Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
While I agree that it's a shame not many tried TCoS (I helped during beta), I don't agree that the combat system is "the best in the genre." It is DIFFERENT, to be sure, but myself, I prefer the combat in say, Fallen Earth. I dislike auto attack, and yes, TCoS does NOT have that, which is a plus, but....I was also not fond of the cylindrical hotbar for spells and attacks. It kind of makes me think of what it might be if you combined Guild Wars system of having to choose just a few attacks and spells to use in a given situation, but then....not having access to all of the ones you chose, since you have only a certain number of them on each "turn" of the cylinder, and have to create your combos and whatnot in that way. It's fairly unique....it's interesting....but to ME...not "the best."
While that type of combat did require some pre-planning before going into a fight....it never really seemed comfortable to me. And that is just my own preference and opinion. Some people might really like it!
As far as DDO goes....I also disliked that game rather quickly because it really seemed just like a series of instances strung together. I never had the feeling of being in a huge wide open world, because every quest was in some instance somewhere. That just felt a little...I don't know...cut off from the world, to me.
But hey....everyone has games they like and don't like and there are definitely GOOD things about DDO and TCoS too.
Though I have yet to see a game where blocking, swinging and charging attacks meant something in MMO form.
Champions Online did the block and charge attack that realy meant something in the gameplay.
Yep and it worked pretty well. I really liked some aspects of COs combat, its too bad Cryptic makes development and RPG design decisions like they are a Meth head jonesing for a fix.
Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
While DDO has other aspects of its combat that are more FPS-like, and to me interesting, than CO it is my opinion that CO did blocking better. Also CO had a novel and to me very interesting way of using "mana" in that attacks and defenses were the primary way of gaining power and your "normal" power state was far below your max power state. DDO's system is based on pretty standard max mana to no mana system and heavily cooldown based for feats. The only exception is Monk's Chi which is a more action oriented scheme and while I applaud Turbine for continuing to improve its system the Monk chi system is not as good as the CO power system.
The consequences of COs power mechaics made it a more more action orietned gameplay even though DDO actual mechanics are more action-ish, and by that I mean in DDO you can dodge arrows and some spells whereas in CO you cannot. I played CO with a DDO like interface meaning I had mouse-look enabled for my selection. The default was MMO-mode but I did not like that perspective with tab targetting and due to the action oriented gameplay I found a DDO perspective with a mouse-look and crosshair selection much more fun and effective.
I beleive it is a travesty that DDO got panned as badly as it did with very little credit given to it game mechanics. And now with games like Tabula Rasa released about one year ago claiming they did it first. It just shows how much BS there is in this market. And I don't blame NCSofts marketing department its the negligent press and the roid raging fans who will nto give credit where credit is due.
DDO had an action oriented system YEARS ago and its system is still just as good as many games just trying it now. And people piss on it. Shame on them. But CO is the one game I will say that did some things better. Even though I think it deserves its low sub numbers. If only the devs would lay off the Meth.
It is DIFFERENT, to be sure, but myself, I prefer the combat in say, Fallen Earth.
Yeah, I like FE as well. One thing I don't like is that there isn't much emphasis on evasion. In TCoS and DDO backing out of the way of an attack is a core concept. Blocking in DDO works a lot like Champions. You could do some amazing things dodging in an out of combat with a big slow weapon making hit and run attacks. FE also lacks DDO's emphasis on weapon types and properties and enemy vulnerabilities. DDO's combat is fast AND complex which IMO makes it the king of MMOG combat systems. Of course, like you said, the game is brought down by the world design being a bunch of instances.
If only there were a MMOG with DDO-style dungeons and a FE-style open world...
While DDO has other aspects of its combat that are more FPS-like, and to me interesting, than CO it is my opinion that CO did blocking better.
CO's icons for special attacks added a whole new dimension to blocking. I agree that it was done better than DDO. DDO's style of blocking never really caught on because there was no good indication of when it would be the right time to block.
