Bioware forgot to include the first M in MMO...Massive

[admriker]

I saw maybe 178 on the tython indicator for number of players at early access.

 

I saw maybe 120 on the coruscant indicator a day later

 

I saw maybe 80 on the Taris indicator around the 18th

 

I saw maybe 45 on the Nar Shadaa indicator on launch day

 

Today I see 23 players on Tatooine indicator

 

And lets be clear, I didnt actually see 178, 120, 80, 45, and 23 players. The most players I ever saw at one time was on Coruscant and it was about 12. Since then I rarely see more than 5 players in any given area

 

Im not exactly sure how the sharding works but its either working very well or there just arent a lot of people playing the game. I asked the following question in-game several times but nobody knew the answer...

 

" the number I see in the upper left corner, is that an indicator of the number of players in the shard of that planet ? or is it the total number of players on the planet ?" 23 players on Tatooine 3 days after launch AND during a holiday break seems incredibly low to me.

 

Sharding of any MMO just isnt a popular concept. Sure there are plenty of valid arguments around. It prevents fighting over spawns, reduces lag, etc. but the fact is the first M in MMO stands for MASSIVE....not multiplayer.

 

It was soundly rejected by the MMO communities in both Age of Conan and Star Trek Online. And I suspect Bioware avoided talking about it too much because well frankly they know its mostly despised.

 

Dont get me wrong, Im loving my time in The Old Republic....as a single player game with some multiplayer on the side. But for an MMO it feels dismally empty.

 

Where are the hundreds of players filling up the cantinas ? where are the masses surrounding the auction house / bazaar offering their goods and showing off (granted everyone is busy leveling so this may change later) ?

 

where are the sith players I so very much wish to kill ? I joined a pvp server to well actually do some pvp. the problem is Im not finding any enemy players. And believe me Ive looked. There was one sith player on Nar Shadaa and he was in a safe zone buying from the bazaar (so much for open world pvp on a pvp server). I have seen zero sith on Tatooine, heard rumors there was one but I never saw him.

 

the community in the game reminds me of the one in STO. "just wait till everyone catches up" or "its a weekday" or "its early" or "power is out on east coast from snow" and a hundred of excuses for the game thats lacking something important.

 

I will continue to push forward with the game but Im not sold on an MMO that fails to offer me adventures with other players. Bioware may be getting rave reviews from the KOTOR single player fans, but I doubt thats the consensus among MMO fans. They really need to get rid of the sharding and majorly increase the player cap on every server.

 

30 minute que doesnt make sense when you log in and see 2 others players around.

[Nohno]

Another one. It nevet stops...........

[StingingVelvet]

Honestly very few games have lived up to the first M in MMO. TOR plays the same as WoW, which means it's basically a coop online RPG with "massive" raids in the endgame. I go into these kinds of games knowing what they are... the rest is marketing.

[Grammarye]

Can't you at least contribute to one of the other five threads about this?

[admriker]

Another one. It nevet stops...........

 

hmm maybe there is a theme here then....

 

sharding is not going to be accepted by the mmo community. get rid of it or watch the subs fall like it did in every mmo that tried to get away with it

[djsmileey]

I run into people all the time, this is another pointless thread.

 

Do people not understand there several instances of every planet running at a time.

 

 

You do not see EVERYONE on ur little number indicator at the top left.

Edited December 23, 2011 by djsmileey

[calhounhusker]

How many times does this need to be posted?

 

 

I don't get why people don't understand that not everybody is at the same point you are. I dont expect a ton of people to be level 30+ therefore I don't get mad when I dont see a ton of people where Im at.

 

 

Not to mention, the game is 3 days old!

[Jett-Rinn]

hmm maybe there is a theme here then....

 

sharding is not going to be accepted by the mmo community. get rid of it or watch the subs fall like it did in every mmo that tried to get away with it

 

it's not going to be accepted by a handful of comic book guy types....everyone else thinks it's a non-issue.

[songofprecept]

It's a duplicate post of a duplicate post of a duplicate post.

