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

[Sean Howard]

"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.

I think a big deal is made out of the whole "massive" thing when what most
people are talking about is persistence.  If there are 10,000 playing, but
in separate instances, then you get people arguing about whether or not
Guild Wars is a MMORPG or not. But I think we can all agree (well, I hope
so, at least :) that Guild Wars has more in common with World of Warcraft
than Diablo II, regardless of instancing.

Regardless, you can't have massive without some sort of persistence. I
argue that if player #8,431 can't affect the game of player #402, then it
isn't massively multiplayer. There's two ways for that to happen. First,
there can be 9,000 simultaneous players, or second, player #8,431's
actions can affect the world even when he is logged off.... you know, or
both...

-- 
Sean Howard