Other MMO comparisons..

[Abriael]

So how would you explain to a friend who's maybe played a couple other MMO's...but not 1.0 why they should play this game and how it works?

In the easiest possible way: "there's gonna be an open beta, try it out and see if you like it".

Comparisons are a crutch, and in the case of MMORPGs are almost always misplaced one way or another due to the complexity of the genre.

People compare single elements and blather on how they make this or that MMORPG similar to others, but the simple fact is that what mostly differentiates games belonging to the same genre is how the same genre-defining elements fit with one another, not what those elements are.