![]() The average unmounted run speed in most MMOs works out to about 14 miles per hour or 0.00625856 km/s, but most microwarpdrive-fitted ships in EVE move at between 1km/s and 2km/s, and the fastest interceptors break 7km/s. The size of the playable game world is thus the sum total of the space in all currently active grids and so changes throughout the day. I would argue then that the only playable space in EVE with content you can interact with is contained within grids. ![]() And since you can't actually stop your ship mid-warp, warping is essentially like watching an animation while you slowly teleport from one point of interest to another. We also have to ignore interstellar space when calculating the size of the playable universe. You currently can't enter the space between solar systems, so we can safely ignore the distance traveled by jump drives and stargates. Ships can move up to around 7km/s per second using standard thrusters, over 3AU/s at the peak of warp, and instantly from one system to another using stargates or capital jump drives. EVE is difficult to compare in this context, as it has three completely different methods of travel. If one game has a continent twice the size of another but spreads the same amount of content over it and lets you run twice as quickly, both game worlds are functionally the same size. When discussing the size of an MMO world, it makes sense to consider how quickly a player can move and where the content is. That means all of the empty space in EVE really is accessible, as you can technically interact with other players anywhere in a solar system. If another player warps to any point within 250km, he'll be close enough to enter the same grid and see you on his overview. When you warp to a bookmark in empty space, a grid is created centred on the end point of your warp. They exist at locations like stargates, stations, planets, and moons, but the interesting thing is that they're also created and destroyed dynamically. These areas in which objects can interact are called grids, and you can think of them as little bubbles of high-detail space in which battles and other interaction can occur. Ships in EVE need to be sent detailed information only on objects that are nearby, so a single solar system is divided up into lots of distinct areas, and ships within each area are only sent information on what's happening nearby. This simply means that the ships have entered the same area as you and show up on your screen and overview, but there's something complicated going on in the server that makes this happen. If you've ever been on voice comms for a fleet PvP op, you've probably heard one or more people mention grids or refer to enemy ships as being on-grid. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how empty space works under the hood in EVE Online and crunch some numbers to find out whether it really does have the biggest playable game world. With that and the relative difference in scale between EVE and land-based games, it isn't immediately clear whether EVE Online still has the world's largest playable MMO map. The New Eden star cluster is lightyears across, and its 7,699 accessible solar systems have earned it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, but can EVE's map even be compared to accessible landmass in a fantasy MMO? All of the space between stars is currently empty and inaccessible, and players warp between points of interest within a solar system without interacting with any of the space in between. Someone in the discussion will inevitably mention EVE Online, and that's when things get complicated. World of Warcraft's Azeroth turns out to be surprisingly small at an estimated 80 square miles, while World War II Online claims to have the largest MMO game map in the world with over 300,000 square kilometers (115,831 square miles) of playable space modeled as a half scale map of Western Europe. It usually starts with people breaking out infographics comparing the size of the various islands and continents in their favourite fantasy MMOs, and it escalates from there. MMO game worlds seem to be getting larger every year, and the debate over which is biggest frequently appears on forums and blogs.
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