Okay so imagine that somebody starts referring to cats as dogs. And they justify this by saying "hey, they're both pets right and it's just a label!"
So does this mean that we now all have to acknowledge that cats are really dogs just because some people decided to call them dogs? No...that's clearly stupid.
If most people are doing it .... we will be calling cats dogs.
That is the point. It is about common usage. It seems that there is little value to distinguish between LoL and LoTR, and hence both are MMOs in many website & industry categorization.
OTOH, there seems to a larger value to distinguish between cats & dogs. May be people care more about pets than online video games.
But the bottomline is this ... you can argue until you face blue ... but i (and probably many others) will just follow common usage. Good luck in changing that. If you do, i have no problem using a new convenient label.
But it's NOT common usage. It's just the usage that YOU like. And your reasons to justify it really haven't been that solid. I think the best you've come up with is that MMORPG.com lists games that are not MMORPGs (really????).
The majority of definitions of MMORPG include the fact that they have persistent shared worlds. I have provided you links to these. I have provided you the history of the term MMORPG. I mean if you google "MMORPG definition" the definition that pops up even indicates a persistent shared world. Does this really sound like the "majority" doesn't think an MMORPG has a persistent shared world??
I'm not sure what else to provide lol.
All I can say is, try to objectively look at the evidence here, and ask yourself who is being obstinate. Is it myself and others who have cited multiple definitions of MMORPG and provided how the term historically evolved from MUDs? Or is it you who claims that since Diablo is listed on MMORPG.com then it must be an MMORPG?
Everyone may start calling cats dogs, and lo they will be known as dogs. However our civilisation has defined cat as the descriptor for a feline animal that meows and does not bark etc.
Mmorgs are generally considered to have persistent online worlds where players interact with each other with avatars. mmorgs are not SP, and cats don't bark..
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Okay so imagine that somebody starts referring to cats as dogs. And they justify this by saying "hey, they're both pets right and it's just a label!"
So does this mean that we now all have to acknowledge that cats are really dogs just because some people decided to call them dogs? No...that's clearly stupid.
If most people are doing it .... we will be calling cats dogs.
That is the point. It is about common usage. It seems that there is little value to distinguish between LoL and LoTR, and hence both are MMOs in many website & industry categorization.
OTOH, there seems to a larger value to distinguish between cats & dogs. May be people care more about pets than online video games.
But the bottomline is this ... you can argue until you face blue ... but i (and probably many others) will just follow common usage. Good luck in changing that. If you do, i have no problem using a new convenient label.
But it's NOT common usage. It's just the usage that YOU like. And your reasons to justify it really haven't been that solid. I think the best you've come up with is that MMORPG.com lists games that are not MMORPGs (really????).
The majority of definitions of MMORPG include the fact that they have persistent shared worlds. I have provided you links to these. I have provided you the history of the term MMORPG. I mean if you google "MMORPG definition" the definition that pops up even indicates a persistent shared world. Does this really sound like the "majority" doesn't think an MMORPG has a persistent shared world??
I'm not sure what else to provide lol.
All I can say is, try to objectively look at the evidence here, and ask yourself who is being obstinate. Is it myself and others who have cited multiple definitions of MMORPG and provided how the term historically evolved from MUDs? Or is it you who claims that since Diablo is listed on MMORPG.com then it must be an MMORPG?
Maybe we should separate the terms MMO and MMORPG.
I know MMO was usually just short for MMORPG, but none the less, people seem to be using MMO as an umbrella term now, that includes much more than just MMORPGs.
I will just use whatever becomes the norm around here, don't have a horse in the race.
How is not common usage that this site listed D3 and Marvel Heroes under their MMO list?
How is it not common usage that gamespot & IGn and gaming site are talking about Marvel Heroes .. a game with NO persistent word, a MMO?
How is it not common usage that super data, and newszoo, two industry research firms, include LoL in the MMO category?
Let me make it simple .... when you get all the MMO website to delist marvel heroes, D3, LoL, DDO, GW1, and games without persistent world, and superdata & newszoo NOT to include LoL in their MMO reports .... then I will stop using the term as such.
Until then it is common usage despite what you opinion may say.
Originally posted by Bladestrom Orr massively multiplayer online that could also have rpg elements??? Personally I'm gonna call mmorgs football management games from now on.
If you get MMORPG.com, IGN, Gamespot, superdata and newszoo to use the label "football management games", i will be more than happy to follow suit.
