Well my own opinion is to wait. There are many promising mmorpg's coming out in 2004. WoW and Middle-Earth Online for example. If you REALLY want to get one now though I would suggest DAOC. (Dark age of Camelot) I have not personally played this but it has gotten the best reviews out of all of them and had a high # of suscribers. However, unless you plan to invest 5+ hours a day into it, don't expect to get anywhere too fast.

Twenty-eight days... six hours... forty-two minutes... twelve seconds. That, is when the world will end.