Online role-playing games are some of the most popular games around, mainly because they offer players the ability to escape to a fantasy setting to adventure in a world populated by thousands of other players. In addition to the monster slaying and dungeon exploring, these games offer rich social interactions that you can't get with computer-controlled characters. There is a promising crop of new online role-playing games on the horizon, including The Saga of Ryzom, a major project that's been under way for more than three years at French developer Nevrax. The game was originally scheduled to launch earlier this summer, but Nevrax delayed it until September to add a few extra features to it and to spend more time polishing it. We recently got a rare chance to take a look at the game in progress.