I have a question and a few ideas for those that have played massive multiplayer online games like Everquest. First of all, how does Everquest handle areas? Can there only be 32 people per area, or are there multiple servers with the same map/area? I am trying to figure out it is possible to have an online world populated by online players, and yet still have many people in a small space. My idea was a sort of MMORPG FPS hybrid. Each user has his or her own private area, such as an apartment in a city. This is his/her own base where he/she can safely be to recharge health, store excess items, and the like. The apartments could also be used to hold privave ''clan'' meetings without other people coming in. Each person would have his/her own aparment, and when a person logs in, thats where the person would start. If the player dies, this is where he/she will restart. To leave the apartment, the player would go down a hallway to an elevator, then up/down the elevator to get to the lobby, then outside onto the city street. My idea is to have large apartment complexes in a city. The players use the city as a home base to explore/attack/level up in the wilderness outside the city walls. If a player has enough money, he/she could buy a bigger/better located aparment. The player would make money by either trading raw resources, working a job (such as mining outside the city), finding money on other dead players, or getting paid to kill creatures that have a bounty on them. If a player wanted to hold a clan meeting in his or her aparment, pass cards would be given out, that would allow other players to enter that players building and apartment. This would prevent players from pillaging each others homes. When a player dies, he/she would lose everything that they were carrying except money (on a credit type of card?) and the passcard (perhaps a retnal scanner?). Each player would use the first person perspective (although 3rd would do fine), have a small inventory such as that like diablo or Deus Ex, with a limited amount of space, and money. The player can pick up items and store items in thier inventory, then go back to thier apartment and dump the items into a storage closet type of thing, that has a much larger, but still limited inventory size (we don''t want players having a warehouse full of stuff packed into a tiny apartment, just to make things a little better). In the players personal inventry that is carried around with him/her (a sort of ''backback''), the player would have to carry the necessary items to defend him/herself, and do whatever he/she wants outside of the city. The problem that I am looking at, is having lots of people in a small city street. What happens when numerous players die all at the same time, and they all leave thier aparments into the streets at the same time? I am wondering how this could be handled by the servers, and thats why I was wondering how EQ handled its players. There could be an overall story for the multiplayer game, such the city is in the frontier of a new planet in the wilderness, and the players must irradicate harmful creatures from the surrouding areas in order for the people to leave the city safely. There could be huge creatures that lurk outside the city and try to eat the weak/unsuspecting players. The players would need to band together to take out the largest creatures, while players could wonder around and do thier own exploring for thier own maps. The idea of the city is the part that I like. Players would be allowed to shoot eachother, but would be punished very largely. If a player couldn''t pay the fine, or couldn''t escape the police (the moderators), he would be forced to work in a mine or a like place until he does pay off the fine through work. This would only happen in the mid-class and low class parts of the city. If the player gets enough money to move to a high class area, then there would be police protecting the citizens of that area and some sort of barrier that disengages all weapons within the area. Would anyone play this? Moe''s site

Hey...
To answer your question about EQ... the do use separate servers for each zone. They may combine a couple zones per server (not sure) And, I would imagine that the servers they are using would be pretty powerful.

As for your idea... I like it! I would play something like that... (I like RPG''s, Sim type games) However, there would need to be some goals for sure....

Well, good luck with your idea....

Mike

Its good to see that people like the idea!

I have a few more things that could be added to it. First of all, the city would be broken down into zones - the area where new players start - which would be filled with midrange apartments that aren''t bad, but not that great. This area of town would have some security against murdering eachother, but it would still be possble to kill someone and run away from the police if done right. This would be like about your average suburb area. Then there is the slum - the aparments cost less, but there is even less, if no, police presence. This lets crimes like murdering/mugging way easier as the police aren''t as likey to come into areas like these. The disadvantage of living in a slum like area is that you are much more likely to get murdered and have your belongings taken.

Then last, but not least, is the high class area. This is where people would most certainly get caught if they shoot someone else. This is the area of fancy apartments and nice streets. There would be a heavy police presence at the gates entering this area. It would still be possible for the slum people to attack the gates and try to get entry to murder/steal from the rich people. Apartments in this area would cost much more than your average aparment.

I also have the possible idea of a mayor. This would/could be the richest person in the town/city, or an assigned person. This person has the ability to control the police. He must keep the balance between ruling the community and letting the community do what they want. He would live in the top of the fanciest building. He would have the ability to make rules for the people and send out city-wide transmissions. I am not sure how well this would fit into the game though.

The jobs that players could do could be security guard, merchant/trader, metal smith, inter-city trader, farmer, miner, creature killer,factory worker, material finder, soldier, poliece man, and a few other positions. Once the player has enough money (a lot of money!) one could rent or buy other property in the city, such as shops, warehouses (small), or factories (very expensive). The player could then work in these places and hire other people to work in them as well.

Moe''s site

I just learned that 32 players isn't that much. I was talking with The_Alchemist on Tiberian Adventure, and he said that in a game called Ragnarok Online, one time all the servers went down except one. There was about 3000 people packed into one room. Apparently all the servers booted the people into the one town hall room, and since all the servers were down except the one, all the people that were playing the game were all in the one room. Now thats a lot of people! Mind you, Ragnarok Online is somewhat 2D (AFAIK), so you wouldn't have to send a hord of information. If the player has moved since the last packet was sent, you would most likely have to update the position, look at direction, and see if any projectiles were fired or anything was said.

Edit - my bad spelling.
Moe's site

[edited by - Moe on September 9, 2002 7:50:48 PM]

Thats what has me a bit worried - I don''t want to have several hundred (probably 64 at a maximum, if it can be helped) users in the same area. Thats why I am wondering how games like EQ handle large amounts of players.

Moe''s site