(Before someone asks, yes I got permission to ask that right here and I have started advertising at the "special" pages too.)

Well, if you search for a job in the gaming industry, sorry, I must disappoint you, its a private and non-commercial project, it is even open source.
*watches people leave in throngs*
Ok, now for those still interested, its not even about making a client, its just a server emulator for Ultima Online.
*watches realm getting empty*

Oh, still reading, surprise surprise.
No seriously, here is it.
After two italian Devs decided to leave our project yesterday when already being inactive for months, we are now not able to go on. There is nobody left accept us scripter (two having a bit experience with the server core but not enough to keep it going). What is we? Nox-Wizard, an Ultima Online Server Emulator, that uses the common Origin/EA client for connection and the normal Game files, just the server is programmed by people in their spare time and allows to set up your own shard/server for free. The point about emulators in general is, that they have to bring if possible all the stuff that the commercial server has but at the other hand allows the shard-owner/emulator-user for it to be widely customizeable. The customisation mostly is done by so called scripts. So a server emulator consists out of two parts: server core Devs work at that interprets the scripts or is the frame those fit in. Scripts are mostly done in an own language that is easier than core/source language and done by the Scripter.

Details for Nox-Wizard (or Nox in short):
Nox is an Open-Source Ultima Online Server Emulator, written in C/C++ with strong stressing at cross compilation. We provide at least Linux GCC makefile and for Windows VC6.0 project (stlport 3.4.5 is needed for some memory issues than). Nox was started in 2001 as a branch from Wolfpack by an italian team, that explains why one of both biggest user groups are still italians who mostly are at our official page noxwizard.sourceforge.net (the other one is germans at out german support page gernox.de). The difference between the "trunk" wolfpack and noxwizard are strong now from rewrites and changes now. Nox source is especially for a project that bases at team effort pretty clean and we have a good documentation for much of it compiled by Doxygen:
http://noxwizard.sourceforge.net/docs/
Fax, one of our scripter who has some c/c++ experience is at his thesis at university now and because of that lacks time but took the task to clean and document it further over next month.

Nox scripting languages are two, XSS and SMALL.
XSS is working in a linear fashion and used for defining items and npc. It is still very similar to the scripting language of the UO emulator ancient/origin UOX3 (from what wolfpack was derived too) but got strongly extended and allows functions and triggering too. For example it is used in simply "what happens when I doubleclick that chest" functions for our treasurehunt to change the chest event and content and spawns some mobs. An overview about the most functions you can use in XSS can be found here:
http://noxwizard.sourceforge.net/ind...page&pageid=33
XSS stuff can be updated during server run by using per telnet or at console reload commands.

The second scripting language is SMALL, SMALL is an external developed simplified c-like language but very flexible and powerful. It is embedded into nox server with a SMALL-compiler. Meaning that SMALL-Scripts are compiled at serverstart, of course they can be updated by using reload commands to recompile them while running server too.
SMALL allows by using the override file for several server core functions to a) replace them by SMALL script b) put a script execution before the server core takes over or c) attach if after the server core has fired. For exampe skill handling was bypassed from server core already for several skills by using SMALL scripts.

State of the project:
There are two things we planned to get in before we declare stable (plus fixing the few bugs in bugtracker left of course). One was char creation at accounts by reading a text file to allow rp-shards char creation over web interface and bypass the client included creation. That makes possible to have a much more flexible, detailed and shard-specific char creation than the origin/EA client does.
Of course for security reasons the creation/account hooking itself would only happen when ingame admin uses the fitting command. One of the leaving devs said he is almost done with the necessary SMALL api for that so no idea how much really still needs to be done for that.
The second feature we planed to get in before 0.82 stable was race api in SMALL. Untill now we had the access to race system in nox hardcoded in server core. The race menu than was exported to SMAL but still several SMALL functions and props are necessary to be written so full access for reading/writing them is possible. Connected with that is a cleaning of the extensive but over time not very clean race system in nox/xss. the proposal and definitions of what is missing or needs to be changed is done by me, just the SMALL apis are still missing.

