sadly I think WoW came to define the genre and in doing so killed it.
amen to that, i remember when we played DDO the forum was full of feature requests for stuff wow had or 'your game sucks cos its not like wow', Turbine immediately starting changing the game in many respects and by the time they got LOTRO out it was basically wow in the LOTR universe. Since then it seems everyone just tried to make MMO's friendly to wow players so they wouldn't feel lost n stuff

About the old republic, I'm less bothered about it being in the Star Wars universe or anything, what excites me is the developer is Bioware (who can do no wrong in my eyes anyway). Look at the CV of games they've done:
# Baldur's Gate (1998)
* Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999)
# MDK2 (2000)
# Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
* Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001)
# Neverwinter Nights (2002)
* Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (2003)
* Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (2003)
* Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker (2005)
# Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ("KotOR") (2003)
# Jade Empire (2005)
# Mass Effect (2007)
I've played almost all of these and they were brilliant games, really excited to see them enter the MMO space, maybe theyll actually do something different....