I would agree that you should place a dynamic and action oriented piece of artwork on the main page. Also make sure that you mention that the game is FREE to open an account. Once people see that it a free RPG, there should be little reason not to sign on and try.
Yea, I have a suggestion. Forum owners are always looking for ways to attract new members. Develop this game and do a full integration with the popular forums, such as Vbulletin, IPB, phpbb or smf. Offer a limited free version of the game to forum owners, then offer a better paid for commercial version. Or offer a brand free option for copyright and link removal. Then keep an even better version of the game for yourself. Post the free version on forum modification sites. Forum owners will download and install your game. At the bottom of the game page put a link back to your site. You will have almost instant advertising from other forums. As forum owners buy the full version, or buy a brand free option to remove the link to your site or copyright logo, you will start getting some cash flow coming in. The Vbulletin community badly needs a battle system and a MMORPG would be that much better. I installed a battle system for my members and they loved it. Over 100 accounts were created within 24 hours. In the last 2 months the army page on my site has been viewed over 25,000 times. There is only one army / battle system for VBulletin right now. So there is plenty of demand for other options. If you can market this product to other forum owners and make some money, why not?