What is the minimum number of players to justify your presence in a MMORPG?

At wich point, a MMORPG is not "massively" popular enough for you?

Are we talking about server population, or subscriber numbers?

I am Legend.

If you really care about the people you're never going to see personally, then you might as well be playing Facebook games.

As long as there is enough people for me to do the things I enjoy in the game thats all that matters to me. I was still enjoying SWG when they closed it down and there wasnt a ton of people playing.

What makes an MMO is how many people I can play with and how well the game encourages socializing. WoW has tons of subscribers but it feels like a singleplayer game.

Vanguard and Darkfall have a smaller user base but feel like real MMOs.

I'm happy with a server population of 300 concurrent online player.  If there's not enough people to play with it's a problem.

I dont' care about subscriber number, but it do need to be enough that the game will keep being updated.  I do care if the game I'm playing now is making money or not, because if they are lossing money it usually means they are cutting staff.

   The number of players  subbed or on the server is absolutely zero factor as to whether or not I will play.....In fact, I'd probably argue that most games I have really enjoyed had low pops.

frankly i dont care if the game is a minecraft server with 5 people or a WoW server will a few million. as long as there are enough active people to complete quests that require X people to do, or an active enough chat channel to break up the boring grinding aspects of games its fine. 

when you get massive games like WoW where there is 0 contact with players and you spend 1hr++ trying to form a pug party to do 1 simple quest... thats where i draw the line. 

its not  enjoyable MMO/game if it takes me hours to get enough people to play it.

I've played some really small games with populations as low as 20 or 30 on the server at one time.  I think the community attitude is much better because for these players it is their game and they commonly help out with other players.  It's also much harder to break rules.  Antagonism isn't tolerated.

Honestly I think I prefer the smaller games.  Interesting question!

I'd normally say 1K players minimum (at any given time) on the whole server would make it massively enough. But community is an important thing as well.

Right now playing Vanguard again, and that's like 100-150 players at any given time, and the community is VERY GOOD. So that does make up for the lack of numbers ;)

1 player - me. Screw the others. If it's fun alone, I'll be happy to play it as a single player game even if it's categorized as an MMO.

how many does it take to fill a raid party or a battlefied/ground. Thats how many i need with some roatation. not alot, but i don't want to get rusty.

Interesting, most of you dont need a massive numeric amount of player to play a MMO. How odd. This tells a lot about game design for this crowd and the decline of gaming.

well really as long as it's enough when you're online. However, it's a bit more complex as with mmos everythings doing something different- so when you have that- you want more simply to find people doing the same thing as you. I think.

OP is flattering himself I think.

The number of player isn't as important as the interaction that goes on with those players. Or in themeparks where that is not so existant, the presence of other players around you and talking on chat. That said, you can't specify a minimum for just any MMORPG because the designs can be very different. In Neocron I can get by with 30-50 people because you will likely run into them often or need their services in one of the social hubs. SWTOR needs several hundred to a thousand just to feel populated with how the planet maps are spread out and there is only 1 social hub (but of which player interacting is on a minumum). Modern MMOs by their design demand more players but often has them separated.

Stop being surprised when your polls results don't make sense.

Originally posted by Vrika

1 player - me. Screw the others. If it's fun alone, I'll be happy to play it as a single player game even if it's categorized as an MMO.

You are making me avoid most MMORPGs. I refuse to play another Singleplayer MMO.

Big aspect of games I play is social value.  I can sit and play the board game Monopoly with one person and get my social + for the day.  I play mmo's because I like the feel of being surrounded by real people.  But my favorite social outlet is forums.  Strangely, one of the best game communities I ever encountered was from an non-mmo, Sims 2.  It's forum community is comprised of artists, inventors, hackers, shoppers, and one rogue (me).  

A 100 or less is fine with me might not be with the games company though. The game matters to me less so the fact that I dont see it populated by 1000's of people hanging around the level cap area towns doing nothing is of little importance.

Lower numbers usually mean server merge soon followed by free to play then possibly death though IMO

Originally posted by hyllstarter

As long as there is enough people for me to do the things I enjoy in the game thats all that matters to me.

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This answer pretty much sums it up for me as well. It doesn't matter if it's 10 people or 10mio people.

Additionally the MMORPG should at least have some RPG elements and thus feel like and RPG (e.g. NPCs populating the game world as well and not always standing in the exact same spots, Non-Questgiver-NPCs which can be talked to for rumours and bits of advice/lore, etc.).