CO's combat, aside from the blocking, wasn't really all that groundbreaking and even lost a lot of tactical significance in its transition from CoX's combat. The combat is too fast, minimizing the need for all those wonderful status effects that were so important in CoX. Its really just the reflex check on blocking that sets it apart and even that isn't such a big deal when the rest of the combat is pretty standard target/auto-attack/hotkey stuff.
Darkfall right now on market with fps combat specially BOW is awesome.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I would love a combat like mount and blade or oblivion with skills executed like in devil may cry, prototype or dragonica online. For those that didn't try dragonica or prototype most of their skills are executed with certian types of buttons pressed in a sequence for example: Space + Forward + Left Click = Diving Blade (to name it as a skill) Held Left Click + Forward = Thrust And so on.
Well making controls more complicated for the sake of complication makes a game worse, not better.
If you'd suggest a skill-chaining system where Ability A chains to either Ability B or C (which each chain to four more unique abilities) then you'd be suggesting something new which adds to gameplay. Because each ability choice would be made on the fly and would commit to a certain path along the skill-chain. When well-designed, this can open up all sorts of interesting gameplay (wait for your opponent to commit to the Ability B (a nuke) before starting your spellcast because you know he won't be able to get back to Ability C (a spell interrupt) in time.)
But you'll notice that nothing about this skill-chaining version requires clunky controls (and in fact you could have access to a huge array of abilities with just 3 hotkeys: the initiator, and two choices which dynamically update based on your current point in the chain...you could even do it with 2 hotkeys if you don't allow players to use Ability A on demand (ie once you're in a chain you're in it to completion.))
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
While DDO has other aspects of its combat that are more FPS-like, and to me interesting, than CO it is my opinion that CO did blocking better.
CO's icons for special attacks added a whole new dimension to blocking. I agree that it was done better than DDO. DDO's style of blocking never really caught on because there was no good indication of when it would be the right time to block.
CO's combat, aside from the blocking, wasn't really all that groundbreaking and even lost a lot of tactical significance in its transition from CoX's combat. The combat is too fast, minimizing the need for all those wonderful status effects that were so important in CoX. Its really just the reflex check on blocking that sets it apart and even that isn't such a big deal when the rest of the combat is pretty standard target/auto-attack/hotkey stuff.
Sure CO did not have evasion and it was hotkey/special power based. But you are doing it a dis-service and missing a vital point when you say it was standard auto-attack.
That is not true. Although this mis conception is partially the Meth-head Devs fault. They had a setting where they had your energy builder your be your "auto attack". Thsi was automatically set for anyone who used the "MMO-style" interface. And that style was constantly getting set as the default I had to change interface style every fricking time because the dumbasses did not save my interface settings. In some ways they did their game a serious disservice by trying to make the interface action oriented or standard MMO. They jammed some things into standard MMO names and concepts that they did not fit into. I would say that Turbine was wise not to do this, but I have no seen their latest changed to the interface which I understand was supposed to make it a bit more like standard MMO and added some tab targetting.
The basic first attack was something that worked in with other powers and only very bad players used it as an "automatic" style. Your choice of energy builder was very important and your use of that energy was also very important and in addition determined what kind of stats you might want. Having a low equilibirum power meant you better be either using your energy builder or have one that gave enery fast. Having a high equilibrium meant you may not be as reliant on your energy builder. And whether you had a ranged or melee eneergy buidler wound up being very important.
I am not claiming this was well balanced, none of CO was well balanced. But the up down and management of power via the enery builder was an important and interesting aspect of the game and it made it so that the gameply was not simply matter of "Blow your wad and wait 3 seconds to blow your wad and again". Some Builds became this way anyway since the powers were not balanced well. And I will not argue that in other repsects some parts of the combat were less tactical than CoX. But the energy managment was a good and interesting idea and was not auto attack. It was not a perfect implementation of course but compared to WoW mana or CoX with its "just get stamina" approach it was a much better way to have power/mana and also be action oriented.
