To be honest man, I think you'd be much better off trying to turn that passion into making something similar to your original idea to work as a Facebook game. Honestly. You got a lot of bored people playing at work who willingly throw north of ten dollars at a time at games that really, really don't deserve it. Farmville. Farmtown. Even my favorite Cafeworld are all time wasters. In most cases very badly programmed, slow, and glitchy time wasters that are making money hand over fist.
Take all that creative mojo and mold it into something that will work on facebook. It doesn't have to follow the same clones that facebook has set out as long as it's awesome. People will play it bro, they'll play it long time.
As for the C++, I think facebook uses java or flash. Programming is programming though dude, so as long as you know how to program something you'll pick up on other methods pretty fast. (Yes the specifics will be different, but nothing a simple trip to a bookstore's "How To" isle won't clear up in a few hours of reading.)
That will also make the artist's job a smidgin' easier as all facebook graphics are fairly low quality/small. And, take a good hard look at Runescape man. I know people make fun of it left and right, but it started a *lot* of people off on their path to WoW, and if you check their payroll you'd see they aren't hurting by any means.
Biggest tip I can give you is, no matter what your decision is and what the game ends up being, focus on the fun. If you have that the players will know and they will stay. The longer they stay the more likely they'll tell a friend to join them, who tells another and another. The longer they play the more likely they'll pay you money as well, assuming you have something worth buying (I.E. bonus crap that you don't NEED to play the game, say cool costumes or things to hang up on a wall and show off. Not something required like weapons and armor, etc. This will only turn gamers OFF and AWAY.)
In essence, bring the fun and you bring the gamers. Continue to bring the fun, and they'll bring the profit. (Either through micro transactions for those funny money items mentioned above, or better yet, through ad revenue thanks to all the non-distracting ads you have lining your web page.)