How is not common usage that this site listed D3 and Marvel Heroes under their MMO list?
How is it not common usage that gamespot & IGn and gaming site are talking about Marvel Heroes .. a game with NO persistent word, a MMO?
How is it not common usage that super data, and newszoo, two industry research firms, include LoL in the MMO category?
Let me make it simple .... when you get all the MMO website to delist marvel heroes, D3, LoL, DDO, GW1, and games without persistent world, and superdata & newszoo NOT to include LoL in their MMO reports .... then I will stop using the term as such.
Until then it is common usage despite what you opinion may say.
I think it's really funny how in the very post you quoted I said that the fact that this site lists D3 as an MMORPG is in no way evidence that it is an MMORPG. And then you quote only part of that post and use that EXACT SAME argument again lol.
LoL is a MOBA, in fact it even coined the term MOBA. Just google "is LoL an MMORPG" you will get a bunch of pages back that all answer with a fairly resounding NO. Even Riot Games says it's not an MMORPG.
I think what you're not getting is that websites just want to appeal to their audiences. It's true that games like LoL and D3 have a lot in common with modern MMORPGs. So sites that cater to the MMORPG audience may list them because they know their audience likes them.
These sites are not "proclaiming" these games to be MMORPGs just by listing them. That would be like if you started to consider Jake Gyllenhal's coat a person because People magazine ran an article on it.
As for the research firms you listed...they are running reports on "MMO's" which are not necessarily the same thing as MMORPGs. I mean I guess you could consider "Farmville" to be an MMO if you wanted...it is massively multiplayer and online.
EDIT:
One more thing...if you click on the Diablo 3 area of this site...the genre info at the top even states it's an Action RPG. Whereas if you do the same with WoW it says MMORPG. So even this site doesn't think D3 is an MMORPG lol.
MMORPG.com moderators, and at the very least MikeB, have stated in the past that they list non-mmorpg games such as LoL and Diablo 3, as well as run news on them, because they are seen to appeal to the website's audience. It's not because they perceive these titles to be in any way an MMO.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
MMORPG.com moderators, and at the very least MikeB, have stated in the past that they list non-mmorpg games such as LoL and Diablo 3, as well as run news on them, because they are seen to appeal to the website's audience. It's not because they perceive these titles to be in any way an MMO.
MMORPG.com moderators, and at the very least MikeB, have stated in the past that they list non-mmorpg games such as LoL and Diablo 3, as well as run news on them, because they are seen to appeal to the website's audience. It's not because they perceive these titles to be in any way an MMO.
Hey, don't you go taking away half of Mr. Seldon's "evidence" that games like D3, WoT, LoL etc. are all MMOs. What's next? You're going to try and shoot Superdooperdata.com out of the sky. Come on now.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
MMORPG.com moderators, and at the very least MikeB, have stated in the past that they list non-mmorpg games such as LoL and Diablo 3, as well as run news on them, because they are seen to appeal to the website's audience. It's not because they perceive these titles to be in any way an MMO.
well .. so they classify them as such because a lot of others seem to think so .. and they are yielding to what is popularly believed (exactly where "common usage" comes from) as opposed to what they think.
So it is just a different reason to classify them in the list. So what? In fact, it is a good illustration that even though the site organizer think otherwise, because of common perception, they tend to use the common usage.
Great .. more the reason to classify them as MMOs.
In fact, isn't mmorpg.com going to cover more of the general RPGs? May be it is a response to the fact that the interests in traditional MMO is waning, and they should change and adapt to the new business realities.
But again, that is an issue not related to classification. But this topic is not about what MMOs "should" become (because there is no such thing) but about HOW to make MMOs more SP like, *IF* that is the intention.
... .and on that point ... let me add another discussion point ....
So far, there are very few character in the MMO world receives the care and development as in the SP world. Characters like Elizabeth in Bioshock, Emily in Dishonored, Triss in Witcher 2 .....
It would be fun to see better writing, better scripting, and more character development for NPCs in MMOs. The only game that have some is STO .. but mainly the characters were taken from the Star Trek universe where TVs and movies have done characterization for the game.
It's got nothing to do with "common usage", they just can't be arsed to make a separate listing for a few games. You'd basically be cut and pasting a whole bunch of data to host a new page that it's kinda not worth it, even if the cost is negligible.
Honestly, it's a much simpler problem than what you make it out to be.
EDIT: As for your new discussion point, the problem and answer is simple there too.
Development costs.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Development cost isn't simply budget. That's the most translated/simplified component addressable.
I mean Tomb Raider cost ~ 100 million and it has arguably some of the flattest personality to experience.
SWTOR has some good personalities stranded about in it, but a major issue is uniformity, especially when you're dealing with what would ultimately be a ton of NPCs.
Unless the game is rather literally made as a single player styled game where the breadth of the game is more focused, then you're going to butt against all the inevitable problems. Which is why other people beg the question 'Then why not just make that instead of an mmo?'.
The amount to which you have to tip the scale rests on a rather extreme end. It's a bit quirky, especially when one considers that you have to basically ignore almost all of the underlying framework that makes a game an MMO in order to pull it off, when we have yet to really push all the potential features that framework can provide into a game to see how it'd actually work or play out.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Unless the game is rather literally made as a single player styled game where the breadth of the game is more focused, then you're going to butt against all the inevitable problems. Which is why other people beg the question 'Then why not just make that instead of an mmo?'.
A very valid point. In fact, i always said TOR, and MH would probably be much better games if they are not MMOs. In fact, Blizz is moving away from MMOs. Destiny is a good innovative experiment of doing an non-MMO with some MMO trappings.
But the point is ... many devs are already making MMOs with SP experiences. Do you deny it? Now i wouldn't mind if they change their games into SP games ... but since they are not ... is there a reason why we should not even discuss how to make SP experiences better in MMOs?
Note that I am just talking about HOW it can be done IF a dev wants to do it. I did not say it SHOULD be done for all MMOs.
i would like to see a reintroduction of mortal combat or karate camp style skill combos with linkers like killer instict, thenyou could have player built combos that would be organic not cookie cutter.
if you don't like this thread you missed bill murray's welcome to rpg.com
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
Yes exactly. This was the main point of my thread about story not working with MMORPGs as well.
Trying to shoehorn an MMORPG style persistent world into what is essentially a single player story based RPG just doesn't work. You wind up with tons of problems. Some games try to implement lots of bizarre workaround systems like phasing and excessive instancing in an attempt to get around these problems, but I never think they really hit the mark.
I really think the best option is, like you say, not to attempt to make SPRPGs into MMORPGs at all. Just make them SPRPGs. And also like you say, implementing some MMORPG-esque features into an SPRPG is fine, even great sometimes. But there is no need to try to "force" an MMORPG style persistent world onto a game that really just wants to be an SPRPG.
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
The players writing messages, summoning, and invasions. Thought that was obvious lol .
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
The players writing messages, summoning, and invasions. Thought that was obvious lol .
Isn't that just regular multiplayer? Next you're going to say Journey has its roots in MMORPGs. Come on people! Don't go full retard...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
The players writing messages, summoning, and invasions. Thought that was obvious lol .
Isn't that just regular multiplayer? Next you're going to say Journey has its roots in MMORPGs. Come on people! Don't go full retard...
I think you're taking his statement to be more than it is. Saying Dark Souls has some MMORPG-esque features is like saying Call of Duty has some RPG features (the leveling).
This by no means implies that Dark Souls IS an MMORPG. But it DOES have features commonly found in MMORPGs like players communicating with other players without having to join another player's game and open world PvP. One of the main draws of Dark SOuls is that you never really feel alone in your world...much like an MMORPG.
I also think Borderlands 2 has MMORPG-esque features, and I definitely don't think that's an MMORPG.
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
You never had any player comments fed into your game?
The game runs on client, but on the back end there is a server that tracks and hosts pretty much all the shareable information. That underlying framework is rather directly a core component that drives MMOs and is technically not necessary for a single player title.
Dark Souls uses that aspect in a relatively finite manner, but it gives the single player experience a link into a larger community that persists globally.
The other multiplayer components work on a different server component that ends up connecting between clients, so that's not so much an MMO component.
...Did you think they stored all that player comment data on the client? It needs a way to be actively contributed to and called to the global playerbase at any time, a persistent server which all clients ping to is about the only way that's possible.
It's the same principle as how Spore is 'massively single player' and a similar aspect to how players can rent out your sidekick in Dragon's Dogma. While the core game remains single player, there is an online component the game can plug into that generally is in place to enrich the game in some manner.
