Having played WoW for 3 years, I WAS one of the many to be sucked into it.For the WoW players that are wondering why RIFT is so successful off the start, it's because that magic and hold that WoW can have on a player for so long is exactly what RIFT is also capable of. WoW's success can be greatly contributed to its polish, its expansiveness, its incredible lore (set up in the Warcraft series), and, in my opinion, awesome music. RIFT matched WoW on all these accounts.

I played for about two weeks in open beta, and it felt like the glory days of leveling my first character in WoW again. The level of polish was unbelievable. The storyline was compelling, with beautiful cinematics, the content felt expansive, and, best of all, the music could only be rivaled by WoW.

A lot of people complain, very often mind you, of MMOs being WoW clones. However, as I've said before, these comments are rather baseless, because you don't see nearly as many people complaining the Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor games are all clones.Because they're not,they're FPSs,and, as such, they share similar elements. The elements that people claim RIFT and other MMOs "copy" from WoW are actually just like this, core elements of an MMO, and it's just WoW is the most successful MMO to implement the majority of these elements successfully.

That being said, there are also several other reasons I believe can be attributed to RIFT's success. First off, having played WoW for 3 years, I can honestly say that by the time WotLK was rolling around, nothing new and innovative was coming out of Blizzard.Sure, they add more raids, ten more levels, another battleground or two, and oh snap,a new class, but the core mechanics have remained the same, the same game with a new wrapper. This is where RIFT is different. Not only does it implement many successful elements of MMOs present in WoW,but it brings many unique elements to the table. The specialization system utilizing three souls is ingenious and offers a ridiculous amount of customization, without forcing "cookie-cutter" specs that emerged in WoW. Furthermore, the world events (rifts and invasions) do wonders in immersing the players and getting them to interact with other players. Sure, MMOs like Warhammer Online were some of the first to implement "community quests," however RIFT does it flawlessly, something which does wonders in making the player feel like they are a part of something larger.

Frankly, I'm one of those people that would tell WoW players "boohoo, get over it." WoW's days are numbered, and not only because of Blizzard's new MMO in development (despite them saying they'll continue to support WoW), but because of new MMOs that are getting the ingredients right like RIFT. I have no doubt that the release of Tera, GW2, and especially SWTOR, will do a lot in starting to crumble the cookie that is World of Warcraft.