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Baram · 07-13-2006, 12:02 AM

Your options are pretty limited if you want to make money off it. I believe LPC does offer a commercial license, but I'm not sure of the cost. We went with Rapture, which comes with basically no game code(bugged WHO/SAY and working QUIT). It's far from cheap, but if it's something you want to look into you'll have to discuss that with Matt.

My partner has been funding it out of his own pocket, he saved up for quite a while. We both still work full time jobs(well, I took a month off from work in May and switched to part time last month). If you can code, that's a good start. You will need to find others to help you, there's no way you could build good area's and do all the coding on your own... well at least not in a reasonable amount of time.

We re-started(from scratch) in February, and are on track(a little ahead actually) to start Alpha testing this year and open beta early 2007. It's been a lot of work, and finding good builders has been the biggest problem.

Finding good staff is not an easy task, there are plenty of games out there for people to build on. Many seem to prefer a game that is already open, so they can chat and RP as well as build. Many builders of ours did seem to quit before we got a larger team, which makes getting a large team harder. Once there are more people on your team, people seem less likely to quit(at least they can chat it up with other builders).

As for the business side, Ryan did all of that so I'm not sure. The two biggest places to form an LLC(best way IMO) is California and Delaware. Both will allow you to do it without a physical location, just a PO box.

Then there's the hosting choice, we used Wolfpaw(minimum set up, about 20USD/mo) for most of development. A few weeks ago we switched to a dedicated server with 1&1(Root II if you want to look at it). Since we are getting closer to release, and need to integrate some things with the website it was time to move to our permanent home.

For costs, with all hosting and such involved... I'd say we've probably gone close to 20k, maybe even up to 30k. We've also had a few builders that have wanted to be paid for their work, which we just can't afford at this time. What we have done is offer each one Angelstone(our version of credits, if you use a pay-for-perks style) and the best have a chance to stay on as volunteer admin. From there we will pick 2 producers(one for the building side and one for the coding side) that will be paid on commission.

Over all, expect 1-2 years for development, depending on the ability of yourself and your team. What codebase or platform you decide to use will also raise or lower the time. If you want to take the cheapest route, you could code everything from the ground up, but that would take a lot longer.

07-13-2006, 12:02 AM	#2
Baram Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Seoul Home MUD: Tears of Polaris Posts: 218	Your options are pretty limited if you want to make money off it. I believe LPC does offer a commercial license, but I'm not sure of the cost. We went with Rapture, which comes with basically no game code(bugged WHO/SAY and working QUIT). It's far from cheap, but if it's something you want to look into you'll have to discuss that with Matt. My partner has been funding it out of his own pocket, he saved up for quite a while. We both still work full time jobs(well, I took a month off from work in May and switched to part time last month). If you can code, that's a good start. You will need to find others to help you, there's no way you could build good area's and do all the coding on your own... well at least not in a reasonable amount of time. We re-started(from scratch) in February, and are on track(a little ahead actually) to start Alpha testing this year and open beta early 2007. It's been a lot of work, and finding good builders has been the biggest problem. Finding good staff is not an easy task, there are plenty of games out there for people to build on. Many seem to prefer a game that is already open, so they can chat and RP as well as build. Many builders of ours did seem to quit before we got a larger team, which makes getting a large team harder. Once there are more people on your team, people seem less likely to quit(at least they can chat it up with other builders). As for the business side, Ryan did all of that so I'm not sure. The two biggest places to form an LLC(best way IMO) is California and Delaware. Both will allow you to do it without a physical location, just a PO box. Then there's the hosting choice, we used Wolfpaw(minimum set up, about 20USD/mo) for most of development. A few weeks ago we switched to a dedicated server with 1&1(Root II if you want to look at it). Since we are getting closer to release, and need to integrate some things with the website it was time to move to our permanent home. For costs, with all hosting and such involved... I'd say we've probably gone close to 20k, maybe even up to 30k. We've also had a few builders that have wanted to be paid for their work, which we just can't afford at this time. What we have done is offer each one Angelstone(our version of credits, if you use a pay-for-perks style) and the best have a chance to stay on as volunteer admin. From there we will pick 2 producers(one for the building side and one for the coding side) that will be paid on commission. Over all, expect 1-2 years for development, depending on the ability of yourself and your team. What codebase or platform you decide to use will also raise or lower the time. If you want to take the cheapest route, you could code everything from the ground up, but that would take a lot longer.