In most AAA (not to imply that ours will be) MMORPGs that are active today, role playing is as best a sideline and at worst a sham.
Prime example: click-fest on rails quests.
While the game will contain all the (what we consider) standard MMORPG game elements and common practices, it will require role play and the entire emphasis of the game will be on role playing to advance a common story.
One line in our draft design document reads, “GM’s to be able to strike offending OOC players dead with lightning/fire/death from the sky.”
While we understand this emphasis will relegate to game to niche status and may exclude it altogether from maintaining an audience, we feel that it’s time to go in another direction with multiplayer online role playing games.
