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Wildstar has instanced zones. How can it be called a MMORPG?
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The tech is already there, what is slipping your narrowed mind is that there is no will to make something like that.
With smaller player count, it is much easier to control game experience. Developers limit the player count mostly due game play rather than technical difficulties.
Technical issues can be worked out, game play and design issues not so much.
So by you would be better to have i.e. 20.000 players at same time on some central square of city in in AH building? Instances are THE ONLY WAY. Period.
Yes, I am using a very broad definition, where players are not visible for reasons other than distance. I wish I could remember the name of the feature, but it's the bit where players on different sections of a quest cannot see each other in the same zone.
If you think about WoW though, I'm not sure I would hold up their system for managing players within a single zone as the holy grail of how it should be done. You put enough players into a single zone or area in WoW without channels, instancing or whatever that feature is that I cannot think of and the server just crashes or playing becomes impossible because what you're watching is a slide show, not a game.
Phasing! Ah! Man, that was bothering me. WoW makes use of phasing, which are channels that players cannot switch except by completing content.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I so love it when people who have no idea about a certain theme go to the forums and type BS like "lazy programming etc..".
Why don't you show the Carbine boys how it is done then?
Channels / zones are a must have on mega servers. Otherwise you would have thousands of people swarming certain areas like quest hubs, banks, AH's etc..
I so love it when people who have no idea about a certain theme go to the forums and type BS like "lazy programming etc..".
Why don't you show the Carbine boys how it is done then?
Channels / zones are a must have on mega servers. Otherwise you would have thousands of people swarming certain areas like quest hubs, banks, AH's etc..
Instead of having 40 separate servers, they make an effort and put up all that neat tech and code together so playing with other people is easier and accessible.
Lazy bastards!!
these threads about naming are SO 2004.
Maybe this website should be called mmo.com and not MMORPG.COM because there is no forum for roleplayers and most of the games here advertised dont even do rolplaying anymore but are more first person shooters and minigames..... /ens sarcasm
relax
You are very naive.
MMO games are ALWAYS driven by tech.
If you don't know that, don't post you dribble on here with your "narrowed mind".
there's a reason every mmorg since day 1 manages resources - resources are not infinite.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
As I said, look at WoW. It's been done since almost 10 years ago.
WoW has many different starting area, in fact each race has its own (not all actually). That way, players are scattered all over the world map and not congesting the one and only starting area for a faction which most modern mmorpg only capable of. Wow also has several main cities for each faction, so people swarm different banks, AHs, etc.
Lazy developers nowadays make similar mmorpgs. There are 2 factions (or more), each faction have its own starting area and leveling zones even though the factions consists of several races. Then at higher levels they'll finally meet oppposite faction in contested zones. All linear and boring.
WoW also became heavily instanced. Just about everywhere outside of the city hubs are "phased" to progression. While it gives a sense of a somewhat changing world as you progress through questing, it's instancing. In many ways worse, as the perception of the number of players is lower, with players being at various stages. WoW is far from a seamless world.
Just look back in the history - MMOs started from non-instanced, seamless, persistant worlds and developed into instanced and zoned.
So the tech goes backwards? The tech was there 10 years ago but disappeared today?
No, the reason is design. Most developers prefer that kind of design, they prefer instances and zones as it is helping to game experience they want to deliver.
The tech is there even today and games like EVE Online, Darkfall or Mortal Online use it as they are going after game experience that is...niche...
Yes, technical aspect plays some role but it is mostly design decision.
That's because back when MMOs were in their infancy the servers held a few hundred players. Now it's thousands. It's a not a step back in technology. Just that it wasn't previously needed, as technology levels could cope with the demand.
Why can't all MMOs be like a holo deck,with millions of uninstanced players? Because the technology isn't there.
Few hundreds?
AC, EQ, UO, DAOC had +100k subs at their golden era, not as much of a difference from games today.
Yet, games today of same population are instanced and zoned.
So.. basicly you have no idea, right?
The tech does actually have it's limits.
Take EvE as example.
EvE is divided into star systems, which are actually tiny with more or less no graphics (polygon count, textures, etc.), and to switch from one to the other you do have a loading screen(actually a warp animation) that serves to change your character between physically servers. And all that limitation only to be able to have actually more than 1000 players on screen. Furthermore, the Ship Detail(textures, polygon count) is again very low, and the combat is extremely slow paced, to handle latency of 500ms+. With other words it is in EvE only possible to have that many players at once, because the sacrisfy a lot of other things because of technical limitations.. and furthermore the cluster server architecture from EvE is one of the most advanced and fastest around, with only very fast SSD HDs. With other words per players EvE server structure is most probably the most expensive around all MMOs.
Mortal Online on the other side, with almost not really more than 1000 - max 2000 distributed across the whole server does have very feelable server borders, it lags extremely with just a few more players around is all around just a mess. With other words the developer absolutely underestimated the demand for such a game and came basicly never up with a real solution.
Darkfall is seamless, and it works somewhat.. though you will not really see 1000 players on screen, and when with extreme lag... and Darkfall Avatars are very low polygon as are the textures.. with other words the sacrified graphic quality. Still because of art style it looks somewhat acceptable.
And about the history and capability...
Omfg. They had 100k+ subs at their golden era.. but not at one server.
