Ok, as for the storyline I will give a summary for those out there.
Over the past 8 milleniums have passed and on the upcoming festival of the 9th millenium the people of the land have began to become frightened. Every 1000 years a war has erupted, halting the growth of the countries as well as their exploration of the vast lands around them.
The emotionless city of Nirvana has broke ties with the world and closed it's doors to outsiders. Nobles now fight for entire kingdoms as the kings themselves are busy trying to prevent their keeps from being overran by the spirits that have accumulated from past wars. Without the city of Nirvana to guide harmony to the outside world the kingdoms feel alone in their wars and are now at arms with each other.
A couple keeps still allow the passage of nomads and the like. The trade in these keeps is grand and the population is vast and ever changing. These two keeps are the wooden town of Lyre, built from the grand tree O'Gar and Salin's Ward, a once abandoned castle now home to nightly gypsy festivals as well as daily merchant trades.
Though the kingdoms fear the years end they begin to try to thwart the fear by sending out adventurers from every kingdom. In hopes that the monsters and spirits of the land aren't at their doorsteps the kingdoms assign tasks to every individual to routinely clean out their neighboring caverns and forests of evil spirits and creatures of the darkness. Though many still wonder if the kingdoms are just being distracted from a true plot as everyone knows the wars cannot be coincidence.

This game would be an MMORPG and I would work on it as much as possible with anyone that would help and I will explain the reason this is a problem for me by myself:
This is not an ABS, this is a sideview battlesystem.
This battle system is my main problem with the situation.

I'll start from the beginning of the interaction between players.
Players will walk around freely as they wish and there will be a "global" chat.
Player vs Player will be sideview and multiple players can be on either side.
Player vs Environment (with other players) is where a player joins another player's party (follows them via caterpillar script, but does not show up in their menu.) and follows them around. Players will be able to join mid-battle (granted the player in the battle first only permits them to if they want them to unless it's pvp oriented, and there's enough room for the player to enter.) and this is where the problem comes in. I have no idea how to do this but I know it's a great idea.
Storyline drawn from players actions that compound the events already upcoming. The storyline will have great changes to it based on the players interactions with eachother. This will be from actual study of activities in the game. This will give the community more of a feel of control in the game but not too much as the storyline still has a linear basis to it.
Now, as for how far you are in the game as opposed to others, this game is not based on a set scale of levels, as level will not affect your character enough to make it so you will always lose against someone 10 or so levels above you but when the numbers get into the double digits things will change.
Reason to PVP, in this game the reason to pvp in this game is they will randomly drop 1 item (there is a chance they will drop nothing) and everything in their inventory that's not equipped on a body that will begin to decay. This body will have 3 stages. Stage 1 will be unlootable. Stage 2 will be lootable but the loot will automatically drop on the ground along with the normal things whenever the holder dies in a battle. Stage 3 will be lootable and the loot will be normal. Now that the item is on the ground in the body the goal of the player after that is to find out where the other player spawned and enter a battle with them and win (or at least prevent them from acting) until the body decays (body will decay on a global timer that will countdown even if the players are in a battle) to the point where it's lootable (either 2nd or 3rd stage) so the player who won can obtain his/her loot. The goal of the other player is obviously to get back to their body before the decay timer is up so they can obtain their item back. (Decaying bodies will be considered containers so all will be able to see what's in the body and all will be able to grab it.)

Phew, now given all of that, I don't want to be the main person in the lead of this game but I would be if I had to. I just want this game to be made so if anyone wants help making something like this or is interested in starting it with me I would be happy to oblige. Hell I'd be happy to provide a server if it could be proven that the system is working!

This game could be great, trust me, as this pvp system is very unique and would be great for old 2d loves all around the world that loved the final fantasies. This sideview mmorpg battle system would put your unique strategies in battle to the test as well as add an entirely new dimension to battle with the option to add people in during battle.

If anyone bites on this idea and likes it enough to reply I'll start posting previews to what my ideas would look like. I know it seems like alot of work but once the scripts and events necessary for it to work are figured out it's smooth sailing from there and with an MMORPG there'd obviously be options for expansion from there on.