As an intro I'd like to note that I've already built a Flash FPS MMO Zombie game. It was a Top-Down shooter you hold down the mouse button to shoot and isn't like your normal MMO where you have "Skills" although im not against that idea entirely. You can talk to your friends, shoot well known weapons like AK-47, pistol, flame throwers. You could even light zombies on fire and they would react accordingly. The engine is really good there was little lag, levels take a minute or two to load you can go on quests talk to NPC's, create a character do all kinds of stuff anyways after 3months of programming and play testing with friends online I've decided that it's missing alot of fun elements or a story line or both. 90% of my efforts go into programming the game so a good detailed story line is lacking.

I'm asking the GameDev community to put in there 2cents, not JUST for the story line but I'm considering In re-programming the engine in according to make it more interactive so go crazy if you have any features or insights in what MMO's are missing don't be afraid to share aswell the MMO will be free to play but I'm considering of making special items must be payed with some kind of currency or have advertisments between loading screens which ever is less annoying.

May be a side-scroller FPS MMO so the users can get more creative in creating there character instead of drawing with a wierd top-down view(really awkward for non-artists)

Any Ideas?

Heres a link to some screen shots of the original I took the App offline so you can play the game that's so your ideas will be fresh and original.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/apps/application.php?id=187139924645231

*ponders whether zombie games and movies ever have much of a story*

Well, there are two main ways to get zombies - magic (specifically a paranormal kind probably with some tie-in to religion) or science (generally an escaped or mutated virus that makes people and possibly animals rot, rather like leprosy, distemper, and syphilis). A third way that could work in either a magical or scientific context would be some sort of possession or parasitism by a demon, small alien, or nanomachines which could drive dead bodies around. Parasite Eve had mitochondria converting people into something like zombies, but the science of that made no damn sense.

At any rate, I would say the starting point is figuring out how your zombies were created. From there you could think about what sort of villains would be using armies of zombies, creating more of them, etc.

[color=#000000][font=MS Shell Dlg 2][size=2][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]Beef industry secretly spikes meat with a new biochemical designed to cause meat cravings, with the aim of selling more beef. Chemical works by breaking down protein, causing the body to crave more in order to replace it. Chemical clashes with a similar chemical coincidentally introduced by the chicken industry, causing the resulting chemical brew to break down the host's bodyparts and brain (leading to the characteristic zombie look and lack of intelligence).[/font][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]
[/font][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]There you go, put me in your credits![/font][/font]

I can see how you would wanna make a engine so you can continue you advance it in your own way like the way Epic did.Epic started from a engine they're design from the ground up and that took them years and man power.While for us game designers now n days it has become easier cause we can use Unity,Torque,and even the UDK(also Crysis engine which will be out soon).Theres no such thing as "being pro " just cause you decided to design your own engine.Im not trying to discourage you but these engines are to help you advance through out your years as a game designer.Gotta start somewhere and why not start somewhere with something powerful like the UDK and even the not so good engine Unity.Also concentrate on your pixel sprites, appearance is everything cause it shows how much work you've put into your game.Also be original no one likes copys of zombie games over and over.Try and think up fun designs that arent so much like left 4 dead and stuff like that.Left 4 dead died cause it got boring fast along with killing floor.These zombie montage gets boring fast if you dont have something unique and fun to play with.Research is everything also if you just expect the game to be popular cause you think a generic zombie game will be good well your wrong.

I have more but im getting to lazy to type this even more out since this is something every indie should know and learn as they advance through out they're years.

P.s I in now way am saying to not design your own engine just work with something powerful and work on your engine as a side project.Saves you time and gives more attention to your game if you just work on it instead of splitting time between the engine and the game.

I have to agree, make the game ultra fun with mini games and make the game on a great engine like Unity 3D. $2500 is small in comparison to the amount of attention, money, and fame you could get if you design an visually stunning and fucntional zombie fps. I know it's hard to come up with good ideas, perhaps maybe solving all the problems people have from the current zombie genre games will help. Also, your game should have the top 25 things ppl want in a mmog they play. It will help you in the long run. Also, you might want to look into grey hat software to help you advertise and spread the word of the game faster. Don't be shy, Photon is $3,500 for unlimited users for a network, and it goes hand in hand with Unity 3D. Also, if you search good enough, their are mmog tutorials for coding on Unity 3D. Google is your friend, use it well.

