General Discussion

why does player numbers matter so mush to some people. player number does not mean a game is any good. as long as there is one active server it should be enough for most. your never gonna play or need to play with 500k players....

Because the games are supposed to be MMO's.  To break it down That is MASSIVELY which indicates more than a few hundred people.  MULTIPLAYER, because well, we are not looking to play single player games (Despite the people who cry when everything is not soloable) and ONLINE.  Put the three together, people want to be in large scale gaming environments where it is common to be playing with hundreds and thousands of people, regardless of their personal play time in an Online universe.  If we do not play a game with a large enough community, we may as well be playing a single player game.

Originally posted by Sunder

Because the games are supposed to be MMO's.  To break it down That is MASSIVELY which indicates more than a few hundred people.  MULTIPLAYER, because well, we are not looking to play single player games (Despite the people who cry when everything is not soloable) and ONLINE.  Put the three together, people want to be in large scale gaming environments where it is common to be playing with hundreds and thousands of people, regardless of their personal play time in an Online universe.  If we do not play a game with a large enough community, we may as well be playing a single player game.

 

most servers only hold 5000 players. so you will never play with those 100k...

Have to be alittle more specific....  But there are many reasons... They dont know about the game, Less people playing a game means... less people talking about the game, which also means most likely there friend isnt going to bring them along, For what ever reason the game just doesnt appeal to a player.   There already playing other mmo's big and small.     There are people out there that play mmos and have never played Wow... and never will.   I wouldnt have myself if it wasnt for certain reviews and friends which got me to start looking into it and see what its about, then finally trying it.   Which are things smaller games tend not to get , attention and press.

Also forgot, bigger game... more servers.... which equal more people playing in your timezone at the same time you are.   Or in some cases playing on a server outside your timezone because the peak hours of when you can be on.    

I think Sunder summed it up pretty well.

In an MMO, people want to have the experience of playing with a lot of different people. Plus...these MMO's usually have fairly large worlds, so if there is not a lot of people to populate that world, the world will seem completely empty, taking away the vast majority of the MMO gaming experience. So...you don't need a ton of different people, but u need a fair amount for the size of the world in a single server.

Originally posted by SgtFrog

Originally posted by Sunder

Because the games are supposed to be MMO's.  To break it down That is MASSIVELY which indicates more than a few hundred people.  MULTIPLAYER, because well, we are not looking to play single player games (Despite the people who cry when everything is not soloable) and ONLINE.  Put the three together, people want to be in large scale gaming environments where it is common to be playing with hundreds and thousands of people, regardless of their personal play time in an Online universe.  If we do not play a game with a large enough community, we may as well be playing a single player game.

 

 

most servers only hold 5000 players. so you will never play with those 100k...

Most servers donot have more than 5k people, but that number is growing as technoglogy permits more people in close proximity.  That aside, while each server only has a certain amount of people on at one time, unless there ARE those 100k players TOTAL to support having 5k CONSTANT, you will never see many people at all.  An MMO is supposed to be about community and interaction.  Not playing a solo game.  If you do not have enough people AVAILABLE, you end up playing Solo.  If I want to be in a game with only a few people, I can host a lan party.

Originally posted by Kouuwolf

Have to be alittle more specific....  But there are many reasons... They dont know about the game, Less people playing a game means... less people talking about the game, which also means most likely there friend isnt going to bring them along, For what ever reason the game just doesnt appeal to a player.   There already playing other mmo's big and small.     There are people out there that play mmos and have never played Wow... and never will.   I wouldnt have myself if it wasnt for certain reviews and friends which got me to start looking into it and see what its about, then finally trying it.   Which are things smaller games tend not to get , attention and press.

Doesn't really answer his question. Like people post all the time "Are people still playing this game?" when its obvious they are because the servers are still up. His point is WoW has tons of servers but you're only playing with a tiny fraction. Lots of people won't play games that don't have a lot of servers and people because they think it will ruin their experience and his point is (I think...) that is shouldn't change the experience because you're playing with 5000 people, not 10 million.

I have thought about the exact same thing lately and I think that it's more like a safety blanket.

More subs equals more/better devs equals better content and better polish. After that it's a snowball effect leading back to the subs, even more great content yadda yadda.

So, if I jump into a game with several hundred thousands players total I expect polish and better content than elsewhere.