[SnowTroll]

In the muds I play/played, you take your friends with you when you set off to the edge of the world, and roleplay with them the whole time you're out there, then hike home to tell the story to everyone else. Exploring, advancing, grinding, etc. can be roleplayed to some degree, and roleplaying shouldn't be limited to the central hub room. It sounds to me like the problem with Dragonrealms is more of a player culture issue than a design issue. Lots of mudders actually want getting to the rich mob with the good drop rate and good exp rate and the good gear to be hard and time consuming. They don't want that mob 30 rooms from the central hub just to encourage the entire playerbase to camp out at the hub between runs.

"Hi. I've heard of you. You're that awesomely powerful warrior. It's great seeing you at this central gathering area!"

<checks watch> "Uh...yeah. That monster I need to kill every 6 minutes is probably back now. I need to go. Before someone else gets there first."