How Much Does Population Size Matter in MMOs? | OGR | MMORPG.com

System · April 2023

How Much Does Population Size Matter in MMOs? | OGR | MMORPG.com

Does population size really matter? Steven weighs in on whether actual player numbers on a server are still key for MMOs, or if perceptual player numbers are more important.

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OG_Solareus · April 2023

Very little. I played Age of Conan for years at a population of less then 500.

Mensur · April 2023

Why call it mmo if population does not matter?

Nebless · April 2023

I play a number of games that would be considered 'low pop' or 'niche' one's and don't have a problem with them or their population numbers.

I think with the shift of more and more content being soloable, sheer numbers have much less of a meaning. Sure it helps to have enough that the economy / Auction House is useful, but with the ability to just get the items from playing .... well the lower pop numbers have no real effect.

Of the games I play / played I'd say Pirates of the Burning Seas stands out as the one hit hardest by lower population numbers. It got where the pop was so low that players just created more alts and instead of buying from the Auction House, just created their own products of which ships were the most important.

For someone not into crafting or a newer player, not having all those ship deeds for sale on the AH was a major game hindrance. You will get sunk as you play the game, you will level up and you will need a new ship. Without the Auction House one's, players hit a brick wall.

For my other games Age of Conan probably has the lowest numbers but since any group content is optional it's not that big of a factor. The whole 'make content soloable' factor coming into play.

Yes it's nice to see a bunch of other players running around, right up to the increased lag (LotRO or DDO when a lot transferred to the same server and SURPRISE!) or like the article said trying to do quests or harvest stuff.

Big news / push way back for a fresh start server in LotRO. Sounded great, start out fresh, buch of others to group with and then once it happened all those that had missed those days back when the game was new were hit with the fact that all those others were trying to do the exact same quest you were, killing the same mobs etc... not quite as much fun as they thought it would be.

I can remember getting in line back in SWG and AoC to talk to an NPC or kill a boss. Some would group, but most would queue up and wait their turn.

eoloe · April 2023

If you like epic non sense, the first M of mmorpgs make sense, and the more the better.
If you want your impact to be felt on the world, a few 10s like a hundred is more than enough.

Dattelis · April 2023

Mensur said:

Why call it mmo if population does not matter?

Reading through most of the article, it seems to depend on how 'mmorpgs' handle player interaction. For example, FF14's zones can only house a few hundred players at any given time and I believe only a maximum of 50 will show on screen at any given time. Compare that to WoW's seemless areas (or mostly seemless areas before they switched to zones, most notably in shadowlands), which can probably house thousands. Both are still considered mmorpgs even though they handle things differently.

Personally, I dont think you need to have thousands if content is engaging enough. Many asian mmorpgs tend to use the 'channel' format which has its ups and downs. If content is pretty rigid (i.e. needing server participation to take down open-world things), the server cap has to play a big role in that. So all-in-all the kind of content that the game is wanting to have will tend to determine how 'important' population is for a game.

The more objective reason as to why population is important is because of monetization. Most mmorpgs that were either P2P or B2P tend to either adopt long term trial periods or just convert to f2p outright simply because there's not enough people paying. In those models, many people paying the same amount across the board is essential. Of course more try to either work around this or just outright double dip via micro-transactions to keep those models going but that's a topic for another thread I think.

cameltosis · April 2023

I feel like this article is talking about two separate things, and getting them confused.

The first is the multiplayer cap. This is what determines whether a game is massively multiplayer or not. This matters a hell of a lot to me, as I won't play a game unless it is massively multiplayer. 250 is my minimum, but 500+ is the goal. But, it doesn't seem to matter much to developers or regular gamers, who dont care about the MMO part, they only care about the RPG part.

The second is the game's population. This obviously matters a lot to everyone. If you want the game to last a long time, you need population. If you want any sort of competitive gameplay, you need population. If you want any sort of cooperative gameplay, you need population. The smaller the population gets, the worse those gameplay elements will get.

