A question about massive multiplayer games...

Joel Bennett · 2002-09-12T12:10:43

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