SF-MMORPG boasts 6,000 pilots in a gigantic battle, but players seem rather frustrated

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The term MMORPG actually carries the promise of “huge crowds of players” hacking at each other in massive battles with thousands of fights. But the reality is far from that in 2023 in most games. Only in the MMORPG EVE Online do battles like this still happen today – like now in the X47L-Q system: More than 6,000 pilots are fighting there, the developers proudly call out. But the players are sobered.

How was it in the past with mass battles in MMORPGs? “Mass battles” were one of the defining characteristics of MMORPGs in the 2000s:

  • The game took place in the open free world – there were no limits on how many players could be in one pile
  • Different kingdoms often tussled over fortresses or relics, as in Dark Age of Camelot
  • In WoW there were legendary battles for the capitals. At key points in the open world, the Alliance and Horde lashed out at each other uncontrollably

    • For many, these massive battles involving hundreds of players were what defined “MMORPGs”: the “massive” and “chaotic.”

    What does MMO mean nowadays? Games as a service

    Battles became skirmishes and frays in MMORPGs

    How is it today? For many years, in most MMORPGs, these open world battles have disappeared. They have been replaced by “structured PvP”: players meet in a battlefield with groups of 10, 20 or maybe 120 players each.

    In most cases, it’s no longer a chaotic battle, but more reminiscent of a football game. Each side brings the same number of players, there are rules, it’s not that sprawling anymore.

    However, the industry still knows that many MMORPG players want such chaotic battles to return. That’s why “massive battles” were announced for games like New World, but in practice there was only sporadic evidence of this.

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    Why are there no more mass battles? Such battles with unlimited players have some disadvantages:

  • They are unfair – one side is often much stronger than another
  • They don’t match the player’s desire to be a great hero. Because for every Robin Hood, there must also be the third person from the left on the wall who is shot by Robin Hood with an arrow – and who wants to play that?
  • Mass battles are impossible on consoles because of performance limits. The games should look much worse graphically – nobody wants to take the risk
  • And even with PC games, the effect thunderstorm brings performance and gaming fun to its knees – The Elder Scrolls Online servers have been singing their lamentations about it for years

    • EVE Online boasts mass battle involving 6,000 pilots

    Where else are these battles? A single, relevant and well-known MMORPG still offers these mass battles today: the SF epic EVE Online. This is played without restrictions on a single large server and there are still battles with thousands of participants, which the developers also like to brag about.

    On March 12, the EVE Online Twitter account wrote: More than 6,000 pilots from 4 alliances would fight in the X47L-Q system.

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    As MMO site MassivelyOP knows, this is even bigger than the last “record battle” with 5,000 pilots, but the so-called “Massacre at M2-XFE” is smaller than the “FURY at FWST-8”. In which more than 8,000 people were involved.

    So it seems CCP is legitimately bragging about this mass slaughter on Twitter.

    The tough space tyrant in the MMORPG EVE Online throws everything away: “I’m not the scapegoat of the galaxy”

    What’s the catch? Many pilots wrote on Twitter that from their point of view this mass battle is nothing for CCP to brag about. Because the servers of EVE Online break down with so many games. And this despite the time delay, because in EVE the game time runs out more slowly when so many pilots meet:

  • A player says: It’s fun, but the servers understandably have serious problems.
  • Another says: In the case of “Breaking News”, CCP is at least right about the “Breaking” part: That implies that the servers are collapsing.
  • Others immediately call “Potato Server” or “Rip Server”
  • Another adds evilly: 6,000 people try to play EVE, breaking the previous record when 5,000 people tried to play EVE

    • CCP even promoted a Twitch account where players could watch the battle live…but even there, CCP’s behavior in resetting the battle was critical:

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    So you can see that even in the only MMORPG that still offers these mass battles today, they are very controversial. Apparently that would require technology and server performance that no MMORPG can currently muster.

    Too bad Herman Narula’s big plans are on hold:

    What became of the man who got $500 million and promised to build the MMORPGs of the future?

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