MMORPG's Equal < 1000 Players

Emergence · February 2011

I wouldn't say hundreds of thousands.

Most MMORPG's don't actually have that many players online at any given time. Think about it...

1) Only one server counts. You will never play with more than there are on that SINGLE server. Servers are capped at a set number of players online at any one time. World of Warcraft has TONS of servers and millions of players-- but you are NOT playing with millions of other people. Not even close. Not even a million.

2) Most MMO's are split between realms, sides, factions, continents, zones, etc. This means that of the players online at any one time, you can only player with a set amount, and the rest you never see. If there's PvP, you only ever see the PvP enemy sides.

3) In your immediately vicinity (usually a zone or area) there are only ever [x] number of players. In fact, you will rarely see more than 100 users in any one zone. Even the most heavily populated zones don't go far past 100, and CERTAINLY NOT in the thousands.

Massively Multiplayer is a lot less than people think. Take DAoC for example...

Right now as of 2/28/2011 12:36am -6CST there is...

1 Server, 1313 Players Online, and 3 Realms.

Pretending Realm populations are balanced equally, each realm has only 437 players. If this was a PvE game, you're only playing on the same server as 437 players. There are scores upon scores of zones. Since this is a PvP game, You're playing with 1313 - PvE Players - Active Players. You're left with whatever % of 1313 that active PvP players are. This is not even 1000, guaranteed.

This does not include BOTS or Multi-Boxing, AFKers, Crafters, Socializers, eRPers, RPers, those in levels 1-49 who are grinding in PvE or quests, RAIDers, etc.

Any in one moment, you may be playing in a full group of 8, against another full group of 8, for a total of 16 players playing together. At most, I've seen each side have an army of 300, which is still < 1000 players playing together. At max in the most popular day/time for the game with all 3 sides fighting, it has certainly not been hundreds of thousands of players.

MMORPG's are more MORPG than they are MMORPG, unless you consider 1000 players or 500 players MMORPG, which indeed you should, as games with hundreds of players interacting a once like DAoC is NOT a common MMO type. In fact, at any one moment you're unlikely to be playing with more than a handful of players (PvE) or in some games only 20-40 (instanced battleground PvP or raids). The primary MMO part, in my opinion, are the central hubs (Capital Cities, for instance) and (arguably) the ability to always play against or with different people (which may or may not be good).

Loktofeit · February 2011

Originally posted by Emergence
I wouldn't say hundreds of thousands.

Most MMORPG's don't actually have that many players online at any given time. Think about it...

1) Only one server counts. You will never play with more than there are on that SINGLE server. Servers are capped at a set number of players online at any one time. World of Warcraft has TONS of servers and millions of players-- but you are NOT playing with millions of other people. Not even close. Not even a million.

2) Most MMO's are split between realms, sides, factions, continents, zones, etc. This means that of the players online at any one time, you can only player with a set amount, and the rest you never see. If there's PvP, you only ever see the PvP enemy sides.

3) In your immediately vicinity (usually a zone or area) there are only ever [x] number of players. In fact, you will rarely see more than 100 users in any one zone. Even the most heavily populated zones don't go far past 100, and CERTAINLY NOT in the thousands.

Massively Multiplayer is a lot less than people think. Take DAoC for example...

Right now as of 2/28/2011 12:36am -6CST there is...

1 Server, 1313 Players Online, and 3 Realms.

Pretending Realm populations are balanced equally, each realm has only 437 players. If this was a PvE game, you're only playing on the same server as 437 players. There are scores upon scores of zones. Since this is a PvP game, You're playing with 1313 - PvE Players - Active Players. You're left with whatever % of 1313 that active PvP players are. This is not even 1000, guaranteed.

This does not include BOTS or Multi-Boxing, AFKers, Crafters, Socializers, eRPers, RPers, those in levels 1-49 who are grinding in PvE or quests, RAIDers, etc.

