I really don't know if EQ2 players are older than WoW player or vice versa. And I don't care about it. The only I do care about to have fun in the games I play. Many years ago I startet to play games in LAN. First strategy games, then the first ego shooters under DOS, then strategy games like Age of Empires and such. The problem was to get people together at same time, gather the PC equipment, install LAN. OK, there were some fun beside that like drinking beer, eating pizza and talk about women. I'm sure you know what I mean. That was in my 20's, then I moved away from my friends and things got much more difficult.
So I was happy to read about a internet game named EQ1 and the first extension of it. At that time i've got me a ISDN flatrate and started playing. Over the next years I got an addict and playing nearly 6 hours every day and started to have no other RL appointment any longer because I wanted to play with friends around the world. The big difference between the stand-alone games and the LAN games was that not only the game itself was fun but the chat with people about their RL, opinions and much more.
To cut it short, I've got to the point I dismissed from EQ1 and found back to RL. I paused about a good year, still in contact to former guildies, heared about their experience with DAoC and SWG and finally decided to join them again when our old guild was refounded in EQ2.
It's a thing of personal preference if someone like the graphics of EQx or WoW, personally I would never play a game with comic graphics. "Realistic" graphics gives me a better chance to be "in" my virtual world.
The point I don't understand is why people think a MMORPG should have a lot of solo user content. If I want to play most time solo I buy myself a stand-alone game, don't have to pay monthly costs and don't have to care about when other people are online. I play a MMORPG because I wan't to play with others. I use the solo content only if I really don't find anyone to group with, to advance an alternate character or something like that. To have fun in a MMORPG you have to take part in the social network of this virtual network via helping people in their quests and so on. If you don't want to do this you better leave the game and find your luck somewhere else. Like in real world I have to say.
To get back to the first question, are people in EQx older than WoW players. Maybe the more complex the game mechanics is the more older have the players to be to find fun in the game. As you advance in level you have to advance in your game playing skill too and have to know about the abilities of other classes and the mobs you want to encounter, need to work together and against the other players. Any progress of others is your progress in the future.
A few words to EQ2: It's not just EQ1 with better graphics, it's different in many ways. Every player has to learn new tactics, the former EQ1 player like the very new player. Every class can now offer a benefit to the group on cost of solo abilities but many people are just not aware of it and think in EQ1 rules. Me too at the start. But things get better every day I play. Hopefully not again as addsict some day. ;-)
Thomas