Dark Souls fandom reminds me of this. While FFXI took the wrong lessons from Everquest and touted it's grind and punishing gameplay as a selling point, Souls difficulty was apart of the world building. Something that went totally over the heads of the fandom. They saw the difficulty in these games as the main hook and selling point of the franchise, and good luck if you think the games are too hard, because like XI's community, the Souls community will dog you for not "getting good".