It's funny -- as I've watched Camelot Unchained test 3000 bots to try out server load capacity and I see other MMOs bragging about battles with thousands (or hundreds?) of participants, I always think....really? With today's shifting loyalties and players jumping from one game to the next and the next and so on, how many games can realistically expect that more than 100 would actually participate?
Just like I hate gigantic crowds in real life, I hate 'em in my games. As @keller said, most people spend the vast majority of their time in any "MMO" with 3-9 other people. Seeing hundreds of others running around that I don't give a damn about doesn't make the experience more compelling -- just more annoying.
Conceptually, I like the idea of servers as they are now, though I don't think it would be bad to allow for up to 200. I just wish all the games that did such things weren't survival games (yes, I know that those features can be toned way down or even off but the point stands).
I absolutely LOVED Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds and played on one that regularly had 50-100 people on it with active DMs that were interacting with us. I played on one (GLORWING!) for about 2 years and never felt the world was underpopulated. I miss those days.
umm No .. like i said they are not MMOs imo, which part dont you get
but he never said they were and in effect he agrees with you.
he said: 'why are these games being called MMOs'
you said: 'they are not'
reality is they are being called that
see?
read every word he said in your OP, then read your first response, then think about it
Umm , i was answering the question ..
What have MMOs become ?.................. My answer "They havent" MMOs have not become the 40 player server games ..
The 40 player server games are not i said " Those are not MMOS " agreeing with him .. Amazing that this needs to spelled out for you ...
I know you are working with everything god gave you .. But try harder
lol...ok bro
Here is what he said: Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
umm No .. like i said they are not MMOs imo, which part dont you get
but he never said they were and in effect he agrees with you.
he said: 'why are these games being called MMOs'
you said: 'they are not'
reality is they are being called that
see?
read every word he said in your OP, then read your first response, then think about it
Umm , i was answering the question ..
What have MMOs become ?.................. My answer "They havent" MMOs have not become the 40 player server games ..
The 40 player server games are not i said " Those are not MMOS " agreeing with him .. Amazing that this needs to spelled out for you ...
I know you are working with everything god gave you .. But try harder
lol...ok bro
Here is what he said: Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
umm No .. like i said they are not MMOs imo, which part dont you get
but he never said they were and in effect he agrees with you.
he said: 'why are these games being called MMOs'
you said: 'they are not'
reality is they are being called that
see?
read every word he said in your OP, then read your first response, then think about it
Umm , i was answering the question ..
What have MMOs become ?.................. My answer "They havent" MMOs have not become the 40 player server games ..
The 40 player server games are not i said " Those are not MMOS " agreeing with him .. Amazing that this needs to spelled out for you ...
I know you are working with everything god gave you .. But try harder
lol...ok bro
Here is what he said: Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
umm No .. like i said they are not MMOs imo, which part dont you get
but he never said they were and in effect he agrees with you.
he said: 'why are these games being called MMOs'
you said: 'they are not'
reality is they are being called that
see?
read every word he said in your OP, then read your first response, then think about it
Umm , i was answering the question ..
What have MMOs become ?.................. My answer "They havent" MMOs have not become the 40 player server games ..
The 40 player server games are not i said " Those are not MMOS " agreeing with him .. Amazing that this needs to spelled out for you ...
I know you are working with everything god gave you .. But try harder
lol...ok bro
Here is what he said: Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
Wrong again ...and ya know what .. back to ignore for you ...IMO the biggest troll this site has seen in along time ..
You bring nothing to this community
what he was saying is this:
These games that are listed as MMOs but have limited number of people are not really MMOs, what do you think about that.
Your response didnt make any sense. which is WHY I was asking for someone to give me a title of a game because the only way it could have read as 'they are not' is if 'they were not listed as MMOs'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
@SEANMCAD and @Scorchien You guys need to move on please -- don't derail the thread. It's a semantic argument with neither of you changing your minds. Sometimes it's just better to LET IT GO!
These games are not mmog's. I love to craft and make money to buy things. Small populations cannot support a robust crafter population. For me they are close to being a single player game,given most of the servers will have low populations..and will not be run by professionals. I have ZERO interest in what ever this game purports to be.