Wow awesome responses guys!

[color="#000000"][font="MS Shell Dlg 2"][font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]Beef industry secretly spikes meat with a new biochemical designed to cause meat cravings, with the aim of selling more beef. Chemical works by breaking down protein, causing the body to crave more in order to replace it. Chemical clashes with a similar chemical coincidentally introduced by the chicken industry, causing the resulting chemical brew to break down the host's bodyparts and brain (leading to the characteristic zombie look and lack of intelligence).[/font][font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"] [/font][font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]There you go, put me in your credits![/font][/font]

I was gonna go with some kinda parasite, someone suggested "Mad Cow Disease" but scientificly i was dissatisfied so i gave up the scientific approach but what you got up there is an awsome idea to spark that flame back up with out the typical "XX Corporation somehow let the virus out!!" story line that you usually see. I'm for sure using this for the story line.

I can see how you would wanna make a engine so you can continue you advance it in your own way like the way Epic did.Epic started from a engine they're design from the ground up and that took them years and man power.While for us game designers now n days it has become easier cause we can use Unity,Torque,and even the UDK(also Crysis engine which will be out soon).Theres no such thing as "being pro " just cause you decided to design your own engine.Im not trying to discourage you but these engines are to help you advance through out your years as a game designer.Gotta start somewhere and why not start somewhere with something powerful like the UDK and even the not so good engine Unity.Also concentrate on your pixel sprites, appearance is everything cause it shows how much work you've put into your game.Also be original no one likes copys of zombie games over and over.Try and think up fun designs that arent so much like left 4 dead and stuff like that.Left 4 dead died cause it got boring fast along with killing floor.These zombie montage gets boring fast if you dont have something unique and fun to play with.Research is everything also if you just expect the game to be popular cause you think a generic zombie game will be good well your wrong.

I have more but im getting to lazy to type this even more out since this is something every indie should know and learn as they advance through out they're years.

P.s I in now way am saying to not design your own engine just work with something powerful and work on your engine as a side project.Saves you time and gives more attention to your game if you just work on it instead of splitting time between the engine and the game.

Thats an idea I haven't really considered much, I'm really familiar with Flash(Actionscript 3.0) things like the cysis engine sounds like it involves 3D modeling or even C++ which both give me headaches and nor do I have funding for something like that. I like your idea that the next zombie game shouldn't be generic I'm kind of obsessing about it being fresh and original. Also I personally there needs to be more zombeh humor you don't see that often anymore, real genuine slap stick kinda of stuff.

XNA is much more powerful and those engines are for 3D but they also have 2D versions for it also.XNA is C# so you wont have a hard time learning that..Quality over quantity is something you should remember,a well coded game with much more powerful language will help you plenty.XNA is extremely easy to learn and free also.Look into it to advance,take sprite color examples from games like MapleStory,WonderKing,Ghost Online,etc.These will help you.Make photoshop your friend also cause that will help you so much when it comes down to making really good sprites.Photoshop,XNA,C# have easy and quick tuts on youtube.Last tid bit of advance is that youtube has plenty of tuts these helped me and my friend make our game look good(its 3D ) so ya but theres tuts on how to master the programs.Shouldnt be hard learn the basic tools and tools in general and from there you will master the program easy.As for the C# i suggest you learn spoonfeeding from youtube.

I was checking out XNA and its looks pretty fun and from what i understand correctly the code can be directly ported to Xbox360 which is also a plus. I have a couple questions google couldn't solve. Does it support networking and if so can i get some links on some of this info? Is there any tutorial websites besides microsoft documentation that helps aid in XNA programming?

I would suggest you check youtube.They usually have noob friendly tuts.I'd love to give you tuts but im tired so ill leave you with just saying youtube.

I would suggest you check youtube.They usually have noob friendly tuts.I'd love to give you tuts but im tired so ill leave you with just saying youtube.

I apologize I got way too excited and forgot about the youtube part at the end of your other post. Thanks Mate!