Any in one moment, you may be playing in a full group of 8, against another full group of 8, for a total of 16 players playing together. At most, I've seen each side have an army of 300, which is still < 1000 players playing together. At max in the most popular day/time for the game with all 3 sides fighting, it has certainly not been hundreds of thousands of players.

MMORPG's are more MORPG than they are MMORPG, unless you consider 1000 players or 500 players MMORPG, which indeed you should, as games with hundreds of players interacting a once like DAoC is NOT a common MMO type. In fact, at any one moment you're unlikely to be playing with more than a handful of players (PvE) or in some games only 20-40 (instanced battleground PvP or raids). The primary MMO part, in my opinion, are the central hubs (Capital Cities, for instance) and (arguably) the ability to always play against or with different people (which may or may not be good).

I don't think anyone thinks the average MMO server has more than a few hundred on at a time. Some may have a thousand or so, but it seems most devs put their server caps at about 2000-2500 or so. Some go beyond that (Darkfall, EVE and ither single shard worlds) but most people know those are the exception.

pragues · February 2011

The limited number per server (realm) has always been one of the forces that ran MMORPG's to the ground.

And those who say that MMORPG's with single server realms have MUCH more concurrent pops these days are simply wrong.

In an official chat session on Rift, one of the developpers had ... a slip of the tongue in last December 2010.

He said on the question of

2.How large of a population will the servers be able to support (per server)?

<%chamberlin> We're targeting 1500 players per server

http://www.riftnexus.com/topic/350-actual-server-last-qa-from-rift-irc-before-2011/

Ough, that was one big slip...

Fans and even forum watchers have tried to deny it of course, but it shows how brittle single server communities really are ...

---

Until recently the solution was to merge servers, but that wasn't a remedy. Even 5 K full scaled populations on a single server are not big enough to support HUGE content offers we are spoiled with today.

Whether people like it or not the next BIG MMO's will have to go cross server in varies different ways.

You can have simple clustered mechanics you already see these days, but the next big thing will be realm based clustered server mechanics, something like EVE but with the added advantage of landscapes and real planets to walk on.

I have no idea how SW:TOR will do this, but GW2 already uses a slightly adapted mechanism by putting in cross server PvP instanded zones.

Rallycart · February 2011

Originally posted by Emergence
3) In your immediately vicinity (usually a zone or area) there are only ever [x] number of players. In fact, you will rarely see more than 100 users in any one zone. Even the most heavily populated zones don't go far past 100, and CERTAINLY NOT in the thousands.

I agree with everything other than this. You have quite obviously never played EVE.

Xasapis · February 2011

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here OP. In an MMO you'll be interacting in a week with more people than you'd normally interact in a year of your RL life (excluding work).

Or you're trying to imply that just because the servers can simultaneously hold 1500 (or whatever the number is these days), you still don't interact with the 10.000 (or whatever bigger the number is these days)?

Is this a subtle attempt to excuse turning MMOs into lobby games or am I just imagining stuff?

Deivos · February 2011

Or Planetside.

Continent pop locks were ~100 per faction. Most people played within only a few bases at a time due to the way they were linked as well. You were more or less forced into battles with tons of other players in that game.

And the player counts in the Lineage 2 Sieges were pretty damn big also.

You should really just look up some of the screens and videos of sieges and battles in those games.

fivoroth · February 2011

Of course, MMOs were never massive. Firstly, because of the sheer number of servers as you pointed out. Second off, people get scattered across multiple zones which are different instances (with or without loading screens). And when you solo or even group you rarely play with more than 5-6 people in PvE. But most of the time is spent solo and even though there might be some people around you, most people never interact at all.

Battlegrounds and raids provide bigger setups BUT multiplayer games like CoD can support up to 64 people which is much more than raids and most battlegrounds.

MMOs were never massive. The only thing they offer you is seamless transition from one zone to another with some people around with which you will never speak most likely.

What I perceive as massive is in the hundreds/thousands in one place interacting with each other. Towns with 200-300 people are not an example of this. I mean engaging in meanigful activity with lots of people. A raid of 300 people trying to take down a boss is massive. However, 10-40 is not massive.