I dunno. I tried playing Istaria (that MMO with a playable dragon) and it had far less people on than most of the popular Ark servers. Minecraft MMO server has far more people playing it than Istaria. istaria literally had 35 people in chat, maybe a few off but super low amount.
How is that even considered massive at that point?
Silly at best ... picking out a 15 year old MMO for your example is weak ..Fact is tho that Istaria and can support Thousands if the players wanted to play it .. Ark .CANT /... You understand i hope
It doesn't matter if a server can hold every person in the world on one server, if only a few people are playing. That is not massive in anyway. An MMO is not massive if it has a tiny amount of people playing.
Likewise, WoW can only hold 1-2k players per server. Massive? I suppose. Though not REALLY. I can go to the mall and there'd be that many people there on a crowded day (on a holiday, easily that many at the local mall). And not THAT much more than some minecraft multiplayer servers. And not nearly as massive as EVE's (at one time) had 30k or so people playing at once.
Why would a game be massive if it has so few players playing? What is massively multiplayer about that? Just because it can hold a bunch of people? And if you were to go by server cap (which is stupid), how would WoW be massive with 1-2k players when my local mall (as an example) gets that on crowded days...that isn't anything special lol. EVE though I'd say is a true MMO with so many people on, but if one day it ended up with 30-50 players...that isn't massive at all.
I don't care what a server cap is, to me its only massive if there is an actual large amount of people playing and you can interact with. That IS massively multiplayer. Not an arbitrary amount of people a server can hold
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
I know games that call themselves MMO and still spin up scene servers on player clients with a single instance and database managed by one mega server. These games have no hope of ever becoming a massive anything but they still keep saying it for the purposes of marketing.
Today's standards having 10-20 people on the screen justifies the MMO label I guess.
The definition of the "massive" part of MMO has evolved/changed over the years. Really many games should just be "Multiplayer Online Game" but the "Massive" is kind of used as a hook/sales word.
Look at these games that have only around 10 people in one zone at a time that are labelled "MMO" and I'm not talking about hubs but actual combat zones.
It's funny -- as I've watched Camelot Unchained test 3000 bots to try out server load capacity and I see other MMOs bragging about battles with thousands (or hundreds?) of participants, I always think....really? With today's shifting loyalties and players jumping from one game to the next and the next and so on, how many games can realistically expect that more than 100 would actually participate?
Just like I hate gigantic crowds in real life, I hate 'em in my games. As @keller said, most people spend the vast majority of their time in any "MMO" with 3-9 other people. Seeing hundreds of others running around that I don't give a damn about doesn't make the experience more compelling -- just more annoying.
Conceptually, I like the idea of servers as they are now, though I don't think it would be bad to allow for up to 200. I just wish all the games that did such things weren't survival games (yes, I know that those features can be toned way down or even off but the point stands).
I absolutely LOVED Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds and played on one that regularly had 50-100 people on it with active DMs that were interacting with us. I played on one (GLORWING!) for about 2 years and never felt the world was underpopulated. I miss those days.
hmmm, maybe ...
I think you are discounting the actual group of people this game is being made for.
They are hoping that there are enough people who remember/are interested/are curious about games where you would have large groups doing events, sieges, dungeons/raids, etc.
I don't believe they are appealing to "individuals" so much as guilds. Guilds of people who are looking to actually play a game together.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I dunno. I tried playing Istaria (that MMO with a playable dragon) and it had far less people on than most of the popular Ark servers. Minecraft MMO server has far more people playing it than Istaria. istaria literally had 35 people in chat, maybe a few off but super low amount.
How is that even considered massive at that point?
Silly at best ... picking out a 15 year old MMO for your example is weak ..Fact is tho that Istaria and can support Thousands if the players wanted to play it .. Ark .CANT /... You understand i hope
It doesn't matter if a server can hold every person in the world on one server, if only a few people are playing. That is not massive in anyway. An MMO is not massive if it has a tiny amount of people playing.