It is unfortunate that the developers sometimes called the energy builder "auto attack" but the energy builder added something to the gameplay that does not exist in WoW or CoH and that is that the rates of energy gain were important rather than simple static Cooldowns. The affects how often you could do stuff and also made heavy hitting powers not necessarily immediately available. It also made managing a heavy power with a medium power have at least some interesting compromises.
And that is the reason this is important in this context. Is that this more dynamic way of dealing with power usage allowed for adjustments and attunements on the fly and that is important for an action game. Static cooldowns are forumlaic and do not really matter whether its action game or not. To some degree this is true for DDO mana as you are constantly hoarding your mana but in an emergy you can blow your whole wad. But I do not really like that approach as it is less fun due to being tense and highly limiting.
Again Cryptic did not necessarily implement this mechanic to its fullest. But it is a good idea that worked pretty nice for what it needed to do. With fine tuning I believe it can be a clearly superior action-oriented system to a pure mana pool.
I would love a combat like mount and blade or oblivion with skills executed like in devil may cry, prototype or dragonica online. For those that didn't try dragonica or prototype most of their skills are executed with certian types of buttons pressed in a sequence for example: Space + Forward + Left Click = Diving Blade (to name it as a skill) Held Left Click + Forward = Thrust And so on.
Well making controls more complicated for the sake of complication makes a game worse, not better.
If you'd suggest a skill-chaining system where Ability A chains to either Ability B or C (which each chain to four more unique abilities) then you'd be suggesting something new which adds to gameplay. Because each ability choice would be made on the fly and would commit to a certain path along the skill-chain. When well-designed, this can open up all sorts of interesting gameplay (wait for your opponent to commit to the Ability B (a nuke) before starting your spellcast because you know he won't be able to get back to Ability C (a spell interrupt) in time.)
But you'll notice that nothing about this skill-chaining version requires clunky controls (and in fact you could have access to a huge array of abilities with just 3 hotkeys: the initiator, and two choices which dynamically update based on your current point in the chain...you could even do it with 2 hotkeys if you don't allow players to use Ability A on demand (ie once you're in a chain you're in it to completion.))
Turbine already has this implemeneted in both their MMOs. The DDO Monk and the LOTRO Warden.
The Warden though is a far better implementation and design though. And from an action perspective the Monk system has some serious issue. I would also say that this system is not great for PvP. I like the Warden Gambit system alot in PvE but I would not PvP with it. Well I dunno maybe if the Gambits were far more devastating.
So perhaps its not that its bad for PvP but that the value of a Gambit would need to be weighted much differently.
Turbine already has this implemeneted in both their MMOs. The DDO Monk and the LOTRO Warden. The Warden though is a far better implementation and design though. And from an action perspective the Monk system has some serious issue. I would also say that this system is not great for PvP. I like the Warden Gambit system alot in PvE but I would not PvP with it. Well I dunno maybe if the Gambits were far more devastating. So perhaps its not that its bad for PvP but that the value of a Gambit would need to be weighted much differently.
Well the balance issue only surfaces when some classes use it. If all classes use it and it's the basis for the entire combat system, it gets equalized out as a non-issue.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So, I have to come here and post, or else noone mentions it.
Developers dont want to pay the server costs for such endeavor.
Make no mistake, its about who will pay the costs.
Latency? Just set the servers on strategic places around the target consumer country.
Brazilian MMORPG Taikodom uses an IBM Mainframe to run all the players on the same server, all the players in the same area fight without auto targetting and the graphics are awesome and the action is packed.
Think of EVE, but with twitch based combat.
It works very well because since most players are in Brazil, latency is not an issue.
If any developed wanted to make non auto target/ twitch based combat viable in a massive scale they would have to make the necessary investment. Wich they dont, because they suck and they know they are going to lose money.
The online multiplayer of Freelancer years ago had a healthy mod community that allowed the FPS style gameplay between many players in the same area and the servers were hosted by the players. A big company would certainly provide better servers for more players.
Its a matter of someone having a winner game, knowing it will suceed and investing on servers for it.
The unofficial GTA San Andreas multiplayer mod/servers had servers that allowed for 200 players on the same area driving and shooting the crap out of each other.