About your numbers per server I would agree for the most part. However, WoW's servers are much more populated than your average MMO. On the server I used to play there might have been 5k people on at prime time. Maybe more.

@Deivos, yes actually when I think of massive I always think of Lineage sieges. I never played them but I heard rumours of there being 1k per side for a total of 2k people engaged in a siege. Now that's massive.

Originally posted by Xasapis
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here OP. In an MMO you'll be interacting in a week with more people than you'd normally interact in a year of your RL life (excluding work).

Not true. I meet tons of new people all the time at uni. My uni most likely has a larger population than your average MMO

Or you're trying to imply that just because the servers can simultaneously hold 1500 (or whatever the number is these days), you still don't interact with the 10.000 (or whatever bigger the number is these days)?

The key about massive is that you interact simultaneously (damn I hate this world always so hard to spell ^_^) with a lot of other people. In my FPS/RTS games I interact with lots of people. Actually a lot more than in MMOs. Does that make them massive?

Is this a subtle attempt to excuse turning MMOs into lobby games or am I just imagining stuff?

MMOs were lobby games for a long time now. All of them. It's not subtle. I am stating it out loud ^_^

Asm0deus · February 2011

Originally posted by Emergence
I wouldn't say hundreds of thousands.

Most MMORPG's don't actually have that many players online at any given time. Think about it...

1) Only one server counts. You will never play with more than there are on that SINGLE server. Servers are capped at a set number of players online at any one time. World of Warcraft has TONS of servers and millions of players-- but you are NOT playing with millions of other people. Not even close. Not even a million.

2) Most MMO's are split between realms, sides, factions, continents, zones, etc. This means that of the players online at any one time, you can only player with a set amount, and the rest you never see. If there's PvP, you only ever see the PvP enemy sides.

3) In your immediately vicinity (usually a zone or area) there are only ever [x] number of players. In fact, you will rarely see more than 100 users in any one zone. Even the most heavily populated zones don't go far past 100, and CERTAINLY NOT in the thousands.

Massively Multiplayer is a lot less than people think. Take DAoC for example...

Right now as of 2/28/2011 12:36am -6CST there is...

1 Server, 1313 Players Online, and 3 Realms.

Pretending Realm populations are balanced equally, each realm has only 437 players. If this was a PvE game, you're only playing on the same server as 437 players. There are scores upon scores of zones. Since this is a PvP game, You're playing with 1313 - PvE Players - Active Players. You're left with whatever % of 1313 that active PvP players are. This is not even 1000, guaranteed.

This does not include BOTS or Multi-Boxing, AFKers, Crafters, Socializers, eRPers, RPers, those in levels 1-49 who are grinding in PvE or quests, RAIDers, etc.

Any in one moment, you may be playing in a full group of 8, against another full group of 8, for a total of 16 players playing together. At most, I've seen each side have an army of 300, which is still < 1000 players playing together. At max in the most popular day/time for the game with all 3 sides fighting, it has certainly not been hundreds of thousands of players.

MMORPG's are more MORPG than they are MMORPG, unless you consider 1000 players or 500 players MMORPG, which indeed you should, as games with hundreds of players interacting a once like DAoC is NOT a common MMO type. In fact, at any one moment you're unlikely to be playing with more than a handful of players (PvE) or in some games only 20-40 (instanced battleground PvP or raids). The primary MMO part, in my opinion, are the central hubs (Capital Cities, for instance) and (arguably) the ability to always play against or with different people (which may or may not be good).

Im kinda curious as to why you started a new thread with a reply you made in this one http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/308715/page/3 ?

I think you guys are losing the forest for want of counting the trees. For a game to be a mmorpg it doesnt have to have 1000 or 500 people playing it .

Heres a quote, " Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world "

and

" MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game. This is often referred to as being offline. " taken from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game#History . You might want to read the whole page .