Likewise, WoW can only hold 1-2k players per server. Massive? I suppose. Though not REALLY. I can go to the mall and there'd be that many people there on a crowded day (on a holiday, easily that many at the local mall). And not THAT much more than some minecraft multiplayer servers. And not nearly as massive as EVE's (at one time) had 30k or so people playing at once.
Why would a game be massive if it has so few players playing? What is massively multiplayer about that? Just because it can hold a bunch of people? And if you were to go by server cap (which is stupid), how would WoW be massive with 1-2k players when my local mall (as an example) gets that on crowded days...that isn't anything special lol. EVE though I'd say is a true MMO with so many people on, but if one day it ended up with 30-50 players...that isn't massive at all.
I don't care what a server cap is, to me its only massive if there is an actual large amount of people playing and you can interact with. That IS massively multiplayer. Not an arbitrary amount of people a server can hold
Not sure where you're getting the 1-2k player cap per server for WoW, unless something has changed? I was pretty sure their servers can cater to at least 5k players simultaneously.
And when labeling games, you have to go by designed features. That's what defines the game. That's the argument folks are making here.
Just because multiplayer is largely dead for a given title, that doesn't magically make the game a singleplayer only game. Multiplayer is still enabled and it still a feature of the game. If the servers were hosted by the publisher, and those have been shut down completely, preventing any multiplayer gameplay.. Then we could say the game has become singleplayer only. An SUV doesn't become a two-seater hot rod because there's only the driver and the front passenger occupying the vehicle.
I dunno. I tried playing Istaria (that MMO with a playable dragon) and it had far less people on than most of the popular Ark servers. Minecraft MMO server has far more people playing it than Istaria. istaria literally had 35 people in chat, maybe a few off but super low amount.
How is that even considered massive at that point?
Silly at best ... picking out a 15 year old MMO for your example is weak ..Fact is tho that Istaria and can support Thousands if the players wanted to play it .. Ark .CANT /... You understand i hope
It doesn't matter if a server can hold every person in the world on one server, if only a few people are playing. That is not massive in anyway. An MMO is not massive if it has a tiny amount of people playing.
Likewise, WoW can only hold 1-2k players per server. Massive? I suppose. Though not REALLY. I can go to the mall and there'd be that many people there on a crowded day (on a holiday, easily that many at the local mall). And not THAT much more than some minecraft multiplayer servers. And not nearly as massive as EVE's (at one time) had 30k or so people playing at once.
Why would a game be massive if it has so few players playing? What is massively multiplayer about that? Just because it can hold a bunch of people? And if you were to go by server cap (which is stupid), how would WoW be massive with 1-2k players when my local mall (as an example) gets that on crowded days...that isn't anything special lol. EVE though I'd say is a true MMO with so many people on, but if one day it ended up with 30-50 players...that isn't massive at all.
I don't care what a server cap is, to me its only massive if there is an actual large amount of people playing and you can interact with. That IS massively multiplayer. Not an arbitrary amount of people a server can hold
Not sure where you're getting the 1-2k player cap per server for WoW, unless something has changed? I was pretty sure their servers can cater to at least 5k players simultaneously.
And when labeling games, you have to go by designed features. That's what defines the game. That's the argument folks are making here.
Just because multiplayer is largely dead for a given title, that doesn't magically make the game a singleplayer only game. Multiplayer is still enabled and it still a feature of the game. If the servers were hosted by the publisher, and those have been shut down completely, preventing any multiplayer gameplay.. Then we could say the game has become singleplayer only. An SUV doesn't become a two-seater hot rod because there's only the driver and the front passenger occupying the vehicle.
5k is actually better, there is actually various sources of the number...the reason I said 1-2k is because that was (as of MoP) what was considered "full". I'll admit however, servers did change since MoP and server caps were changed, so might be outdated information. Could have been wrong to begin with, because the number was widely reported as different things. So lets just say 5k.
And if I joined an MMO, and I was literally the single only person playing...I'd be playing solo...which would be pretty much a singleplayer experience. An SUV may not become a two seater hot rod, but it would be driven by a 1 man guy/gal driving it. But the SUV example doesn't entirely fit a "massively multiplayer" definition.
