As a software developer, I'm curious what kind of languages & IDEs you might be developing in. Are any of them scripting languages and, if so, are you using lua or things of that nature or building your own? (considering time frames, I would hope using existing to allow quicker ramp-up ) Also, what's the O/S being used? Linux? Windows? Mac (Lion)?
The game is being developed using the Unity game engine, which has a built in IDE. It supports code written in C#, JavaScript, and Boo.
If it has a built in IDE, that is one thing, but if Carillon is looking for something to bide their time till the game releases, I think MonoDevelop has built in support for both C# and Boo. Edit: Actually, I'm reasonably certain that it is a version of MonoDevelop that ships with Unity.
Actually, nix that last bit, it looks like it comes with UnIDE (Unity IDE). From the post in there, there looks like there might be a lite version somewhere or at least planned in the future. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/155788-UnIDE-A-Code-Editor-Integrated-Into-Unity
Cool, I'll look into that since I've been developing in C# & Silverlight for the last 5 years. I'll check out Boo & Unity. Also, what kind of backend can handle the stresses that are being thrown at it considering the massive transactional processes necessary?
I'd imagine they'll use some kind of cloud solution on the backend. If you're curious there are some game specific cloud solutions, the Photon cloud has a Unity API or Amazon Web Services for a roll your own. There are likely other solutions as well. http://cloud.exitgames.com/ http://aws.amazon.com/ You write your server side code as stateless as possible, or with distributed state, so the client can talk to any server with minimal overhead if switching is needed.