Well, almost every new MMO seems to claim the same thing. Nothing ever changes, though. =\ It still turns out to be just another typical grind-fest with fetch quests. The Old Republic is the perfect example. It's still the same formula as everything else. The only thing going for it (minus the Star Wars name) is the story elements and voice acting, which is definitely nice, but it's not enough.

I'm not saying that Guild Wars 2 will be a bad MMO (nor am I saying that TOR is). By MMO standards, I'm sure it will turn out to be pretty good, but anyone who expects it to be completely different from everything else will probably be pretty disappointed.

I've said this a few other times before, but the reason MMOs aren't changing, though, is partly to blame because of the type of people who play them. They're usually easily sucked in to doing the same thing for countless hours. They love their repetition. The other half of it has to do with the developers just wanting to take the easy way out and staying with the same formula that has been around since the 90's. They do that because of the first point. They know people eat that stuff up (for some reason).

Just off of the top of my head, the only MMOs that I have played and have found to be different and a lot of fun are RuneScape, PlanetSide (from the FPS MMO side), Tanarus and Infantry (if you can count those two as an MMO), and DDO.

I really like the idea of MMOs. On paper they sound epic and a whole lot of fun. It never really turns out that way, though. =\