A new project.

[John Nagle]

Clement wrote:
> On May 16, 1:09 pm, colin.barne... at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>I am interested in organizing and taking part in a project that would
>>create a virtual world much like the one described in Neal
>>Stephenson's 'Snow Crash'.

    That's a perfectly reasonable idea.  It takes money and people to
power it, but it's not impossible.  If you have a clue.

    You'll need a team of 5-10 nearly full time really good core people to
make it work, and probably about two years.  You need at least one really good
3D programmer, at least one really good networking expert, and at least
one really good artist.

    (I met with the core team of There when they were first starting up,
and it was about that large.)

    Presumably you have a background in game production, or 3D graphics.
If not, you need to hire an experienced game producer.

    Join IGDA, get to GDC, and start recruiting.

    You don't have to do this from a cold start.  You can start from some
existing code bases.  Look at some of the VRML engines, or the Blender
GameKit.  In fact, a reasonable approach might be to start converting
the Blender GameKit to multiplayer.  It uses Python as a scripting
language, and already has the 3D machinery, collision detection,
and physics engine.  What it doesn't have is scaling; it can't do a big
world.

    There are other MMORPG engines.  See

      http://www.devmaster.net/wiki/MMORPG_Creation_Packages

for a list.  This is far easier to do than it was five years ago.

					John Nagle