Does anybody know if the Flag Rush Tutorial Series and/or the user's guide wiki are still being developed?
They are both very helpful tutorials so far for someone who doesn't have much experience with graphics programming.
Thanks in advance!
They are both still being developed in the sense that they have not been abandoned, but whether any work has been done on them in a while I'm not sure. Everything on the wiki is community managed, and although the developers here provide much of the content everyone that uses jME is responsible for keeping it up-to-date. Whether we're doing a good job of that is quite another matter. 
Are you having some problems with it or just lacking some further information?
Neither at the moment, I suppose.
I'm current a developer for a java-based text MUD. We've been pretty successful given it's a text based game. Believe it or not, most youngin's don't appreciate 'em like the oldies. Anywho, we've been toying with the idea of developing a 3d version of our game. I'm trying to pitch the idea of sticking with java and using an already existing game engine mainly because we have minimal graphics programming experience. jme seems like quite the match in this case, not to mention very impressive (and intimidating!).
I guess my concern is that if we choose to use jme, given the fact that the tutorials/wiki don't discuss the full engine, I might have a hard time with the more advanced features of jme.
Would you suggest some intermediate step to take before jumping into jme that could help "ease the pain" so to speak? The 3d game is in no rush as it is simply an after work hobby with some friends.
Thanks again darkfrog!
p.s. The spell check feature on the forum is awesome! So is this --> 
except from my (still very) little experience with jme i don't have any knowledge about 3d programming, either.
at first i thought much as you and was a little concerned with the docs. just read the chapters of the user's guide that are already there and go through cep21's "learning jme" and the flagrush tutorial. by that point you should have grasped enough to look at the numerous tests that are included in jme and explain most features very well. the javadocs and comments in the source files are very well, too. or as someone else here put it once, the code is the documentation. if nothing helps, there still is this very helpful community. don't let the lack of (obvious) documentation scare you away, just toy around a little and you will be surprised by the ease of use.
I'll reiterate one main point that Pavel stated, look at the tests. If you download the source code or check it out from CVS take a look at the tests (there's a ton of them). Really, that's how I learned the majority of what I know and I think that's really the easiest way. They are simple implementations of specific functionality in jME so you have something to look at that shows how to implement a feature with working source code.
Hope that helps and welcome to the forum. If you haven't seen already the forum is extremely active, so if all else fails just post your questions here.
Thanks for the replies Pavel and darkfrog. I'll download the source from CVS after I get home from work tonight, I didn't realize there were so many examples!
I do have one other question regarding jme functionality. While I'm sure running jme through web start is probably the best option, however is it possible to hook it up to an applet? If so, do either of you guys know how big (file size) the libraries are that need to be included to run jme?
I'm glad to see such an active community around this great project!
I'm going to defer to Mojomonkey for the official answer on that. I know there's some unofficial stuff going on with that right now and will let him explain the official stance on applet support in jME.
Well, LWJGL 1.0beta2 supports Applet stuff now. We've written jME app types to hook into it here at work, but they are not released yet. (Honestly, it's easy enough to do that we can talk you through it, if we don't get permission to check it in). LWJGL did a great job with the Applet set, so they deserve the credit. You do have a performance hit but it does support every feature (shaders, rtt, etc).
That's impressive!
Is the performance hit related to the fact that the applet is parented by a browser with lower memory limitations than java web start?
Thanks for the reply mojomonk.
The performance hit is because it is running in AWT, so it's really the same hit as running jME in Swing/AWT. The memory limitation plays into how much you can do though.