[MUD-Dev] Requirements for MM (was Complexities ofMMOGServers)

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

From: "Ted L. Chen" <tedlchen at yahoo.com>

> Not picking on Brian per se.. (he's just unfortunate to have the
> last message on this thread so far), but why does 'M'assive have
> to deal with the number of players?  It's probably been brought up
> before by someone else, but can't the massive refer to the size of
> the world that's actively being simulated?

I would interpret Brian's list as referring not to the number of
players that ARE online, but the number that COULD BE online without
crowding the environment beyond a reasonable playability
threshold. This would mean at the very least:

  1. The system will generally accept this many simultaneous logins,

  2. The network performance of each login is generally acceptable,

  3. The game world is not so crowded as to make play difficult or
  impossible.

It's important to note that "acceptable" network performance and the
idea of "crowded" are very subjective. I also wouldn't start
everything with M; I'd say something like:

  Only 1: Single Player (SP) -- Most non-network games

  Less than 10: Multiplayer (MP) -- Most non-UNIX based network
  games

  Less than 100: Large Multiplayer (LM) -- Most hobbyist
  custom-world games

  Less than 1000: Huge Multiplayer (HM) -- Most hobbyist stock-world
  games

  1000 or more: Massive Multiplayer (MM) -- Most commercial online
  games

Once you get into the LM/HM/MM arena, it's question 3 that matters
most.  Pretty much any server that handles more than 10 simultaneous
players can probably handle as many as you throw in its direction,
provided you put it on a fast enough box and hook it to a fat enough
pipe. I am not even considering hardware; the hardware is largely
irrelevant, since any serious development effort can afford to put a
system in a data center which can *handle* tens of thousands of
connections.

> VATSIM, the online ATC network that links together flight
> simulations (MSFS, X-Plane, Fly) has about 200 people online
> simultaneously at any given time.  They're generally spread out
> across the world at the busiest times of the day, and across
> continents in the wee-hours.  Most pilots don't directly interact
> with each other, but they know they're there in the shared
> reality.  Does that constitute a MMOG?

I don't think any such system would qualify unless it actively
encouraged the direct interaction of its users. (Just because they
can or do doesn't mean it's part of the system. Likewise, just
because they don't doesn't mean it isn't; a lot of MU*s will be full
of players in the wee hours, but everyone is just idle.)

Besides, if VATSIM is an MMOG, then every web site is a MUD. You
generally don't interact with the other visitors to a website, but
you still know they're there. A website with community interaction
features, however -- chat clients, forums, even just a guestbook --
*is* a MUD. And if it can reasonably handle thousands of
simultaneous interactions, it's a MMOG...  delphiforums.com would
qualify, for example.

My two cents.


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