That component exists and operates on an mmo-server styled framework, that has to track account data and player interaction/contributions to stream between clients on a technically massive scale, even if the client's user experience is that of a single player title.
I'll try and think up some 'spin' for you later.
EDIT: On the simple end, it's as Creslin said, I'm not calling Dark Souls an MMO, it's a single player and multiplayer title. I'm generally noting that there's the underlying framework in place however that is used to enrich the gaming experience, without turning it into something else.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Trying to shoehorn an MMORPG style persistent world into what is essentially a single player story based RPG just doesn't work. You wind up with tons of problems. Some games try to implement lots of bizarre workaround systems like phasing and excessive instancing in an attempt to get around these problems, but I never think they really hit the mark.
True .. one solution is to ditch or minimize the persistent world. It is not like a persistent world is that important in every MMO. GW1 don't have it. DDO don't have it. WoW minimize it at end game.
I think you're taking his statement to be more than it is. Saying Dark Souls has some MMORPG-esque features is like saying Call of Duty has some RPG features (the leveling).
This by no means implies that Dark Souls IS an MMORPG. But it DOES have features commonly found in MMORPGs like players communicating with other players without having to join another player's game and open world PvP.
I also think Borderlands 2 has MMORPG-esque features, and I definitely don't think that's an MMORPG.
To my knowledge, PvP is restricted to the invaded area, therefore it is equivalent to any map in any multiplayer game. The ghost can't even leave the area in which his intended target is.
Communicating with other players is hardly uninque to MMORPGs either, even if its done through quirky ways: messages, musical melodies or otherwise.
You could encounter a ghost of your past self in your old dungeon crawlers such as Dungeon Crawler, Nethack and Adom. Maybe the devs had a sudden inspiration "what if those ghosts were other players". Bottom line, you don't know where the inspiration of those invasions came from.
Hell, old Diablo (1) multiplayer and PvP is very much similar to what you encounter in Dark Souls.
Do you know what really has come from MMORPG side of more regular RPGs and perhaps tainted it somewhat? Aggro manipulation and hard trinity (meaning the holy trinity is mandatory and all too obvious). I mean holy shit 4th edition D&D was practically an MMORPG in P&P form.
Not good. Not good at all.
If you're seeing MMORPGs in Dark Souls, you're seeing something that isn't there.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
But it's NOT common usage. It's just the usage that YOU like. And your reasons to justify it really haven't been that solid. I think the best you've come up with is that MMORPG.com lists games that are not MMORPGs (really????).
The majority of definitions of MMORPG include the fact that they have persistent shared worlds. I have provided you links to these. I have provided you the history of the term MMORPG. I mean if you google "MMORPG definition" the definition that pops up even indicates a persistent shared world. Does this really sound like the "majority" doesn't think an MMORPG has a persistent shared world??
I'm not sure what else to provide lol.
All I can say is, try to objectively look at the evidence here, and ask yourself who is being obstinate. Is it myself and others who have cited multiple definitions of MMORPG and provided how the term historically evolved from MUDs? Or is it you who claims that since Diablo is listed on MMORPG.com then it must be an MMORPG?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Mmorgs are generally considered to have persistent online worlds where players interact with each other with avatars. mmorgs are not SP, and cats don't bark..
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Maybe we should separate the terms MMO and MMORPG.
I know MMO was usually just short for MMORPG, but none the less, people seem to be using MMO as an umbrella term now, that includes much more than just MMORPGs.
I will just use whatever becomes the norm around here, don't have a horse in the race.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
If you get MMORPG.com, IGN, Gamespot, superdata and newszoo to use the label "football management games", i will be more than happy to follow suit.
I think it's really funny how in the very post you quoted I said that the fact that this site lists D3 as an MMORPG is in no way evidence that it is an MMORPG. And then you quote only part of that post and use that EXACT SAME argument again lol.
LoL is a MOBA, in fact it even coined the term MOBA. Just google "is LoL an MMORPG" you will get a bunch of pages back that all answer with a fairly resounding NO. Even Riot Games says it's not an MMORPG.
I think what you're not getting is that websites just want to appeal to their audiences. It's true that games like LoL and D3 have a lot in common with modern MMORPGs. So sites that cater to the MMORPG audience may list them because they know their audience likes them.
These sites are not "proclaiming" these games to be MMORPGs just by listing them. That would be like if you started to consider Jake Gyllenhal's coat a person because People magazine ran an article on it.
