I would argue that EQ2's graphics did lose them customers, I know I watched a guy play it for 20-30 minutes and went "Man, that looks awful".
I had no interest in WoW, I was exploring the Planes of Power everyday in EQ, when a friend called up and asked if I wanted to use his Beta account for WoW, as he was going to be serving on a submarine for a couple months. I had his info for weeks before I actually installed the game and started playing. I was an undead warrior, and I was fighting in that windmill area near the start, and had just gotten "Charge". That blew my mind. In all my years of playing EQ, no ability was as amazingly cool as I found charge. I went to the starter town and told someone "Man, this game is insane haha!" and then I was shocked to see my char emote a laugh. I was like "Wait, did me saying haha just force my char to...." and sure enough. I don't know why, but that was the moment I went "Well, I guess I can never log back into EQ at this point."
About 5 hours in I logged out, logged into EQ, gave my guild all my money and told them I was cancelling my account. I then called up Sony, cancelled my account, and logged back into WoW.
A couple of weeks before WoW came out, EQ2 did. It just looked years behind WoW to me on launch day. The graphics just made it look so bad, I never even gave it a chance based on gameplay, although that looked bad too.
Another friend of mine was in the Air Force stationed in England, and he called me up to tell me everyone on base was playing EQ2, and he was about to go buy it. I begged him to just wait two more weeks for WoW, all of our friends were on board for it, and I was sure it was going to be the better game. He waited, and played WoW at launch. He now has stories, of his bunk room in england being filled with 20+ guys all huddled around watching him play WoW. He had to start leaving his door open because everyone wanted to see it. He tells the story laughing, of a room packed with dudes all watching (and begging to play when he slept), who were all pissed off they had just blown money on EQ2.
So yeah, I don't know, when someone first pointed out Wildstar to me I immediately dismissed it as a WoW clone, and not something I was interested in, but watching the video's and reading about the game has completely turned me around. I haven't been this hopeful for a game since WoW, and as far as I'm concerned, if the combat and movement feel fluid and responsive, this is the next big thing.
ALSO, I bitched about last weeks Wildstar Wed and you liars told me to wait for this weeks big E3 update. Welll, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.