Game Chronicles scooped up an interview with Peter Tyson from Codemasters about the highly-anticipated (at least in my case) mmorpg Dragon Empires. Altough the subjects are quite broad and general, there's still a lot of interesting stuff in it for those who're not familiar with the details of the game. An interestign excerpt about the cities and economy:

Cities seem to play a vital role in Dragon Empire--far more then just gathering areas. Could you tell about their involvement in both the economic and PvP aspects of Dragon Empire? 
City ownership and the economy are tied very closely together in Dragon Empires and the result is a world where ownership of bits of the land really does matter. Clans fight other clans for ownership of the cities and should a city change hands the local economy is changed drastically. Firstly, a new tax rate has to be set by the ruling clan, this is a tax on all goods bought and sold in the local economy. Second, a manufacturing specialty has to be set, this becomes, in time, what the city is most efficient at producing. Along with this, when a city changes hands the old specialty is reduced to its base value. For this reason a lot of players are likely to re-evaluate where they are basing themselves when a city changes hands. Smart clans will work hard to encourage existing manufacturers to stay working in their city so as to boost their tax take. Thus, as cities change hands the economy of the world will change a lot. Demand for resources will change as manufacturers move around and various player city-state empires will rise and fall, along with their benevolent (or not so benevolent!) regimes.