Interesting article where game designer Tim Cain is interviewed about a mysterious unnamed project his company Carbine is working on. The part about being able to do whatever you like, without there being set goals or quests sounds like something most of us would enjoy :) The key difference is that he considers the level cap to be the START of the game, where MindArk seems to consider "not having anything specific to do" to be one of the key principles of the game :P Full interview here.
Sure looks intresting, When thinking about the level cap beeing the start of the actual game, take a look at WoW, even though I dont play that is basically part of its concept..