Okies, I have been toying with making a MMO since playing Ultima Online,
I am currently just playing about with the networking side of things, and thought I would put this out there to see if anyone else was interested.

I would like to explorer a simpler side to MMORPG's (to start with) and just develop one for the fun of learning.
(I have been playing about with snippets of games for years, since i was 9 infact) I haven't gotten around to doing anything major since I was always wanting to learn a bit more before starting my latest project.

Well I have decided that rather than just delaying until I know everything I need to know (which at this rate could go on forever) I’ll do what everyone else seams to do and just go for it. (Jump in at the deep end as it were).

I have had so many ideas over the years for MMO games and ways they could be done. Has I am sure most of you have experienced too.

My job is a C# programmer so I feel comfortable with that. And have been getting good results with True Vision 3D for the graphics, I have made concept tests of paging in landscape and objects from disk so you just load a bubble of world around the player.
I have been reading up and testing multiplayer networking with efficient UCP bit packed network traffic and using game states for dead reckoning algorithms etc.

My idea was to wonder off the beaten track of already established high fantasy worlds and create a blank canvas. An untouched natural landscape filled with forests, mountains, caves, rivers, birds, animals, and monsters. And have a bit of an Iron Age / medieval pioneering feel to it. But still retain an RPG fantasy element (read including magic) so as not to get too bogged down in realism.

I would just like to start by creating a world which is interesting to explore in its own right with individual RPG character advancement and an lose but expandable social structure. With a simple supply and demand player economy focused on crafting. (Things stay on your corpse when u die to aid the economy – think UO)

Players can build up there own settlements/villages/towns using the natural resources around them (wood/iron/stone). And then defend them against monsters / players from other settlements. Farm crops and animals, cut down trees and build roads. Kind of like a MMO RTS/RPG
(possibly even with hired AI worker help / soldiers)

Things will decay if not maintained and slowly return back to nature.
So if a few players start to clear some land in a forest and build some houses and roads and then quit the game, over a couple of months the houses and roads will slowly decay and the trees will grow back until its un-touched again.

Anyway that’s an outline; anyone wanting to help can of course throw their own ideas in there. Basically the more the merrier to an extent.
Since it’s just for fun and learning anyone wanting to help (whatever your experience) in any capacity is welcome. (I would just ask that you find the basic premise that I have laid out somewhat interesting or we will all be pushing in different directions)

I don't have space or time to go into detail on all my ideas here but hopefully the gist of it has come across in these short paragraphs.

Or if you are in a Team working on a similar project and you could use a C# Programmer then let me know.

Just so I don't get moaned at going to make sure I covered everything in the sticky...

Team name: Up for discussion

Project name: Up for discussion
possible working title: Barbarian Frontier

Target aim: Freeware or Donationware unless any of the members feel differently.

Compensation:
A warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment. And a good learning experience.
However If I got overruled and the team wanted to charge for it, then making the wild assumption that it gets finished and makes more money that it costs to run then any "profit" would be split between the team evenly or maybe slightly skewed based on 3 levels of contribution (Major/Standard/Minor)

Technology:
Language = C# .NET 2.0
3D Engine will be Truevision 3D (A Direct X 9 Wrapper)
3D Content will need to be anything that will produce 3ds files
C# Scripting

Talent needed:
-C# Coders (Or people willing to learn C#) (.NET 2.0)
-3D Modellers / Animators (This is my weak area so would be reliant on some existing experience here from at least one Modeller / Animator)
-2D Artwork
-Web Admin (need to create website from scratch, pref with ASP.NET as could then integrate with the game nicely)
But if you think you have something else to offer contact me anyway.
Don't get to hung up about your current experience, I am looking to do this for fun and to make friends so as long as you have a mature attitude and are willing to learn (and have some idea of how games are made) then that's fine.

Team structure:
Just me atm (and maybe a 2D artist later on)
I do everything except animating or though my 3D art is... well not exactly the best you have seen.
But more helpfully I can code all the framework for the game, the server code, networking and the client with a 3D Engine.
I will take help where ever I can get it though, so if someone else has experience programming we just split up the work into the bits people want to do. If I can get a few people on board with the coding and 3D art then will also be looking for people who just want to provide ideas and help test.

Website:
Nothing atm.

Contacts:
mmorpg@cyberduke.net

that's the exact same idea as mine! except mine's in the future with those kinds of idea. I'll explain more if you want. But my project is only me and all i can do is think of ideas and photoshop. Check out my post if you want...

http://www.onrpg.com/boards/43870.html

but my idea is like almost identicial to yours but i just didnt put it all down.

i can make a website too, sort of.

heh, actually your idea looks quite good.
I only skimmed over it as I have to go to work in 2 mins, but I like the way you explain your ideas. That sounds like it is a huge project though.

I want to get away from the "main stream" MMORPG feel
and make something that is a cross between Ultima Online and Anno xxxx (which ever version) or settlers (you get the idea) I don't think anyone wants their profession to be say just mining, as most people want to explore most aspects of a game. That's why I like to take ideas from a romantic view of the Iron age. You can both build up your own house run a farm and go of to war all with the same char. (and if you get bored go and explorer a forest or cave, with monsters about)

Also I am a great proponent of harsher deaths like you (lol that sounds ebil)
I like the way Ultima Online & Eve Online handles it.
I think Eve online took alot from Ultima too, on their website they explain the difference between their single universe and multiple shards.
And of course shards where part of the Ultima story line.

Anyway I have had lots of really cool Space MMORPGs ideas, ever since Elite (who has't) but I have seen far to meny of my ideas being developed in current Space based MMO's for me to bother trying my own. Which is why I have come back to this... since I am not aware of anything being developed that is too similar.

Oops out of time, gonna be late now, hope all that makes some kind of sense

lol. yeah i have initially was going for a medieval sort of idea. but then it seemed that space style was cooler and more options of things. and for my idea, you don't really go for one profession only and keep on it. you can do all of them at once XD

and it would be cool if u could design your house or apartment like how the sims do it.

TC's idea sounds better in my opinion (though I'm being biased because I hate space-age stuff). Anyway, I was just posting here because it seems pretty interesting, though I can't help. All I can do is say good luck, and if you continue with this, keep us updated.

Yeah I thought about how customizable housing should be,
I definitely want the player to be able to buy or make furniture and move it about in their house and place smaller objects they can use on or around the furniture, as for the shape of the house itself though that's trickier.

One of the many things you would have to keep in mind designing a custom housing feature of any kind is re-distributing the new house to all the other clients, with just a selection of pre-build structures that all the clients know about, the server can just say, yeah there is a structure [type 7] in [this location] facing [this way] so its low net traffic.

Ok I was typing a list of ways I could think to do customised player housing.
but I thought this one was probably the best one I could think of from the top of my head, so I ditched the others and now its a list of one.

1) let the player design the floor plan with primitive 2D shapes
and force them to keep each floor area within the ground one (within a margin). Then procedurally generate a model of the house by building each floor from the outline of the shapes with standard ceiling heights and wall thickness's, and then allow them to pick materials to texture the building with.
The beauty of this is that you can interject standard features (read models) like doors and windows (that each client will already know about) and all you need to do, in order to get other clients to be able to see your new house is for the server to send them the code needed to generate the model. (compressed and encrypted of course) and each client would already have the textures to apply to that model. Once the a client had cached the model it build of your new house it wouldn't have to do it again unless you changed it.