[Will]

I used to get caught up in making sure that everything I put into my virtual world was "realistic" and "good for the game." Then a really smart guy advised me that unless I was making additions and changes with fun for the players foremost in my mind, what was point?

In my opinion, success depends less upon the features that you include and more on how well you implement them. You can write the most comlex, ingenious, realistic mechanics in the world, but if they don't make playing fun, who cares? It's much more important that game mechanics bring players together and allow them to create and compete in emergent and interesting ways than it is for game mechanics to simulate reality.

I love this, but I think you need to be really careful. Forcing players to go through a tutorial can be tricky. I've seen it done various ways and have disconnected in the middle a couple of times because the process just got too long and tedious.

It sounds like you have lots of great stuff planned. I look forward to seeing it.

Good luck!