World of Warcraft.  What a great game.  Being the MMO I’ve played longest, it always influences (infects?) my views on game design. It’s very easy for us to say “well, this is how WoW did it and it’s pretty solid. So let’s try to mimic it since they are such a success.”  This is not necessarily bad, but it’s not good either.  Just mimicking WoW because you know it’s a solid design or widely accepted doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try something new.  The bottom line is, WoW is causing a stagnation in MMO game design because everyone wants to play it safe.  Go with the design that works.  As a result, all of the games (or at least shared features) look and feel the same.

Sure, the way Blizzard designed it may seem perfect, but where’s the fun and challenge in game design if you just copy WoW?
With deadlines looming and production schedules that feel more like death marches, it’s easy to take the easy way out and copy WoW.  But we as an industry (and individuals in design meetings) need to step back, think about the problem, prototype, playtest, and try new things before we just mimic WoW.  I’m very guilty of not thinking outside the WoW-box in design meetings, and I hope to change it.  I challenge all you game designers out there to do the same!