I won't try to talk you out of anything, I appreciate that you want to do your own thing. I have to say though, and I'm not trying to discourage you, but your project the way you described it in the previous post does sound extremely ambitious. Making all new maps and all new quests can literally be thousands of hours of work. There are countless projects out there (not just for fonline) that have never been released because of too high ambitions. I used to work on Fan-Made Fallout for example, a total conversion mod for fallout 2. It was going strong for about 7 years and had hundreds of members over the course of those years. I spent more hours on that project than I care to admit, and so did many others, yet we were no where near getting anything playable. It's not a matter of what is doable - almost anything can be done. But actually going all the way is a different thing all together.
Another thing to consider since you're about to start at the uni, is that you won't have 40 hours a week to spend on this. It might seem plausible at first, you might even do it for a while. But to keep that up for years? You'd truly be one of a kind to pull something like that.
And yes, I agree that releasing the game is not everything that matters. But you're lying to yourself if you say that it doesn't matter at all. Being able to finish something is a great feeling, if nothing else but to be able to look back at all that time and effort and say "this is what came out of it, I made this". And the more effort you put into a project, the more you will eventually regret it if it's never done. For me, while working on FMF was a great thing, I still feel a pinch of sadness everytime I think of it, for all those great ideas that never saw the light of day. This is the advice I would have wanted to get back then (incidentally I was exactly your age then). Be realistic and don't go that route if you can avoid it.
It's just a friendly advice, nothing more. But I would seriously consider aiming lower, much lower. Go for something very simple that is playable and works. Then add on that gradually. Once you get started, the sky is the limit, but you don't have to go there all at once.
Good luck with the project. If you need any help, you know where to find me.