All Points Bulletin will deliver a guaranteed 100 players on the same area doing the same.
Also search for Neocron and RYL combat gameplay. Specially the PVP.
We have everything we need already, the hot potato is on games companies. Stop throwing ignorant excuses to free them from the responsability.
Comments
Fun for a single player where I can save and start again tomorrow. Not interested in this combat style for an MMORPG. I prefer 123, 123.
There's plenty of FPS games out there like Modern Warfare 2 when I want some clickety clickety combat.
I agree with the poster above. Do a current RvR game like DaoC. That would be much more fun that a click, click, click, combat MMORPG.
I would love a combat like mount and blade or oblivion with skills executed like in devil may cry, prototype or dragonica online.
For those that didn't try dragonica or prototype most of their skills are executed with certian types of buttons pressed in a sequence for example:
Space + Forward + Left Click = Diving Blade (to name it as a skill)
Held Left Click + Forward = Thrust
And so on.
Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
While I agree that it's a shame not many tried TCoS (I helped during beta), I don't agree that the combat system is "the best in the genre." It is DIFFERENT, to be sure, but myself, I prefer the combat in say, Fallen Earth. I dislike auto attack, and yes, TCoS does NOT have that, which is a plus, but....I was also not fond of the cylindrical hotbar for spells and attacks. It kind of makes me think of what it might be if you combined Guild Wars system of having to choose just a few attacks and spells to use in a given situation, but then....not having access to all of the ones you chose, since you have only a certain number of them on each "turn" of the cylinder, and have to create your combos and whatnot in that way. It's fairly unique....it's interesting....but to ME...not "the best."
While that type of combat did require some pre-planning before going into a fight....it never really seemed comfortable to me. And that is just my own preference and opinion. Some people might really like it!
As far as DDO goes....I also disliked that game rather quickly because it really seemed just like a series of instances strung together. I never had the feeling of being in a huge wide open world, because every quest was in some instance somewhere. That just felt a little...I don't know...cut off from the world, to me.
But hey....everyone has games they like and don't like and there are definitely GOOD things about DDO and TCoS too.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Champions Online did the block and charge attack that realy meant something in the gameplay.
Yep and it worked pretty well. I really liked some aspects of COs combat, its too bad Cryptic makes development and RPG design decisions like they are a Meth head jonesing for a fix.
Yes this... And DDO. Why is this thread even here and why are people even mentioning Champions? TCoS and DDO have the best combat systems in the genre. Its sad that only a handful of people ever bothered to try TCoS. Its a wonderful game with a combat system that rivals Oblivion and most other twitch based single player RPG's.
While DDO has other aspects of its combat that are more FPS-like, and to me interesting, than CO it is my opinion that CO did blocking better. Also CO had a novel and to me very interesting way of using "mana" in that attacks and defenses were the primary way of gaining power and your "normal" power state was far below your max power state. DDO's system is based on pretty standard max mana to no mana system and heavily cooldown based for feats. The only exception is Monk's Chi which is a more action oriented scheme and while I applaud Turbine for continuing to improve its system the Monk chi system is not as good as the CO power system.
The consequences of COs power mechaics made it a more more action orietned gameplay even though DDO actual mechanics are more action-ish, and by that I mean in DDO you can dodge arrows and some spells whereas in CO you cannot. I played CO with a DDO like interface meaning I had mouse-look enabled for my selection. The default was MMO-mode but I did not like that perspective with tab targetting and due to the action oriented gameplay I found a DDO perspective with a mouse-look and crosshair selection much more fun and effective.
I beleive it is a travesty that DDO got panned as badly as it did with very little credit given to it game mechanics. And now with games like Tabula Rasa released about one year ago claiming they did it first. It just shows how much BS there is in this market. And I don't blame NCSofts marketing department its the negligent press and the roid raging fans who will nto give credit where credit is due.
DDO had an action oriented system YEARS ago and its system is still just as good as many games just trying it now. And people piss on it. Shame on them. But CO is the one game I will say that did some things better. Even though I think it deserves its low sub numbers. If only the devs would lay off the Meth.
Yeah, I like FE as well. One thing I don't like is that there isn't much emphasis on evasion. In TCoS and DDO backing out of the way of an attack is a core concept. Blocking in DDO works a lot like Champions. You could do some amazing things dodging in an out of combat with a big slow weapon making hit and run attacks. FE also lacks DDO's emphasis on weapon types and properties and enemy vulnerabilities. DDO's combat is fast AND complex which IMO makes it the king of MMOG combat systems. Of course, like you said, the game is brought down by the world design being a bunch of instances.
If only there were a MMOG with DDO-style dungeons and a FE-style open world...
CO's icons for special attacks added a whole new dimension to blocking. I agree that it was done better than DDO. DDO's style of blocking never really caught on because there was no good indication of when it would be the right time to block.
CO's combat, aside from the blocking, wasn't really all that groundbreaking and even lost a lot of tactical significance in its transition from CoX's combat. The combat is too fast, minimizing the need for all those wonderful status effects that were so important in CoX. Its really just the reflex check on blocking that sets it apart and even that isn't such a big deal when the rest of the combat is pretty standard target/auto-attack/hotkey stuff.
Darkfall right now on market with fps combat specially BOW is awesome.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Well making controls more complicated for the sake of complication makes a game worse, not better.
If you'd suggest a skill-chaining system where Ability A chains to either Ability B or C (which each chain to four more unique abilities) then you'd be suggesting something new which adds to gameplay. Because each ability choice would be made on the fly and would commit to a certain path along the skill-chain. When well-designed, this can open up all sorts of interesting gameplay (wait for your opponent to commit to the Ability B (a nuke) before starting your spellcast because you know he won't be able to get back to Ability C (a spell interrupt) in time.)
But you'll notice that nothing about this skill-chaining version requires clunky controls (and in fact you could have access to a huge array of abilities with just 3 hotkeys: the initiator, and two choices which dynamically update based on your current point in the chain...you could even do it with 2 hotkeys if you don't allow players to use Ability A on demand (ie once you're in a chain you're in it to completion.))
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
CO's icons for special attacks added a whole new dimension to blocking. I agree that it was done better than DDO. DDO's style of blocking never really caught on because there was no good indication of when it would be the right time to block.
CO's combat, aside from the blocking, wasn't really all that groundbreaking and even lost a lot of tactical significance in its transition from CoX's combat. The combat is too fast, minimizing the need for all those wonderful status effects that were so important in CoX. Its really just the reflex check on blocking that sets it apart and even that isn't such a big deal when the rest of the combat is pretty standard target/auto-attack/hotkey stuff.
Sure CO did not have evasion and it was hotkey/special power based. But you are doing it a dis-service and missing a vital point when you say it was standard auto-attack.
That is not true. Although this mis conception is partially the Meth-head Devs fault. They had a setting where they had your energy builder your be your "auto attack". Thsi was automatically set for anyone who used the "MMO-style" interface. And that style was constantly getting set as the default I had to change interface style every fricking time because the dumbasses did not save my interface settings. In some ways they did their game a serious disservice by trying to make the interface action oriented or standard MMO. They jammed some things into standard MMO names and concepts that they did not fit into. I would say that Turbine was wise not to do this, but I have no seen their latest changed to the interface which I understand was supposed to make it a bit more like standard MMO and added some tab targetting.
The basic first attack was something that worked in with other powers and only very bad players used it as an "automatic" style. Your choice of energy builder was very important and your use of that energy was also very important and in addition determined what kind of stats you might want. Having a low equilibirum power meant you better be either using your energy builder or have one that gave enery fast. Having a high equilibrium meant you may not be as reliant on your energy builder. And whether you had a ranged or melee eneergy buidler wound up being very important.
