Where is the "Massive" in MMORPG?

It might look somewhat small, but the EVE Online Universe contains over 5000 Solar Systems. Most of those systems possess space stations, asteroid belts, and so on. It is huge-- I once planned a trip of about 40 "jumps" (the solar systems are connected by jumpgates) which wound up taking the better part of a Saturday morning.

EVE Online is one of the first shardless MMOs-- definitely the first I am aware of. What this means is, every single player in the game plays on the same server, regardless of location, language, platform, and so on. There is one exception to this, the Chinese server, however I am fairly certain that is due to PRC policies, and not how CCP would wish it.

This is a huge leap forward. MMOs most of us know are all split into separate servers, or 'Worlds'. What this means is that everyone playing the game is in a closed off system from many many other players. If you see someone else on a general forum for the game, there's a good chance that you can't meet them in game. More importantly, though, having multiple worlds makes it nearly impossible to truly have a story in an MMO.

How can I say that? MMOs have a story! But, the thing is, they're offline stories. They're no different from the RPGs we've been playing for decades. They are not games where you role play, online, with many other players. You storm the castle, beat up the Big Boss, and rescue the princess. There is no continuing storyline, no living world. No way that your actions as a player can make a difference. Sure, you and your nation/guild could capture that bit of land, and have that part of the map covered with your color for the week, but that's not going to change anything.

This is where EVE online is different. The storyline matches the world-- it is massive, it involves everyone, and it is dynamic. In one storyline I remember, a news account was posted of a riot on some mining colony. Not too long afterwards, another news account came of one nation sending an aid convoy to help. The only problem was, the colony wasn't in their space. These ships actually showed up in the game, and were destroyed by RPers who didn't think it was right of that nation to intrude. This changed the storyline to go with that. Of course, the potential for the NPC convoy to be destroyed was almost certainly anticipated, however that does not change the fact that players were able to impact the storyline. There were numerous other incidents I can remember of some news item happening, and players that just happened to be around getting in on the action.

There's just one problem. EVE isn't really all that much fun.

So why haven't other MMOs tried this? EVE online has one huge advantage: Space. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you might think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. If EVE online runs out of space, they can add more. It's little hassle-- rig up a few space stations, some asteroid belts, connect it to some of the more popular areas, and there, people now have more space to spread themselves through.

That's not so easy in a fantasy world. EVE online has very little non-random level design, a land game that was generated randomly would likely end up either very boring, very hard to navigate, very glitchy, or some combination of the three. You could start by randomly generating them, and then give them a bit of human TLC, but that would still take a huge amount of work to make something this plain big function.

A randomly generated planet would make for an amazing game world. The problem would then be to populate it. Which is where I go back to EVE's storyline-- I believe I mentioned something about players being able to colonize space. In EVE, in low security regions, players are free to set up POS-- player owned stations-- around moons. These can be armed, equipped, and so forth. They can also be destroyed by rivals, although not without one hell of a fight. One must wonder if giving players even more freedom in where and what to build would cause them to spontaneously produce virtual cities-- especially if the game is started with none or extremely few at all. People would need transportation, equipment, and item goods, and the size and importance of cities could depend on that. Trade routes (run by players, of course) would depend on where cities sprung up.

There are so many possibilities and options to make a truly massively multiplayer online world. EVE and Second Life have gotten close, but how long will it take before someone pulls it off? Darkfall looks interesting, but it also looks like vaporware, and seems to have a very definite limit to the amount of people that can be on a single world (thus, ruining the illusion.) CCP is working on a new MMO, although I (and everyone else) know practically nothing about it. All I hope is that someone does, and soon.