As I said, on a technical level think Dwarf Fortress - but with a bit less detail and a much larger world (potentially distributed across multiple servers). I'd like to be able to truly simulate a medieval/fantasy RPG world, so a player can see logical consequences from their actions.
The same underlying simulation could conceivably be used for a peaceful economic sim, or a highly strategic military game, or just an RPG with a ton of depth.
This is something I have been thinking would be great, Mount and Blade has been the only game that has come close in my opinion.
Don't really understand how you would stop players just slaying all your NPC's? Which I think isn't a problem in the whole if it was offline single player but after playing many online games I just can't see it actually working online.
Also recreating DF with a lot less detail in real time across multiple servers seems like a insane technical challenge good luck!
The same underlying simulation could conceivably be used for a peaceful economic sim, or a highly strategic military game, or just an RPG with a ton of depth.