Sandboxes and SOE and the Mainstream

[Vanech]

There was this little game done by (Digital Anvil studios?... regardless) It was produced by Microsoft Games, and it is called Freelancer. The game was released a year and a half early (thanks to M$) but the Modding community has done amazing things with the title since then, including hosting pirated log-in servers in order to keep the game running. (M$ shut down the primary host for the servers almost eight years ago.)

It has always had the ability to be something massive but the coding for multi-player can only handle about two hundred people on at a time on a server, despite the fact that the major systems (all eighty of them or so..) are capable of handling 1,000+ people.

Freelancer is one of those games that has been waiting desperately for the SDK/Code to be released as free-domain so that it could be properly visualized, but true to form M$ wont let loose a single iota of information.

Despite that the community is strong, and the overall dynamics suit a sandbox world, so while it may not be considered a true MMO, it has it's merits.