I think that the best thing about Open Source anything and specifically MMORPG is that it is an environment in which people can learn for becoming professionals or in my case to use the source for totally new purposes. I do not find the source to be inscrutable or tangled, I have seen lots worse that I was paid to fix for commercial applications. A lot of times people will look at something and say it is trash because they are weak programmers. IMHO it is not "gospel" code by any stretch of the imagination, but it is usable and it is being improved.

The wealth of experience I have gleaned is at times staggering. I agree 100%

I certainly enjoy working with Planeshift and since it is open source I built my own server client on my machine and tested it. It was hilarious to have that much control over the game, I made things float in air and , it is a great way to see how all the internals of a graphic system work. It seems clean enough to use and at first I thought it was rough but the more I learn the better I like the way the parts are arranged and separated.

I was not going to get into the other  thread because it is inherently odd that anyone says don't play a free game, I don't get it, It's free whats not to get, it costs you nothing, don't play if you don't want. Who cares. That is like don't try Linux it is evil and will destroy the world. I have games on my apt-get that I don't try and some I do, I try them and if I like them then I play . I don't - I delete. Where's the 0xbeef ? I have windows on another partition, if that is what I want to use I don't feel guilty about it.

That thread is about something else I fear. Somebody is playing out a psychodrama that I don't understand and they keep bumping up that thread to the first thing people see. I have no clue what would prompt someone to be that bitter about something they can't have  knowledge about.  My personal interest is to develop free software and one of those is Planeshift Funny thing, programmers and artists are people and people don't always agree on things. In fact things can be very passionate, but I follow advice from  Linus Torvalds, Don't call somebody a ****** ****** if you have to work with them. Even if that is what you think at the time because you will likely regret it.

The game is Planeshift play or not it's free.  If you have a problem with -people- speak to people that works best.

Coders, artists, and writers curious about contributing to the project can find recruitment details here.

www.planeshift.it/recruitment.html

That is a good place to start. I really think that a programmer who is competent with c++ could learn a lot from people in Planeshift or it's associated partners.  The future of gaming could actually be right here. I do mean that seriously. Projects that span this much time have a momentum which takes time to build and the fruits of years of labor are starting to show, if you want to be a part, now is the time.

We are moving into a new phase and as such we are now actively seeking new artists and coders.

Anyone who would like to donate some of their time to help provide support to an ad free, fee free, mmorpg with an open source engine code base, please apply to the team.

We can be found on irc @ freenode.irc.net #planeshift if one wishes to speak to us live about joining.