Loktofeit · February 2011

Originally posted by pragues
The limited number per server (realm) has always been one of the forces that ran MMORPG's to the ground.

And those who say that MMORPG's with single server realms have MUCH more concurrent pops these days are simply wrong.

In an official chat session on Rift, one of the developpers had ... a slip of the tongue in last December 2010.

He said on the question of

2.How large of a population will the servers be able to support (per server)?

<%chamberlin> We're targeting 1500 players per server

http://www.riftnexus.com/topic/350-actual-server-last-qa-from-rift-irc-before-2011/

Ough, that was one big slip...

Fans and even forum watchers have tried to deny it of course, but it shows how brittle single server communities really are ...

Rift is a sharded game. Most sharded games have population caps somewher between that and 2500. Some seem to extend to 5k or so. It sounds like Chamberlain was answering how many per game server, not physical server, as the game server is comprised of multiple servers itself. In the case of Trion's servers specifcally, it's a scalable system made not only to support multiple servers for the same game, but to support multiple game systems as well.

The company was founded in 2006 yet it still hasn’t finished any of its three projects. Why? What’s happened in the intervening years?

The first thing we had to do was build completely new technology architecture, which was a really big undertaking. We are basically taking online games out of client computing and into a very, very powerful fully distributed server architecture. We have the server equivalent of the Cell processor.

With our tech, now developers can all of a sudden take videogames, put them on our platform, and do it category after category. To engineer that architecture scalably, to get high-quality games across genres, fully dynamic and massively social, it took about two years. We had to file about a dozen patents.

So after we built that technology, we then went to work about putting an internal game onto it. Now already that’s very ambitious because Rift is over $50 million in development.

Source: https://www.develop-online.net/features/1000/MMO-money-MMO-problems

Loke666 · February 2011

Uhm, yes. Most people knew that all the time.

That is why it sucks so much to be on a low pop server. But thousand players or so is still rather massive.

The limit to non massive is in my book 128 players, the number Biowares "Neverwinter nights" had on it's private servers. More than so is a MMO, even though that is just my opinion and not a fact.

Xasapis · February 2011

Some people have a pro-WoW, anti-anything else agenta. You can safely ignore their carbon-copy posts.

Loktofeit · February 2011

Originally posted by Loke666
Uhm, yes. Most people knew that all the time.

That is why it sucks so much to be on a low pop server. But thousand players or so is still rather massive.

The limit to non massive is in my book 128 players, the number Biowares "Neverwinter nights" had on it's private servers. More than so is a MMO, even though that is just my opinion and not a fact.

It also gets muddy these days as there was no concrete number and we're now at a stage in tech where we have 256-player FPSs and lobby-based MMOs.

Asm0deus · February 2011

As for the massively part in MMO or MMORPG you could say and i quote, " Another milestone came in 1995 as NSFNET restrictions were lifted, opening the Internet up for game developers, which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles."

taken here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game#History

UsulDaNeriak · February 2011

Originally posted by Xasapis
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here OP. In an MMO you'll be interacting in a week with more people than you'd normally interact in a year of your RL life (excluding work).

Or you're trying to imply that just because the servers can simultaneously hold 1500 (or whatever the number is these days), you still don't interact with the 10.000 (or whatever bigger the number is these days)?

Is this a subtle attempt to excuse turning MMOs into lobby games or am I just imagining stuff?

i agree,

in a virtual world you will not interact with everybody. like you dont interact with all these billions of humans in real world. so what? i dont get the point of the OP, sorry.

of course there are games like all these hubs with instanced maps, where i decline to call them MMO, but thats another story and more a question of definition.

does he miss these huge worlds, we had in the past? me, too!

i also miss these large persistent zones and big seemless worlds with tons of players, even if it caused some lag. this lag could be avoidable with nowadays technology, and 1-server-worlds like EVE show, that it is possible. however, fantasy worlds are a different beast than the vast outer space, so the worlds become smaller by budget reasons, mainly. is this the point of the OP?

pragues · February 2011

Like I said, these days we are seeing the last of the single realm server based games with a limited amount of players (from 1500 to 3/4000) concurrently on line "in the same world".

