That IS luck, you two. It was lucky of them to launch their game at the time they did when everything else was "stale" (players getting burned out with EQ/whatever) and no other game launch was within a year of WoW. That's called luck.

Think about it, if Tabula Rasa or Hellgate London, Warhammer Online, Vanguard, or any other MMO had launched around the same exact time as WoW then it wouldn't be as "big" as it currently is and would be splitting it's popution with another game or two.

Timing = luck. Period. With the limited Sci-Fi MMOs right now, Stargate Worlds would have/could have gotten a good basis going for them, but LUCK has it that Star Trek Online is releasing around that time and so is The Old Republic. Each has their own "fanbase" but if only one of them were launching then the fanbase of all of them might just touch that one instead of individuals. See my point?

As more and more fantasy MMOs come out with different IPs (Lord of Rings, Warhammer, Conan, Darkfall, ect.), each will gain their own fanbase, whether that's part of WoW's playerbase or not. And that's because at the time of WoW, there were no other fantasy games with those IPs that suited the players want of fantasy MMO gaming.