Lets say an MMO is massively multiplayer no matter the people. That should be a huge boost to anyone who likes playing solo, and do away with "go play a singleplayer game". Just join a dead MMO or very few people and play it singleplayer anyway! See that doesn't really work.
The mechanics and server may allow for 10 billion people. It doesn't matter though if the game is dead and there is 1-50 people playing it...why would it matter at that point if a server can hold billions of people?
(edit: To add...)
Even if they advertised "CAN HOLD BILLIONS OF PLAYERS BIGGEST MMO EVER"...if it actually only had lets say same as istaria, 40-50 on at one time...I'm pretty sure it holding that many players doesn't make it massive except an arbitrary artificial server cap lol.
I don't care about arbitrary caps that can be anything the developer wants it to be. I play MMOs to be surrounded by thousands of people, that is massive and what MMOs are about. Not a few dozen that I can get the same experience (and cheaper) in games like Ark
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Scenario 1: a few people traveling to a different state, very empty plane I'd personally say (which is a common thing of different variations people say) "nice, an empty flight, lots of room to move around and move to a better seat"
Scenario 2: Packed to the brim plane I'd personally say "well this is super packed. Such a large amount of people traveling this flight"
Both planes are same exact size and same exact plane, just different amounts of people. The plane doesn't change, but...
In scenario 1, if that was an "MMO", that wouldn't actually be massive or large or anything, removing the "massively multiplayer" out of "MMO" making it "online"
Scenario 2, if that was an MMO. Now that would be a massive multiplayer experience, with tons of people everywhere
Both cases I don't care what the size of the plane is or how much it holds (well guess an empty plane is a better flight experience, but that aside...)...the amount of people on the plane makes a huge difference. Going to MMO definitions, secenario 2 is obviously actually a massive multiplayer experience if 1000s or more people are playing. Scenario 1 is what you find in games like Ark (and sometimes Ark even has more lol)
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
can someone give me a game title that has a max of less than 100 that is labeled as an MMO please?
Life is Feudal?
Except that Life is Feudal Your Own World isn't sold as an MMO. It's promoted as the alpha version of an MMO. The MMO version (Which is in beta atm as far as I understand) is supposed to support thousands of players in the same world.
TheScavenger said: 5k is actually better, there is actually various sources of the number...the reason I said 1-2k is because that was (as of MoP) what was considered "full". I'll admit however, servers did change since MoP and server caps were changed, so might be outdated information. Could have been wrong to begin with, because the number was widely reported as different things. So lets just say 5k.
And if I joined an MMO, and I was literally the single only person playing...I'd be playing solo...which would be pretty much a singleplayer experience. An SUV may not become a two seater hot rod, but it would be driven by a 1 man guy/gal driving it. But the SUV example doesn't entirely fit a "massively multiplayer" definition.
Lets say an MMO is massively multiplayer no matter the people. That should be a huge boost to anyone who likes playing solo, and do away with "go play a singleplayer game". Just join a dead MMO or very few people and play it singleplayer anyway! See that doesn't really work.
The mechanics and server may allow for 10 billion people. It doesn't matter though if the game is dead and there is 1-50 people playing it...why would it matter at that point if a server can hold billions of people?
(edit: To add...)
Even if they advertised "CAN HOLD BILLIONS OF PLAYERS BIGGEST MMO EVER"...if it actually only had lets say same as istaria, 40-50 on at one time...I'm pretty sure it holding that many players doesn't make it massive except an arbitrary artificial server cap lol.
I don't care about arbitrary caps that can be anything the developer wants it to be. I play MMOs to be surrounded by thousands of people, that is massive and what MMOs are about. Not a few dozen that I can get the same experience (and cheaper) in games like Ark
I think you're conflating the type of a game with the status of a game. In the case of a game that can handle 10 billion simultaneous connections, and there were only 20 people playing it. It would be a (gigantically) massively multiplayer game that was horribly underpopulated. The "type" would still be MMO, but the "status" would be "underpopulated".
The whole point of putting the MMO into the MMORPG was to differentiate it from the previous generation of online games (mainly MUDs) that were only able to handle a couple hundred or so simultaneous connections. It had nothing to do with how many people were actually playing those games.
Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
Any thoughts
does it really matter? in todays " mmo " all people do is single player level up with some hand held story just like a single player RPG. then group up with a few others for a dungeon raid most of the time on a que.
what is so massive about that? you can get that on a server with 100 or less people.
I'll say it IS one MMO as long we talk about the network setups where it is instances per area of such game-world, either seamless or by loading screens.
Say for example Guild Wars 2 stays in the range you have mentioned.
You mention people per server but it's time to move beyond that; the new network setups are going beyond people per server, approaches now taken is those where people are instanced in localized areas so many servers can handle the same game-world, and achieve much higher populations at the cost of limiting how many will be able to physically be in the same area.
It's funny -- as I've watched Camelot Unchained test 3000 bots to try out server load capacity and I see other MMOs bragging about battles with thousands (or hundreds?) of participants, I always think....really? With today's shifting loyalties and players jumping from one game to the next and the next and so on, how many games can realistically expect that more than 100 would actually participate?
Just like I hate gigantic crowds in real life, I hate 'em in my games. As @keller said, most people spend the vast majority of their time in any "MMO" with 3-9 other people. Seeing hundreds of others running around that I don't give a damn about doesn't make the experience more compelling -- just more annoying.
Conceptually, I like the idea of servers as they are now, though I don't think it would be bad to allow for up to 200. I just wish all the games that did such things weren't survival games (yes, I know that those features can be toned way down or even off but the point stands).
I absolutely LOVED Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds and played on one that regularly had 50-100 people on it with active DMs that were interacting with us. I played on one (GLORWING!) for about 2 years and never felt the world was underpopulated. I miss those days.
You are right, but mainly because massive MMO combat isn't really made the right way. The start of MMO combat was Meridian 59 which were made for small groups and that is where it works best.
There is no point in large formations so whenever we get many players in the same place we get a zerg or people running all over the place for the same spawning mobs. That doesn't mean you can't make a good truly massive MMO, just that you need to figure out the right mechanics for it to be more fun.
CamelTosis suggested an aura like field around each player that slows enemies down if they enter their zone of control in another thread, something like that would make formations actually work both in PvE and PvP. Have a shield wall with the wizards and clerics behind it and you suddenly can have way more massive combat that still would be fun.
Many MMOs have adapted themselves for soloplay but few if any actually done the same for the larger player numbers. With current mechanics the point of massive servers tend to get lost besides for finding a PUG. Why have thousands of players when you don't make the game use that to it's advantage?
Right now we have 5-6 players group mechanics and raid mechanics for up to max 40 players, and even with 40 players the mechanics could work better. With more you get chaos.
can someone give me a game title that has a max of less than 100 that is labeled as an MMO please?
As said in the above post. Istaria, had 35 people in chat, to be safe 40 at most
Ryzom also has very few people playing, though a lot more than Istaria but not sure how much. Ryzom far more active, but probably had 100-200 people playing and anything in that number is pretty good.
I've played many older indie MMOs, and most are pretty active. Istaria is the main example I can think of, its labeled as an MMO but very dead and has far less people playing than any of the survival sandbox games.
But they are capable of handling more. MMO is not defined by how many are actually playing it but by how many it can support.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
First of all , I wouldnt call games like dark n light or ark mmos I would call them mmo like. The same way destiny or say diablo 3 are mmo like. I use to be like the rest of you guys with very rigid defintion of what a mmo is and how many people must be playing but latetly. With how uncreative,boring and stale the genre has become I am welcoming these be mmo hybrids with open arms.
I know this sounds silly but when i see a mmo tag next to a game on steam and I see massively multiplayer tag next to a game they mean 2 completly different things to me, anyone else?
Comments
What have MMOs become ?.................. My answer "They havent" MMOs have not become the 40 player server games ..
The 40 player server games are not i said " Those are not MMOS " agreeing with him .. Amazing that this needs to spelled out for you ...
I know you are working with everything god gave you .. But try harder
Just like I hate gigantic crowds in real life, I hate 'em in my games. As @keller said, most people spend the vast majority of their time in any "MMO" with 3-9 other people. Seeing hundreds of others running around that I don't give a damn about doesn't make the experience more compelling -- just more annoying.
