MMORPGs have long been subject to discussions about character population limits and what size actually determines whether a game is truly “massive”, with critics and players alike questioning whether population size still holds the same importance it once did. MMORPGs have changed a lot over the years, and these days, many developers are creating MMOs that have fallen short of what we once considered massive, in lieu of delving into the impact of their population size on the gaming experience. Is server cap size still relevant or is it no longer a main concern for players?
This week’s One Good Roll hit me when I was logged into Albion Online’s mobile version. If you’ve ever played Albion either on PC or mobile, you probably will understand the importance of the drawbacks of focusing solely on character limits of an MMO. The starting towns especially are bustling areas often housing dozens, if not hundreds, of players, where navigation becomes cumbersome and aggravating. While the large population in such a small space doesn’t necessarily prohibit you from doing very much, it’s quite daunting for new players, as they try and find their way.
This gets compounded as you venture outside of the starter towns, and attempt to gather resources, often getting beat to the punch by other players in that regard too. Persistence pays off, but I recall my first couple weeks in Albion being a little too overpopulated for my liking. In this case, the game may appear lively, but the sheer volume of players does little to improve the gaming experience, especially when the early levels don’t benefit much by grouping, and most players starting out, refuse to want to group at all.
On the other hand, we have Guild Wars 2, which employs a system of dynamic events requiring random players to participate and work “together”, creating an organic sense of a living, breathing world. While this approach makes the game feel expansive and connected, major hubs like Lion's Arch can feel somewhat pointless in comparison, as there's a noticeable lack of activities to engage in where the major hubs are concerned. This differs from its predecessor, the original Guild Wars, which relied on a hub-based system that necessitated player congregation for trading, socializing, and adventure planning. Guild Wars 2 is far more accessible, with situations that naturally breed large populations, gathering for activities, but the system doesn’t lend itself to better socialization here, as players rarely need to communicate for group activities.
Phantasy Star Online 2's Legacy game also adopted a hub-based system, which has always been a mainstay of the property, where players can witness hundreds of others in the hubs. Despite the sense of camaraderie in these hubs, venturing into the game world reveals a stark contrast, with significantly fewer players populating the landscape. With the inclusion of New Genesis, there's a conspicuous absence of situations that call for a decidedly large-scale population, but the game falls far closer to what players would expect from a more traditional MMORPG, with instances of players in particular zones reaching into the dozens.
But ultimately the cap on players in a single zone are still so low, and due to the significance of the combat sectors, you want just the right amount of players to participate so that you’re able to trigger PSE bursts for greater rewards, but you don’t want too many players so that you miss out on getting to those enemies in time before they die.
The original intention behind large-scale populations in MMORPGs was to cultivate an active, immersive environment that fostered interactions between players. However, the shift towards features catering to smaller groups has diluted this vision. For example, Guild Wars 2 had a main focus on World versus World (WvW) battles when the game originally launched, relying on, what has now turned into, a zerg versus zerg system, which often drives a good number of players away from large-scale combat and into smaller groups. As a result, ArenaNet has refocused a lot of their efforts over the years on balancing small-scale PvP, introducing new maps and game modes, and leaving their players to question if the team has largely abandoned WvW altogether. Large scale PvP events are generally a major draw in MMOs, but over time, it feels like many of the MMOs that cater to specifically large scale and forced PvP haven’t fared very well. Even the premise has continued to struggle, as we can see with games like Crowfall.
The crux of the matter is that developers are now prioritizing the creation of worlds that feel populated, instead of merely inflating the number of players within the game. This shift in focus is evident in Amazon's New World, which capped its server population at 2000 players. Although some may argue that this limit is too low, and it’s something Amazon themselves have spoken about with a plan to continue to increase that, but for a truly immersive MMO experience, the game world remains vibrant and engaging even when capped at such a relatively low number of players.
This suggests that the actual server population size is no longer the be-all and end-all in MMORPGs. Instead, it seems that a perceptually populated world that encourages player interaction while retaining a sense of immersion is more key in garnering what a lot of players are looking for. By designing games that cater to groups, and relatively smaller scale (but not small scale, think dozens of players) alike, developers can strike a delicate balance that enriches the gaming experience, with an eye towards better performance. We see a lot of games fall into this realm, like DDO and Tower of Fantasy that are still in the MMO realm, but with areas built towards performance and the players perception, rather than simply throwing a ton of players into a zone and hoping for the best.
The contemporary MMORPG landscape has seen a shift in focus away from raw population size and towards the creation of a perceptually populated game world. While large scale battles still need to be prioritized and there needs to be a better focus on building community hubs that matter (like Star Wars Galaxies Cantinas), smaller population sizes, where the zones are built for the players experience, and not built simply to prove you can pack thousands of players into a virtual sardine can, are certainly important. Balancing player numbers and the experience will always be a challenge, and hopefully future MMOs will be able to find ways to provide a better experience for a greater number of players in the future. Unfortunately for us, the threshold for what may be considered enough for an MMO, to what is considered just another MOG, will likely always be a hot debate for MMORPG enthusiasts.
What are your thoughts? Do you prefer a more traditional MMO approach where the raw number of players matters more than a small dedicated zone size for the activities you’re doing? Should MMOs focus on larger scale gameplay? Or should they build features around hundreds of players instead of thousands? Congregate in our forums and let us know your thoughts.
