[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Essence of a MMO (was 4Cs)

[Caliban Darklock]

On 5/29/07, Dana V. Baldwin <dbaldwin at playnet.com> wrote:
>
> Persistence might be a qualifier for a virtual world but it has nothing
> to do with the number of players you can sup[port which is the essence
> of massively multi-player. BF2 isn't an MMO simply because it is in no
> way massive.

That depends largely on how you define "multiplayer". In WoW, the vast
majority of people aren't playing with one another; they play with a
core group of half a dozen people, and occasionally brush against
random others. BF2 may only allow a couple dozen players, but the size
of the maps guarantees that they all play with one another. It's
arguable that 48 simultaneous players interacting with one another is
more massively multiplayer than a game with 48,000 people interacting
in groups of five to eight.

WRT leaderboards, if I care about the leaderboards on a given game
(which I usually don't), it changes the way I play the game every
single time - so it does affect my game sessions. If I don't care,
they don't affect me, but the same goes for everything. If I'm playing
some MMO and the vampire guild starts a war with the zombie guild, but
I don't care, it doesn't affect my game session.

And what exactly does "massively multiplayer" mean, anyway? Is Google
Earth massively multiplayer? If not, why not?