As for the research firms you listed...they are running reports on "MMO's" which are not necessarily the same thing as MMORPGs. I mean I guess you could consider "Farmville" to be an MMO if you wanted...it is massively multiplayer and online.
EDIT:
One more thing...if you click on the Diablo 3 area of this site...the genre info at the top even states it's an Action RPG. Whereas if you do the same with WoW it says MMORPG. So even this site doesn't think D3 is an MMORPG lol.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
MMORPG.com moderators, and at the very least MikeB, have stated in the past that they list non-mmorpg games such as LoL and Diablo 3, as well as run news on them, because they are seen to appeal to the website's audience. It's not because they perceive these titles to be in any way an MMO.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Yes exactly, thanks.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Hey, don't you go taking away half of Mr. Seldon's "evidence" that games like D3, WoT, LoL etc. are all MMOs. What's next? You're going to try and shoot Superdooperdata.com out of the sky. Come on now.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
well .. so they classify them as such because a lot of others seem to think so .. and they are yielding to what is popularly believed (exactly where "common usage" comes from) as opposed to what they think.
So it is just a different reason to classify them in the list. So what? In fact, it is a good illustration that even though the site organizer think otherwise, because of common perception, they tend to use the common usage.
Great .. more the reason to classify them as MMOs.
In fact, isn't mmorpg.com going to cover more of the general RPGs? May be it is a response to the fact that the interests in traditional MMO is waning, and they should change and adapt to the new business realities.
But again, that is an issue not related to classification. But this topic is not about what MMOs "should" become (because there is no such thing) but about HOW to make MMOs more SP like, *IF* that is the intention.
... .and on that point ... let me add another discussion point ....
So far, there are very few character in the MMO world receives the care and development as in the SP world. Characters like Elizabeth in Bioshock, Emily in Dishonored, Triss in Witcher 2 .....
It would be fun to see better writing, better scripting, and more character development for NPCs in MMOs. The only game that have some is STO .. but mainly the characters were taken from the Star Trek universe where TVs and movies have done characterization for the game.
It's got nothing to do with "common usage", they just can't be arsed to make a separate listing for a few games. You'd basically be cut and pasting a whole bunch of data to host a new page that it's kinda not worth it, even if the cost is negligible.
Honestly, it's a much simpler problem than what you make it out to be.
EDIT: As for your new discussion point, the problem and answer is simple there too.
Development costs.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
They can invest like TOR .. i am sure $200M can buy a lot of stories, characters, scriptings and animation.
Or they can cut out other parts ... like the open world. MMOs are supposed to have higher budgets than games in other genre, don't they?
Development cost isn't simply budget. That's the most translated/simplified component addressable.
I mean Tomb Raider cost ~ 100 million and it has arguably some of the flattest personality to experience.
SWTOR has some good personalities stranded about in it, but a major issue is uniformity, especially when you're dealing with what would ultimately be a ton of NPCs.
Unless the game is rather literally made as a single player styled game where the breadth of the game is more focused, then you're going to butt against all the inevitable problems. Which is why other people beg the question 'Then why not just make that instead of an mmo?'.
The amount to which you have to tip the scale rests on a rather extreme end. It's a bit quirky, especially when one considers that you have to basically ignore almost all of the underlying framework that makes a game an MMO in order to pull it off, when we have yet to really push all the potential features that framework can provide into a game to see how it'd actually work or play out.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
A very valid point. In fact, i always said TOR, and MH would probably be much better games if they are not MMOs. In fact, Blizz is moving away from MMOs. Destiny is a good innovative experiment of doing an non-MMO with some MMO trappings.
But the point is ... many devs are already making MMOs with SP experiences. Do you deny it? Now i wouldn't mind if they change their games into SP games ... but since they are not ... is there a reason why we should not even discuss how to make SP experiences better in MMOs?
Note that I am just talking about HOW it can be done IF a dev wants to do it. I did not say it SHOULD be done for all MMOs.
i would like to see a reintroduction of mortal combat or karate camp style skill combos with linkers like killer instict, thenyou could have player built combos that would be organic not cookie cutter.
if you don't like this thread you missed bill murray's welcome to rpg.com
If we can understand a behavior to be irrational, I don't see why we should contemplate how to facilitate it's further action, rather than seeking a way to refocus them into better fundamental designs.
