Off to a bad start Options

[Mole]

I hate to be a naysayer, but I think this little project of ours if getting off on the wrong foot. We?re already starting the make the classic mistake of wanting too much too soon. If we want this project to succeed, then we need change some things.

Here is it, essentially day one, and we?re already deciding on what server software to use, some people are even pricing out hardware, and some people are even arguing over how many people to allow in the alpha and beta phases. Slow down! If we keep up at this pace, this train is going to derail long before it even leaves the station let alone arrives at one.

First off, we need to decide if we want to give this project even the smallest chance for success. If we don?t want it to succeed and we just want to pretend to do this then let?s all just carry on doing what we?re doing.

If we want to see our goals realized and actually design an opensource UMMORPG, then we need to go about this the right way. We need to define our goals and objectives, our scope, vision, mission, and strategy (not necessarily in the order listed).

Once we have these things, then we can start to define our game world (at a high level) and all that it will encompass. This is going to show us what we want in our game and what we don?t want. This is where we will argue things like PnC vs WASD and other topics like that. This is going to get ugly. But we?ll eventually work through all of this and we?ll be better off for it. Notice that I haven?t even started to talk about what spells the so-and-so class will have yet. (That comes later!)

Armed with the above things, we should then be in a good position to determine how we are going to develop this game of ours. Since we?ll know exactly what we want (at least at a high level) we?ll be able to effectively determine our plan of attack.

When we know how we?ll go about solving our problems, then we?ll start development and we?ll start fleshing out things that will be in-game.

It should be noted here that I haven?t begun to talk about deliverables, ARs, and how we are going to track progress. That will come later as well.

This is going to be a long process. Those of you who are in this for the short-term investment are going to be disappointed. Those of you who are in this for the long haul need to stick around and make yourselves comfortable. The ?average? development cycle for a MMORPG by professionals (people who do this for a living) is 3 years. MR had already been going at Wish for 3 years, and they weren?t done; granted they developed some middleware along the way, so that slowed them down some.

Some of the things that we need to do can be done here in the forums, while other things are best done in a weekly meeting of some sort.

Do people think I sound like I know what I?m talking about, or do you all think I?m full of bunk? I want to hear your opinions on what *you* think we should do and about how *you* think we should go about doing this. I don?t want this thread to be used to discuss ideas for the game. I just want us to talk about how we should approach this.

[DeadPaladin]

very good post. i agree completely and that we have to be realistic or else ppl are going to be leaving left and right because we havent been getting anything done.