I love a good movie. It's a terrible role playing game, but then it's a terrible sports car, too, if you see my point. You don't ask a computer to bake bread and you don't try to run spread sheets on your oven. Again, that's a basic design paradigm issue. If I waved a magic wand and the Bitter Sea Company decided to produce a game on-line, my first mission would be for the design team to give me design options.
Time scale becomes a major issue.
Overland travel in real time is not a fun game play. Nor is sitting around for weeks in a tavern waiting for your third wizard to arrive on a caravan. You must have ways to get around these sorts of problems, and the small server approach obviates some of them. Again, do you want to watch a movie or play a game. I think you set up the parts of the machine, then get out of the way and see how the players screw with it.