Can we shift some of the comments in rift to this thread, so Rift can be it own thread.
I absolutely loved DAO and I can't wait to start playing this tonight.
I know RPG's are not for everyone since its actually more about the story than the actions. Mass Effect and Knight of the Old Republic are also wonderful RPG's if you want to get away from the fantasy genre and into something thats Sci-Fi.
I usually play a Cleric in D&D which tend to leading me to play battlemages/priest/paladins in RPG/MMO's and in DAO I created a Arcane mage, plate wearing melee mage...it was awesome and in the x-pac way way way overpowered. I'm hoping that 16 hrs Phost spoke of is if you just wanted to finished as fast as possible and not all the quest. Kinda like how Fallout 3 was, the striaghtthrough game was fast but you had a 100 hours worth of side quest and story lines to explore.