 

That's triple the amount of whine to read.

 

/nice

[matraque]

There is probably 3 or 4 instances... You know the concept of instances OP?

[Skeelol]

There is probably 3 or 4 instances... You know the concept of instances OP?

 

Yeah, the opposite of an MMO world.

[Kurokage]

I've played the game every chance I get and I'm still on Balmorra. And I run into more people on Balmorra than you supposedly did on Coruscant.

 

Give the slower people like me a chance to catch up before you complain about a lack of population, will you? And wait for the influx of people we'll probably get on Christmas Day. That'll add the Massive that you want.

 

Also, this thread should really be closed. There's a few ongoing threads about this very same topic, and I'm sure that one of them is still on the first page of the forum.

[Rhinoplat]

I run into people all the time, this is another pointless thread.

 

Do people not understand there several instances of every planet running at a time.

 

 

You do not see EVERYONE on ur little number indicator at the top left.

 

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

 

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

[raymorda]

Honestly, I can't seem to grasp your concept. Logic would suggest that if they released the game early in waves, obviously most of the people would be on different parts of the game, even from launch date. So you're seeing "nobody around these here parts" is more akin to "I can't understand what launching in waves means."

 

Also, yes, it isn't going to follow that model exactly, but depending on your server and your location, it might just mean you're on at the wrong times. I see plenty of people running around the areas. It's not like it takes 400 years to complete a quest series or area. If you were seeing the same people, during the same time, in the same area as you, every day, I would then have an issue and your rant might hold a little more validity than it currently does.

 

In short, don't play. We don't like you anyway.

[admriker]

There is probably 3 or 4 instances... You know the concept of instances OP?

 

and do you know the concept of an MMO ?

 

I know what an instance is and theyre fine for a dungeon. But for entire zones, even planets ??? that will never be okay with the mmo community.

 

I watched a lot of threads on the STO and AoC forums defending the use of sharding as well. those players are all alone now with no hope of ever seeing an expansion in their dying games.

 

I dont want to see this happen with the old republic. its a very good game with great potential but it still needs that first M to mean Massive. Its the only flaw with the game really, but its a huge one

[Umbral]

In ANY mmo if you /who a zone you are going to see numbers like you posted, whether they share SWTOR's sharding design or not. You are going to see the same numbers of other players running around as well.

 

You started the thread, now YOU tell everyone just what modern and AAA mmo it is where you've seen the "multitudes" running around anywhere you seem to want.

 

Before you go there... you will NEVER see more than a couple of hundred other players in the same area in EVE. If you did, that game would be like watching a slide show for you. People that play EVE like to follow the company line that "everyone is on the same server", but it's always been a slight of hand trick that CCP has been able to pull off due to the nature of the game's setting. If you fly into a sector of space in EVE and think that you are in the same instance as everyone else playing the game, well, then I have some tropical beach front property in northern Canada you need to buy off me.

 

WoW is what? 7 years old now? If you zone into SW or Org and there's more than a couple of hundred players standing around the main AH, you are more than likely going to be very annoyed by the lag.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Umbral

[raymorda]

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

 

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

 

 

 

That's also what made part of early MMOs unbelievably frustrating. Who wants to sit around, with 40 people, waiting on the same guy? Nobody. I'd much rather sit around nine people and have 3 other people be sitting around their own nine people. It makes the game more enjoyable when you actually get to PLAY it.

[Fredcat]

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

 

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

 

 

 

It's not as easy as you think, take some courses in networking and server management and you will understand.

 

And camping for quest items sucked in early MMO's, you must be the only guy in the world who liked that.

[admriker]

In ANY mmo if you /who a zone you are going to see numbers like you posted, whether they share SWTOR's sharding design or not. You are going to see the same numbers of other players running around as well.

 

You started the thread, now YOU tell everyone just what modern and AAA mmo it is where you've seen the "multitudes" running around anywhere you seem to want.