There seem to be two reasons that former MMO devs have given up on MMOs. The first is that it's simply difficult to achieve. The tech is really hard to develop, and most MMO studios seem to fail. The second reason is that MMO devs never actually seem to design massively multiplayer gameplay. What's the point of making a game that supports 500+ players in the same virtual environment, if there is no content or gameplay that requires 500+ players? The closest we get is PvP, but even there the PvP is rarely designed with large numbers of players in mind.

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Angrakhan · April 2023

Depends on the design of the game if player population and per instance population caps matter. For example EVE absolutely would crater without a ver healthy population and no caps for zones/instances. On the flip side a game like The Division doesn't benefit much from huge population and it would actually ruin the game experience if you had a huge cap for zones. All the PvE content is capped at 4 players. If you uncapped that it would go from The Division to The Government Crackdown as hundreds of agents pour into the streets and kill anything that so much as moved. It would feel less like a last stand for freedom and more like a military occupation.

Yes I realize The Division is not an MMO, but there are more games now that straddle that line and not all of them would benefit or even make sense as a true MMO.

As to why call it an MMO? Yeah I agree. Why? Drop the term together and call it a multiplayer online game and be done with it. I think the MMO genre is basically dead anyway. Pull the plug and move on.

Iselin · April 2023

I hate it when people talk about zerg vs. zerg in MMOs as if that were a bad thing. That *IS* what MMO PvP is all about and it's precisely why it's inherently different than the "me" focused shooters where it's all about how many kills I got, how few deaths I had, where I ranked on the ubiquitous scoreboard and what trophies I, and only I, got.

Zerg vs. zerg also happens to be the last remaining bastion of massively multiplayer relevance in modern MMOs so I guess it's logical to bash that and complete the total de-MMOification of MMOs and make absolutely everything in them me-focused.

When that happens you can then call games like Path of Exile MMOs and no one will blink because at that point it will make absolutely no fucking difference.

Sheesh.

Akulas · April 2023

If there is content that requires 5 people to complete then it only needs 4 other people. It's nice to have more as I like seeing people I've seen before randomly walking past something which doesn't happen as much in modern MMORPGs as every person you see is always a random you'll never see again.

Greatsword · April 2023

For me, population is less about the actual gameplay experience but more about the psychology of the MMO's long-term future.

In MMO's I want to invest my time for long-term progress. Ideally progress over a decade or more.

If an MMO has a low population it's usually not doing well, leading to two possible outcomes: The game going into maintenance mode with no further content updates (e.g. GW1) or the game shutting down entirely. Neither of which motivates me to invest any more time into my progress.

olepi · April 2023

There are two scenarios that require a fairly large population to be present at the same time: raids and PvP. Plus the use of an auction house if the game has one.

In CoH there is the "Hami raid". This is going to require many players, probably 70 or more together. The server has to have enough high-level players to support 70+ of them uniting to fight the monster. Obviously the zone/instance cap has to be at least that high.

In PvP, you can get massive numbers fighting to capture or defend a keep or outpost. Perhaps as many as 200 or more. The server has to have enough players to support 200 of them uniting to fight, and obviously the zone/instance cap has to be that high at least.

Let's say the server cap is 250, there is little chance you can find 200 high level players at the same time to fight in PvP, or to kill a giant monster. Many players will be lower level, or doing something else. So for these tasks, you'll probably need a cap of 500 or even 1,000, which is what the first 'M' in MMORPG means to me. M == 1,000.

In games that rely on players to make most items, like Ryzom or PoTBS, you have to have enough economic players to supply what is needed. Games that provide items through drops do not need as many players crafting items.

kitarad · April 2023

I am not bothered as long as I can have enough people to support the game I could not care less about the number of people around. In fact in games where I'm fighting for resources I hate seeing other people going for MY nodes.

ultimateduck · April 2023

I think there are a few things to look at with the "massive" word thrown in.

1. Population potential vs actual population. Games that originally had several thousand concurrent players can still get by with a few hundred of players. This doesn't make it less "massive" compared to a game only designed for a capped population size.

2.World size vs world required. A world can be huge but if it's only designed for 50 or less players is it really "massive"?

