Fan Game Development?

[Saigan]

Been toying around with the idea of a fan MMO that uses one of the Phantasy Star settings. If there is already a project like this in development can someone steer me in that direction?

If there is not an active project is there anyone out there who may be interested? I already have a fair amount of ideas for quest and story but remain untalented in programming and visual art. :P

[qoxolg]

Then I wish you good luck, but don't get your hopes up.

Though just telling you have an idea won't get you much help. If you want to start up projects like this, you need to plan well, write it down.

[Saigan]

Then I wish you good luck, but don't get your hopes up.

Though just telling you have an idea won't get you much help. If you want to start up projects like this, you need to plan well, write it down.

I have a plan in place should there be enough interest :) it would only require a small team looking for a hobby of game creation. :D

[Outrider]

Uh... MMOs aren't really something that ever make a "small team." There are some middleware platforms out there, but I don't know how well those would work for a "small" team.

As qoxolg pointed out - you need to be super organized. You need to write a design document. You need to set up a schedule for your team. You need to meet deadlines. Even if you're doing this as a hobby, you should do all of this.

Have you done any sort of game development before? If not, I would recommend trying to do something incredibly small and stupid to start with. As in... Pong-level simplicity. Game development can be a ton of fun and very rewarding, but in general it isn't easy and it isn't quick.

[Nitro Vordex]

Use RPG Maker if you want an idea of how much work goes into a simple single player sprite based game. You'll have somewhat of an idea of the classic Phantasy Star series in that regard.

MMO's require LOADS of work, not to mention money. Do you have 3D designers? Programmers? Debuggers? Scriptwriters? Servers to host the game on? If you use Phantasy Star related stuff for an MMO and end up making it pay to play, you'll have to get permission from Sega/Sonic Team I believe. Even getting an alpha out the door will take you months, and if it doesn't, your product probably won't be playable.

Game designing as a hobby seems like a strange hobby to me. Maybe stick with Flash or Java based games to begin with, then work your way up.

[Saigan]

I've coded a pong game before from scratch in C#, I've written a small game in RPG Maker, I'm currently in the process of writing my 4th adventure game. I am aware of how easy and yes, how hard game design can be.

I have already selected an engine for use that I have some experience with, for this project we would need a pixel artist, mapper, someone with moderate experience coding in VB, and I will be taking the role as writer and quest design. A small team of 4-5 people can easily have a playable demo of a 2D mmo out in less than a month with only a couple of hours of work being done each day by each member.

[Outrider]

I've coded a pong game before from scratch in C#, I've written a small game in RPG Maker, I'm currently in the process of writing my 4th adventure game. I am aware of how easy and yes, how hard game design can be.

I have already selected an engine for use that I have some experience with, for this project we would need a pixel artist, mapper, someone with moderate experience coding in VB, and I will be taking the role as writer and quest design. A small team of 4-5 people can easily have a playable demo of a 2D mmo out in less than a month with only a couple of hours of work being done each day by each member.

Well, it's your time and energy that you'll be spending, so it's not my place to say what you should or should not be doing. Best of luck, I suppose.