Earlier discussions got me thinking. With a game like EQ or Morrowind where a character has a faction system with pretty much every NPC in the game, how is this information stored and used? I mean I know it''s a database but more specific. In Morrowind a player is on a faction system with each NPC separately. I can make only one person in a town hate me and the rest love me if I choose so I am assuming my character has some sort of data field that keeps track of my faction rating with each individual NPC in the game. In Morrowwind this can be done with nothing more than a lookup table with entries that range from 1 to 100. One entry for every NPC. In Everquest there are factions that pertain to entire groups. Killing 1 creature can adjust faction with many different groups. Very few creatures (if any?) are on their own faction alone. So given the thousands of players in the world and the thousands of factions, how then would this information be efficiently stored? I am assuming at this point, a lookup table would be too large and you would need a database. I''m just curious because the next step I see for MMORPGs is a faction system setup like Morrowind where players can choose which merchants they have the best relationship with as opposed to having to be friends with all of the merchants in a city because they are all on the same faction. I''m picturing a game where a high level NPC can have 100% perfect faction with the player and still say something like "I will not help you because you once beat up my brother across the world" Giving a hint to go across the world and beat up the brother for tattling...er..I mean raising faction with the brother. But in a MMORPG world where there can be thousands of unique NPCs and certainly thousands of individual players, how then does a game store and keep up with this information. I suppose the same question relates to inventory systems where a player is allowed to store tons of items in a bank. Just curious for info. Webby

MMORPGs all (afaik) use SQL server backends - they are multi-tiered systems, where game servers (and various other application servers - login and download servers for instance) connect to file and database servers which are on a private network of the game operator. The player only connects to the front-end servers (game, login, etc).

I doubt we''ll see player-individual NPC factions anytime soon in MMO*s. The amount of data would be devastating.

(My projects and ramblings...)

I agree that the amount of data would be devastating but I think we already have the computer speed to handle it efficiently, given it is coded efficiently.

Guess we''ll have to wait for EQ3 to find out

Will