I've been playing rift some and its been a lot of fun. I just noticed my friends at ZAM are giving away VIP keys...
http://www.zam.com/giveaways/rift.html . I believe beta 5 of rift will start Jan 25th.
The game is a fantasy based MMO that is one of the most stable beta's I have ever played. The quests are quite linear but the rifts are very fun. It's also cool you can configure 3 souls to be what ever you want...
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html . I only got to level 14 so I don't know what end game is like. It's worth a try during beta, not something that could replace your wow habit I don't think but its a good getaway.
It's good to see a decent MMO that is basically finished and polished before launch. All these other ones that have launched in the past couple years have been train wrecks.