By making customization of your skills essential even from the first few levels, rather than offering an onslaught of X Damage in X Way abilities to fill the screen and make characters clones of their own class. It allowed/encouraged cross-class builds, also from early on.EverythingIncredible said:
It doesn't separate everyone into servers, so anyone can play with anyone else with the game (probably done before Guild Wars, but it was done well here). It also focuses on a story-based progression, the likes of which only hit WoW in the WOTLK (Death Knight starting area, basically). The world changes as you progress through it, and missions will adapt to your progress in quest chains accordingly. Basically, it builds itself up as a Cooperative-RPG with MMO aspects thrown in.
Of course, the clincher is that it has no subscription fees. I've not played it enough to say how it works at higher levels, but the impression I've gotten so far is that customization and playstyle is significantly more important than your level and gear. Most MMOs can't claim that, where a great player at level 50 will stand no chance against a level 60 in high-end gear.
I could go on, but the jist is that places priorities on very different things to most MMOs, and it shows in gameplay.
