WOW is cookie cutter. It's sandbox.
Here's my first log in into any game that I will later classify as a WOW-type game.
I log into the game. I'm given a character select screen. I am given certain options; race, class, and 10-15 ways to change the appearance of my toon. I choose a server (or I chose a server first) a First name, and maybe somewhere I can start.
My toon zones into the game, there are 5 NPCs around me with big yellow exclamation points above their heads. I talk to the first one, he tells me a quick story of woe and he needs 5 boar tusks; boars are right outside the gate. I talk to the second one, he tells me a quick story of woe and he needs 8 boar hides; boars are right outside the gate. The third, fourth and fifth ones tell me similar stories of woe, and they need either boars killed or items that drop from boars or items that can be harvested around the boar area.
There's a sixth exclamation point I see while running out of town, but this one is a different color. I click on him. He's my trainer. He gives me some noob weapon, and has all my spells and skills for when I need him. I run outside and start killing boars. 15 boars later I have all the tusks, hides, little blue flowers, widgits, and pink balloons that I needed, and I run back to town. I give all the items to the 5 gentlemen that wanted them, and I get some nifty gear I can put on! And I gained level 3 (level 2 I got while killing the boars).
They have more quests for me, but this time it's those bees I saw just a little further than the boars.
___ Flash to 6 weeks later ___
I walk into ubertown for the first time. I'm capped (or close to it). There's 5 gentlemen that have exclamation marks above their heads. Hey, one wants 10 vorporal daggers that drop off shadow highwaymen. One needs shadow highwaymen packs. One just hates shadow highwaymen and wants me to kill them. And the other two want me to gather some supplies that only are around where shadowy highwaymen gather.
Where is the fun? Seriously? I've played 10 games that were bloody identical to this. Where's the encouragement to group? How about letting me loose and letting me figure things out by myself. And they encourage and even force you to do the quests because the gear from quests is better than anything that's crafted or bought or that drop off mobs.
Last night I was leveling up my Paladin on FFXI. We were getting like 3500 xp/hr, a party I would usually leave (4000 is acceptable, 6000 is typical). BUT, how we were doing it was so challenging, it was so fun, I stayed just for the challenge. I could have leveled up somewhere else with a different party and PWNed and got 2 levels. But I stayed because I was always an edge away from death.
No NPC told us to go there to get Beetle carapaces or jaws, or to gather the rocks around the area. We came up with where we wanted to go, we found out that place was a bit too hard for us, but we stuck it out. We all had a hell of a lot of fun. Since our damage was slow, we set up Skillchains and Magic bursts, we set up a rotation of nukes and healing that worked very well. And by the end we were all a lot wiser on how to play our classes and where to party with what kind of group, and a lot better than we were when we started.