These numbers simply are not big enough to support the huge content offer the players are spoiled with.

Players have to change their views of on line communities and single realms>/shards>/ whatever you call them.

Even 5K is peanuts when offering 100 levels/dozens of BG's and 100+ dungeons seperated witin those levels and continent wide spread landscapes. If that kind of content was offered on a single server, no one would be able to play.

And still people want MORE content, MORE of everything.

These days to satisfy 24/7 gameplay in a huge game, you need 200K+ people concurrently on line to fill the content offered.

I pity the dudes saying "this is a lobby game". Of course it is not, if used as a supplemental tool to play all the time from 00.01 to 23.59.

The solution is simple (but rather hi tech): make multi cross server content WITHOUT the players awareness. It can be done in the next few years: EVE with landscapes.

I am interested how GW2 will offer those 3 way multi server crossed PvP available as a first introduction to these new mechanics.

It's a transistion and those who can't adapt, well some people are STILL playing MUDS with 100 people, I would say ... a 0.001% minority.

nolf · February 2011

OP, you make a whole post that pretty much assumes the term "Massive" has some sort of definition in this context, when in reality it is a completely subjective term, just a name.

MMORPG was coined when the first MMOs hit. Back then, online games were pretty much limited to a handful of people, maybe a dozen. Even playing with 100 people would seem "Massively Multiplayer" compared to the ten you used to see.

So really, you want to attack a NAME of a genre because the wording doesn't fit your subjective definition of what "massively multiplayer" is. That just seems silly. Instead you should be starting a discussion about nailing down a common definition of what MMO is. Sure maybe its misnamed by today's standards, but in 1997 when this all started and the genre was born & named, a few hundred people in an online game was nothing but massive. You've got to at least take a moment to think about the context of things.

You want to start a real discussion about the defining characteristics of an MMO? I will be happily right there with you in the thick of the debate. But this kind of post is not constructive, original or even well thought out and therefore a little pointless.

drbaltazar · February 2011

the best system i have seen so far is aika system 4 or 5 mirror server at any time you can decide to invade x.y.z server(capped of caurse wich often cause issue unrelated to quality of the game!at first it sound deceptivly simple until people do participate in it.

i often heard why?what fun is there?almost no customisation etc!but when you hop in a pvp those 1000 vs 1000 battle ?they are addicting you go ton of check point to wach(imagine starcraft2 but you are the the actual soldier on the ground.

and now that aika global is finally open to na ,there is no more of that non-sensicle crap!

so yes 1000 player can be insanelly epic if dev know how to take advantage of it!

UsulDaNeriak · February 2011

Originally posted by pragues
Even 5K is peanuts when offering 100 levels/dozens of BG's and 100+ dungeons seperated witin those levels and continent wide spread landscapes. .

this is even a more complicated beast.

nearly every game i know, which is based on levels, have this problem. at the beginning it is packed in the newbie zone, then the midlevel dungeons are flooded and at the end all are in some highend-dungeons grinding raidinstances. most devs try to channel the flood with instancing. but that doesnt help these empty zones, nobody uses anymore. another solution seems to be fast levelling. if people can blast from 1 to 60 in 5 days with ease, you dont need so much low- and midlevel-content, which will be empty anyways later. both, instancing and fast levelling are a misconception imho.

in sandboxes without levels this issue is not that obvious. perhaps dynamic content would help the theme-parks? we will see.

Emergence · February 2011

Funny that half here are wondering "What is the point of this thread?" or "What is the OP trying to say?" yet the discussion resulting from the OP is excellent!

The point shall remain a secret!

I do not believe that "everyone already knows this" is a correct answer. People seem to assume and some even state that if a game is > 1000 players, it is a failure, not a MMORPG, and a horrible excuse for a game.

