Hi. Does anyone know a good community out there specializing in MMO design and construction? Whether it's a forum, google group, newsgroup or anything else, it's all good to me. Been googling for a bit and so far have come up empty.

Well, there's terranova.blogs.com, that's quite interesting sometimes, but covers a lot of aspects of virtual worlds (persistant large scale simulations / games), and is written for the most part by and for industry pro's. It can be a little dry.

This site's actually just as useful in my opinion - the moderator of this board has developed some successful (full-scale commercial) MMO's, at least one other poster has taken their MMO to release (and it's running nicely), and there are some other projects by other members running that look like they'll go the distance.

The people on this site tend to discourage others from starting MMO projects without first doing other projects, and gaining the experience necessary to start *planning* an MMO development. If you take your time and ask considered (non-FAQ) questions, and don't post in help wanted 'I want maek teh uber roxxor MMO! Who will code it for me?', you should be ok. :-)

Quote:

Original post by _winterdyne_ [...] - the moderator of this board has developed some successful (full-scale commercial) MMO's, at least one other poster has taken their MMO to release (and it's running nicely), and there are some other projects by other members running that look like they'll go the distance.

Could you explain? I wonder who and which games.

hplus0603 worked on There (for sure) and a couple other products and now deals with a 'serious' game. I won't say any more on that, I don't like to gossip. He doesn't make a big deal of it - always helps with pertinent questions. raduprv (gdnet member) made Eternal Lands (an indie MMO). If you look at the developer journals, you'll notice others.

The MUD-Dev mailing sometimes has some interesting discussions. You can read the archives at https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev.

The MMO Round Table recently opened its doors. There are high level design discussions like you would find on the MUD-DEV list, but there's also a technical forum.

Thanks to all who replied :)
Really liking the MMO Round-Table. Exactly what I was looking for.

[Edited by - Froztwolf on May 1, 2006 7:43:30 AM]