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You say that a role-playing intensive world requires a consistant world and players that RP, but that's saying next to nothing. The purpose of the moral life is to do good and avoid evil, but that kinda goes without saying, too...the question is more of how to make an immersive world and how to encourage RP.
Being overly general here, the MUD community has two groups: the powergamers and the RPers. The best way to encourage the powergamers to RP is IC competition. Make resources limited and fought over by two factions that hate each other for some reason in the world's background. They won't cooperate, since they want their power. Instant RP-enforced tension.
The best way to keep the RPers happy with the RP possibilities is 1) the intricacies of the struggle (people don't wake up one day and say, "What damage can I cause? I must do eeevilll! [insert evil laugh here].") There should be legitimate ideological differences...maybe the "evil" caste spent most of its life oppressed and has to work harder to make it on evil footing...their evil is really just ensuring that they don't get trampled by the overly-theoretical "good" people. Maybe some powerful force almost destroyed the world once...one faction harnesses it in an attempt to understand and focus it for the benefit of their community, while another thinks it's dangerous and sacreligious to dabble in it (or shelter those who do). If the RPers start debating in some public fashion, that's a good sign.
Also, a consistant world allows for real, concrete changes. It should be theoretically possible to win the ancient struggle (even if practically impossible). The characters should have the option to RP a change of heart and switch factions. If you use a class-based system, they should be able to change classes. It might be good for balance reasons to make this a costly choice in terms of the powergaming aspect, though.
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