It's always fun to see these comments. Let's start with broader appeal. How much room is there? Other than going to the consoles, their is nothing broader you can go. The other % of the market isn't waiting to be included in the WOW world, they want things that WoW can't offer, depth and graphics. And yes, sorry, WoW's power is that it's broad, everyone can hop in and play it, but that's what drives me away and with me, many others.
I've played WoW, so I know what I'm talking about. It's not a bad game, it's just not a game I enjoy playing. A lot of people go to the mac and buy a burger, doesn't mean the burger is a good product, it's just a product for the masses. The Ford, Toyota and Nissan are all fine cars, but it's not a Ferrari. Just because a lot of people buy it, or a lot of people play it doesn't mean it's good, it's enjoyable for a lot of people.
But.... Yes there is a big but. Most of the EU+American players didn't join from a MMO. They joined from other games. The other appeal is casual friendlier than other titles. EQ in his time had the "hardcore" players, students, who still studied and had a lot of free time. WoW has more people who could never join such a game for various reasons.
Just because you don't like camping a spot for days, doesn't mean that items should be common and everyone running around in the same gear. That's the recent games. Back in EQ, some items were too rare to get for the normal players.
Everyone loves to praise blizzard for their games, but I've learned who they are. Unlike most players think, they aren't their to help you. They have 11 million subs, yet they can only produce that low number of updates. I've seen smaller companies produce a lot more content and diversion. In 4.5 year we have seen 2 new races with 2 other new races on the way. 1 new class and it's a hero class you start at 55. The classes leave enough room to have others added.
It's not like VG or EQ2, where almost all the classes are already in the game. No monkish class, no bardish class, no berserker class, there are so many things they can do, but all they do is redistribute the class choices. Now you can be a night elf mage, the new choices are stupid. Blood elf paladin, butchering their lore to make paladins available to horde.
No thank you. As much as I liked WoW when I played it, at the end it was just a good decision to leave and look for a game with more depth, that didn't butcher it's lore whenever players whined enough and meaningless progression. The lore was all around me and I felt the world was empty of lore. I'm biased of course, just like the person who defends WoW, so in the end, you can't convince me WoW is good nor can I convince you WoW isn't good, but I don't care, don't need to convince anyone. If WoW is your game that's fine, I have my game. Don't expect me to play that new MMO from Blizzard though. I'm done with their MMOs. I'll play D3 probably and that's it from Blizzard for me.