[MUD-Dev] MUD timeline

[AR Schleicher]

----- Original Message -----
From: Koster, Raph <rkoster at origin.ea.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2000 11:16 AM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] MUD timeline


> I don't know of any. I know that the Realm claimed to have capacity for
that
> many, but I don't know if they actually hit that amount. On the major
> US-based games, the limiting factor is usually not the technology but the
> amount of map/game data available. That plus the advantages for customer
> reach that come with co-location lead to the creation of cloned worlds.
(The
> term "shards" from UO seems to have entered the common industry vocabulary
> now, which is amusing, since it's so fiction-specific).

I was first volunteer staff member on The Realm, and for a long time, the
top level (in terms of access) one.  I'm nearly positive that The Realm
never reached 10,000 users online at once.  It's been quite awhile, but if I
remember correctly, peak times did occasionally reach (and go a little over)
about half that.  The limitation was not so much the server, but the number
of people interested in playing at a given time.

The client, mainly on low end machines, would become nearly unplayable when
over roughly 30-35 people were present in a single room, so people trying to
enter rooms with (about) this many people would bounce back (they'd walk off
their current screen, but then walk back on, instead of going to the next
room).

However, making this less of a problem was that each person (or group, if
grouped) could enter a dungeon on their own, and they'd get their own copy
of the dungeon to fight their way through.  Realistic?  Of course not.
Better than current (UO, EQ, AC) games?  I think so.  Sitting in a dungeon
waiting for monsters to respawn (camping) is not my idea of fun, and giving
people their own dungeons to play in resulted in a small piece of content
having a much greater value to the players.

AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars at iag.net





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