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On the Feasibility of Single-Server MMOs

Posted by Soulskill on from the where-are-my-ten-thousand-player-battles dept.

GameSetWatch takes a look at the issues involved in creating an MMO that does not split its users among many different servers. They suggest that running a single "shard" is the next step in the evolution of MMOs, since it better allows player choices to have a meaningful impact on the game world; supporting different outcomes across multiple shards is a technical nightmare. They estimate, from the hip, that the cost to develop the technology required to support a massive amount of players (i.e. far more than EVE Online) on a single server to be roughly $100 million. Another recommendation is the strong reliance on procedural and user-generated content creation to fill a necessarily enormous game world.

1 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. Horse_Rubbish by killmofasta · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    It is ABSOLUTE Horse rubbish. complete and utter balderdash. There are Sooo many examples of how this is completely false. $100,000,000? Get a superdome. Duh! It has a OC-48 plug on the back, and enough backend communication hardware ( at System bus speeds ) to get a lot of syncing of the shards.

    Perfect example is Dungeon Siege. Seamless, can possibly have a lot of users, and developed for a lot less than $100,000,000.

    This guy is just complaining about EVE. Get a LIFE!

    But finally, what is your world going to look like, either they are going to trash the place like PYST, or they are going to be so far apart, it will be like walking in the desert.

    "The team is hard at work building our first release..." Ahh this guy is just looking for venture capitol. Buy NCSoft and start with the code base for Tabula Rasa. Geez...seems like this guy has a petulance for NIH!( Not invented Here ) and MMR ( Make Me Rich! )