[outworlder]

400k+ active players IS a huge number. Specially considering they are in the same logical server. Other MMO's handle this by having copies of the world and splitting the population - which is the same approach used by Ultima Online back in 1997.

So actually, EVE is way ahead of the rest, technology-wise.

[incision]

>So actually, EVE is way ahead of the rest, technology-wise.

That doesn't seem like a sensible comparison considering how much the gameplay of EvE differs from the typical MMO.

In any case, I'm not making a dig at EvE, rather acknowledging that the game has had a long life and has never been a multi-million subscriber behemoth. Therefore, they might make concessions, or allowed the persistence of previous limitations / decisions in design/infrastructure for lack of resources [1][2].

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135873

2: http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/28/eve-evolved-eve-onli...

[Goronmon]

That doesn't seem like a sensible comparison considering how much the gameplay of EvE differs from the typical MMO.

The "typical" MMO doesn't even try to handle large populations. The use of separate servers, population caps and login queues are how just about every one else deals with congestion problems.

Even from your second link there is the quote "Working with IBM, the EVE server cluster is maintained in London and is currently the largest supercomputer employed in the gaming industry." Sure that is from 2008, but newer MMOs are built using the same overall server architecture you saw back in the days of Ultima Online.

[vacri]

400k subscribing users is a great big pile of cash to work with.