[Opinion] EQ Next - Game Changers/Breakers

[August]

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing.

It's not like I get paid [whatever big-shot MMO designers get paid] to design brilliant MMOs! But I'd like to think that the people who DO design games for a living would be able to come up with something. Of course, I'm pretty pessimistic, so I don't actually think that.

I think I'd be more willing to see instances that aren't specific to a single group though. A "1 instance per group" type of instancing just damages too many things about MMOs, imo, even though it does address overcrowding and performance issues. I think it was DDO that did this with the city zones? When the servers would be busy, there would be multiple instances of the different city zones and you could pick which you wanted to go to... so you could go meet up with buddies if you wanted, or you could go to a less-crowded instance, whatever. Maybe that could be adapted to dungeons in a way that would relieve overcrowding and such issues but without causing much damage to the community by fracturing players into their own little universes any more than absolutely necessary or enabling every individual who wants to have his own wonderland to play in by himself.

[August]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's not like I get paid [whatever big-shot MMO designers get paid] to design brilliant MMOs! But I'd like to think that the people who DO design games for a living would be able to come up with something. Of course, I'm pretty pessimistic, so I don't actually think that.

It's mainly about resource management. You either have low population servers, no servers at all (multilayer-instanced zones - everyone zones into Dreadlands, or Dreadlands_01, Dreadlands_0xx), or high population servers that employ hubs of connectivity (Cities, other leveling zones) with instances in them to increase the real estate. When you have 2000 people at level 40, you need them to go somewhere. It's really just a thought exercise in population distribution.

I don't think there's a magic bullet. I think the EQ we played, and the way we played right now, was unique. Servers had relatively low populations as the genre was new. We had lots of players playing at different times of days, and even then zones got 'crowded'. Now that MMO is more mainstream, you have to be able to sustain that model, or throw it out entirely. However, most attempts I've seen make you either feel like you're playing solo, or there's no community, or that everything is too easy.

Also consider the effect of a high population server and static zones with regards to loot distribution. Say normally there are 1-2 FBSS on this server entering per day on a population of about 900 peak hours. To keep prices the same, on a population of 30,00, you'd need 35-45 dropping a day. You can't do that in a static zone - it has to be instanced. I think a lot of this conversation has to do with scaling a community when we are used to our small ones, and maybe what a lot of you want is just a small community.

You can guarantee that SoE is not going for 'small' w/ EQNEXT.

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think the EQ we played, and the way we played right now, was unique. Servers had relatively low populations as the genre was new.

I think you're wrong here. Last time I was about to try playing WoW seriously again, I was exploring for a high population server that had a datacenter nearest to me. The majority of WoW's servers have smaller populations of players online than EQ servers had back in the classic-velious era. Some of them have smaller populations than p99. And iirc even the largest WoW servers are only a couple thousand players per side at peaks?

[August]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think you're wrong here. Last time I was about to try playing WoW seriously again, I was exploring for a high population server that had a datacenter nearest to me. The majority of WoW's servers have smaller populations of players online than EQ servers had back in the classic-velious era. Some of them have smaller populations than p99. And iirc even the largest WoW servers are only a couple thousand players per side at peaks?

WoW servers on average have 50k population.

The height of everquest in 2003 - when the world was already huge by comparison, was 425k subs total . It's hardly even close. Not to mention that EQ spread out leveling quite a bit - a tactic that can be used again, but, with technology the way it is today, I don't see it really being a possibility.

November of 1999 had 225k subs - wikipedia to the rescue

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

WoW servers on average have 50k population.

What's your source? I ran census mod RELIGIOUSLY the entire time I played WoW (so on and off several months at a time over the course of years). I think it was Kel'Thuzad that was the largest of the servers I played on. KT ally never had remotely close to 50,000 characters in my census. Maybe more like 10k. And every 1 player had way more than 1 character. And you never had every single player online at the same time.

[August]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What's your source? I ran census mod RELIGIOUSLY the entire time I played WoW (so on and off several months at a time over the course of years). I think it was Kel'Thuzad that was the largest of the servers I played on. KT ally never had remotely close to 50,000 characters in my census. Maybe more like 10k. And every 1 player had way more than 1 character. And you never had every single player online at the same time.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly the numbers because you don't know the counts of per characters. There are sites that do estimation based on guild presence, armory, etc.

http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html

is one of them. You can also try WoWWiki, but these are current numbers, and WoW subscription is down by 3 million as well. Realms clocking in with 120k characters in them, all of which are atleast level 10.

You also can't undervalue presence in multiple realms in a limited resource society. You can have multiple raiders be the same person behind the wheels, and he's consuming more pieces of pie by doing so. In an instanced dungeon, this doesn't matter, but it would certainly play a role in a completely non-instanced one. I had lots of friends who would raid on multiple realms in Wow, and I knew a few botters as well. People 6-boxing because it's 10/month and it's not disallowed can kill a community if they monopolize the static content. I've seen it happen on Fippy Darkpaw already.

[t0lkien]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

WoW servers on average have 50k population.

WoW servers are hard limited to 5k at any one time. You obviously don't remember the hour long queues shortly after launch.

On the open world, all on one server thing, Eve Online called and would like to say hello. Also, see Big World technology.

[August]

Originally Posted by t0lkien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

WoW servers are hard limited to 5k at any one time. You obviously don't remember the hour long queues shortly after launch.

On the open world, all on one server thing, Eve Online called and would like to say hello. Also, see Big World technology.

Wrong. You're talking about launch when they hard capped servers to maximum pop because of server load. FWIW I remember being #14XXX in line for Archimonde queue.

Maximum capacity for a WoW server is 40k active connections.

[Kiwaukee]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

Original EQ worked fine with similar circumstances and less technology by limiting server populations. Limit the server population to 5000 and have 200 servers. Encourage players to create characters on low population servers using common methods (Preferred servers, free transfers, etc.).

Couple that with the innate diversity within the game (characters of different races level in different areas and each have different options within a given level range) and you have a functional system that can operate without fracturing the community.

That's the driving point behind non-instanced gameplay - people would rather have a real community and wait 30 minutes for a spawn or move to another camp because their target is occupied than instantly get what they're looking for and never care about the people they play with. Your focus is too narrow - you're assuming people will only enjoy the game if they don't have to wait for things, and that's simply not true. Having to wait or having to work for things in games like EQ was what made each upgrade and each group a true accomplishment. Ask people who play here what they think about WoW as it stands currently, and most of them will tell you that it's turned into a kiddie game where you're spoon fed pixels.

No thanks. I like my pixels at the top of a mountain, not right outside my front door.

EDIT: Making a game that's instantly gratifying in the manner described is only asking to be in direct competition with WoW, and no one in their right mind wants to do that. People who play WoW (or are addicted) will likely never leave it for a similar experience for any extended amount of time because of the investment that they have in their characters. WoW, while watered down, is still fun sometimes. People won't just quit for a similar game. You have to have a marked difference in your content and play style to draw players out of the MMO market and retain them. Non-instanced, competition for content can be that difference for EQN.