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Editorial
10/13/09 7:55 AM -
The Massive World of The Old Republic 
by fsanch
, posted October 13th, 2009 at 7:55 AM
By now, folks who've been following the game have had a chance to take in the latest Developer Dispatch from BioWare on the making of the planet Coruscant. Like many others, I was impressed at the six minutes of explanation detailing how the developers plan on making Coruscant meet the expectations of the players who are eager to get their hands on it and experience what it has to offer. The Coruscant presentation brings up an interesting point regarding the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and how large and massive Bioware plans to make the various areas of the game.
 


Don't get me wrong - I think the multi-level society BioWare is putting on Coruscant is a great thing and it will give players a chance to explore tons of architecture as they go through the game's story. However, Coruscant is simply one planet among the many we will see in The Old Republic. With an entire galaxy in front of us to potentially travel to, how many places will be too few? How many will be too much?

It's impossible to know how large of a subscriber base Star Wars: The Old Republic will ultimately retain, but this is something that must be considered when creating and establishing areas like Coruscant. Other MMOs out there have taken a bit of a hit for having too many areas, or instancing copies of the same area, which results in spreading the population too thin. It's an interesting balance, as BioWare must establish enough areas in the game to give the players a feeling of a "massive" world, but still be designed intelligently so as not to silo the community into segments that mess with the feeling of "multiplayer".

It appears that BioWare is aware that The Old Republic, with an established IP like Star Wars, needs to have areas reflective of the epic experience they want players to have. If Coruscant is any indication, they'll end up meeting expectations and then some. I'm kind of looking forward to future updates, to see how they plan on handling planets with other types of terrain. Still - I'm curious about what others might think about the world of SW:TOR and whether or not its scale should be larger (to create a more epic feeling of the Star Wars universe) or smaller (to encourage greater pockets of players and population density), after all, this is a world many of us will be spending a lot of time in.
 
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20 Comments
Comment by Svarteryttaren made on January 4th, 2010 at 1:31pm
Why not have some areas in "the pocket" for a fast update cycle after the subcriber population have settled a few months after launch. That way it will start out quite crowded and if it gets to crowded and also feels to small one could simple with a fast update make corousant a lot larger.
 
Comment by Logun made on December 31st, 2009 at 12:42pm
I do think its possible to make a MMO “TOO” big the worlds do need to feel alive with players and too large a game space can be a detriment to your game design. Hitting that just Big enough to feel epic to the players is a hard target to hit its easy to go overboard and end up with vast wastelands with nothing all that interesting happening.
 
Comment by Master Queequeg made on December 29th, 2009 at 2:08am
Personally, I'd like to see a HUGE scale for planets. If it becomes impractical, get a swoop, take a shuttle...they can always add faster travel speed. With massive environments the exploring experience will feel very real. Imagine Corussant, enormous...you can never possible explore it all in a lifetime...but your missions will send you to places that you would never have found. And expansion content could take place in already existing environments that you "might even know the place".
Or Tattooine, Endor, or other wilderness planet; some players would actually become master navigators through endless harsh terrain, know the secret paths...
 
Comment by MadMike made on October 15th, 2009 at 1:16pm
I really think they can make it as big as they want as long as the cities give people a reason to come back. You wont have a problem feeling like the game is muliplayer even if you have a huge world as long as the cities have everything you need people will always come to the cities and they will be packed.
 
Comment by Anubis made on October 13th, 2009 at 9:42pm
here's hoping that the sith can enter Coruscant
 
Comment by JoleeBindoFTW made on October 14th, 2009 at 1:38pm
Well, in WoW you can raid Orgrimmar as Alliance or Stormwind as Horde.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on October 13th, 2009 at 10:01pm
Only if my Republican(Republic Trooper) can land on Korriban! :D
 
Comment by Turel made on October 13th, 2009 at 7:04pm
Obviously, I think more is better in MMO space terms. I don't think its a matter of larger or smaller when it comes to player density, that is a matter of how they plan the social aspects of the game. So for example, lots of area to explore(and by default, exploring requires a large area) wont lower population density if the explorers, all come back to or stop and the one or two cantinas that are close by to them. Some areas of the game SHOULD seem to have a lower population; when I am running around on Yavin 4, a supposidly unpopulated and unexplored world, I don't want to run into anyone, for even a few hours unless it is by pure chance. On the flip side, I expect to find people haunting the local cantina.



So it all comes down to planning and location, and has less to do with the size of the worldspace.
 
Comment by JoleeBindoFTW made on October 14th, 2009 at 2:03pm
Yavin 4 *should* be deserted lorewise, but you cannot forbid people from exploring it. It can only be done the KotOR 1 way: planet not being accessible, excuse provided.

BTW, a quest to confront the Dark Side spirit of Exar Kun would be awesome. O.O
 
Comment by Turel made on October 14th, 2009 at 10:25pm
It doesn't have to be inaccessible, it just needs to be large enough and a terrain that keeps people separated. I don't want to "know" that the reason I am not running into people is because it is instanced or whatever, I want there to be some real reasons for it. I am not opposed to running into some other intrepid adventurers and rangers.
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 13th, 2009 at 5:58pm
I want Coruscant to be so massive that I get lost in it for hours the first time. That would be pretty sweet.
 
Comment by [Darth Hater] The Massive made on October 13th, 2009 at 2:35pm
[...] http://darthhater.com/2009/10/13/the-massive-world-of-the-old-republic/ [...]
 
Comment by fel made on October 13th, 2009 at 9:40am
Well the stupidest thing they can do is to have it on a single server. Not that they've said that, I think I saw somewhere that they would have a few in Europe, but to make a comparison with Champions Online: you don't feel like you're part of an MMO. I barely see anyone, and the game has roughly 4 zones...
 
Comment by JimtheJedi made on October 13th, 2009 at 11:39am
I think they should take the Guild Wars approach to servers, allow people to select what server they go to in a specific zone.
 
Comment by fel made on October 13th, 2009 at 1:11pm
Champions does that too, but every time I go somewhere it's a new "instance". I like the free roam world of WoW and LotRO
 
Comment by Lethality made on October 13th, 2009 at 1:11pm
Nooo... no splintering the playerbase. Guild Wars ended up being less of an MMO than Diablo.
 
Comment by Revix2k9 made on October 13th, 2009 at 3:12pm
Guild wars isnt a mmo , its a kiddie fake verison of mmos.
 
Comment by Boza made on October 13th, 2009 at 8:46am
In Damion Schubert's recent lecture during AGDC, he hit on this topic, while indirectly, as well. Here's the quote:

"Schubert drew a parallel to casinos, describing them as a massively multiplayer environment where 70 percent of the revenue comes from the single-player options, like slot machines. And even in that single-player environment, Schubert said casinos have been designed to feel smaller and more social, a lesson MMO games should take to heart."

While he was addressing the solo vs. group dynamic in his lecture, this quote seems to indicate that he believes an MMO should be massive in scale, but feel smaller in areas to make those areas of socialization important to players.

To me, he hit the nail on the head. MMO's should be massive, but they should also feel comfortable welcoming where they implement those social game mechanics we all love about MMO's.
 
Comment by Hewo made on October 13th, 2009 at 12:36pm
Hero engine can allow for many many many more players on one server than some of us were us to which should allow for bigger areas and no since of solitude.
 
Comment by Hewo made on October 13th, 2009 at 12:36pm
sense not since