There are manners in which single player games do benefit from using MMO elements. Dark SOuls and Dragon's Dogma are both examples of games that are for the most part single player, but possess underlying MMO aspects that enhance the player's experience without changing what the game plays or is perceived as.
Genre blending isn't bad in this regard, but rather than trying to reconcile illogical gaps, we should rather work on seeing these things concede to more sensible principles. If a game is going to play as a single player or small scale title, then it would generally benefit from being built on the right framework and platform, othwerwise you get games like All Points Bulletin, TOR, Fury, Mortal Online, etc.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Alright, lets hear it: Which part of Dark Souls is from MMORPGs? I wonder how you're going to spin this...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Yes exactly. This was the main point of my thread about story not working with MMORPGs as well.
Trying to shoehorn an MMORPG style persistent world into what is essentially a single player story based RPG just doesn't work. You wind up with tons of problems. Some games try to implement lots of bizarre workaround systems like phasing and excessive instancing in an attempt to get around these problems, but I never think they really hit the mark.
I really think the best option is, like you say, not to attempt to make SPRPGs into MMORPGs at all. Just make them SPRPGs. And also like you say, implementing some MMORPG-esque features into an SPRPG is fine, even great sometimes. But there is no need to try to "force" an MMORPG style persistent world onto a game that really just wants to be an SPRPG.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
The players writing messages, summoning, and invasions. Thought that was obvious lol
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Isn't that just regular multiplayer? Next you're going to say Journey has its roots in MMORPGs. Come on people! Don't go full retard...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I think you're taking his statement to be more than it is. Saying Dark Souls has some MMORPG-esque features is like saying Call of Duty has some RPG features (the leveling).
This by no means implies that Dark Souls IS an MMORPG. But it DOES have features commonly found in MMORPGs like players communicating with other players without having to join another player's game and open world PvP. One of the main draws of Dark SOuls is that you never really feel alone in your world...much like an MMORPG.
I also think Borderlands 2 has MMORPG-esque features, and I definitely don't think that's an MMORPG.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You never had any player comments fed into your game?
The game runs on client, but on the back end there is a server that tracks and hosts pretty much all the shareable information. That underlying framework is rather directly a core component that drives MMOs and is technically not necessary for a single player title.
Dark Souls uses that aspect in a relatively finite manner, but it gives the single player experience a link into a larger community that persists globally.
The other multiplayer components work on a different server component that ends up connecting between clients, so that's not so much an MMO component.
...Did you think they stored all that player comment data on the client? It needs a way to be actively contributed to and called to the global playerbase at any time, a persistent server which all clients ping to is about the only way that's possible.
It's the same principle as how Spore is 'massively single player' and a similar aspect to how players can rent out your sidekick in Dragon's Dogma. While the core game remains single player, there is an online component the game can plug into that generally is in place to enrich the game in some manner.
That component exists and operates on an mmo-server styled framework, that has to track account data and player interaction/contributions to stream between clients on a technically massive scale, even if the client's user experience is that of a single player title.
I'll try and think up some 'spin' for you later.
EDIT: On the simple end, it's as Creslin said, I'm not calling Dark Souls an MMO, it's a single player and multiplayer title. I'm generally noting that there's the underlying framework in place however that is used to enrich the gaming experience, without turning it into something else.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
True .. one solution is to ditch or minimize the persistent world. It is not like a persistent world is that important in every MMO. GW1 don't have it. DDO don't have it. WoW minimize it at end game.
To my knowledge, PvP is restricted to the invaded area, therefore it is equivalent to any map in any multiplayer game. The ghost can't even leave the area in which his intended target is.
Communicating with other players is hardly uninque to MMORPGs either, even if its done through quirky ways: messages, musical melodies or otherwise.
You could encounter a ghost of your past self in your old dungeon crawlers such as Dungeon Crawler, Nethack and Adom. Maybe the devs had a sudden inspiration "what if those ghosts were other players". Bottom line, you don't know where the inspiration of those invasions came from.
Hell, old Diablo (1) multiplayer and PvP is very much similar to what you encounter in Dark Souls.
Do you know what really has come from MMORPG side of more regular RPGs and perhaps tainted it somewhat? Aggro manipulation and hard trinity (meaning the holy trinity is mandatory and all too obvious). I mean holy shit 4th edition D&D was practically an MMORPG in P&P form.
Not good. Not good at all.
If you're seeing MMORPGs in Dark Souls, you're seeing something that isn't there.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky