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[The End]

Ok, so I've played my fair share of MMOs (WoW, FFXI, CoH/V), and there seems to be one glaring thing missing.

Why do we need servers? Why can't we have one big world? What are the technical obstacles to this? Is it just a design decision?

I mean, couldn't you have it so that different zones were on different clusters? Wouldn't that balance the load? Is it a matter of minimizing downtime? Database Access?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[CompositeMolar]

Dark and Light will be one server only but take a game like FFXI or even worst World of Warcraft and make only 1 server, it would just be to crowded. The game would need to be massive and not axed on grinding to work.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

It already takes several years to develop content with the idea of around 3k+ players occupying your server simultaneously.

Would you like to venture a guess how many years/decades it would take to develop content for 20k-200k simultaneous players?

You'd practically have to create a mini-earth. :lol

 

[Razoric]

I'd say one of the biggest problems is the size of the world. You can only make it so big and you can only fit so many players into a spot at a time.

Lets say, for example, World of Warcraft was one huge server with one huge world. And Blizzard predicted that, at max, the userbase would be 3 million people and built the world around that number (which by the way would probably take 10 years to make a world that big :lol ).

1. The userbase explodes and far surpasses 3 million people. With no multi-server approach they are left with certain spots in the world completely overcrowded to the point where its impossible to even play (ie think ironforge with 1 million people there at a time). The only way to help this is to release new lands but that takes dev money and time.

2. The game doesn't do as well as hoped and you manage to get 300,000 subscribers. Now you have the userbase spread throughout this huge world built for 3 million with tons of empty unused places. Waste of resources and time.

One way to solve the first one would be the City of Heroes approach which would be make multiple 'copies' of Ironforge on the same server. (so basically you could be at Ironforge (1) while a friend is at Ironforge (3) but that would kill the whole point of a single server id say)

 

[Victrix]

Would you like to venture a guess how many years/decades it would take to develop content for 20k-200k simultaneous players?

You'd practically have to create a mini-earth. :lol

*smirk*

http://www.eve-online.com/

How about a galaxy?

17k simultaneous online at last count, and still climbing

Also, Anarchy Online only has two servers

 

[Jive Turkey]

Ok, so I've played my fair share of MMOs (WoW, FFXI, CoH/V), and there seems to be one glaring thing missing.

Why do we need servers? Why can't we have one big world? What are the technical obstacles to this? Is it just a design decision?

I mean, couldn't you have it so that different zones were on different clusters? Wouldn't that balance the load? Is it a matter of minimizing downtime? Database Access?

Inquiring minds want to know.

EVE Online is just one big server isn't it?

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Well if we're talking about space MMO's, then they do lend themselves very well to the idea the original poster had due to there being vast spaces of emptiness in between little morsels of content (planets, rocks). I haven't played EVE, so I might be way off on how that MMO's content is spread out, so forgive and correct me if need be.

 

[The End]

I did not know that about EVE, but from what I gathered from reviews and whatnot, the game is designed to be extremely spread out.

I mean, you could "cheat" by doing instancing like CoH, or you could just build a 1:1 scale world.

 

[Victrix]

Er, I also mentioned AO, which again, only has two servers, and an absolutely massive amount of terrain (in one dimension, the second has a nearly equally massive amount)

 

[The End]

Er, I also mentioned AO, which again, only has two servers, and an absolutely massive amount of terrain (in one dimension, the second has a nearly equally massive amount)

I was under the impression that AO only had two servers because it was failing. I mean, I know they're giving the game away for free now in hopes that you'll buy the expansions.

 

[madara]

Gah, do you know just how much cookie cutter terrian they would have to make to fill 30k people let alone one 2million populace server like Wow? And Wow feels empty enough already with repetious housing and terrian and very barren areas.

 

[Victrix]

I was under the impression that AO only had two servers because it was failing. I mean, I know they're giving the game away for free now in hopes that you'll buy the expansions.

Nope, been that way for ages. They had planned to do one server at the start, but AO was a flaming trainwreck on launch, so that didn't work well.

