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General: The Daily Quest - Would You Play a Low Population Game?
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
There are a lot of MMOs out there now, but not all of them have the kind of player base that Azeroth, Tyria, or Norrath have. Some games, try as they might, just don't attract a lot of people. The quest for today: would you or do you play one of those games?
Today's question is brought to you by new MMORPG video maker Jewel Daab's my own misadventures into Carbine's WildStar. It's no secret that WildStar's having a rough go of things right now with dwindling sales and low populations (stay tuned later today for our own look at the earnings report). But what surprised both Jewel and I was just how few people seem to be playing the game these days.
Dungeons, PVP, and other group content just doesn't pop unless you're at the level cap which makes for a lonely and sometimes boring leveling process. The lack of players makes it absolutely clear that an empty server or an overall empty MMO just isn't a very fun experience.
So I ask you... do you play a game with a low population? Would you or wouldn't you? How much does a lively world matter to you?
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
I don't think I'd play a game below a certain threshold of population... but exactly what that threshold is, depends on the game. The most general way to see it for me would be whether you can still form PuGs for dungeons, and also depending on how good are the game provided tools for that. A game with a good group finder tool would be able to still work for me with a lower population than one that would only rely on a LFG chat channel.
Going into more specifics, I'd say that a game like GW2 with strong open world content would need more people to actually feel worth playing, while TSW, to put it at the other end of the spectrum, actually feels better for me if there are fewer people running around (hard to feel like you just stumbled into a secret Orochi group airdrop spot when you have to wait until someone else finishes defeating whatever they dropped first).
What can men do against such reckless hate?
It vastly depends on whether or not the game is playable with a low population.
For example, Wildstar is NOT from a raider's perspective, since there are very few guilds, so very few options. Actually, the same applies for Warplots (their big touted design concept that no one could play). TSW has the exact same problem (at least for EU players).
Others might rely a lot on a player-driver economy, in some way or another. It could be crafting, or it could be things like GW2 gems, where that market would be closed off entirely if there are too few participants (the spread of supply and demand would be too large).
However, keep in mind that LoL, probably the most profitable multiplayer game right now, is a game with 10 players every round, so as long as it has enough people to keep queues reasonably low, you'd still play it.
Population only matters when you add in the element of population requirements for certain activities.
Depending on the MMO, I prefer low populations. If the MMO is group oriented, then lots of other players are needed to play. However, in a game where grouping is encouraged (not forced), then other players are not as necessary.
I'd much rather play with fewer players seeking more similar entertainment as I do than a whole mass of disparaging players that just don't have the time to play and enjoy the game.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Jim H. Moreno
If I was having fun, I would play even if I was the only person in the game.
A lot of very popular games are even developed around that model of play.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
The real question is why is the population low?
More than likely the answer to the question is that the game isn't worth playing regardless of how many people there are. People rush the game because all it had to offer was that initial launch race to max level.
Theres a variety of reasons for this, and it may be beyond the scope of this topic, but until games figure out that meaningful progression in a game is more than just end game content, we're doomed to have these games that peter out after a few months. After a few months, nobody is left doing the early content because it was nothing more than a trivial stepping stone. Replayability is a thing of the past. When no one is doing low level content, it doesn't bode well for new players and prospects. Older MMOs now just give you near max level characters, ffs.
I know I constantly reference Everquest, but I can only think back fondly on how challenging the early game was, how many important items there were to collect and quests to complete, and how useful those low level items were at end game (literally bags of low level clickies and resist gear at max level). Making a game thats fun from the start and has a proper balance of grind versus achievement is crucial for long term success in an MMORPG.
The long answer is, SURE, I'd play games that have a lower population permitted its still enough for the game to function. If that means pve, enough players for group and raid content. For pvp, enough players to fight over whatever contested content exists.
Thats not the real issue though, its whether a game is worth playing after two months.
Nope. Never had fun in a game that is "past it's prime" where much of the content can't be played since you require a full group for that - and it's either too low level content for most server population or just made redundant by new content.
A lot of current mmorpgs with this description.
That's why I'm currently mmorpg-free and tend to play only around new title release, where there's still people to play with.
Actually, I had a lot of fun in Darkfall 1's last days. There weren't that many people playing (don't know how DFUW is doing these days), so while it wasn't that good for clan warfare and sieges, it was fun for solo and small group open world pvp. I also enjoyed the pve in Darkfall and having other players around gave it a bit of tension and fights happened just enough to keep it very interesting.
I also had fun with Vanguard and would probably still be playing on an off it were around. That's where I spent most of my Station Cash that I got from buying into PS2. Now I still have a pile of Station Cash and nothing I want to spend it on.
There are two sides to this question.
From a grouping/MMO content aspect
I think "megaservers" somewhat make this concept of "low population" less relevant. I fully expect all future MMOs to release when relevant with "megaservers" now. To be clear, a megaserver is: a new zone instance is created only if the zone is at population cap.
This makes all zones fairly populated, and is a great thing. So I wouldn't mind games with lower population then. But...
From a game development/new content perspective
This is the big issue really. If a game fails to make money, then it is likely to not release new content - at least not as fast as the competition. Games can be shut down too.
It would annoy me to invest too much time and energy in a game that was predictably, from the onset, rapidly going to die. So it's a no from a "new content perspective".
I mainly pay MMOs for crafting, gathering, economy aspects. That play style suffers a lot when population drops.
Same here. For me, it's not a matter of how many people are in the game as much as it is if the number of the people is high enough to keep it engaging and to keep actions worthwhile.
Some examples of games that didn't have high server pops but did have healthy and active server pops
- Puzzle Pirates
- A Tale in the Desert
- Salem
- Mortal Online pre- Sept 2014 update
Someof these were designed for the lower population, which is why they seemed to work well.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I don't mean to derail the thread, but what happened to MO with this update?
I spent some time in MO a couple of years ago and it was "interesting." There was something there, but I just wasn't willing to put the time and social effort into finding a good guild in that community (which I'm not saying is bad, because I don't know but which did have some peculiarities and politics I didn't want to get involved with at the time).
Would you play a game with a low population?
I think we all do ...... at least I assume we all play single player games and you can't get lower than 1.
And when we get bored with it: we stop playing
My point being that the first you don't need a "high" population you need "enough" to make the game enjoyable.
What constitutes high - probably not that many I suspect. A few hundred would probably be enough in most cases.
However if a game has a "low" population then - and it depends on the business model of course - it probably means that there isn't much money coming in. So not much support, new content and so forth. Which may or may not matter. I would consider that a related - but different - issue.
I would rather play a low population game that has 1 server (at most split into eu/usa) where everyone can interact with everyone else
I couldnt care less if a games has X million subscriber when they arer all spread over a high number of servers - they may as well just say
*we have "server cap" players you can interact with*
as you certainly cant just interact with any subscriber in those games
Repeating mistakes of the past. They created content that resulted in many guilds just turtling up inside their self-sufficient bases. Asheron's Call experienced this over a decade ago when players migrated from populated towns to self-sufficient Monarch mansions. Since then, several other MMOs have repeated the mistake, creating ghost towns of the main gameplay areas, further reducing their population.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
But Meridian 59 is a good example of a game that pretty much requires a smaller player base. You tend to know everyone on the server and it's been that way since the beginning.
I remember trying LOTRO back in 2008 before it went F2P and giving up after several hours of not seeing another player. Later, I discovered that the newbie zones are instanced away from the general population but at the time, not seeing even one other player meant a dead game to me. I don't think that impression would be much different today.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.