There will never be another SWG type of game (not a high production one at least.) The MMO sphere has become a casual arena so developers are going to cater to that. 95% of MMOs at this point are going to be an on rails experience just like WoW. You will have some outliers such as Eve but that is more of a political simulator than anything. Long gone are the days of MMORPGs, they are now MMOGs, there is no roleplaying, you are the role the game tells you, you do what the game tells you, and by god you better not interfere with someone elses on rails experience, even if this is a pvp server.