Originally Posted by
BeerWolf
It's called hype, I'm sure you've heard of it...
Two important factors:
1) It's Blizzard, who developed successful titles such as the Diablo series, Starcraft and Warcraft series. i.e. - Good gaming company
2) It's Warcraft, that has been around for almost a decade prior to WoW. Warcraft 3 was immensely popular, a big contributor to people wanting to play WoW.
Basically WoW had a massive playerbase already before it even officially launched due to all the Warcraft fans. MMO's were a relatively 'new' thing back then too.
Had Blizzard made, instead, an MMO based on Starcraft it would most likely have been almost as popular because Starcraft is another incredibly popular RTS.
If, instead, Blizzard made an MMO that wasn't based on any of its franchises... it could have pulled it off relying solely on the Blizzard trademark. Just that it wouldn't have a fan base to exist prior to it... so that would have been a risky move. Which, obviously, wasn't the case with WoW...