Why not use instanced dungeons?
Any important building, compound, or other "quest" area where fighting will take place would then only have to handle one particular team/squad/party.

If you consider that the Battlefield games currently support 64 (I think) simultaneous players, all fighting on some very large maps, you could probably have several parties in any area at once.

Guild Wars even goes so far as to have the entire game instanced, apart from the town areas - iirc.

To stop people from fighting in the "town" areas where there's likely to be a lot of people you could simply prevent players from drawing a weapon... or in a futuristic setting have some kind of suppresion field to disable all weapons. This should also stop the players from killing your towns' NPCs and shopkeepers (or wondering why they're invincible).

isn't Mass Effect (for the xbox360) supposed to be this?

Mass Effect looks to be single-player only. You might be thinking of Huxley?
It's certainly an MMOFPS game ...but I don't know anything about the RPG bit.

There's also Hellgate London coming soon, which appears to be "like Diablo but from a first person perspective and with guns as well."
MMOFPSRPG?

Well, for starters lets look at the word 'MMO'.

How many players is massive? Exactly, it's more or less relative, but given the standards of today's multiplayer games we can assume that it needs to be a fair bit larger than 64 players.

But that's not the truth to it. It's the persistance that really makes an MMO which presents some possibilities; is it possible to call something like BF2 MMO since it has stats tracking(limited persistance)?

But also to my mind it's also the variety, the difference that every encounter you fight in even if it's at the same place with similar circumstance, it'll be different. Though that's something that must always be in a multiplayer FPS, sadly it's something often lost with MMORPG's these days.

It's probably easier if I were to present my ideals:

- No zones, unless there's the right situation such as exiting your factions main base, or maybe an airlock or such.
- Large variety of environments, jungles to deserts.
- Server support for at least 1000 players.
- Peer to peer networking.
- Voice integration, aswell as integrated support for TeamSpeak and Ventrillo.
- One side per server.
- 'Clan'/Outfit based gameplay.

umm, to the above poster, your definition of MMO isn't 100% accurate to the name. All you have to know is that the game is never reset and that it's a persistent world. 100 players could be an MMO and it wouldn't matter much, it would still be an MMO if the game world was persistent.

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Original post by Sirisian umm, to the above poster, your definition of MMO isn't 100% accurate to the name. All you have to know is that the game is never reset and that it's a persistent world. 100 players could be an MMO and it wouldn't matter much, it would still be an MMO if the game world was persistent.

This definition of "MMO" always makes me go "WTF?". Let's say 2 players play in a persistent world, what part of this game is "massively multiplayer"?

I suppose one could point out that it's not the game's fault if only 2 people play when it's designed for 10^6 players, but then I could just have easily said:
Let's say 2 player play a 2-player game in a persistent world, what part of this game is "massively multiplayer"?

I would say it's your definition that isn't 100% accurate to the name. However, there's definitely a case for saying that "persistent world" is what the term has come to mean and is therefore the definition regardless of the actual words (like tremolo on an electric guitar or vibrato on a guitar amp). I think it could also be argued (though I disagree) that a persistent world is implied by (though not the definition of) a game being massively multiplayer in that persistence increases the number of players one can meaningfully interact with.

Oh sorry, yeah it definitely has to have over say 64 players, I was just pointing out the persistent world thing. Sorry I thought I said that when I said 100 players. Should have clarified. My bad. :( I just don't see an MMO usually in the sense that someone sets up a lobby server and tons of players join. However, I believe that can happen, and it would still be an MMO. Also yeah obviously the game has to be able to hold a large amount of players.

It is interesting to analyze what we have come to desire in the MMO, the positive stereotype per se.

This persistence... we want to share a common history with an online group? We want to leave a legacy (i.e. Leroy Jenkins)?

The persistent game is analogous to the whole digital world in that information is (almost) never destroyed. You do something, and it forever after has an effect on the world/game.

Yah, 64 is a little small a number. But for an instanced quest area, where likely only your own party will be, is it still to small?

Has anyone played Guild Wars who can say how many folks could be in the instanced areas on that at any one time? I think it was just your party... I only ask because that was referred to as a MMORPG yet seemed to be very different to more traditional ways of managing players.

After a quick search I got some info on Guild Wars from here: http://gw.warcry.com/index.php/content/ff4.php

Towns - "...where you hang out to chat or to conduct business such as shopping or upgrading armour."
Outposts - "...where the business at hand is heading into the playing fields. People in outposts are usually getting ready to go on a quest with their party or guild, or they may make up smaller groups looking for additional party members, or individuals seeking a party for that mission."
Instanced missions - "which come in two types: player-versus-monster and player-versus-player."

So if the MMOFPSRPG equivilent of towns and outposts were no fire zones, you could likely have a tonne of people running around to talk and trade with, and show off to. There's no combat, so that has to drastically reduce the information needed to be transferred around (not programmed one, natch, so just speculating here).

Then when you have your party together, you hop in your helicopter, or APC, etc. and get taken to the instanced mission area where you could be fighting against NPCs, or facing off against other players, or even working with other squads (parties) against NPCs.

Now I can't stop thinking of possible missions. o.O;

Guild Wars only had an MMO lobby server. The economy was persistent and that was about it. It's like if Diablo 2 had it's lobby server where you could walk around, and when you left town you were loaded into your own map. The only thing that made Guild Wars stick out a lot was that and the large scale PVP ability, which is comparable to WoW's.

Has anyone heard how Huxley handles their 120 max player thing. Is it town based or something? I haven't heard much.