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

[Dana V. Baldwin]

Sean Howard wrote:
> "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...
>  

I do completely agree. I was simply stating that massive and persistence
are not the same thing. Massive does not persistence make. Persistence
in itself doesn't make massive either of course. The terms are not
dependent on each other in any meaningful way. For that matter most
single player games RPG games are more persistent than most massive
virtual worlds. WoW (the uber example) is persistent only in that the
world is always there awaiting my login and the world never changes
unless a new world is installed. The only change is in the portion of
the dbase that holds my stats, loot and accomplishments, in any
persistent way.

I agree with your 10k and instances argument. I'd further it to say that
7 million playing on 7000 instanced worlds each with 100 separate zones
and each with 70 instanced parts of the world is no more massive than
Guild Wars. Massive ain't that big a deal, it simply means more than 32
players playing in a shoebox. Massive has little to do with making a
virtual world, it simply means that you and your friends can encounter
several hundred separate human controlled NPCs while you're getting your
game on.