On: Guy makes a knife from scratch. He has to make a ...

[ramchip]

I remember a cooperative online game, with a mostly text-only interface, in which you could build smelters and tools and climb gradually the tech tree. It was very detailed and interesting but I lost track of its name and URL. Does it ring a bell for anybody?

[IsaacL → ramchip]

Sounds like my own game, Shintolin (http://www.shintolin.co.uk). It was a mostly text-based multiplayer game set in the stone age, where players started from scratch but could gradually develop the tools to build a village and farm. I planned to have a whole technology progression through bronze and iron age technology, but I stopped working on it a while ago (it still has a few players though). Don't know if it's the one you're talking about.

[ramchip → IsaacL]

That's not it, but thanks for the input. It's interesting that you've released the source.

[jholman → ramchip]

A Tale In The Desert ( atitd.com ) is a subscription graphical MMO which has some limited properties in common with what you describe.

It's cooperative, it's not graphically sophisticated, and collaboratively climbing a (relatively shallow) tech tree is the main goal of the game.

[lzm → ramchip]

Dwarf Fortress, perhaps?

[teamonkey → lzm]

That's probably what he means, but the same is true for the more-accessible Minecraft.