Quote Originally Posted by Velox View Post
And WoW is an Everquest clone...and Everquest is an Ultima clone...and Ultima is a Meridian clone...
Every MMO borrows elements form previous MMOs.

MMOs are like themeparks. They are all themed differently, they all have different roller coasters, carousels, bumper cars, arcades, Ferris wheels. Sure all these rides look and feel different, but at the end of the day every themepark has the exact same elements as other themeparks. Why do people visit more than one park then? Because the looks, feel, and theme alone make it worthwhile, even if all the individual elements boil down to exactly the same formula used.

MMOs are no different. They all share the exact same base elements, just with different coatings on the surface.
Not really. You will see things being taken away the deeper and deeper you get.

FFXIV has no exploration or hard open world content. Everquest when it began literally had no instances. It was just a dangerous open world with open world dungeons.