TOR is playing it safe, which is the second reason why I'm not as excited about it as GW2 (along with the fact that TOR still has monthly fees, unlike GW2). TOR still has static combat, exponential levelling, two-factions system, DPS/Healer/Tank, and quest giving-npcs (Yeah, thats a list of all the stuff GW2 is changing. Will it work? I hope so, and it does seem successful from the demos of the game they've let people play).
TOR does have far more flexible classes than WoW-clones, as a single class can be specialized to fill almost any given role. Unfortunately, those roles are still limited to Healer/Tank/DPS (Which might be better than each class being doomed to a single role, but the improvement is not that great).
I belie they're also getting rid of auto-attack (same with GW2), in favour of quickly recharging basic abilities, and a more colourful/powerful mix of abilities to support those more basic ones (once again, the GW2 and TOR developers seem to realize the same thing: People don't like to sit and watch healthbars, they want to watch cool effects going off on the screen).
But GW2 seems to be pushing the envelope far more by allowing any class to respec their abilities outside of combat to fit any role, and since everyone is forced to have at least one healing ability, and all classes can revive, there was no need for a dedicated healer class (but you can probably equip your character to be healer-centric if you wanted to). If it works (which it reportedly does, both from their own QA dep. and the demos), GW2 might be able to eliminate the presumption that the Healer/Tank/DPS thing is necessary for a working MMO. TOR isn't exactly helping this cause when they present us with: A single class can specialize into almost any given role, those roles are of course limited to Healer/DPS/Tank, and once you have made your choice you can't take it back (And we will still be stuck with people shouting "looking for healer" in towns/cities)
Also, Arenanet have been working hard on making GW2 "a grief-free zone", with shared kills and event participation (no quests, only dynamic events. And all who participate in killing a mob or completing an event get the exact same amount of XP, with no need to form a formal party, though possible if you want to). While TOR seems as ripe an are for griefers as WoW, or any other MMORPG out there.
TOR is, as I said, playing it safe. It roots itself in stuff that works, and then expands from that with some new and possibly innovative stuff. But I don't feel like it's enough, at least not when compared to how Arenanet basically took a giant list of "everything that bugs us about MMORPGs", and then set to work on how to make a working MMORPG while changing/removing all the stuff on the list.
BTW: WOW was a Lineage-clone, with little more than a "Warcraft" skin on it. It just happened to make the very best version of the type of games we now call "WoW-clones". But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways of making MMO's (Look at EVE online. It may not be my cup of tea, but it is definitely a very different type of MMO than WoW).
