Best MMO for seeing people in the world?

anemo

So what's the best MMO where you're doing "whatever", and you're most likely to see other players filling the world doing their own different "whatevers"?

EVE is pretty good for this since you'll eventually be in Jita at some point to really let the "crowd" seep in, in rather uncomfortable ways.   Likewise it's pretty good about having different areas having different types of content (people there for mining, farming NPCs, exploration, and/or PvP content).

RuneScape is pretty above average as well.   Having a pretty small world, chocked full of content, and is very above average at keeping areas interesting to all levels (whether through quest chains that cycle you to areas above/below your level, or returning to grind a low level skill).

delete5230

Whats site becoming,..... Just seeing people ?.... how about playing with people ?

Viper482

Problem with MMO's is they eventually grow way too big to keep every area outside of hubs populated. Games with Megaservers are your best bet, ESO seems to always have people around since every player is technically on the same server. WoW has layering which is has the same effect.

Amathe

I like this post and am glad you made it.

Part of living in a virtual world is seeing and interacting with people as they go about their everyday virtual lives.  To me that is important part of the game. It's not all about beating on the latest loot pinata. 

I found original SWG was good about this. There were player cities, player houses,  awesome crafting with player stores, and active NPC cities and towns. 

There was always someone to talk to.

It really felt like a world.

Phaserlight

I mean, just randomly running across people doing their thing who may have intersecting wants and needs is one of the main joys in the MMORPG in my sig that I still play.

I suspect it's that way for many MMOs, however.  If not, I'd be asking 'what went wrong?'

/2c

Mendel

I was surprised this weekend at how many people I saw on the newbie island in Ryzom.  Many would at least give an emote when you saw them, one or two talked or helped with something, and one even wanted to duel (enough to encourage me to figure out how to ignore someone).  Overall, a pleasant surprise in such an old game.

But if you're just counting seeing characters, feel free to take a walk through the Bazaar in EQ1.  Most of them aren't at their keyboard, though.  Even a generally evil game like PWI has an ocean of catshops in the major cities, trying to sell anything not nailed down.

Seeing a character isn't being able to group with them, or even having a conversation with the person behind the character.  Boxes and bots outnumber people these days, in my experience.

Panther2103

FFXIV had people pretty much everywhere I went at any time on my server as the leveling promotes multiple classes on one character so people are always out leveling. You mentioned Runescape, I think that game has the most players around at any given time in an MMO I've seen at any location you can get a skill up. It's a bit obvious but at the moment classic WoW has people pretty much everywhere, even in the starting areas still (although a lot lower than before). 

Utinni

Right now probably classic wow, ESO, ff14

Amathe

... and GW2.

Po_gg

Depends on a lot of things, world size as you mentioned too, then world design, population, peak hours, events, etc.

During the Bloodmoon in CO you barely could find some solitude, then the event ended, and the world got more spacious overnight.

New server launches are crowded times as well, last was Classic so probably can see a lot of people there still.

By world design I mean how well the different parts are utilised, with an another Cryptic example in Neverwinter you can always see a bunch of people in the zones with dragons, simply because of the campaigns. Same for PE, as the main hub (but that could apply for most games, and the title says "in the world", not in the central hub ), the rest of the (leveling) zones however are less populated.

If you seek just the general meetups, stripped down from effects of events, new content launches, hype-fuelled mass logins etc., I believe the safest bets are either the "popular" titles (as mentioned above, FF XIV, ESO, GW2) or the eastern games (smaller and instanced zones usually).

Cryomatrix

Entropia does especially during events. 

Palebane

ESO and Destiny 2.

goboygo

delete5230 said:

Whats site becoming,..... Just seeing people ?.... how about playing with people ?

I think its save to assume that we understand that playing with people too is a given part of that question.

delete5230

goboygo said:

delete5230 said:

Whats site becoming,..... Just seeing people ?.... how about playing with people ?

I think its save to assume that we understand that playing with people too is a given part of that question.

Best mmo for "JUST" seeing people.

That's the topic headlines.

Scot

delete5230 said:

goboygo said:

delete5230 said:

Whats site becoming,..... Just seeing people ?.... how about playing with people ?

I think its save to assume that we understand that playing with people too is a given part of that question.

Best mmo for "JUST" seeing people.

That's the topic headlines.

I am not sure here myself, many pure solo MMO players like seeing other people around them and do not interact at all, that's why I think it is a fair question to ask. They treat anyone who questions how much interaction they are doing as if they are The Interaction Police or something.

anemo

There you all go, an edited title.    Seems the feature finally works on this site.

Amazed that it was Delete that zoned in on the exaggeration and hyperbole, when that's their entire existence on the forum.

Scot

anemo said:

There you all go, an edited title.    Seems the feature finally works on this site.

Amazed that it was Delete that zoned in on the exaggeration and hyperbole, when that's they're entire existence on the forum.

Sure I get it, but maybe one day you will be lured over to the dark side...and interact.

anemo

Scot said:

anemo said:

There you all go, an edited title.    Seems the feature finally works on this site.

Amazed that it was Delete that zoned in on the exaggeration and hyperbole, when that's they're entire existence on the forum.

Sure I get it, but maybe one day you will be lured over to the dark side...and interact.

I do.   When I was in runescape my friends list was mostly people I've met while mining or something similar.    The same for EVE, but by being on nonsense chat channels.

Most MMOs feel less MMO like than the single player game CrossCode because they shunt their entire player bases into cross server instances.   Which are even worse, since you're mostly going to be meeting people you can't actually meet in the world.

MaxBacon

On the mainstream MMOs there is little to no interaction just by open-world standards.

The more sandbox one MMO is, especially when they can have some player impact on the game-world, the more you see players doing widely varied things going on with their lives.

To me examples given like GW2, ESO, etc... are meh because having players around does not really make the world feel alive as it's pretty linear gameplay per area you are on.

Scot

MaxBacon said:

On the mainstream MMOs there is little to no interaction just by open-world standards.

The more sandbox one MMO is, especially when they can have some player impact on the game-world, the more you see players doing widely varied things going on with their lives.

To me examples given like GW2, ESO, etc... are meh because having players around does not really make the world feel alive as it's pretty linear gameplay per area you are on.

It a conundrum, I just can't a fully sandbox MMO, but they do the best interaction. Roleplaying guilds in theme parks would certainly have something to say about that, but that's about it.

Kyleran

DMKano said:

delete5230 said:

Whats site becoming,..... Just seeing people ?.... how about playing with people ?

That's how quite a few people like to play today.

Some people play near each other- but dont really interact otherwise 

People just want the sense that others are there but have no real desire to actually do anything with them like actually communicate beyond just saying hi (most times not even doing that)

When was the last time you were in a close knit social guild?

Oh, sort of how it's like in almost any US suburban neighborhood.

I've lived next to some of these folks for 30 plus years, yet rarely interact besides an occasional convo or friendly wave.

Most I dont even know their names so my and I have taken to using nicknames.."wit-sec" guy, "grow house guy", basketball guy etc.

I'm sure they call us similar, probably the crazy old cat people. 

Abhorer

EVE in any social/trading hub like Jita; it's very interesting because people are not afraid to interact. That's a true sandbox MMO, though I don't play it anymore due to the fact that I think is very outdated, but there you can see the people doing their life, various and diverse as in the real life itself.