Ryzom returns?

where free software excels is that once you have a barely usable version out, individuals dive
in and 'scratch their own itch' providing their own individual improvements.

the problem of starting a opensource project are primarily
1. getting things to a workable level
2. getting people to know about it

after that the tinkering starts and the big problem becomes managing (and to a lesser degree
directing) the resulting progress.

the larger a project is, the harder it is to get to a usable version, and the slower the
contributions will be initially (as it takes time for people to understand the project)

after that the management of the project becomes the big factor, if the project accepts and
integrates contributions easily, it will tend to get more contributions. if it's hard to
contribute, or it takes a long time for that contribution to reach a release, the contributer
is less likely to contribute as much in the future.

the free virtual worlds have not reached the usable stage yet, so it doesn't surprise me that
they aren't attracting a lot of effort. Wesnoth seems to be doing well, but it's not the
format that people are looking for.