The free stuff promotions have been good for their subscriber base actually, they give away the 'core' game for free, then charge if they want to upgrade to the expansions (though how this gets people in I don't know, since the core game is boring, but that's neither here nor there)

They had an expansion release late last year, and another is in the works for sometime this year I'd guess, so it's still alive and kicking

Shadowlands is flat out one of the most beautiful pieces of art I've ever seen in a video game, and I'm talking about an entire series of areas, not just one or two bits

Pity that their design choices were never really in line with what I enjoy in an mmo

But then, that's true of all of them, so I bounce around from game to game as the mood hits.

http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/shadowlands/media/screenshots/index.html?s=20

Their character models are dated nowadays, but their world builders for SL deserve a medal or three

 

[MattKeil]

Ok, so I've played my fair share of MMOs (WoW, FFXI, CoH/V), and there seems to be one glaring thing missing.

Realtime, skill-based combat, you say? Agreed.

This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC.

/psychic swami mode

 

[Dr_Cogent]

:lol

Bandwidth guys. Bandwidth. Not only that, but CPUs aren't fast enough either. Memory isn't big enough either.

You can't expect one single server farm to handle every single player in an MMO - especially one as big as WoW. MMOs are not a single server, they are a set of servers working in harmony.

 

[Jerkface]

Realtime, skill-based combat, you say? Agreed.

This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC.

/psychic swami mode

I think you might be right, the console platform means that everyone will be running at the exact same performance so frame rate isn't an issue with such twitch based gameplay.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Also, you guys also have to understand, there is latency over the internet. The farther you are from the server, the higher the latency or ping. You wouldn't want there to be only one server because there would be far too much latency even if they solved the CPU/Memory/(general computer resource issues) I laid out earlier.

 

[Wollan]

Developer Question: The Next Obvious Step in MMO's

Socketed items.

 

[Joe]

id say a well-done, integrated voice chat system would be a pretty big step (unless some mmo already has it?). it'd have to be party chats only though.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Realtime, skill-based combat, you say? Agreed.

This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC.

/psychic swami mode

It looks to already have happened in DDO. Now if they could just email me that beta key, I could confirm it. :lol

Edit- Watched some actual gameplay vids of this (finally), and yes it looks like combat is entirely realtime. Amazing. Still waiting on that damn key though.

 

[Kiriku]

What about that online game where you purchase virtual land for real money?

 

[Acosta]

Prcodeural techniques are the future, with them you can create a world as big as you want. I think Dark & Light uses them, but I´m not sure.

I think it will happen with time. The concept of having 3000 or 17.000 player in game was something impossible not many years before (10 maybe?). So who knows what´s next.

Just imagine a massive battle between 500.000 players without lag problems in a gigantic scenario and feeling you have certain control of what happen. I think it would be something worth to live.

 

[ManaByte]

Realtime, skill-based combat, you say? Agreed.

This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC.

/psychic swami mode

Both Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach and now Star Wars Galaxies use 100% realtime twitch-based combat based on skill.

id say a well-done, integrated voice chat system would be a pretty big step (unless some mmo already has it?). it'd have to be party chats only though.

Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa used an integrated voice chat system as a core part of the gameplay when it was first revealed.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC."


This will *not* happen on a console, because it's already happening on PCs.

You lose.

 

[etiolate]

Realtime, skill-based combat, you say? Agreed.

This will be the big step this gen that breaks the MMO into the mainstream bigtime previously untapped by the genre. This will happen on a console, not the PC.

/psychic swami mode

What constitutes real time? Is DDO like an Action/Adventure game where you keep having to hit an action button to attack? I know Guild Wars just has you target a foe, and click your "do it" button and you attack them constantly until you choose to stop, but all skills have to be inputted and play out in combat.

 

[Jonnyram]

Also, you guys also have to understand, there is latency over the internet. The farther you are from the server, the higher the latency or ping. You wouldn't want there to be only one server because there would be far too much latency even if they solved the CPU/Memory/(general computer resource issues) I laid out earlier.

But all the FFXI servers are in the same place and you don't see complaints of latency for that... well, you do, but only in the respect that it favours JP players for pulling monsters, but that's been addressed now anyway.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"What constitutes real time? Is DDO like an Action/Adventure game where you keep having to hit an action button to attack?"

From the gameplay videos i've seen, seems like it.