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As demonstrated by Planetarion (wikipedia link), Dominion and various other similar games where your planet, kingdom etc. is represented by a webpage(s) of numbers and stats. These games have everything they need to be called an MMO and the ones which have player characters in them (instead of planets or dominions) are fully fledged MMORPGs.
A lack of a world does not unmake an MMORPG and a "true MMORPG" (if you insist such a thing exists) does not need a world nor does it need to be a world simulation.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Comments
Sure you're just not poking the hornet's nest, hoping for the angry buzz?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Wheels are not required for a bicycle.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
wheels are for casuals
http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/HbtC/star-wars-hover-bike-becomes-reality-0.jpg?20120822-165633
Pi*1337/100 = 42
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Merely, trying to burst a few bubbles. If someone gets upset it is because their ingrained views are being questioned. And people don't like that. Still, if you can point out where they are wrong, shouldn't you do that?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
More single player console mentatlity whorshipping the linear dog leash games that have plaqued the industry far too long.
Thank god a few dozen sandboxes are coming along to debunk this. Dont know about you, i prefer more from my mmo and the things i can do in them.
i dont agree.
so by your standerd any game with an online function can be considered an MMO?
because alot of people can play it online? if you dont have a persistant world then my friend what you have is a online game not an MMO, You could refer to browser games like PA and tribal wars as MMO´s but lets keep them at browser games shall we?
My suggestion is that you decouple MMO from MMORPG. MMORPG has too much baggage and too many preconceptions around here to make for a constructive discussion. Also, I'm assuming you mean 3D world wehn you say "world" correct?
An MMO exists in a virtual worldspace. That virtual worldspace or virtual community can exist in text, 2D or 3D form. Omega Day, Travian and Die2Nite are just as much an MMO, if not more of one, than most of the mainstream 3D MMOs are.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
MMO in that sense is nothing more than descriptor of how many people play certain game. Which I guess is right now.
I've been playing this kind of browser games like around 10 years ago. If we start calling that kind of games MMO's (or MMORPG's when there is personal character you play) then we need more subgenres created, because "world simulation" mmorpg's and those games have very little in common.
Anyway - I am all for it. Just need subgenres. MMO and MMORPG desciptor grown way too big anyway and lose their 'genre' desciptive function.
MMO nowadays is like saying game is Single Player or Multiplayer. Does not bring any knowegedle to player aside of how much players can play with themself at once at same time.
Same with MMORPG where 'RPG' part is used just in most basic sense that game have some kind of statistics attached to personified being and more than half of games nowadays have something like this. Afterall EvE Online and GW2 have practically nothing in common, not more than in example Prototype and Morrowind and yet they are placed in same genre and Prototype and Morrowind are not.
Detach 'virtual world rpg games' into separate genre from mmorpg's and then it will be easy to call non 'world'' games an mmorpg without much resistance.
Who'd a thunk it.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I agree.
I've seen more role playing in games like Imperial Conflict, and Astro Empires than I've seen in world of everclone games. Speaking of which I've been seeing more MMO there to.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
World as in it exists and functions without player input or presence. MMOs do not need that. In Planetarion's case the game is the environment, but there is actually no world in the game. As much as chess has a world - sort of.
And I agree, people attach way too much baggage on the term - each one something different.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
And yet, people like to make a distiction when one small detail changes here and there. For example, in another thread, if it is something is scripted or determined by game engine - even if the end result is exactly the same. Or this one small detail of being instanced, when otherwise the two games play exactly the same.
Rather, don't sweat about genres and definitions. Let them be broad strokes, because they're only useful that way. Sort less, play more.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
But there is a world in Planetarion. The planets, factories and asteroids all exist in a persistent state world even though that world environment is not readily visible.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
good philosophy
Doesn't Planetarion have a world though? It's the space out of which you're stealing asteroids and such. You can't see it, but it's there. When you get down to it, the "world" is really just a space shared by players, that they all interact in. It doesn't matter how you represent that space, so long as it exists. Obviously, it works perfectly fine being represented as statistics on a webpage.
** edit **
Loktofeit got there first.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Correct world is not needed. All that is need IMO is a lot of players playing together. However, I would like to see more where they spend more time on the world. Most games now are very light on the world aspect so why not make one that has a heavier focus in the area? Some people don't care for the world aspect. Others like myself want my mmorpg to be a virtual world. Basically, I played/DMed pen and paper games for a long while, and still do to this day. All the games I have ever played in have been a world ( I have always ran my campaigns in a homebrew setting). I sort of like the same thing in an mmo. I don't want everyone to be a hero. It makes no sense for me. I enjoy being able to RP about what has happened in-game. That isn't really currently possible. Now you have a situation where you mention an accomplishment you have a ton of me toos so RP is based soley upon the story that we craft for the character. Not really my thing. I like to come up with the background, and let the game dictate from there. Hasn't really been possible for a while now in games.
Genres and definitions are by definiton (pun intended lol) ideal models that rarely if ever present in actual world. Still they are here and are created by people because that how human mind works and because it is actually needed to save time.
Civlization and Mortal Kombat are descirbed diffrently and put into diffrent genres because it does help player to make a decision. With thousands of games it is needed.
MMO(and mmorpg) word(s) now has diffrent meaning that it had 10+ years ago and it will lead to creation of new (sub)genres and desciptors. Whenever you like it or not. Only question remain is how long that will take.
MMORPG?
and thats why i think calling browser games and the likes an MMO is a bad idea, MMO is too broad of a generelization wich would include every game with an online function. heck fps's could be defined as an MMO then.
You cannot throw browser games and fps and all other games with an online function into the MMO pool, it gets very messy.
Let fps stay fps, browser be browser and keep MMO for persistant online worlds.
Never trust wheels.
A persistent world is not required.
It sure would be nice though.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.