Thanks Coldon, its still several months away before any of us have the time to sit down and set everything up and get the ball rolling, But I need to get caught up on modeling before we do so I was looking at that book on amazon and it looks to be decent. Its just with the requirements we hashed out in 20 minutes the other day we don't think anything out there can meet our requirements atm, were talking about multi threading and when in 4-5 years were going to have enthusiasts with 8 cores and standard being quad......... since to be realistic, even if we started today with a 5 man team, it would be at least 5 years till finish date, were more than likely going the xna route just to drop the cash into new computers etc, and hopefully recruitment. It's not easy what were trying to do, but when it comes right down to it, we all love games, and were not satisfied with anything out there. So more than likely, xna route with a couple of single players thrown in somewhere to test out code and to give our coding team experience, but the end goal is an mmo.
Let me re-Iterate this: Chosing to do a custom engine can be incredibly rewarding and incredibly stupid at the same time. Note CAN BE. Isn't always. Seeing as you're a rookie team ITO games development and engine development, I'd strongly recommend looking in depth at some of the commercially available engines, and consider the time/money input into either option, and weight that up with what you're trying to do. Also remember that often, when you license, say, Unreal Technology for a game, upgrades are often negotiable. Add to that the fact that UT (for example) has that UDK out there, which is pretty much what they used to make Gears of War, for example. You can use UDK for free, and then upgrade to a commercial license later on. This is of course provided that your aim is to make a game. If your preliminary aim is to make an engine, feel free to go right ahead.
