>>723622092 (OP)
It'd probably be Final Fantasy XIV for me.
Was looking for an MMO to sink hours into after I was sick of Elsword and Korean MMOs in general being P2W.
Just searched top MMOs and WoW, XIV and Runescape were the Top 3. I already played Runescape back in 05/06 and I always found WoW's artstyle to be too ugly so I never got into the craze back in during the Lich King era.
Got into FFXIV like a few days before the Shadowbringers expansion dropped and it was going pretty okay. My eyes kinda glazed over the ARR story until the Ultima Weapon first showed up and the raid on The Praetorium.
The sequence of a side wall exploding and all of sudden you're fighting a horde of enemies on a rooftop while dodging cannon fire was so epic to me, I've been hooked ever since and I still play to this day. Haven't broken my sub except once during 2020. 611 days of play time. About 200 of that being afk.