UO will keep you occupied for a while. It is similar to WoW now because you can "raid" and do champs/peerless stuff and get great rewards. However, you can also explore many dungeons and areas that will interest you. I think the biggest difference about UO and WoW, is that in UO you can own property, and make it the way you like it. As well as sell stuff on vendors and have your own UO economy since gold is more of a commodity in UO than in WoW. There is also much more to do than PvM, and PvP. There are many side quests that involve crafting and searching for stuff. I'd say it'll occupy you a good deal. I hope you won't be disappointed.

Mercenary > Other New Guys

In UO, nothing is soulbound. If you want the Uber Sword of Shiny, you don't have to do crappy raids to get it. You can do anything you like to earn the money, and then just buy one.

Is earning Gold extremely hard and boring in UO ? I mean im not going to get 5 gold from doing only one quest am I?

As a side note, luck must be on my side, i managed to find a brand new copy of the 8th age, which should be good enough till 9th Anniversary comes out. Hopefully i still get those nifty tokens the back of the box says i should...

Thanks,
Vegeta Dragon