Running an Ultima Online server with an emulator called RunUO was a fantastic learning tool for me in high school. I've always thought you could craft a curric

Running an Ultima Online server with an emulator called RunUO was a fantastic learning tool for me in high school. I've always thought you could craft a curriculum around developing for the emulator. You could start off small as I did by just teaching students how to create items in the game. Show the inheritance hierarchy where 'Uber Sword' inherits from 'Sword' which inherits from a base class 'Weapon'.. Teach students how to write their own spells in the game with delays and different damage types which exposes them to simple if/else logic, timers, enums, etc. Advance to creating your own monsters and NPCs that respond to player speech which teaches state/simple AI/string manipulation. You could leave the server running 24/7 so players could play/develop/hangout together. Show how items disappear from the game world on reboot and how to serialize the game objects. You could have an exam in the game where players showcase what they've developed and culminate with an all-class battle. I think a stripped down MMO like this could be the perfect environment to foster creativity/learning.