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Personally, I wouldn't go as far as removing manually-built settlements entirely - at least capitols should need some "local" feel to them to add depth and flavour.
About the specialization according to society model (and race), another layer of immersiveness would be to add a faction framework on the whole game.
What are factions?
Preset groups of players and monsters, which can represent a combination of:
- nations
- races
- classes or equivalent
- alignment or equivalent
- trade
- religion etc...
A player's faction influence any kind of interactions with the game world: how much he's charged in shops, wether killing a mob will earn him respect or a bounty on his head, (and where), the type of quests he can get, the type of reactions in dialogue.
In our place, the setting involves strongly present nations, based on races. You could hence further imagine trans-national factions with dual loyalties.
Finally, this could also open up additional types of interaction for players, aside from "go destroy the such-and-such hive":
- As already suggested, your faction might rather require that you defend a place
- If the engine supports it, you could support a colony by assisting in the resource-gathering - for profit, of course.
- Capture-the-flag type missions where instead of destroying a hive you capture it for another faction. In that case, you could further envision that player groups have the option to change the type of hive to suit their faction's preferences - a change somewhat limited by the surrounding terrain type, of course, but you could for instance replace orc caverns by dwarves etc...
This all interests me in the context of the whole challenge of giving players more things to do in game terms than merely camp & slash - without the constraints of free-form or staff-driven RP.
As an aside, I love such discussions. Reminds me of the old and regretted Game Commandos </nostalgia>
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