General Discussion

Ever since EQ and UO invented the 'shard' design of multiple, unconnected servers every designer thinks its a standard. I think its garbage. Look at EVE, which best represents it's success. The community of the ENTIRE game is united. Games with servers arn't really virtual worlds, but rather hosted instances.

How many times have you found a RL friend that plays the same game as you, but then pops up "Oh, I player on X server, sorry." That's just despicable to me. We need game worlds, if you play So-and-So Online, you should be united in a comminuty with every other player of that game, not separated by 10 year old design rules. The shard idea was made when every PC ran dialup. The technology can handle it, the problem is that the trend is running too hard, devs are afraid to change.

In most MMOs, you can walk through an area for ages and never see another player. The worlds are HUGE. A good example is the recently release WAR. Even on the highest pop servers you barely run into anyone, and the game has like 30 shards. EQ2 is bad about this too. And these devs refuse to merge servers because they think its a PR nightmare.

The most important part of an MMO is high population. The multiple share design needs to be updated, it's no longer a viable design choice. Make bigger worlds, not smaller ones that you can break up.

Agreed

Originally posted by Netzoko

Ever since EQ and UO invented the 'shard' design of multiple, unconnected servers every designer thinks its a standard. I think its garbage. Look at EVE, which best represents it's success. The community of the ENTIRE game is united. Games with servers arn't really virtual worlds, but rather hosted instances.

How many times have you found a RL friend that plays the same game as you, but then pops up "Oh, I player on X server, sorry." That's just despicable to me. We need game worlds, if you play So-and-So Online, you should be united in a comminuty with every other player of that game, not separated by 10 year old design rules. The shard idea was made when every PC ran dialup. The technology can handle it, the problem is that the trend is running too hard, devs are afraid to change.

In most MMOs, you can walk through an area for ages and never see another player. The worlds are HUGE. A good example is the recently release WAR. Even on the highest pop servers you barely run into anyone, and the game has like 30 shards. EQ2 is bad about this too. And these devs refuse to merge servers because they think its a PR nightmare.

The most important part of an MMO is high population. The multiple share design needs to be updated, it's no longer a viable design choice. Make bigger worlds, not smaller ones that you can break up.

Because some servers have different tastes, you have the RP, the people who hate RP, the casual barely playing, the dumbass who hates everyone. It's like mixing Iraq with US...IMO it's just glad to have some seperation, plus it's easier to have certain things in different servers.

Originally posted by Netzoko

Ever since EQ and UO invented the 'shard' design of multiple, unconnected servers every designer thinks its a standard. I think its garbage. Look at EVE, which best represents it's success. The community of the ENTIRE game is united. Games with servers arn't really virtual worlds, but rather hosted instances.

How many times have you found a RL friend that plays the same game as you, but then pops up "Oh, I player on X server, sorry." That's just despicable to me. We need game worlds, if you play So-and-So Online, you should be united in a comminuty with every other player of that game, not separated by 10 year old design rules. The shard idea was made when every PC ran dialup. The technology can handle it, the problem is that the trend is running too hard, devs are afraid to change.

In most MMOs, you can walk through an area for ages and never see another player. The worlds are HUGE. A good example is the recently release WAR. Even on the highest pop servers you barely run into anyone, and the game has like 30 shards. EQ2 is bad about this too. And these devs refuse to merge servers because they think its a PR nightmare.

The most important part of an MMO is high population. The multiple share design needs to be updated, it's no longer a viable design choice. Make bigger worlds, not smaller ones that you can break up.

The problem is that you are not taking into account "why" eve works.

It doesn't matter if you and your fellow players are in the same area because it's all just the same. 100' over from 100' over doesn't really matter so much.

But let's say we are talking about a more planet based game (whether it's fantasy, sci fi, etc) then you have issues because players are not traveling to large areas but going to the blacksmith, or Cantina or what have you. Population density will start becoming too insane. 600 people going to the same blacksmith? Trying to make their way down one alley? All filing into the same temple?

Doesn't work.

And even if today's hardware could handle it you stll have the problem of too many people in one space and causing population issues other than lag.

So if you have collision detection you are going to run into instances where you just can't get by. If you can pass through fellowl players then you are going to have player uponn player upon player overlapping causing an artistic, graphical mess.

And if you put instances of a city then people are going to cry about immersion.

These designs have the same pros and cons as network types, if one server goes down only it is affected. If the one server goes down every player is now affected.

The main reason behind the multiserver design is cost, it costs much more to keep 1 server up and lag/crash/bug-free. I think eve has proved that it can work but developers overall remain locked on the multiserver idea.

World size must come into it also.  A game like Eve can get away with having all of their players on one server as their universe is gigantic so the population is spread out.  In more generic MMOs there are far fewer places where everyone tends to congregate when not out doing their thing.  Even on the current separated server model these places can be pretty crowded, on a single shard it would be problematic.

edit:  Sovrath got in there first, damn my slow typing.

Massively.Com had a recent article about the problems and benefits of the Eve Online server model. Interesting stuff

Evolved: EVE Online's server model

"Unfortunately for CCP, maintaining their vision of a single game universe has proven a lot more difficult and costly than anyone anticipated. Working with IBM, the EVE server cluster is maintained in London and is currently the largest supercomputer employed in the gaming industry. Even with this massive power behind the EVE universe, there are still problems as CCP tries to keep the server upgraded ahead of its ever-expanding playerbase.

In this article, I discuss the unique gameplay that is possible thanks to EVE's server model, the problems the server currently faces and what CCP is planning to do about it."

could you imagine the "fun" everyone would have on launch day for the 1 server mmo?   200k people all charging the lowbie killing fields at once?  Even after some time, with so many people on a single server, the pve fields would be packed full, or have to be crazy big, like so big you need an in game car to access them realisticly.   I do like the idea of having lots of mirrors on one server, with the ability to switch mirrors in game at a whim.  I think that is the best of both worlds....youll have the high pop mirrors with the ability to dip out to a low pop mirror if some asshats bothering you or the spawn is packed.

On top of what previous posters discussed, you have to also take into account the texturing and models of players and characters in typical land-based MMO's compared to the ships in EVE. 

When you co