Number of players per server/shard/region

[Vladplaya]

This is pretty important question to me, as too many players can make the game feel over crowded, and too few players might feel to boring. But than again I rather have more people than less, because been an online game, half of the fun comes from interaction with fellow players, and when you have a lot of people around, you can pull off some seriously entertaining shenanigans lol

I don't know if Mark had thought about this yet, but what do you guys think is a good amount of players that can play together in the same sever at the same time?

Originally FireFall wanted to have up to a thousand players, but if I remember correctly the final number was about 500, and I am not even sure if it could support that after all. But in the beginning the number of players felt pretty good, you could see people running around and doing their own things here and there, and cities were sorta well populated. But I never really felt like I was bothered by too many people (except for the thumping spots, which makes since)

What do you guys think?

 

[NitroMidgets]

I like people but there are times when I just want to be alone in a game. I know, contrarian of me.
With too big of a population you end up with the issues we had in Fireturd (at the beginning) where it was hard to find resources due to people already being there. That said, it would be nice if there was still enough people to be able to get a good group together when out in the wilds.

 

[SSH83]

Traditional shard would create really bad problems for everything Ember is trying to achieve. IT NEEDS TO DIE.

Instead, the game should do it more like Eve Online or No Man Sky.

Every player is in the same mega-universe, and each planet can be a server with its capped. This way, when the game grows, new players are not just in a awkward reset-universe separated from their buddies who got them into the game. New players are not fighting some kind of login-queue hack just so their veteran player doesn't have to restart in a brand new server with a brand new character. When there's a world-changing event, you're not going "oh? which server?"

 

[NoahDVS]

Traditional shard would create really bad problems for everything Ember is trying to achieve. IT NEEDS TO DIE.

Instead, the game should do it more like Eve Online or No Man Sky.

Every player is in the same mega-universe, and each planet can be a server with its capped. This way, when the game grows, new players are not just in a awkward reset-universe separated from their buddies who got them into the game. New players are not fighting some kind of login-queue hack just so their veteran player doesn't have to restart in a brand new server with a brand new character. When there's a world-changing event, you're not going "oh? which server?"

Keep in mind that no man's sky is single player and EVE isn't even a shooter. UE4 can support large open world maps, but don't expect magic. I'd personally like to see player owned servers with support for server plugins/mods that can change the gameplay. I wouldn't mind it if progression wasn't linked between all servers either so everyone starts fresh when they join a new server.

 

[Vladplaya]

@NitroMidgets I think resource hunting and gathering just needs to be thought out better than what it was in the FireFall, as it created a lot of hostility and was pretty unfair to anyone without a group or clan. Just few people could run around and scan half of the world in minutes. So yeah lower population would have helped with the problem but it would be more of a bandaid as it is not a solution to the root of the issue. Such discussion should probably be in its own topic, but I think so many things are still up in the air, it's hard to say how similar systems will function in Ember.

@SSH83 No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game, and although the universe is same for everyone, people don't actually play together.
And believe me, I would love to have a game where everyone can be in a single world, but stuff like that is very limited by technology and game design.
Eve can totally get away with it because the game and info that servers transmit is relatively simple compared to a shooter game, and they don't really have a physical world where players can be jumping, gliding, hide etc, Eve it's just a lot of empty space, again very little info needs to be transferred about it. And even then, large battles in eve are still mostly slide shows, and it only works because it's tab targeting.
In Ember you can't have a situation where say 500 players come together into a single town, all with different customization, weapons and whatnot, and start using abilities and AI on top of that. That shit is going to deteriorate so fast it will be crazy, in best case scenario where all of that won't crash it still will not be acceptable for a shooter.

 

[Luisedgm]

As many people as the engine/servers can support should be the answer