Just recently moved to the Storm Haven; and I'm in love. Friendly and lively community, directed and free progression, well architected quest lines and equipment upgrades, and more
For me, I couldn't get into WoW or Rift because they turned the community driven grind into a non-stop churn of chaos: fight or die. To make it worse, quests were thrown in to force you back onto the killing fields.
Or with Live EQ, there simply were not enough real players left and no way to do anything without patiently 6 boxing.
Storm Haven addresses these two gripes with purposeful progression driven by the need to acquire materials for armor upgrades, leveling that is fun and engaging, and in the late game a community who's willing to take a break from being Uber to help a few newbs get some better gear
Had a couple of players run me through getting flagged for some end game zones and who fought some bosses for my epics while I kept the team healed.