Russell Williams, the CEO of Flying Lab, who produced the MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea sent <a href="http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10014&Itemid=2>an email to Next Generation[/url] about the recent merging of Pirates' servers, blaming interdependent game systems as the root of the problem.

Pirates’ gameplay is very organic, designed in such a way that the different systems feed into one another. In a PvE-only game, focusing mainly on content, this isn’t a big deal. But in Pirates of the Burning Sea we have systems that require a minimum number of players to function correctly, such as our economy, and they break other systems if they’re not working correctly (such as PvP). If we didn’t have these kinds of interdependent systems, we wouldn’t even be considering server merges.

On Ralph Koster's blog, a member of the Ultima Online development team and former creative director and Chief Creative Officer of SWG, he comments on the email, saying at one point,

The lesson to be drawn, perhaps, is “don’t make heavily interdependent systems.” But that lesson kind of sucks, because there is so much interesting gameplay and design territory out there in player interdependence land. Player economies, guilds, player towns — all fail if there isn’t a certain size there. No entertainers in the (old-school) SWG cantina, and the whole combat experience fell apart. No combat guys out there by the harvesters and the crafting system could fall apart (though there was never a shortage of combat guys). And so on.

This type of thinking doesn't bode well for STO, where the game will potentially need to balance out economy, leveling/skillset system, player housing on both planetary and ship/bases, plus a robust space-based and ground-based gameplay. Here's to hoping the new developer doesn't heed these doomsday scenarios.

Plus, given the fact that STO players will likely be more social than most, these systems will hopefully stay populated and not result in the game's demise.

I couldn't agree more, Dracus. We are essentially playing the Super Mario Bros. and Contras of the MMO era. Like with the early game environment, changes in thinking about how to make MMOs must be made in order for the genre to grow.

This is still the infancy of interactive entertainment, and growing it is important, but will only come when there is a change in how developers approach projects from the beginning, not in large changes after a game is produced and released.

An interesting warning.  I have multiple answers, especially when it comes to STO.  Two steps that can be taken to alleviate this effect:

1) Fewer Servers (like, maybe 1)
With space so large, it's really not inconceivable to populate space with a million player characters.  The tech behind it may need to be tested out since that's unprecedented, but it hardly seems impossible, especially if common areas like Earth are large enough and content is progressively generate, eliminating the 'development time' barrier to massive servers.

2) NPC Fill-ins
Your crew is full of NPCs doing jobs meant for low level players.  They're not as good as players, but they keep the ship together while you worry about the weightier matters of diplomacy and fleet organization.  If there is a space that needs to be filled, let an NPC do a half job.  In all of the above examples, suitable NPCs would have propped up the interdependent systems.

alternately:

3) Worry about it later
This is only a problem when the playerbase wanes.  Until then, let the good times roll and just leave flexibility to implement the solution later.

I don't think a Trek game can really capture the Trek spirit without having interdependent systems.  It's hardly a universe of soloers out there.