MMO question

I'm curious what is meant by selective multiplayer. Has there been any further clarification on this? If we are playing this game in the online multiplayer option, will SoTA be your standard style MMO, with servers that hold several thousand players, in a 24/7 persistant state?

 

People keep arguing what an MMO really is. Everyone will be on one "server" but it will be heavily instanced. So you can be in the same zone as someone but not see them right now. If you have friends playing, there will be ways to make sure you're in the same instance of the same zone.

 

Selective Multiplayer - (as primeribe has stated) is the ability for the game to place players near you that "fit" more into your play style

The biggest/more important criteria for selecting people in your instance will be a friends list

So for example if there are 100 people in the same hex(instance) and there are 20 people in the same hex that are in your friends list the game will make sure that you see them ... when you are guys are near one another (even if there are another 100 people there)

SoTA will be a persistent world

 

Selective Multiplayer is kind of like matchmaking. The world is dual scale: an overhead map with hexes you enter. Each hex will be an instance and you will be shuffled with other players. In Single Player Online you will be alone, but still see the effects of other players: their house, vendors, etc. In Friends Online you will only see your friends. In Open world you will be shuffled with friends, people you have met before and strangers: probably in that order of priority.

There will be one persistent world, or server, but the number of people will be filter based on the matchmaking. This is both to provide a realistic population of player (similar to how other MMOs use Shards), and to reduce performance requirements to a manageable level. It will be similar in function to other MMOs, but you will not have to worry about whether your friends have characters on a different server: they will flow between instances freely.

There is still a lot to be determined on its exact functionality, but that is the basic concept.

 

There are pretty much as many opinions on what a "standard style MMO" are as there are people on the forum. The whole 'how multi-player' is Multi-Player Online still seems to have a long way to run as we start to see how it works out in reality. The concept though is pretty clear as described above.

 

If you haven't seen it already, here's the article (and video) on Selective Multiplayer. If you play in OPO mode, it will feel like an MMO. The Selective Multiplayer Logic is simply a ranking and sorting system that looks at all players in the single persistent world and puts relevant players into your game. How it does that and what control you have over the logic in OPO is yet to be determined, but examples are given in the video I linked.

Also, there will only ever be many dozens to low hundreds of players simultaneously in your game. It is highly unlikely they will ever raise that to 1000+. This was recently reaffirmed by Richard in the recent $3M Celebration / Hangout.

 

I think of it kind of like Facebook. I have people who are on my friends list, and things they say show up on my feed. Facebook also make recommendations for people to add to my friends list, most based on friends of friends, but sometimes based on pages I've 'liked' and other people who have also 'liked' the same thing.

If you have friends on your list, if they are in an instance and you try to enter the same hex, the game will probably add you to the same instance as your friends. If you flag for PvP and your friends are not so flagged, you will probably be added to an instance for people who are flagged for PvP instead, so if you want to rendezvous with your friends, check with them on global chat (assuming there is such a thing) and coordinate flags.

There might also be a 'join' option in your friends list that would automatically reset your flags for you. If such a function isn't planned, it would be a good idea for the devs to implement such a function.

 

People keep trying to ascribe more to a MMORPG then it's meant to be.

At it's basic level to be an MMO there must be a persistent world, massively has never been defined so the size of the world really isn't relevant. As to multiplayer, that means there is more then one or 2 people online. People assume a game has to be like WOW numbers to be an MMO. That is completely untrue WOW is just one MMO out of many.
SOTA is a hybrid MMO as you can not only play OPO, but FPO would be multiple people online in a persistent world as well. Single player is the only mode where you don't have any other players to interact with.

 

Selective Multiplayer has the ability to act like a "standard MMO", but gives you more control over who you see in the game.

As long as you are Online (in any setting), you will have access to the Persistent World aspect of the game. Changes in the world via player housing or changes to specific Hexes/Scenes will be pushed to your instance of the game.

From there, the level of Online you choose will tell the SotA server whom and how many of whom you will see in the game.

Single Player Online: you will not see any other player characters, but WILL see their houses, vendors and so forth. Portions of the Storyline will put you into this mode automatically as needed.

Friends Play Online: you will see the people based on your friends list and (supposedly) their friends list(s). However it will be limited and will not go too far outside of those criteria.

Open Play Online: you will see people based on your friends list FIRST, then their list(s), then strangers who have like quests/goals active. Here is where you'll likely get some of the PvP-enabled quests (such as moving contraband items or finding those who are moving said items).

The number of other players you'll encounter will be limited more than in "traditional MMOGs", so you won't see a bunch of people spamming at the town bank as you would in other games. The idea is that the other players you DO see will have more meaning to your game.

 

Has there been any mention of *how* the friends list is defined ?

I fear that everyone of import will simply migrate to FPO mode, leaving the OPO mode to the l33t speakers and anyone (such as myself) who does not actually know anyone in the community.

Might not provide a very good first impression of the game to newcomers to the community, if all they see initially are the gankers and phreaks running around doing their thang.

 

I don't think there have been any specific details on how the friends list will be built. There's been some talk of importing external information such as from Facebook or other social outlets, but we'll see on that in the future.

I'm gonna assume that everyone will default-start in Single Player Online (assuming that noone chooses Offline) to get them going in game, then as they progress, information on the Friends List will be made available so they can expand to FPO and OPO.

As for who will play what, I think it will be a mix of every type really just depending on the player. I think even OPO will be limited in regards to the random l33t speakers and other problem players.

 

I am going to start, and hopefully stay in the full Multi-player mode, at least to begin with. I can always join a guild if its out of hand and find decent enough people to join in with, and of course to add Darkstarr/Lord British and the well known people to the friends list if possible before dropping to FPO mode.