Thinking back into the history of games, including both physical sport games and non-physical board games. All of them are either solo style (1 on 1) or small team no larger than 16 players. Certainly the smaller team, the reposibility of each member will be greater, making each of the member important to the team. My question is that which of these 3 choices are more appealing to the casual market? (Consider small team as team size 2-16)

Why not allow for all the options, with specific scenarios that are tailored or dictated by the size of the team that the players wish to form?

I would argue that the casual market doesn't want to be bothered with finding/making teams. If anything they want something like drop-in multiplayer [which really make quake an outstanding game for its time]

solo;Co-op; and 4,8,16 player options are IMO ideal. Anymore is cumbersome. Oh; and toss in the option for 16 player free-for-all rocket deathmatchs; those are so enjoyable in small doses.

Yeah, with smaller teams, it's possible (however rare) that you'll get a whole game that doesn't have a single smacktard in it. I've seen it happen on 16-player Battlefield 2 maps. 20 or more players, you're guaranteed at least one window-licker. You can't argue with it. It's science.

Iron Chef is 100% correct. I loved the way how Guild Wars had small teams and every once in a while you'd get a group that just worked really really well together. Unless you take the time (aka: not casual) to join a guild/clan, you're never going to be able to get good groups in large games.

Well, I played Shadowbane for two plus years, and I am here to lay down some facts.

I've seen organized battles with numbers on the lines of anything from 10 vs 10 to 200vs200..

And yes I mean organized, not a chaotic kill all of the red team any way you can.

Like, serious, hard core, 200 people on teamspeak listening to 1-3 commanders, precision manuevers with up to 200 people, working together, using teamwork to defeat the other guy.

Mass tactics is a beautiful thing when done right, shadowbane did a great job. It is crazy when you see 40 people pop out of ambush mode to slaughter an army of 100 players..

And it wasn't a rare thing for this to happen either, huge battles like this happened on a day to day basis in shadowbane..

For support, some google images. Sorry I don't know the link tags..

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.telefragged.com/reviews/shadowbane/shots/11_tn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telefragged.com/index.php3%3Ffile%3Dreviews/shadowbane/shots&h=112&w=150&sz=9&tbnid=3wy57L9XmYxDOM:&tbnh=67&tbnw=90&hl=en&start=17&prev=/images%3Fq%3DShadowbane%2BBattles%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.telefragged.com/reviews/shadowbane/shots/11_tn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telefragged.com/index.php3%3Ffile%3Dreviews/shadowbane/shots&h=112&w=150&sz=9&tbnid=3wy57L9XmYxDOM:&tbnh=67&tbnw=90&hl=en&start=17&prev=/images%3Fq%3DShadowbane%2BBattles%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff