Part of the issue that you will run into with proclaiming games as WoW clones is that hardly anything was original in WoW. So, you're going to be facing issues in regard to that being very vague. What particular features of WoW do you not like - how do you feel that other games have utilized those same features, etc, etc, etc...
I definitely preferred WoW back in Vanilla. I never liked EQ - never bothered with EQ2. GW/GW2 never crossed my radar. DAoC was a joke compared to what was offered at the time from other games, imo - I know others call it the best game ever - folks are entitled to their opinions - I'm not trying to say they're wrong and there is no point in them trying to say I'm wrong. It's funny how you have to add that disclaimer for DAoC more than you do for any other game...ahem, where was I? WAR felt like a partial game. SWTOR wasn't worth the box price. Tera...er...I remember somebody mentioning it, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about it since I'm not sure that I've ever been less interested in a game (I have no idea why this is the case, it's kind of funny in thinking about it). DDO is DDO - not sure why the D&D part is in there...probably not alone with that. RIFT was actually pretty nifty at the start - but uh - well - hrmmm - it was like WoW on meth. Wait, how can I say that after my opening paragraph? Well, sure - RIFT had all sorts of new and interesting things - but in the end it was still a blink and you're at endgame nonsense that WoW became. There, I elaborated. By the way, how are you enjoying this wall of text?
No game was as good as we remember them - many games are worse than we remember them - even the games we hate (funny how that works out)...
...as mentioned, it's entirely possible that the MMORPG genre is no longer a genre we should consider. Of course, that basically leaves us without any games, eh? Yes, it's very depressing - if you're the type to get depressed about things like that.
The overall market has changed - so - the games being developed have changed to reflect that market. That also means that games that were a certain way have also changed. It's where the money is (speaking of which, that gets into all the nonsense with F2P/P2W/RMT - etc, etc, etc. Hey, it would be fine if you were playing a crappy lil' game on your smartphone - but c'mon, I'm looking for immersion - I'm not looking for ads suggesting that I buy something so I can do something. Oh, that's a little out of left field, eh?
So, after all this ramble - what's the best suggestion I have?
In the end, it's not really the game. You can take a decent group of RPGers and drop them into any game and they will be fine. So find the RPG folks and you will have your game. If the RPG aspect is the important part, that's pretty straightforward, eh?
If it's actually something else, which appears to be the case based on the complaints, well - then you're screwed...
