Quote Originally Posted by Eric View Post
Random generation also makes for a very bland/generic gameplay, some games were successful with it like [...links...] but many more failed, and arguably Arena has an overarching story.
This is offtopic as it blandly relates in series of replies to the main post. On this side, King's Bountry, which combined fixed world with random villages and treasures was very nice and had a lot of replayability.

The main topic of original post was MMORPG, which should not be confused with RPG. I would emphasize on Massive-Multiplayer element, which can be also applied to other genres like MMRTS (or MMFPS anyone? ) Sometimes it is mistakenly confused with term "online", but Online Game does not constitute Massive-Multiplayer Game. The last one requires significant budget for acquiring servers, developing efficient scaling strategy among many other things.

A newbie trying to develop an MMORPG would be equivalent of high-school student trying to build his/her own Oil Rig. Can it possibly be done? Sure, but I personally wouldn't count on it.