You've just covered everything from orcs and elves to humans and aliens. Is there some sort of pan-dimensional, inter-galactic, extra-planer being that doesn't look like a mouse required for your approval?

Please expound upon this.

You're missing the point. The problem isn't a matter of setting or characters. Hell, I like the Tabula Rasa setting and the aliens look pretty cool. The problem lies instead with the stale gameplay that every MMO shares and has always been fundamentally inferior to the other genres. Based on what I've read and seen, TR will really be no different than the hundreds of other MMOs out there. As I mentioned previously, it is basically the same old MMO, only with aliens and humans instead of orcs and elves.

MMOs are just fundamentally weak. What exactly do they do well? Hell, what do they do well enough to warrant paying a monthly fee just to play? It's certainly not action. I have yet to see any MMO that can match the action of any good SP or MP action game.

It's definitely not about role-playing either. Where's the choice? Where's the meaning behind these choices? Why can't I be a thief and steal from this NPC? Why can't I be an assassin and kill this highly prominent character? Nothing you do really matters because you are just an insignificant cog in the machine. Some MMOs let you take over castles, claim territory, affect the economy, etc... whoopdie doo dah. In the end, these things don't mean all that much. Why can't I become a God? Or a tyrant? Why can't I leave a meaningful impact on the world that will be remembered for years to come? Why don't NPCs and players alike either tremble at my feet or bow down before my glory?

How about quests? Ah, yes. Fetch this, deliver that, kill 10 generic monsters and bring back their hides, blah blah blah. MMO quests are so horribly generic, uninspired and uninteresting.

How about storyline and characters? Oh, wait, there is no storyline. There might be some loose backstory, not that that really matters, since nothing you do will have any affect on that. Characters? Yeah, right. Nothing more than quest-givers you care nothing about.

AI? Right. Enemies either stand around doing nothing, aggro you when you get too close or run away. Where's the flanking, sneaking, etc?

It is undeniable: MMOs are inherently flawed. There are many reasons for this, from both a technical and design standpoint. Technically, lag is a huge issue, as having thousands of players on one server makes complex AI and quick, skill-based combat impossible.

From a design standpoint, MMOs have to have a huge consistent player base into order to be successful. This means that MMOs have to be accessible, meaning that you can't make the learning curve too steep or place too much reliance on player skill. Also, since you have to design the experience to cater to thousands of players at the same time, you can't let any one player do anything significant enough to substantially alter the gaming world. If one character becomes too powerful and controls everything, the experience of all the other players becomes tainted. Similarly, you can't have a storyline that revolves around the players due to consistency issues.

Now, I'm sure someone will argue that MMOs aren't about these things. They are all about PvP, community and teamwork. Right. Any good team-based online shooter does these things far better, provided that you play with a clan and compete in ladders. You can claim that planning and executing a huge raid requires tons of teamwork, but planning and executing a victory against a human team without the benefits of stats and loot is far more involved.

Okay, how about escapism: Ah, here we go. I'll partially concede on this point. MMOs are great escapism, as you can grow an online persona and lose yourself in a vast online world. Unfortunately, the shallowness of this online world becomes all too apparent, all too soon.

So what can possibly drive people to pay to play these things? It's very simple: greed and pride. People like to see their characters level up, they like to find better loot and they like to show off these things. They like to be the first to announce that they've killed Onyxia or found an especially rare item. But I ask them this: what do these things matter if the actual process of achieving them is so lame? Let's face it, raiding a huge, high-level dungeon and killing a high-level boss with 50 other players isn't exactly thrilling, especially since said boss fights usually last hours and involve you attacking, dying, respawning, attacking again, rinse and repeat.

So yeah. MMOs suck and need to either evolve or die.