[Opinion] EQ Next - Game Changers/Breakers

[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.

[t0lkien]

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

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.

You are going to have to provide a link for that. 40k active connections is serious tech.

If a single server can support 40k connections, there is no reason to ever implement instancing. As I said though, link please. I honestly doubt that is true - but happy to be wrong!