Conceptually, I like the idea of servers as they are now, though I don't think it would be bad to allow for up to 200. I just wish all the games that did such things weren't survival games (yes, I know that those features can be toned way down or even off but the point stands).
I absolutely LOVED Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds and played on one that regularly had 50-100 people on it with active DMs that were interacting with us. I played on one (GLORWING!) for about 2 years and never felt the world was underpopulated. I miss those days.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here is what he said:
Why are all these new games coming out (many are cloning ARK's sandbox theme, others are unique. But WHY are they being labeled MMO/MMORPGs? If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.
There are some benefits (no gold farmers) but it splits the community up into hundreds of servers, and only if you have friends to play with or find friends in game to group up with then its a 1 vs 19-179 multiplayer game, not an MMO.
Any thoughts
Read more at http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/467246/what-have-mmos-become-40-player-max-per-server-is-not-an-mmo#ovg5IB2dS2voJ7Up.99
i dont see 'what have happened' anywhere in that
check out this part:
'If a server can only hold 20-180 people, it is NOT an MMO.'
Read more at http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/467246/what-have-mmos-become-40-player-max-per-server-is-not-an-mmo/p2#aFlPHYpDiAGO1drV.99
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
What have "MMOs" become?
You had better stop smoking the Liquid Wrench in your fathers basement , im concerned , no good will come of it
I uderstand what you did, you read the OP title and immediatly wrote a reponse without reading the content. fair enough no harm
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
In the steam store: "All Games > Massively Multiplayer Games > Citadel: Forged with Fire"
How is small group of people 'massive'...
Look at the article on the front of this site... "Citadel: Forged With Fire Interview - Blending MMOs & Open World Into One Experience"
I'd like to know WHAT EXACTLY they did to blend 'MMOs' with a sandbox, limited player, hundreds of servers game?
It's turned into a catch phrase, which has nothing to do with what a real MMO used to be.
/disgusted
You bring nothing to this community
These games that are listed as MMOs but have limited number of people are not really MMOs, what do you think about that.
Your response didnt make any sense. which is WHY I was asking for someone to give me a title of a game because the only way it could have read as 'they are not' is if 'they were not listed as MMOs'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Likewise, WoW can only hold 1-2k players per server. Massive? I suppose. Though not REALLY. I can go to the mall and there'd be that many people there on a crowded day (on a holiday, easily that many at the local mall). And not THAT much more than some minecraft multiplayer servers. And not nearly as massive as EVE's (at one time) had 30k or so people playing at once.
Why would a game be massive if it has so few players playing? What is massively multiplayer about that? Just because it can hold a bunch of people? And if you were to go by server cap (which is stupid), how would WoW be massive with 1-2k players when my local mall (as an example) gets that on crowded days...that isn't anything special lol. EVE though I'd say is a true MMO with so many people on, but if one day it ended up with 30-50 players...that isn't massive at all.
I don't care what a server cap is, to me its only massive if there is an actual large amount of people playing and you can interact with. That IS massively multiplayer. Not an arbitrary amount of people a server can hold
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
I know games that call themselves MMO and still spin up scene servers on player clients with a single instance and database managed by one mega server. These games have no hope of ever becoming a massive anything but they still keep saying it for the purposes of marketing.
The definition of the "massive" part of MMO has evolved/changed over the years. Really many games should just be "Multiplayer Online Game" but the "Massive" is kind of used as a hook/sales word.
Look at these games that have only around 10 people in one zone at a time that are labelled "MMO" and I'm not talking about hubs but actual combat zones.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/99900/Spiral_Knights/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/226320/Marvel_Heroes_Omega/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/372000/Tree_of_Savior_English_Ver/
I think you are discounting the actual group of people this game is being made for.
They are hoping that there are enough people who remember/are interested/are curious about games where you would have large groups doing events, sieges, dungeons/raids, etc.
I don't believe they are appealing to "individuals" so much as guilds. Guilds of people who are looking to actually play a game together.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
And when labeling games, you have to go by designed features. That's what defines the game. That's the argument folks are making here.
