What’s an MMO?

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An MMO is a game played over the internet by many people simultaneously. It can be played on different devices and supports a huge number of players. MMOs have one or more online worlds where people meet and play, and are spread across different servers to handle the large number of players.

A massively multiplayer online game (MMO) is a game played over the Internet by hundreds, if not thousands, of people simultaneously. It differs from traditional one- or two-player games in both scale and method of play. By definition, an MMO supports many players — while it is possible for only a few to play at the same time, MMO systems typically have hundreds or thousands of people playing at the same time. When this type of game was first created, it could only be played on a computer using an internet connection, but that changed as gaming systems advanced. Many MMOs have one or more consistent online worlds where people meet and play.

An MMO is any game that can support a huge number of players simultaneously, regardless of genre. Small MMOs usually host hundreds of players, while larger ones can host thousands or even millions of people at once. Having so many people playing at the same time can slow down processing: loading each player’s character and character’s clothing, actions, conversations, and movements takes a lot of memory, so most MMOs are spread across different servers. Each server will typically host a small segment of the entire player base.

Connecting so many people through a single gaming system would be impossible, because the resources required for this task would be unprecedented. Instead, MMO games rely on the internet to connect players. Most MMOs will also only allow one person to play per computer or game system at a time, so households with more than one player wanting to play the game at the same time will need more than one system.

In the early days of MMOs, only computers could be used to play games, because they were the only devices that had access to the internet. As gaming systems advanced, many also got access to the internet. The computer is still the most common system for playing MMOs, although these games can now be played from many different platforms.

Most MMO games feature one or more coherent worlds where everyone can meet, chat and play. While most MMOs have players starting in the same area, some have different starting points. This is usually based on the character type created by the player, but can also be randomly selected by the game.




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