I am currently debating on something and that is whether to go with Great Graphics or a High Player count.
At the moment I have at least 100 players planned in the design document for each Home server that the players can host.
BUT on the flip side I want great graphics
I cannot have the best of both worlds obviously because the amount of players + the graphics would crash the game.
What would you the Unity forums recommend?
Player count or graphics?
Without out knowing what the game is all we can do is guess.
Sorry…
I will post some stuff from the design document if that is ok.
Monsters Gods and Mortals
It is a first person Cooperative / Multi player Sandbox game that takes place during the ancient age. There is no story just a open sandbox that allows you to build, fight, slay monsters, raise animals, and tend to crops with other players. There are quests given by the NPCs that can affect your standing with various NPC’s / Guilds.
First person City Building and Resource harvesting
Dynamic Combat (Swords and Magic) and Bloody Deaths
A Tame able Land
Various Moon Phases ( Blood Moon, New Moon, etc. ) and Weather Phases (Storms, Snow, etc) will affect what monsters appear.
Quests given by NPC’s that can affect the standing with other NPC’s in turn can affect if a guild building can be built. (Builders Guild, Thieves Guild, etc.)
This is Just the Brief but I hope you understand where i am coming from 
Unless you’re close to finishing, you should have more important things to worry about
The player limit should be easy to change, and you can change the graphics whenever. It doesn’t affect game play.
Besides for all you know, your game could be easy on the computer and you can have the best of both worlds. Then again, it may be the exact opposite.
You speak the truth here.
I do have allot to worry about.
I really do not know why I posted this thread now… Other than to get an opinion
I guess we could all philosophy about everyones feelings towards the definition of what “great graphics” has to do with “player counts” - or what “great graphics” mean in general to any of us
you are falling into a classic trap that all people who never ever finish games fall into. You worry about what you have not even made.
The people who finish stuff worry about optimising what they have made.
Worry about the optimization later sounds easy enough.
Gives me one less thing to worry about.
Many people make their game with just placeholder graphics then add real graphics much later when they see the game works and is actually fun.
Your idea sounds similar to my Great MMO plan, but after a few years I decided to do something I can actually finish and am very happy I made that decision.
How do you know that lost of players + graphics will crash the game? PCs have a huge capacity these days. Multiple CPUs and several gigs of ram. You probably won’t even notice the extra overhead of a pc using one of its cores to stream data to the clients.
Does not compute.
Players (at least most of the time) will be Clustered together in groups. That is why i am saying that I cannot have the best of both worlds. So it is etheir that i go with simplistic Graphics and a high player count.
OR
Great Graphics and a lower player count.
SupCom (back in the day) had decent graphics. It measured units by the thousands.
WiC multilayer has 16 players - each controlling 4-6 units (and plenty of other effects e.g. aircraft from off-map dropping bombs) and had superb graphics.
There is no technical reason why you can’t have lots of units and awesome graphics.
I guess i am still used to working with the Unreal Development Kit.
I can see your point NPSF3000.
I am just that old Optimization person that wants the most bang for the buck. 
Is your game only going to be distributed on PC?
If so I’d place playability and game design first. Get in your max player count that you want.
Then after optimisation, test the game on a variety of setups, then allow the user to change their graphics settings.
If a player is on a really low spec machine, give them low spec graphics, but the important thing is to retain your game idea and its playability.
If they on a high spec machine, then present your game in all its glory.
Allowing users to customise the setup/performance gives them control and best of both worlds.
Your game kinda sounds fun Though bloody deaths make me a little queasy.
I don’t see what the conflict is between graphics and player count, because they’re completely different things. Player count is a problem for the server to synchronize all clients and process everyone’s inputs, as well as manage all those network sockets. Graphics, however, are strictly a client issue, because if you’re even remotely smart, you won’t be rendering graphics on a dedicated server because nobody will see them. To the client, another player is just another moving object with a lot of detail. In fact, as far as the client is concerned, there is no difference between 100 players and 100 NPCs.
Yes my game is only on PC only.
I would also like to thank you and everyone else on these forums that posted.
for helping dismiss a bad habit.
I guess that I should get back to development shouldn’t I?
Yes, what are you doing on the forums still???
ALWAYS FOCUS ON GAMEPLAY FIRST. Games that focus on graphics first lose their way. Changing art direction is very expensive, so once you have paid for art, you tend to want to use it, even if it doesn’t fit your design anyway.
Lots and lots of game designers have spoken about using paper-pencil to prototype your game. In your case, create a working client/server or whatever and focus on what makes your game fun. Then, as you built into your game, you will come to your own conclusion of what level of art is needed.
STARTING WITH GOOD GRAPHICS IS A SURE WAY TO FAIL.
Gigiwoo.
Yes,
I am quite familiar with this method (Pen and Paper game) method.
I know that just focusing on graphics is Bad for business.
Look at games such as minecraft - Games do not need great graphics to be a success.
Your game sounds very similar to wurm online, which I’ve recently been piddling with. If you’ve ever seen/played it, the graphics and animations are VERY rough around the edges.
Honestly…my friends and I have commented on it, then moved on. The GAMEPLAY is what really matters. What is there to do to keep people involved, that is entertaining?
If -I- were doing what you are, I’d get the core mechanics in first, the stuff that is really the foundation. Get it to the point where it’s fun to play. Let your friends play with you, and get feedback…is it still/really fun to play? If so, keep moving forward. If not, address that.