In fact, I just recently read an article which stated the following about Warhammer Online,

"But if the subscriber base drops below 200,000 (or even worse, 100,000) it becomes hard to justify the game's existence."

Really? Even if it turns a profit with only 10,000 subscribers, it's hard to justify the game's existence? Solely because a game has to be "above 200,000" to justify its existence as a MMORPG?

It is not just players who believe this, but journalists and popular bloggers. This is certainly not the first time I've read something so ridiculous, completely ignoring the fact that profit is profit regardless if it's multi-millions or just a million or less, and that a game need not more than 1000 players to be fun, and only a set number (which is below 200,000 subscribers...) to remain profitable after costs.

I honestly don't know how many subscribers have now, but I don't believe it is hard to "justify its existence as a MMORPG".

pragues · February 2011

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Originally posted by pragues
Even 5K is peanuts when offering 100 levels/dozens of BG's and 100+ dungeons seperated witin those levels and continent wide spread landscapes. .

this is even a more complicated beast.

nearly every game i know, which is based on levels, have this problem. at the beginning it is packed in the newbie zone, then the midlevel dungeons are flooded and at the end all are in some highend-dungeons grinding raidinstances. most devs try to channel the flood with instancing. but that doesnt help these empty zones, nobody uses anymore. another solution seems to be fast levelling. if people can blast from 1 to 60 in 5 days with ease, you dont need so much low- and midlevel-content, which will be empty anyways later. both, instancing and fast levelling are a misconception imho.

in sandboxes without levels this issue is not that obvious. perhaps dynamic content would help the theme-parks? we will see.

Multiple solutions to the same problem I guess.

Blizzard choose to cluster servers for doing instances (dungeons, BG's) and indeed they went for fast leveling to reach the "grouped up" end game. They had no choice. Clearly a design handicap within the cluster mechanics. (See Morhaime's answer to this with their new MMO in which he speaks of these old design handicaps).

It was the only solution to choose with such huge content offer assembled over 6 years and 3 expansions (even with the "redone"part of the basic zones).

But I see we agree: in the end you have to cluster things or simple REDO things.

PvP based sandboxed kind of play could also be an answer: you simply rebuild and destroy the planet all over in say 6 month cycles.

But the single realm/shard based traditional ("themeparc") played MMO is clearly a thing of the past.

There is a limit to all the content a few K players can play in the end.

People who can't understand the OP have no clue about the limits of single realm play these days.

It was a technique of a decade ago, when 100 people came on line in a small single game was "massively".

pragues · February 2011

Originally posted by Emergence
I do not believe that "everyone already knows this" is a correct answer. People seem to assume and some even state that if a game is > 1000 players, it is a failure, not a MMORPG, and a horrible excuse for a game.

In fact, I just recently read an article which stated the following about Warhammer Online,

"But if the subscriber base drops below 200,000 (or even worse, 100,000) it becomes hard to justify the game's existence."

Really? Even if it turns a profit with only 10,000 subscribers, it's hard to justify the game's existence? Solely because a game has to be "above 200,000" to justify its existence as a MMORPG?

It is not just players who believe this, but journalists and popular bloggers. This is certainly not the first time I've read something so ridiculous, completely ignoring the fact that profit is profit regardless if it's multi-millions or just a million or less, and that a game need not more than 1000 players to be fun, and only a set number (which is below 200,000 subscribers...) to remain profitable after costs.

I honestly don't know how many subscribers have now, but I don't believe it is hard to "justify its existence as a MMORPG".

The answer is simple.

With 200K people on line (for one time zone) at the same time, the game can be played in every inch of its content 24/7.

With 10K subscribers, you are very much limited in doing a few % of choices in 2 hours of prime time.

The above 2 sentences make for a huge difference if added with organised guild play+ RL friends etc...

It makes the "lobby" agenda of some haters look silly really: ALL that counts is the CHOICE of playing whenever the player wants it.

That's why single realm based games will be a thing of the past real soon.

