Why does a massively multi-player event need to involve more than 128 players?
We had 400+ player battles in darkfall and it was chaotic. Fun! But chaotic. So I do agree that 200 and under is good.
You could have massive battles without the need for 1k players. By having player characters with 1-5 NPCs under their command.
Great call, 1000 human players controlling 5 avatars each, 5K vs 5K battles, sign me up.
Could be fun.
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Why does a massively multi-player event need to involve more than 128 players?
We had 400+ player battles in darkfall and it was chaotic. Fun! But chaotic. So I do agree that 200 and under is good.
You could have massive battles without the need for 1k players. By having player characters with 1-5 NPCs under their command.
The end result is the same though, it's still a chaotic mess. I personally prefer small to medium engagements. The sieges we're still fun and in an open MMO like that it can't be prevented which imo is a good thing, but thankfully they were also a more rare activity.
Large scale battles should be more rare than skirmishes. Perhaps one way to make the battles less chaotic would be to develop a system which encouraged players to obey superiors (higher ranking officers) and stay in formation.
They do, it's called winning Sieges were much more rare because they cost a lot to do so there's that.
Right. Being able to win is a pretty good motivator. I was just thinking of how militaries usually have some methods of enforcing discipline.
Not just that. If a king or lord committed his entire army to a pitched battle, he took a chance of losing his entire army.
"If everything was easy, nothing would be hard."
"Show me on the doll where PVP touched you."
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Now, what I interpreted @Iselin was talking about wouldn't require all 1000 players to be in the same area at the same time. You could have events of just about any kind that require the interaction of "massively" amounts of players, but they can do so in their time with their group or even participate solo potentially. I think a discrete example of this is Eve Online's crafting, market, and overall items in the game. All items with the exception of very few, are created by players and it takes an MMO scale of players to actually run that economy.
It could be short term events like massive fights or long term ones like the "node" system in Ashes of Creation.
Ashes' nodes are parts of the world that grow over time depending on something as simple as collective activity in that node. As they describe it questing, grinding, dungeoneering, crafting, etc. whether grouped or solo in the vicinity of the node all contribute to leveling-up the node. When a node reaches the next level many things about it change with new quests and new dungeons opening up and the central village becoming a town and eventually a metropolis with different architecture, better walls, etc. There are also bonuses at each level for those who call that node home. Better crafting, better fighting or trading perks, etc. depending on what type of node it is.
Each node has several different levels and they're leveled-up by collective helpful activity in the area and can be leveled down by PvP attacks from players from a different node or even atrophy due to lack of activity.
At least those guys are thinking of both, long-term collective efforts by large numbers and dynamic world changing.
I haven't followed Ashes closely lately so some of that may have been expanded or changed but that's the gist of how they described nodes.
Anyhow... just one example of a long term MM idea.
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Why does a massively multi-player event need to involve more than 128 players?
We had 400+ player battles in darkfall and it was chaotic. Fun! But chaotic. So I do agree that 200 and under is good.
You could have massive battles without the need for 1k players. By having player characters with 1-5 NPCs under their command.
Great call, 1000 human players controlling 5 avatars each, 5K vs 5K battles, sign me up.
I don't know about every player having their own NPC squad, but a game where landed nobles could raise NPC units to fight alongside their player guildmates would be pretty interesting.
Sort of like Mount & Blade, except only players with sovereign ranks from owning land and building cities could command NPC units. A lowly baron might only bring 20 men, while a great emperor would bring hundreds.
Really simple: take the battlefield games, but increase the number of players to massively multiplayer numbers. Map sizes would need to be increased, but you could have 500 v 500 matches and have some really large scale fights. If the engine could handle it, it'd be great to "recreate" some actual battles. Like, imagine the D-Day landings, if the numbers could get there, we could actually recreate it.
One of the things that'd need to happen to make this more interesting, and not just a zerg, would be better in-game communications and organising abilities, perhaps using something similar to what actual militaries use. Squads could only communicate internally, but a squad leader could communicate with their commander. I think there would also need to be some mechanics so that someone, a commander, could actually issue orders to squads. So, if the commander wanted a squad to assault a bunker, they could set that as the objective for the squad (and the objective would appear onscreen for that squad) and could also set the respawn point for that squad.
War of Rights lets you have some pretty big battles. I've never seen 500+, but here's a server with 200 players on it.
This is one of the more chaotic battles I've seen, which is something you might expect when numbers get too big and you start putting together units from different player outfits.
Comments
Could be fun.
Ashes' nodes are parts of the world that grow over time depending on something as simple as collective activity in that node. As they describe it questing, grinding, dungeoneering, crafting, etc. whether grouped or solo in the vicinity of the node all contribute to leveling-up the node. When a node reaches the next level many things about it change with new quests and new dungeons opening up and the central village becoming a town and eventually a metropolis with different architecture, better walls, etc. There are also bonuses at each level for those who call that node home. Better crafting, better fighting or trading perks, etc. depending on what type of node it is.
Each node has several different levels and they're leveled-up by collective helpful activity in the area and can be leveled down by PvP attacks from players from a different node or even atrophy due to lack of activity.
At least those guys are thinking of both, long-term collective efforts by large numbers and dynamic world changing.
I haven't followed Ashes closely lately so some of that may have been expanded or changed but that's the gist of how they described nodes.
You can have a look at their wiki if you're interested: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nodes
Anyhow... just one example of a long term MM idea.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED