I think WoW's success was luck a certain degree. As has been said though, they had many fans from their Warcraft games they published before WoW. WoW is a good game, and continues to be a good game (I don't play it any longer however). That being said, I think too many people always compare ANY MMO to WoW simply because its the biggest. No other MMO will come close to what WoW has. Blizzard is good at their job and markets their games like a juggernaut. That being said, there is ALWAYS room for other MMO's out there. WoW sometimes isn't enough of this or enough of that for some players.
The 11 million that WoW currently has will not be obtained by any other MMO except on that Blizzard publishes. That is just the nature of the beast.
Just because people DON'T play WoW doesn't make them idiots or "people who enjoy to suffer" as in Syncaine's post. I do believe that people have a tendency to look at WoW with rose-coloured glasses at times and do hate on other games for not being WoW enough. Oh well. To each their own.I enjoyed my time in WoW as much as I enjoy my time in WAR currently.