Before you go there... you will NEVER see more than a couple of hundred other players in the same area in EVE. If you did, that game would be like watching a slide show for you. People that play EVE like to follow the company line that "everyone is on the same server", but it's always been a slight of hand trick that CCP has been able to pull off due to the nature of the game's setting. If you fly into a sector of space in EVE and think that you are in the same instance as everyone else playing the game, well, then I have some tropical beach front property in northern Canada you need to buy off me.....

 

star wars galaxies

ultima

dark age of camelot

eq1

world of warcraft

 

to name just a few

 

oh and even the ones who do shard dont do entire worlds. and their caps are much higher. i can go right now in City of Heroes (using the same Hero engine ironically) and see 50 players standing around in a single spot.

 

in dark age of camelot we would sometimes have 1,200 in a single pvp battle. sure the lag got bad the game is 12 yrs old, Im sure better servers today could handle it. in star wars galaxies there used to be hundreds of imperial players coming from Bestine to invade Anchorhead

 

players like me arent asking for massive because well its never been done before. heck Im not even expecting thousands, id settle for 100. but when a pvp server has very little pvp because everyone is seperated by shards, its ridiculous

 

please tell me how Im supposed to pvp when I literally cant see the other players ???

[tyranusdarec]

Hey OP

 

Ever heard of sharding? You can still talk to them in chat but they are not on your shard ATM just on the same server. Another indication is all the people complaining about long server ques to get in. So they complain there is too many people and your complaining there aint enough people.... Yah right whatever.

 

And I see people all the time. Sometimes too damn many for my tastes. Having to wait for an object to update just so I can click it to finish a quest and a line of people waiting ahead of me...

 

Tyr

[Nirvashe]

You should maybe try pressing M and go the the lower right and change your channel from channel 3 to 1 and maybe that will solve the issue of not seeing many people

[Grammarye]

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

The number in the top left is your total in your instance. If you can't find them, that is not the game's fault. Currently on Kaas on my server there are two instances, one with 122 people, one with 112 people. The scale you want exists.

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

No it isn't; that is your subjective viewpoint and plenty hated it then too.

[djsmileey]

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

 

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

 

This greatly increases performance for everyone around, as well as server stability.

 

More so than anything, your argument is sort of rediculous. Your main reason you bring up for example here is that you felt accomplished because people had to wait for mob respawns?

 

Pretty sure that is EXACTLY WHY they built them.

 

Who wants to stand around for 10 minutes while a creature respawns.

 

Further, despite all their attempts, I and other STILL have to fight over mobs in many many places.

 

Again a pointless thread.

[Dasffion]

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

 

You might consider this a great accomplishment, I'm not sure why, but to me it's just an unnecessary annoyance.

[blargness]

That's the problem in my eyes. There shouldn't be instances. Game companies should be building networks to handle hundreds of players in one area. If there are 100 people on a planet, then I should be able to interact with 100 people at the same time and not have multiple instances.

 

Part of what made the early MMOs great was the sense of accomplishment when you were able to finish a quest while 20 other people were still waiting for quest items to respawn.

 

This sounds great on paper but its generally not practical.

 

Nothing sucks more than standing around waiting for a quest mob with 10 other groups of people AoEing the spawn point and you're hoping that your the guy that tags it. This can be especially frustrating for the SW:TOR audience which likely has a lot of people new to the MMO genre in general.

 

Even now there are plenty of non-instanced quests where you'll see 7 or 8 people all standing around a quest object trying to click on it only to have it bug out and they all keep trying again. I actually thanked the instancing in that case since I just flipped to instance 2 where no one was doing it so I could complete the quest and move on through the story.

 

What makes it "mass" is the fact that the world is persistent and you have access to all of those other players through various means to group with. When you hit max level you'll probably also start seeing more opposing faction members and they'll be more apt for a fight. Right now I think a lot of players seem to be avoiding fights in favor of just getting their first characters through the game. I've passed by a few groups of republic players on Tatooine that I would have expected to gang up on me and slaughter me but they did their quests and I did mine (albeit debating if I should gank them in the middle of a pull like a proper sith assasin!)