"Most of your time would still be spent in instances, with a maximum of 25 players (40 if you go back in time - a case whre less massive was deemed more fun). And that's ignoring the problem of actually rendering that much stuff on the client."
you haven't played Eve Online have you? Its a game that allows you to play, on the same "shard", with hundreds of players on grid at the same time, fighting it out.
Any tech that puts the massive back into MMO is good - lately, its all been instancing and sharding. That sort of game isn't MMO enough to make it MMO. In fact, i've been hearing lately, people calling Diablo 3 an MMO. What a farce.
I always thought instancing and sharding were solutions to the social aspects of server overpopulation - it's not fun to do a quest when you have to wait for spawns, etc.
you haven't played Eve Online have you? Its a game that allows you to play, on the same "shard", with hundreds of players on grid at the same time, fighting it out.
Any tech that puts the massive back into MMO is good - lately, its all been instancing and sharding. That sort of game isn't MMO enough to make it MMO. In fact, i've been hearing lately, people calling Diablo 3 an MMO. What a farce.
Edit: oh, didn't you mentioned Eve already.