Who is left of the team:
fax, italien, he is scripter and documentation writer and was very active so far. But now his thesis at university starts so the next month he has very few time left. As I already stated he assigned himself the task to clean the source (he understands c/c++ too) and document some still messy parts. Ao when his thesis is done he will know source well enought to get in as dev and add features/fix bugs too.
SlasHer is still pretty new in nox team and german speaking, he is admin of nimrasdale (a nox shard) and really advanced in SMALL already and he has delivered a few bug fixes in source too. But he got grabbed by military service now and while having a laptop he is offline thought so can't checkout or commit changes often.
And than last but not least my own person, I'm scripter and documentation writer too, leading the german support page and a bit "girl for everything" - but I'm writing together my thesis at the moment and that means until mid of january I'm pretty busy (and not only for nox of course, there is a certain Hz page too ... ;) ). Atm I'm working at writing UO plant crossing and breeding system in SMALL.

What has happened the last year:
The multi handling system was rewritten (houses inclusive house gumps, boots inclusive control), guild system was rewritten, all ingame commands got exported into SMALL scripts and fixed and cleaned - which was a major undertaking. A very extensive item and char tweak ingame tool/menu was implemented to allow game master easy handling/editing of both. And a huge and powerfull add menu was created.
Parallel the char priviledge system was rewritten and replaced by a hierarchical structure with 255 possible command level and a very easy way to assign commands to certain level or add/change/delete ingame commands. The gm paging system was rewritten, every char can now set up 3 pages that can be edited/assigned individually.
String and ressource hash maps have been made available in SMALL and allow to span information over the map dynamically. Lumberjacking and Mining skill use those for example for ressource localisation and definition.
All text messages in SMALL scripts have been exported into translation files to allow an easy localization. And for SMALL script switches a config.sma similar to the server.cfg for server switches has be created.
The treasure hunt system was placed in SMALL and works now except for a bug in deciphered treasure maps that needs a dev to look into ...
And I made a char unknown system (you only see char names after they introduced them self to you) in SMALL that still has some bigger issues with char speech and journal writing, I'd need a more closer contact with a dev to get this finally working, the Origin/EA clients have some problematic separation between speech handling self and other chars.
And spawner items were rewritten too (spawner that work by placing a spawner manually in the world compared region spawner).

What we need and how the workflow went untill now:
The team internal forum at the official page always was pretty busy and we had per dev a sticky thread "what I'm working at" that was updated at least once all two weeks. That worked pretty well untill late summer when it got calm for the two leaving devs. The third dev we had was always very active but than he had leave for family issues, he is still willing to introduce new devs into the source thought and knows very well about it. Before that one had to leave we planned for 0.83 pretty big changes like multi-threading (got prepared), factions, multi-map-support etc. Now it would depend on the ones that might pick up the line what we are capable to do.
Apart from forum we use ICQ heavily and sometimes have irc dev chats to discuss general proceeding and assign tasks.
At the german support page we got one person so far that said is capable of c/c++ but I can't judge the background so far. And one dev would be defintelly too less to go on.
So what we search are people with c/c++ knowledge that are aware getting into code other people did no matter how well documented isn't a fun thing. So who wants to try his own skills at doing a MMORPG?
I can promise a nice community of shard owner to be, very international and helpful.
I can promise tons of weird things and bugs as it never works as planned when several people start using it. I can promise quite some challenge and the deep understanding that breaking/exploiting something is always much easier than creating a system that is robust. ;)
Of course everyone does mistakes and learns, so don't be afraid of that, we do something new whole time, error are inevitable.
Anyone up for that?
Anyone willing to work and gain real experience in that area and not only talk about it?
Send me a PM or drop a note at the official or german page than. We''ll try to answer any question that might appear.