Update, June 2: Added more details on the giant avatars.
If you're wondering how well last weekend's stress test went in ScavLab, the sandbox testing platform in Scavengers, take a look at this fairly jaw-dropping video featuring excerpts from the event. A rep with Improbable, which provides Scavengers' server architecture, tells me they racked up 4,144 peak concurrent players in the same space.
Which is a pretty incredible number -- previous virtual worlds/MMOs can typically handle 50-120 locally concurrent users (often with a lot of lag), and several hundred users on the high end. If the test can consistently hold up as a benchmark for average consumers, this represents a massive leap in single-shared virtual world technology.
Oh yeah, the titan-sized avatars you sometimes see moving through the scene?
"The giant avatars are the developers (including Improbable CEO Herman Narula)," Dave Scarborough of Improbable tells me. "They were able to communicate and interact with the crowd."
Which is an impressively immersive way to handle virtual world appearances by major figures. (Rather than simply appear via broadcast video or VOIP.)
"It allows the team to build a much more intimate experience with players by actually playing the game with them," says Scarborough. "By being in the world with the players they can react quickly to unexpected reactions or results and can guide the event by being a focal point for players to rally around. The team also tell me that it's also a LOT of fun to be playing alongside the Scavengers community. It helps to build a healthy, collaborative relationship with the players."
Some might say it seems a bit hubristic, the world's creators striding into the world like demi-gods, but it's actually just following in the path of hip hop star Travis Scott, who pointed the way with his giant avatar hands.
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