Here's a comment from the FAQ on the matter of cost:dunny33 wrote:If it turns out great I'll play it. Unfortunatly if these people want to eat they are going to have to charge a monthly fee for server upkeep or charge a good amount a purchase. Until we see anything resembling a finished project I'll stick to WWIIOL.
"Is the game free?"
"No the game is not free. We have yet to decide a price.
That said we know that the game will not be subscription based.
The Mods will be free once they have passed our testing."
And on time:
"I put in around 30 - 50 hours depending on the week. We have a team of 40 who regularly produce work and we would be looking at around 400 hours from the team in total. Although we get alot more than that.
There is also trial members where we have around 36 although I only have 22 active on my MSN at the moment.
We also have Non-Core members who are helping to give a piece here and there every so often, thats around 10 people
We finally have around 5 or 6 contractors who take work when we need something done.
So I reckon for a part-time development team we would probably match some studios for development time."
Some people say the independent games developers are dead, but a dedicated part-time or full-time team can still create great games, especially on the PC platform.