[General Discussion] Should Online Multiplayer games be Big or Small?

You know, it largely depends on my mood, and the game. For some games, it's better to have smaller maps, for others larger maps work great.

For example, FPS games often do better with smaller maps (but not the type where you're locked in a small building where people just camp spawn points), simply because if it's hard to find people to fight, then it gets dull after a while. Even on Planetside, for example, the game is actually only fun when you run into enemy forces. Otherwise the landscape is dull and boring, because there are absolutely no NPC's to deal with (other than player-laid turrets which fire on you, but I mean like NPC guards or something), and with no opposition, taking over places is easy, but at the same time boring, because it's a lot more fun when you have to fight your way, earning each room your side is fighting on (but this can also work in being counterproductive as well, such as if you're ridiculously outnumbered, particularly if you're the assaulting force).

Fantasy games tend to favor larger battles. I could go with World of Warcraft, but to be honest, their PvP system blows. It's essentially a fantasy version of deathmatch or capture the flag, and you have to wait in a queue in order to fight. Which means you could be waiting for a long time sometimes, either because a lot of people want to PvP, or because you don't have enough people who want to PvP (you have to have the same number of people per side to enter the battlegrounds, otherwise you wait).

You can just attack enemy territory, but it's not very fun, because all you're doing is picking a fight so that the other guys bring their people out. But it just doesn't feel very fun after a while, again, if you're ridiculously outnumbered.

A better example of this would be an increasingly obscure game called Dark Age of Camelot. In this game, they seperate the PvE lands (where you fight against monsters) and the PvP lands (where you can fight other players), so that the kind of low level griefing you find in other games isn't as prevalent here. There are three factions in this game, called "realms"; all are hostile to each other, so it's not uncommon to find yourself in 3-way battles (hopefully you don't get teamed against by the other two though lol. But if your side's been kicking ass, don't be surprised if the other two sides form an unofficial alliance against you, which is perfectly "legal" in this game).

Anyway, in the PvP lands, you can take over towers and castles (which all have NPC guards, and how tough they are depends on the level of the building). Taking them over not only gives you bragging rights, but gives you access to one of the best dungeons in the game, Darkness Falls (although this is considered a PvP zone, so don't be surprised if high level stealthers gank your lowbie while trying to level in here).

Each keep you take ultimately lets you assault a relic keep. Relics are special items which, if your realm captures it, provides your own realmmates with more melee or magic power (you get 10% for holding your own, as well as an enemy relic, 20% boost if you hold both enemy relics). This is really hard to pull off, because you need massive coordination between a lot of players (up to 150 or so, most I've ever seen), to have them assault various keeps to keep the defending realm confused as to where your main attack really is, and to spread their forces out.

Often, when the defenders know that their relic keep is ultimately in danger (because they failed to repel the attackers from taking over towers and keeps), they often gather there, in a last ditch effort to repel the attackers. If they're successful, the attacking army often loses too many people to continue the assault (although the reverse could be true as well, the defenders get tired of dying all the time. And by "losing numbers", I mean they die, and then decide to log off, not literally disappear forever). I've seen relic assaults and defenses that have taken upwards to 6 hours or so, and have participated in both aspects, so it can be quite exciting.

And when the third realm comes in, they can dramatically shift the favor and turn the tide. This often happens because for example, one realm become very dominant in PvP, and those guys are sick and tired of it, so they help out the attackers in taking the enemy keeps and attacking enemy forces, while largely leaving the other army alone, forcing the defending realm into a 2 on 1 battle and spreading their forces even thinner (this happens quite often actually, and again, it's not "illegal", it's a legitimate tactic. If two sides were losing to the same enemy, I'm sure they'd team up for at least a little while to knock the stronger guy off his high horse for a while).

For all this "positive" stuff though, it's got its drawbacks too. Like planetside, if your side is ridiculously outnumbered, PvP often won't be very fun (for example, if you're just a group of 5 people, and then while attacking a group of 8, another enemy group of 8 hits you from behind). Since this game is losing a lot of people (mostly because of expansion packs, in this case, specifically Trials of Atlantis, that altered the course of PvP too heavily into powergamers favor by giving out items that can give them an extra edge over others who didn't have as much time to invest into the game to achieve the item). The developers have been trying to address this issue ever since, but I think they're a little too late to stop the bleeding they caused.

The PvE aspect also blows in this game. Very few classes can solo well, unlike WoW, where every class could solo if they wanted to, and the leveling grind hurts if you're not in a good group (if they advertised their game more so that more people would try it out, that could help the small population issue).

Going back to the original point of this topic, it's got a fun PvP aspect, but to get there, you have to do a lot of PvE (player vs. environment, again, fighting monsters). Small numbers mean that it's hard to level (unless you have a good soloing class. But as a rule, classes that do well in solo PvE often suck in PvP).

LOL, sorry about talking about so much specifics in one game. But as you can see, it can be really fun, if only they had more people in the game so that the PvP could be almost nonstop (you can just run around there ganking people in a small group, but again, it's hard to find people unless they're out defending their frontiers, or attacking yours).

Jam it back in, in the dark.