Just because multiplayer is largely dead for a given title, that doesn't magically make the game a singleplayer only game. Multiplayer is still enabled and it still a feature of the game. If the servers were hosted by the publisher, and those have been shut down completely, preventing any multiplayer gameplay.. Then we could say the game has become singleplayer only. An SUV doesn't become a two-seater hot rod because there's only the driver and the front passenger occupying the vehicle.
And if I joined an MMO, and I was literally the single only person playing...I'd be playing solo...which would be pretty much a singleplayer experience. An SUV may not become a two seater hot rod, but it would be driven by a 1 man guy/gal driving it. But the SUV example doesn't entirely fit a "massively multiplayer" definition.
Lets say an MMO is massively multiplayer no matter the people. That should be a huge boost to anyone who likes playing solo, and do away with "go play a singleplayer game". Just join a dead MMO or very few people and play it singleplayer anyway! See that doesn't really work.
The mechanics and server may allow for 10 billion people. It doesn't matter though if the game is dead and there is 1-50 people playing it...why would it matter at that point if a server can hold billions of people?
(edit: To add...)
Even if they advertised "CAN HOLD BILLIONS OF PLAYERS BIGGEST MMO EVER"...if it actually only had lets say same as istaria, 40-50 on at one time...I'm pretty sure it holding that many players doesn't make it massive except an arbitrary artificial server cap lol.
I don't care about arbitrary caps that can be anything the developer wants it to be. I play MMOs to be surrounded by thousands of people, that is massive and what MMOs are about. Not a few dozen that I can get the same experience (and cheaper) in games like Ark
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Scenario 1: a few people traveling to a different state, very empty plane
I'd personally say (which is a common thing of different variations people say) "nice, an empty flight, lots of room to move around and move to a better seat"
Scenario 2: Packed to the brim plane
I'd personally say "well this is super packed. Such a large amount of people traveling this flight"
Both planes are same exact size and same exact plane, just different amounts of people. The plane doesn't change, but...
In scenario 1, if that was an "MMO", that wouldn't actually be massive or large or anything, removing the "massively multiplayer" out of "MMO" making it "online"
Scenario 2, if that was an MMO. Now that would be a massive multiplayer experience, with tons of people everywhere
Both cases I don't care what the size of the plane is or how much it holds (well guess an empty plane is a better flight experience, but that aside...)...the amount of people on the plane makes a huge difference. Going to MMO definitions, secenario 2 is obviously actually a massive multiplayer experience if 1000s or more people are playing. Scenario 1 is what you find in games like Ark (and sometimes Ark even has more lol)
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
The whole point of putting the MMO into the MMORPG was to differentiate it from the previous generation of online games (mainly MUDs) that were only able to handle a couple hundred or so simultaneous connections. It had nothing to do with how many people were actually playing those games.
what is so massive about that? you can get that on a server with 100 or less people.
Say for example Guild Wars 2 stays in the range you have mentioned.
You mention people per server but it's time to move beyond that; the new network setups are going beyond people per server, approaches now taken is those where people are instanced in localized areas so many servers can handle the same game-world, and achieve much higher populations at the cost of limiting how many will be able to physically be in the same area.
There is no point in large formations so whenever we get many players in the same place we get a zerg or people running all over the place for the same spawning mobs. That doesn't mean you can't make a good truly massive MMO, just that you need to figure out the right mechanics for it to be more fun.
CamelTosis suggested an aura like field around each player that slows enemies down if they enter their zone of control in another thread, something like that would make formations actually work both in PvE and PvP. Have a shield wall with the wizards and clerics behind it and you suddenly can have way more massive combat that still would be fun.
Many MMOs have adapted themselves for soloplay but few if any actually done the same for the larger player numbers. With current mechanics the point of massive servers tend to get lost besides for finding a PUG. Why have thousands of players when you don't make the game use that to it's advantage?
Right now we have 5-6 players group mechanics and raid mechanics for up to max 40 players, and even with 40 players the mechanics could work better. With more you get chaos.
Aloha Mr Hand !
Aloha Mr Hand !