I didnt want to leave on a negative note from earlier; this is indeed the best freeshard out there. It has that old school UO feel with some custom content added in that doest detract from the experience in any way. The staff is professional and know what they are doing...and no pay for win!
The main thing that pulled me into UOR was how well the website and compendium was done. As a rares collector, it becomes a pain to learn the market and "guess" how many of a particular item is out there. To have every item tracked is such a great feature and helps keep the economy in check and scammers at bay. The sheer amount of stuff to do was also a huge selling point for me. Not everyone likes to just treat UO like it's a FPS game. Spawn, kill, spawn kill. The rate at which new content is added is also a huge plus for me. I get bored easily of the same old stuff and need new events and "things" to keep me excited. I never was the type that could play the same thing over and over or watch a movie more than once so the amount of different things to do on any given day, is what keeps it exciting.