Well, If i recall it correctly, Darkfall started off as an small group like yours, but since they were just 5-6 devs, making the game took years
They eventually got bought up by some random Greek company and they could publish their game due to that
So i guess that if you wanna make a game, you should do something unique, hype it, and get bought up by a bigger company (if you don't wanna be doing the game for 10+ years)
I guess it depends if you're gonna use an existing engine or make one yourselfs...