And yet… the large majority of the most successful titles out there segregate their playerbases without much problem and there they are. Chugging along just fine. When they die (and they will) and we stamp “Cause of death” on the form, I can’t help to think that “Couldn’t play with my friends” will be very low on the list.

The one big server is no worse for the game’s communities than the trend toward large servers.

Most of the other MMORPGs have gradually climbed up into the 10k-15k range for server populations and those sub-communities have (from my perspective) noticeably suffered as a result.

You bump into your friends more often in Champions Online, because anyone on your friend’s list is likely to end up in the same map instance. How often did I naturally bump into friends in WoW? If they were on my server, about the same amount as Champions, not less. If they were not on my server, I wouldn’t see them at all.

I made a lot of new friends when WoW started and the server pops were lower (less than 5k on most). Now? Most people I meet I’m unlikely to see again by just bumping into them.

I’ve come to the opinion that there are two good models:

1.) All one big server, ala Champions, EVE and (currently) Fallen Earth.

2.) Smaller, community-minded servers, possibly locale-based ala older UO servers where players choose their timezone.

I really dislike the system used by WoW, LOTRO, WAR, etc. where they run all their servers in one big datacenter for cost reasons, but try to balance large numbers of players without overcrowding on multiple server– It’s the worst possible formula for community.

Bring back smaller servers or go all out for the one-big-server!

However the cost for this is 1/2 a hackers job is done y so brazenly displaying EVERYONES account names ALL the time.

Though honestly I have gotten rather jaded on community. After starting games on one rp server after another, only to see them overrun in a year by the same non rpers taking over the forums and the chat. existing more to annoy and make noise than participate in any meaningful way. I used to run a server wide secret santa on the kirin tor server when it was smaller, rpers, non rpers, all participated and had fun. Now i can’t imagine doing that, it would never work. community? what community?

Personally I do not like those level based systems as a barrier for content anymore. Not at all. Sure, it might be the most simple solution to implement. But in terms of social gaming it’s bad game design imho. Level based systems do work well in solo games. But when you want to bring many players together in one virtual world it does more harm than good imho.

I think that EvE does a good job here. Even as a young pilot I was useful for my corp. Because a gang not only needs big bad ships. A gang also needs smaller ships for tasks like scouting or as a tackler.

The problem with WoW is that level n+1 obsoletes level n entirely. There’s really no more use for level n.

I blogged about this a few weeks ago. In one part of the post:

“But I think there are some pretty huge downsides, particularly in community. On other MMOs, each server developers its own sub-community of the game. Some tend to have more RP, or older players, or more hardcore raiders, or whatever. A culture evolves. Also, guilds and individual players can actually make a name for themselves. Becoming one of the best 10 weaponcrafters on a single server is not unattainable. But to be one of the top 10 weaponcrafters in the ENTIRE MMO might be.”