01-13-2004, 01:24 AM
But to sit there and compare a single player game with multiplayer added to a massive social structure gaming world and then insist they are the same and that we shouldn't have to pay for it is foolish.
Howso? The heart of the issue is this: is there something fundamental about MMORPGs that could merit the extra expense over an equally good game that lacks the same element because it is not pay-for-play? Neverwinter Nights covers most of the supposed advantages of MMORPGs, other than raw scale.... It is extremely dynamic, has persistant world servers, a wide range of potential social interaction, etc. Current FPS games have made 50+ player simultaneous games common, even in a genre where a little lag can be devastating. So using the "Quake model" rather than the "Ultima Online model", you could have thousands of 100-player-simultaneous persistant worlds with the flexibility to use either the world provided by the publisher or enhancements made by the mod community. The D2 model suggests that the publisher could even host these servers, although that is not necessary and D2 is certainly the exception rather than the rule.
Now, can the sheer scale of having thousands of people on a server instead of a hundred be that big of a deal? I guess that depends on whether the actions of the mass have a dynamic impact on the game world that couldn't be simulated in a smaller environment. I just don't see it. Inherently IMHO, a game has to either fairly non-dynamic (i.e. any consequences of your actions on the persistant world basically fade away... e.g. boss monsters keep respawning, the same "quests" keep getting performed over and over), have a shallow or non-existant or static storyline (i.e. a bunch of players killing each other and monsters with no plot or real goals), or come crashing to an end when the game world goes beyond the bounds of it's programming. Thus, I really don't see where those thousands of players are going to make a difference, unless I am interacting with them all directly, or the game world is designed to implode and reset every couple months. I suppose the latter case could be the most interesting.
Howso? The heart of the issue is this: is there something fundamental about MMORPGs that could merit the extra expense over an equally good game that lacks the same element because it is not pay-for-play? Neverwinter Nights covers most of the supposed advantages of MMORPGs, other than raw scale.... It is extremely dynamic, has persistant world servers, a wide range of potential social interaction, etc. Current FPS games have made 50+ player simultaneous games common, even in a genre where a little lag can be devastating. So using the "Quake model" rather than the "Ultima Online model", you could have thousands of 100-player-simultaneous persistant worlds with the flexibility to use either the world provided by the publisher or enhancements made by the mod community. The D2 model suggests that the publisher could even host these servers, although that is not necessary and D2 is certainly the exception rather than the rule.
Now, can the sheer scale of having thousands of people on a server instead of a hundred be that big of a deal? I guess that depends on whether the actions of the mass have a dynamic impact on the game world that couldn't be simulated in a smaller environment. I just don't see it. Inherently IMHO, a game has to either fairly non-dynamic (i.e. any consequences of your actions on the persistant world basically fade away... e.g. boss monsters keep respawning, the same "quests" keep getting performed over and over), have a shallow or non-existant or static storyline (i.e. a bunch of players killing each other and monsters with no plot or real goals), or come crashing to an end when the game world goes beyond the bounds of it's programming. Thus, I really don't see where those thousands of players are going to make a difference, unless I am interacting with them all directly, or the game world is designed to implode and reset every couple months. I suppose the latter case could be the most interesting.