3. Open world vs on rails. Is a world really "massive" if you are led by the hand from point A to point B to point C compared to an open world where there's a little more than a level range for players to explore?

4. Community required vs community optional. Is a game "massive" if grouping is an option rather than grouping being required, and whether a market is game driven or player driven or both?

I think a game has to be designed for a massive population in a massive open world with required community interaction and player driven market to be a true MMORPG. Old MMORPGs had huge worlds, huge populations, huge economies... they were true MMORPGs.

Most games today are little more than single player RPGs that you share a server with others playing the same single player RPG. Grouping is usually optional, the worlds are in rails and the market is bland and uniform.

Morgenes83 · April 2023

I had a very good time with Meridian and 250 people servers.
It also has the advantage that people know each other and your standing is important.
It also let's you feel more like a hero without 20people standing in line waiting for the open world boss or event to spawn/start.

On the other hand this needs those people to be online consistently.
If there are many casual players with 4-20h per week more people are welcome.

Still I think New Worlds 2000 cap is totally enough (with the given size of the game world).
I can imagine it going to 4000 but more is something I don't like because it leads people to become assholes as they know their reputation often doesn't matter and/or affect their gameplay

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Theocritus · April 2023

Population size is no factor for me whatsoever...in fact often less is better.

Lateris · April 2023

When you are dependent on other players for content it really does matter. So a healthy active server matters a lot to myself for MMO game play.

DigDuggy · April 2023

A really broad question. Depends on how the MMO is structured. For me, I'm happy if just the major towns are busy. I don't require the whole world to be filled with people to have fun.

Aeander · April 2023

Content is often designed around a certain player population, so parts of these games just objectively get worse and/or less available when there are less people to play.

unfilteredJW · April 2023

I've played MUDs for years with max 20-30 other players.

It doesn't.

TheDalaiBomba · April 2023

MMORPGs today actually do a relatively poor job of leveraging their massively multiplayer potential, so no.

maskedweasel · May 2023

I used to love tons of players around like in city of heroes. Now there aren't many games where I value seeing other players that much.

So I don't think it's that big of a deal if the zones only have 30 people as long as the content makes sense for 30 people to participate in content. It's hard to account for hundreds of players to populate these worlds when most players just game hop.

Uwakionna · May 2023

Totally depends on the game's setup. Most MMOs do not leverage the population size, and those that do are often subject to issues with too many or too few participating in content due to an often inflexible design.

Uwakionna · May 2023

Iselin said:

I hate it when people talk about zerg vs. zerg in MMOs as if that were a bad thing. That *IS* what MMO PvP is all about and it's precisely why it's inherently different than the "me" focused shooters where it's all about how many kills I got, how few deaths I had, where I ranked on the ubiquitous scoreboard and what trophies I, and only I, got.

Zerg vs. zerg also happens to be the last remaining bastion of massively multiplayer relevance in modern MMOs so I guess it's logical to bash that and complete the total de-MMOification of MMOs and make absolutely everything in them me-focused.

When that happens you can then call games like Path of Exile MMOs and no one will blink because at that point it will make absolutely no fucking difference.

Sheesh.

Iunno, I would qualify that I see a difference between "zerg" and "large scale combat".

This is something that can be characterized easily by comparing Planetside 1 to Planetside 2.

In PS1, the battlefield had frontlines where the was the bulk of platoons fighting, however there were also supply chains to maintain and things like Lattice Logic Units that required you to branch out to actually support and push the front lines.

In PS2, that was stripped down to individual resource pools and it's only recently that PS2 has pushed to add something similar to LLUs, meaning for the last decade the game really hasn't had supply chains or otherwise to form anything other than that frontline combat. It put a much greater onus on simply swarming singular bases with as many people and tanks as possible.

Large scale PvP is something novel to MMOs, but 'zerging' is perhaps the laziest implementation of it. It was more engaging for me when you have large scale logistics that goes with the large scale PvP, and you're able to expand the battle line across multiple areas of a large zone simultaneously. One of the things that the MMo element adds to this is the fluidity with which that battlefront can now change as compared to a match based title.

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