I saw some stats in a magazine the other day that actually ranked
Final Fantasy XI as the game with the most players. 18.1% of the
market, next biggest I think was EQ at around 11%. (Surprised me cuz
I would've guessed EQ is bigger, even tho it's a complete bore IMHO).

I have no interest in playing WoW. A friend of mine just got it, and
gave the complete impression that it was like the Star Wars game...
lots of l33tsp34k runts and the like. But I'm still appalled at some
of the companies decisions. I won't play for 2 reasons- 1, fear of
being sued if I don't play the game "Blizzard approved", and 2, fear
of P2P running without permission on my computer. (Not legality
concerns.. bandwidth concerns! They have no right to be using my
bandwidth to share their update packages cuz they are too cheap to run
it on their own servers!) So... regardless of how wonderful it is,
you will never see it on my machine, or even in my house because I
forbid my roommates from using my bandwidth so flippantly.

Two more things I have heard about WoW.. one is that bigger NPCs like
tigers attack smaller NPCs like rabbits.. that is a cool bit of
realism. Not sure how it really figures into game mechanics, but it
sounded neat when described. The other is that armour and swords wear
out.. ok, another cool bit of realism but that just sounds ANNOYING.
What's next, having to stop mid-battle to have your character go to
the bathroom?

That being said... EQ is understandably great for meeting people but
has no real story. Lots of "lore" but no ultimate goal that I know
of. There are also a lot of things that are set in stone when you
start. I also think at the point I joined, it was just "too big" to
start from scratch... quite overwhelming really. I lasted about 6
months there and played it minimally.

FFXI has a lot of repitition and I think is designed more for anal
retentive or indecisive people (you can do just about everything in
the game, including change class and home nation, without needing to
start over), and has a great story line with the Childrens of
Promathia expansion... but it also has a lot of repitition. I tend to
put in a movie when I'm doing something I know will be repetitious
(crafting) but when I go on a mission it has my complete attention.
and the storyline so far just ROCKS.

Each game is going to have their strong points.... I guess it's just
what you feel happiest in. You can tell which one I am. :-D