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.