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I was speaking, not in terms of being able to technically handle a large number of users, but rather, in terms of the experience offered.
You're simply deal with different types of issues with higher populations than you do with lower populations. I'm sure, with your great amount of experience across diverse games you'll agree. Depending on the size of a population, group dynamics change.
The types of systems, the types of events, and your customer service policies ... these things all change. And they're not a simple thing to change either.
During it's years of growth between it's time on GEnie (with about 50-100 simultaneous users) and it's time on AOL (with 1,000 - 3,000 simultaneous users) the primary focus HAD to be modifying the game to handle so many users. Certainly work had to be done on core mechanics and hardware so that the game didn't crash constantly ... but moreover, policy changes went into place ... not just for players, but for staff. Systems in the game had to be adjusted to account for so many more users. Techniques for how events were run had to be modified. And so much more.
There is a lot more to making a game fun and playable than making sure it runs. You must agree with me there.
The changes took YEARS of time even with an army of dedicated Immortals (we call them GMs), and a dozen or more full time employees.
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I'm working on a modification to my blurb, which I honestly believe is truthful, but heck ... I'm flexible, and it won't hurt me.
However, I do firmly believe that "massively multiplayer" games are different.
Melissa
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