I am not claiming this was well balanced, none of CO was well balanced. But the up down and management of power via the enery builder was an important and interesting aspect of the game and it made it so that the gameply was not simply matter of "Blow your wad and wait 3 seconds to blow your wad and again". Some Builds became this way anyway since the powers were not balanced well. And I will not argue that in other repsects some parts of the combat were less tactical than CoX. But the energy managment was a good and interesting idea and was not auto attack. It was not a perfect implementation of course but compared to WoW mana or CoX with its "just get stamina" approach it was a much better way to have power/mana and also be action oriented.
It is unfortunate that the developers sometimes called the energy builder "auto attack" but the energy builder added something to the gameplay that does not exist in WoW or CoH and that is that the rates of energy gain were important rather than simple static Cooldowns. The affects how often you could do stuff and also made heavy hitting powers not necessarily immediately available. It also made managing a heavy power with a medium power have at least some interesting compromises.
And that is the reason this is important in this context. Is that this more dynamic way of dealing with power usage allowed for adjustments and attunements on the fly and that is important for an action game. Static cooldowns are forumlaic and do not really matter whether its action game or not. To some degree this is true for DDO mana as you are constantly hoarding your mana but in an emergy you can blow your whole wad. But I do not really like that approach as it is less fun due to being tense and highly limiting.
Again Cryptic did not necessarily implement this mechanic to its fullest. But it is a good idea that worked pretty nice for what it needed to do. With fine tuning I believe it can be a clearly superior action-oriented system to a pure mana pool.
Well making controls more complicated for the sake of complication makes a game worse, not better.
If you'd suggest a skill-chaining system where Ability A chains to either Ability B or C (which each chain to four more unique abilities) then you'd be suggesting something new which adds to gameplay. Because each ability choice would be made on the fly and would commit to a certain path along the skill-chain. When well-designed, this can open up all sorts of interesting gameplay (wait for your opponent to commit to the Ability B (a nuke) before starting your spellcast because you know he won't be able to get back to Ability C (a spell interrupt) in time.)
But you'll notice that nothing about this skill-chaining version requires clunky controls (and in fact you could have access to a huge array of abilities with just 3 hotkeys: the initiator, and two choices which dynamically update based on your current point in the chain...you could even do it with 2 hotkeys if you don't allow players to use Ability A on demand (ie once you're in a chain you're in it to completion.))
Turbine already has this implemeneted in both their MMOs. The DDO Monk and the LOTRO Warden.
The Warden though is a far better implementation and design though. And from an action perspective the Monk system has some serious issue. I would also say that this system is not great for PvP. I like the Warden Gambit system alot in PvE but I would not PvP with it. Well I dunno maybe if the Gambits were far more devastating.
So perhaps its not that its bad for PvP but that the value of a Gambit would need to be weighted much differently.
Well the balance issue only surfaces when some classes use it. If all classes use it and it's the basis for the entire combat system, it gets equalized out as a non-issue.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So, I have to come here and post, or else noone mentions it.
Developers dont want to pay the server costs for such endeavor.
Make no mistake, its about who will pay the costs.
Latency? Just set the servers on strategic places around the target consumer country.
Brazilian MMORPG Taikodom uses an IBM Mainframe to run all the players on the same server, all the players in the same area fight without auto targetting and the graphics are awesome and the action is packed.
Think of EVE, but with twitch based combat.
It works very well because since most players are in Brazil, latency is not an issue.
If any developed wanted to make non auto target/ twitch based combat viable in a massive scale they would have to make the necessary investment. Wich they dont, because they suck and they know they are going to lose money.
The online multiplayer of Freelancer years ago had a healthy mod community that allowed the FPS style gameplay between many players in the same area and the servers were hosted by the players. A big company would certainly provide better servers for more players.
Its a matter of someone having a winner game, knowing it will suceed and investing on servers for it.
The unofficial GTA San Andreas multiplayer mod/servers had servers that allowed for 200 players on the same area driving and shooting the crap out of each other.
All Points Bulletin will deliver a guaranteed 100 players on the same area doing the same.
Also search for Neocron and RYL combat gameplay. Specially the PVP.
We have everything we need already, the hot potato is on games companies. Stop throwing ignorant excuses to free them from the responsability.