The MMO genre in general is where it's at for one reason and that's because the player base dosen't know what they want. If your looking for a single player experience with massive multiple online players then prepare to be disappointed because then developers would have to ignore balancing issues. I your looking for Open world and horizontal progression prepare your self for a niche game because they don't sell way see Eve Online SWTOR or The Dark Ages of Camelot to see how they didn't grow and ended up with 50K players. That is the reason major MMO's use the same design because thats what sells and we all know players talk with there wallets not by complaining and whining.