This MMO question been around for years. Purists have their definitions, so do the suits in Marketing. I used to have better references bookmarked and saved but lost them all when my HDD died last year. So I’ll keep my input as short as possible.
StarConflict is an unfinished MMO.
I’m trying to avoid using the term ‘partial’ coz u are or u aren’t an MMO. But truth is, the devs kept it as a partial MMO and active forumers here can say it is because we have direct contact with the game on a daily basis. But to someone outside looking in, they’ll see Star conflict as an unfinished MMO so I’ll use that term.
Massive Number of players? or Massive world?
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This is the first point of confusion stumbled on by the newer generation of gamers. probably coz they’ve never played text based multiplayer games or they were born into cheap broadband
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The undeniable truth is, it is Massive World. Not number of players
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Back in the 90’s … 56k dial-up was actually printed on the side of boxes as minimum spec internet connection (HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA)
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There is no such thing as Massive number of players. There was no infra to support it
- When the man who came up with the term MMO to describe his game and genre, he meant the game world
- that man was Star Citizen Chris Robert’s boss back in the day btw, so I’d take his definition if nothing else
How massive is a Massive world?
- 1 game map
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If the only thing you know about Dungeons and Dragons is the crappy series of movies, you should read up on it some
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D&D was bigger to the 80’s kid than what COD, HL, WoW and Eve-O is to the current generation put together
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If you were a nerd and you went over to another nerd’s house on a Sunday in 1980s - you went there to play D&D
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That ‘board’ game shaped everything we know about computer games
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HP, XP, classes, base stats, attributes, NPCs, Critters (Rats), Game Masters (which later created forum Mods), loot, drops, spawn, etc. etc. It all came from DnD.
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When those nerds went on to make computer games, they made a digital Dungeon and Dragons.
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This is a DnD map
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When it first went digital, they couldn’t make maps so it was all text based and you had to imagine it instead
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Then came the Zelda revolution
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This is a Zelda map
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It was a single player game
- When those guys who defined MMO made games, they wanted a Zelda world map that had other Players in it instead of NPCs and spawning rats who worked together or against each other within the game’s storyline.
- Persistent World (map), PvP, PvE it all came after.
How did Massive became Number of Users?
- Blame the suits in Marketing
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My first online game was a browser text game called Utopia - Humans, Orcs, Elves, Undead you know the drill.
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spreadsheets, broadband, monster DB servers and maybe even Solitaire all came together at the right time that spawned a massive internet gaming revival that was text games
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Utopia was the only other online game to hit 100,000 concurrent active daily users at the time. It was text. It was free. Everyone was on a single instance (world)
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Ultima Online, subscription based was the first
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Marketing saw a market (but ofcourse) and everything became subscriber numbers. How big a massive multiplayer game was how many people paid you for it.
- Blizzard took their Humans, Orcs, Elves RTS to MMO and dominated online games revenue
Client Hardware, Instancing, Not MMO
- But there was a new problem
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in the 90’s internet connection and networking technology limited how many people could get on a server
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When MMOs were defined it was the world not the number of players mattered
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As long as everyone was on a single instance it was MMO
- Blizzard and WoW’s new problem was client hardware, not bandwidth.
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Internet technology now allow thousands of people be able to connect to a single server
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But games are 3D now
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Industry norm for an acceptable humanoid player model is about 10,000 - 30,000 poly
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A decent GFX card can handle 3 - 6 million polys
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Thats only 100 - 300 player models onscreen NOT counting the map terrain and props
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New tech were developed to scale models etc but still, trying to render 1000 players in realtime is still out of the question even today
- So WoW seperated players into seperate spaces (shards)
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And if or when someone screams Not MMO they take out their stat sheet and remind everyone they not only matched but exceeded Ultima Online’s subscriber / active daily logins.
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If Ultima is MMO, WoW is MMO x 2 says the suits
Eve Online MMO
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It isn’t the persistent world issue, nor active users
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It’s the idea that everyone could potentially meet anyone
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That was the original definition when the term MMO was coined, 1 world map
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Eve dealt with it elegantly via smart instancing: systems and gates, large maps that you can’t actually see each other even though you’re in the same place, docks, wormholes etc.
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Dust 514 pushed the definition further
Just An Online Multiplayer Game
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Lets face it, no one is gonna settle for just being an online multiplayer
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You gotta have MASSIVE stuck somewhere on it. Not like it’ll cost you extra
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So you get MMO bandwagoners MMORTS, MMOFPS, MMOWTFELSE
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And for many of them it’s laughably inappropriate, not only are they not on a single instance, they don’t even have the numbers to back up the claim
Star Conflict: Unfinished MMO
- And here’s why I say it’s partial unfinished MMO
You have the PRACTICE LOBBY
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Not core to the game (atleast Devs made sure it looks like an afterthought addition currently) and
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It’s wholly reliant on external organization to qualify
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It’s not as if corps or a group of players stumbled upon each other in their travels and decide to fight one another and an instance created for them.
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Corps have to agree to gather and join the lobby at an agreed upon time before the fight
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It’s no different than what counter-strike clans do for a clan match
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Is CS:GO MMO ?
Practice Lobby maybe not quite but SECTOR CONQUEST?
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This is as close as Star Conflict got to qualify the right to claim MMO status
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Everyone potentially can meet everyone else
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It’s is handled by game mechanics and not externally
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Even if numbers do matter, SCon can still be proud with what it’s got. 200 players fighting over a single ‘location’ is big enough
But:
- the idea behind a single world map is that there is interaction leading to consequences governed by cause and effect
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if there was a treasure chest on an asteroid and I was the first to get to it, every other player who got there after will find it empty
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and if an evil dragon was terrorizing a moon colony somewhere and my squad of merry men nuked it to oblivion then the colony of happy ships nearby will enjoy a peaceful existence thereafter
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that was the point of the 1 world MMO. everyone not only got to meet each other but to also affect them with their actions (or inaction)
SECTOR CONQUEST lays the foundation for it but until it expand towards MMO cause and effect, it’s just a fancy GUI for your regular match selection menu.
and that’s me keeping it short
~ Kine out
might be worth your time
Star Citizen: MMO