EQ was even zoned.. you got a loading screen between every single zone.
DAoC server capacity was around 2500 players(logical server), divided through different zones(physical server).. and at relic raids with 700+ players on screen and on one physical server, the server crashed regulary.. not to talk about lag of partially 5 sec. +.. so no there were always technical limitations, and still are.
And not to talk about graphical quality, which was always behind single player games, because of the theoretical high amounts of player around you.
Instancing is not only done because of design reasons. Though instanced dungeons are often there that everyone can solve that dungeon alone as a group, and is available for all at the same time(design reason). But often it is done for technical reasons. AoC as example limited every single zone(and every single zone consists out of as many instances as required) because of technical reason to deliver graphic quality near to single player games. (high polygon count, high resolution textures). Game zones in most games(instanced or not) are usually limited with a player cap for that exact same reason depending on the game, the graphical quality, this size varies, but is in most cases below 500. And seamless games with no noticeable transition are extremely rare.. damn.. i can't remember one at the moment. And all of them do have server limits.
And about the modern phasing(heavy instancing for most zones) and megaservers. It is not because of design desicions.
There are a few reasons:
- to avoid a high amount of servers, and unavoidable server merges, when the player base drops. And it drops nowaday always after a few month. And empty servers are a huge problem, and server merges causes that even more player leave.
- to better balance player distribution, to better restrict number of players, to be able to have a more foreseeable amount of avatars per scene(zone), to be able to better set up the amount of graphic quality, and to avoid lag.
Those are most of the time technical reasons.. and not design decisions.
I think the bottom line is that many people really like playing a game with thousands of other people. The idea is just cool. At the same time, they don't want thousands of other people in the same few feet of space they are in. Something must be done. Split players into servers or divide the players into channels. Pick one. Every "server" is an instance of the world and every "channel" is an instance of the world. The only real choice is whether or not to restrict players to one channel, or many.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Yeap.. somewhat.. and there is another one as already dicussed in that thread.. Persistence or not. And more precisely do you allow changes from players to the world state or not, and if you do not allow it are those still persistent? Because actually in most games the exist maybe a few days, and it doesn't matter anyway in what copy of the world you will join, albeit the players they are identical anyway.
That change to the world state as example can be that simple things like open a door, which actually stays open for other players, too. Or if you do it like ESO don't have that for most of your game. And most zones(phased and heavily instanced) don't allow any change on the world state, and don't remain.. they are not peristent. Though Cryodill with it's castle is persistent on the other side in ESO.. and then you have to choose your copy of the world(be it now server, channel nr., or whatever).
In most themeparks it doesn't matter a lot if the world is not really persistent, because the world can't be changed a lot anyway... and just because of some doors or other little tidbits.. is it really worth it? That's is highly dependent on the player and how much they want it for immersion reasons.
On the other side for virtual worlds/sandboxes this part remains extremely relevant, and a persistent world, where actual changes to the world state remain is extremely important.. and therefore they have to look for another way, or use the old server/shards structure.
Oh dear...such a wall of text without even touching anything I have pointed out...
EVE is a prime example how you can design the game to have large player count in one area and how you can work out tech to make it possible.
MO and DF are examples that the tech is there, the limitation on performance is mostly on devs end, small indie studios.
Your response to my 2nd post, you are arguing something I never said. You are completely lost there...
I never talked about single servers, I never claimed there are no tech limits, I never claimed that instancing is done only due design resons, I explicitely stated the opposite.
Old or new games were launched with multiple servers thus +100k subs back then was the same as +100k now as the population is spread among the numerous servers. That means, the high population is non-factor and increased use of instances was mostly design choice.
Glaring hole in your argument there is simple - you take an AoC as an example of a game that was designed for high graphical fidelity and then argue it failed in something it was not even trying it achieve in the first place. Marvelous reasoning...
Low graphics has nothing to do with game being online or not. Object is rendered the same regardless whether it is a player or NPC. The graphics in MMOs is optimized to run on older and broader hw configuration intentionally due higher potential customer base.
Megaservers are purely design choice. They could go on with separate servers like they always did but the tech provides better game experience.
But yeah...
Precisely.
Lots of players on one place sounds cool but creates many game play issues.
Sorry but WoW is heavy on instances now, try walking through sw gates backwards and you will see, plus flying in from the flightpaths, when you land everything vanishes for a few seconds and pops up again
Not on a single server and in that era it was typical for only 10% of subscribers being on at once. If I recall SWG at the time had a server cap of around 500 players actively logged in. Those MMO were also not seamless, with zones broken of into instances. Granted single instances, but they were separate, with lower number of players.
For SW, yeah, but flying in/out from flightpaths... It's CrossRealm thing. When you took flight path, it's happening on your trully realm, when you landing and see NPCs dissapearing, CRZ is moving you from your realm to another one, shared. You can check that with NPC scan easily. When you flying, if some rare is up, NPCscan will popup and notify if found rare, but when you lands and go back to rare - it isn't there.
That is still instancing, just cross realm. Everyone is not in the same location.
Also, apart from the 3 exceptions I cited above, there are no single servers either. The "shards" are now called "channels" but they are the same, only dynamically distributed.
That is an interesting thing to note. The more "sandbox" a world is, the less feasible channels are as a way of managing the population.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.