG's purpose was not just Coop but also to engage players in a huge fantasy medieval war nicknamed RvR or Realm vs. Realm because each player would have to join one realm out of three. Each realm was enemies with the other two. This game lacked an intelligent marketing team and was plagued with lag in player positioning (key to a PvP game) and the developers thought they needed to upgrade the game's already well defined cartoon graphics with more realistic graphics when instead the game actually needed bugs fixed and better player feedback listening teams (and probably someone else in charge with a better direction). The game was ruined in the end by expansion packs that forced players to buy them. It also suffered from attempts to bridge the gap between good and bad players by implementing auto-facing and auto-sticking systems into the game that allows the game to be played nearly on its own. This was sadly also introduced into Warhammer Online which was not any different than Dark Age of Camelot other than it was now in the Warhammer universe.

Other MMORPGs that deserve mention are Guild Wars and Shadowbane for the RTS MMORPG genre and Age of Conan for at least attempting to make a good PvP game but lacked content and game balance.

As you can see I am one who favors games that have a hefty amount of both single, competitive multiplayer and coop multiplayer rather than just one gametype or the other. This follows through in the type of gamer I am. I dislike game consoles and refuse to buy them because many of their games are either one game type or the other, or not online, or only for one game console only. I'm for couch AND networked coop/competitive multiplayer baby! That's why most PC games own and why MMORPG games own. I can't stand it when a game like Halo gets a cheap Xbox -> PC port that has no coop. This is why I have never bought a Halo game ever since the original Xbox.

I'd have to say AC2 or Shadowbane so far.  WoW and SWG were close.

I'm guessing Star Trek Online will eventually be the one though.

I know I will get flamed for this quite heavily but I am going to say this anyway, I love Warhammer Online. Its my favorite MMO and I am of the firm belief that it will get even better with time.  The graphics are smooth and the game play is fun, I love the IP and despite its faults this game has single handedly  brought me a lot of fun and satisfaction.