As a matter of fact WAR was killed by dividing its small (1500/server) player base into 4 different tiers with different RvR, non clustered BG's and too wide spread PQ's.

shadowman465 · February 2011

MMORPG is a genre not an amount of players

DarkPony · February 2011

Jita local begs to differ

MMO.Maverick · February 2011

Originally posted by pragues

In an official chat session on Rift, one of the developpers had ... a slip of the tongue in last December 2010.

He said on the question of

2.How large of a population will the servers be able to support (per server)?

<%chamberlin> We're targeting 1500 players per server

http://www.riftnexus.com/topic/350-actual-server-last-qa-from-rift-irc-before-2011/

Ough, that was one big slip...

Wrong, outdated info. This is the most recent info right here

Can each shard only hold 1500 players?

I keep seeing references to a dev saying that each sever would only hold 1500 people. The actual quote was from a very old IRC chat where one of our devs was talking about numbers for that current beta as the servers were opened. We do not release specific numbers about our servers. But we saw higher numbers with each beta and the same thing applies to release. The 1500 rumor is false.

As for the OP: servers can hold concurrent numbers of 4-7k players, depending upon what MMORPG we're talking about. Of course most servers of most MMORPG's won't hold that number, but you'll see for the higher populated servers often player numbers of 2k-4k. So that'd contradict your figure of 1000 players, I think.

That said, I think the whole 'multiple servers with each containing 1 world' is slowly becoming outdated. While it may have worked up till now, there's too many disadvantages to that system, the handling of peak and low populations for one thing.

Loktofeit · February 2011

Originally posted by Emergence

I do not believe that "everyone already knows this" is a correct answer. People seem to assume and some even state that if a game is > 1000 players, it is a failure, not a MMORPG, and a horrible excuse for a game.

In fact, I just recently read an article which stated the following about Warhammer Online,

"But if the subscriber base drops below 200,000 (or even worse, 100,000) it becomes hard to justify the game's existence."

You're confusing subscriptions with individual server caps. These are two different things Game Designer Emergence.

Really? Even if it turns a profit with only 10,000 subscribers, it's hard to justify the game's existence? Solely because a game has to be "above 200,000" to justify its existence as a MMORPG?

That is a completely different topic. Is this the topic you meant to discuss? Although I do see you managed to catch pragues on your line. Good on ya for that, I guess.

Loktofeit · February 2011

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by pragues

In an official chat session on Rift, one of the developpers had ... a slip of the tongue in last December 2010.

He said on the question of

2.How large of a population will the servers be able to support (per server)?

<%chamberlin> We're targeting 1500 players per server

http://www.riftnexus.com/topic/350-actual-server-last-qa-from-rift-irc-before-2011/

Ough, that was one big slip...

Wrong, outdated info. This is the most recent info right here

Can each shard only hold 1500 players?

I keep seeing references to a dev saying that each sever would only hold 1500 people. The actual quote was from a very old IRC chat where one of our devs was talking about numbers for that current beta as the servers were opened. We do not release specific numbers about our servers. But we saw higher numbers with each beta and the same thing applies to release. The 1500 rumor is false.

As for the OP: servers can hold concurrent numbers of 4-7k players, depending upon what MMORPG we're talking about. Of course most servers of most MMORPG's won't hold that number, but you'll see for the higher populated servers often player numbers of 2k-4k. So that'd contradict your figure of 1000 players, I think.

That said, I think the whole 'multiple servers with each containing 1 world' is slowly becoming outdated. While it may have worked up till now, there's too many disadvantages to that system, the handling of peak and low populations for one thing.

I think you're right, Maverick. I was surprised to see Rift with 29 NA servers at launch and then kick it up to 42 NA servers within a few days. I'm hoping their predictions work out for them. I really expected to see 10-12 server with a 5-digit max capacity each, especially with the tech they have under the hood of that server.

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MMORPG's Equal < 1000 Players

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MMORPG's Equal < 1000 Players

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