My question is out of the MMORPG's what is the biggest game world.  After playing EQ, EQ2, WoW, Lineage 2, LOTRO, Guild Wars, and Vanguard. I would have to say hands down it is Vanguard.  I would love to hear what other people think.

I would think in terms of sheer size it would be EQ1. After 10 years, numerous expansions, and all the zones that have been put into the game since it launched, I could see it being the largest actual game world.

Of course, it's been years since I played EQ1. I might be wrong about that.

My vote is for FFXI, Vana'diel is absurdly massive in size and scale. Many veteran players have yet to explore the entire known world.

I never really compared the worlds. Does this mean persistant enviornment? or includes any instances etc?

I dont know if its the biggest, but I wager WoW (yes, I know many hate that game) would be one of the larger.

I wouldnt be surprised that EQ1 has the most because of all the expansions over the years

Darkfall has a huge world enviornment...unfortunatly much of it is uninhabited

the biggest world ive ever played in is vanguard. lotro being the second.

<sub>If you count all the dungeons ,probably Asheron's Call 1 as even when it was brand new out of beta it had 500 square miles of free roaming land just considering dereth before all the islands and additional land massess were added .It probably has also around 250 to 300 dungeons on top of this and they were pretty big also and didnt count toward the square miles.I played hardcore 4 1/2 years and never explored all of them


 Edit* I see alot of people are saying Vanguard,having played Vanguard, AC is stil bigger.It is hard to comprehend the size of Ac as all the dungeons and land mass together,Size was the main selling point Of AC.If you looked on the retail box it stated it was the largest gaming world .It also had monthly updates which added more dungeons and land masses from the original publicized  500 square miles of land</sub>

I have seen people post world size numbers a few times, and it seems generally agreed that SWG has all other games beat in terms of acreage by a good margin.

Either Asheron's Call or Everquest 1. I'm leaning towards AC1 though.

In terms of the size of the map, A Tale in the Desert is the biggest I've seen.  In particular, it's bigger than Vanguard.  As is generally the case with games with huge maps, much of it is empty.  It is the nature of ATITD that much of the map being empty is a good thing, as everyone needs space for his own camp, mines, raeli ovens, etc., and it's all non-instanced.

I've heard people say that EVE has a huge map, too. 

yep, EVE has to win this one.  sure 99% of the map is empty space, but it is by far the most massive "space" in any MMO.  i mean, you measure it in AUs, a single system could hold every other MMOs world... ever made.  and with the sheer number of systems... its a VERY big world.... universe.

Originally posted by Czzarre

I never really compared the worlds. Does this mean persistant enviornment? or includes any instances etc?

I dont know if its the biggest, but I wager WoW (yes, I know many hate that game) would be one of the larger.

I wouldnt be surprised that EQ1 has the most because of all the expansions over the years

Darkfall has a huge world enviornment...unfortunatly much of it is uninhabited

Actually WOW (which I don't hate) is probably on the lower end in terms of area when compared to other games.  I remember being astonished by the size of EQ1.  Wasn't "Crossroads" the zone that took like 40 minutes to cross?  And there were a lot of zones, especially with all the expansions.  Vanguard is also freakin' huge.  If you get a good vantage point or a flying mount, you can see for what seems like miles.  One of the big complaints when the game released was that there was a whole lot of area that the developers never got around to populating.  Just open, empty land.

I never knew that FFXI was so big.   The great thing about Vanguard is everything is open, unlike games like Guild wars ect...  LOTRO does a nice job of that with their world, but anytime you want to go into something it instances you.  Couple that with the fact there is no underwater exploration it really kills the immersion.  

Ya, LOTRO gets my vote for most beautiful game world but what you say is true.  Plus, it is definitly one of the smaller games.  I seem to remember Shadowbane being pretty big too.  It's been a very long time since I played that game, though.

Originally posted by Majinash

yep, EVE has to win this one.  sure 99% of the map is empty space, but it is by far the most massive "space" in any MMO.  i mean, you measure it in AUs, a single system could hold every other MMOs world... ever made.  and with the sheer number of systems... its a VERY big world.... universe.

AUs mean nothing in a virtual environment. The only way to gauge the "virtual" size of a game world would be to quantify the amount of time it takes to explore the entire world. Since distance and travel times are relative to each game, they really can't be used to determine game size comparisons between games.

EDIT: For clarity (additions in orange)

Technically, EVE is HUGE. 2500+ solar systems, it's an entire universe. However, there is not much "stuff" in each of these systems.  Planets, asteroid fields, maybe warmholes (recent addition), stations, NPC pirates in some sections, and player ships.  However, players create their own content by the forging of corporations and having wars over territory plus the politics and diplomacy gets very complex.  

EQ1 probably has the most "content" out of any MMO now with all of the expansion packs.  Never played it but Vanguard seems like it has a huge world but much of it has nothing in it, so it really doesn't "count" in my book much like EVE doesn't either.

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Originally posted by Dyrtt
Ya, LOTRO gets my vote for most beautiful game world but what you say is true.  Plus, it is definitly one of the smaller games.  I seem to remember Shadowbane being pretty big too.  It's been a very long time since I played that game, though.

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Shadowbane was big, and the tough part about getting around was teh fact that there werent mounts and not really any form of teleportation or flying other than porting to another tree. It could really take a while to get from one place to another.

In terms of packing the most content per square foot, WoW takes it by a mile.  In alot of places if you dive into the ocean there's a full reef with sunken ships and monsters and quests to complete.  Never seen anything like it. 

Originally posted by SabacX

Either Asheron's Call or Everquest 1. I'm leaning towards AC1 though.

It's been years since I've stepped foot back into Asheron's Call for more than a few hours, but when I seen this thread that's the first game that came to my mind. I'm not quite sure how the map scales to modern day MMOs, especially games that offer aerial content, that really increases the size of the world, but man, did Asheron's Call feel massive.

Even a few months ago logging in and just running across Obsidian Plains and around Ayan, man, the place just felt huge. And, I actually remember the land by landmarks. For some reason in more recent MMOs I spend a lot more time staring at my map -- in Asheron's Call I never did that, I navigated by landmarks; I remembered trees, housing settlements, mansions, any thing really.

But then again, AC also boasts a lot of memorable places for me. I honestly don't think I'll ever forget the Mayoi tower, just because.

I'd say that lack of mounts were the reason the game felt so big, but they weren't needed with how high you could raise your run skill. So I firmly believe the world just really was that big, or felt that big. 

I'd also like to state (for the 503453th time) that if someone were to recreate AC with updated graphics, I would be there. Full time, with some over time and no holiday pay. And a smile on my face.

I am guessing but from playing all the games I would say the top five in size are:

Eve

AC 1

EQ 1

Vanguard

EQ 2

But again I am guessing, I have played all of them and this is my best guess.

EVE wins that.

Thousands of space systems, and each one has things that can be done, and by that alone each one has a colossal number of activities that can be done.

You can't possible expect to roam every system in that game even if you head from stargate straight to the stargate leading to the other system, let alone explore each one individually.

But you could say it is "cheating" on fantasy MMOs, as the universe bigger than you can possibly imaginate, we currently have no chance of exploring it, although we have already "dominated" our own planet.

Not considering EVE, then, I really don't know. Any 3 year+ MMO should have developed enough expansions/updates that increased the content avaiable to the size that a new player cannot initially hope to see "an end" and that will cause people to skip half of it though, as increased level cap or new content will make half of that game world to be skipped by 99% of the new players.