Sorry Burrie.
Yeah, I didn't see anything in kirby's idea that really addressed this, which is the main reason these games don't have roleplaying. Its not so much the game design as it is the players of the game.
One man's idea of fun (role playing) isn't necessarily everyone else's idea (roll playing/stat whoring/whatever) but unless the game world specifically enforces one idea or the other, you're going to have both types. And the majority type (which I think its safe to say, are roll players) is going to either make life very difficult for the others, or make them move on entirely.
While removing the stats from view is an interesting (but not new) idea they wouldn't really be removed from view. Some people, through trial and error...would figure out how the system worked, then post it on the web somewhere. Now we're back at square one all over again, except newbies are at a further disadvantage. That, in and of itself wouldn't force people to role play in the game.
People have a competive nature, and when you throw them in a stat based game with other players you're going to have people crawling all over themselves to maximize their effectiveness at...maximizing their effectiveness (stats)!
I don't have an answer on how to get people to role play in MMORPGs. I'm not sure there is one, because I don't think as many people as you might think want that. kirby said 10% of the market is being ignored...well, unfortunately that is the nature of the beast here. Video games in general are a highly competitive market, where very few titles actually turn a profit. And MMORPGs have quickly become very competitve genre within that market. I'm not even sure if we'll see a big developer want to invest in a project that only 10% of the market base might buy. But maybe more people would like it if they only tried it, it is easy to get caught up on the same old thing.
As I said a little earlier, I think small scale ones are the way to go. Besides, those wouldn't have monthly fee, and with modding you can create you own kind of world
![:P](../../smileys/tongue.gif)