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What does the MMO in mmorpg mean to you?
Coffinshock
Member Posts: 21
Quoted exactly off of wiki: A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on personal computers. Most of the newer game consoles, including the PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii can access the Internet and may therefore run MMO games. Additionally, mobile devices and smartphones based on such operating systems as Android, iOS and Windows Phone are seeing an increase in the number of MMO games available. MMOGs can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a variety of gameplay types, representing many video game genres.
The reason I bring this question up is mainly because of SWTOR. Except for your ego, hatred, misunderstandings, and your inablilty to program or know much about programing a game, lots of people keep saying SWTOR is a single player game with multi-player options. Now I have read and talked to enough people to know that this isn't true, but what I don't understand is how ANY one could think that this is the case. By definition MMO to me just means other people are playing also and thats about it. Now with that yes there are things you can do in a MMO you can't in a single player game. You can group, you can talk to other players, you can trade and sell stuff, hell you can do just about anything you can come up with. So how is SWTOR or lets see...another game I like to play and see people saying the same thing about, League of Legends...based off your definition of a MMO how are these games not MMO's?
To me and millions of other players waiting, SWTOR is a MMO no question about it, not even worth arguing about. What really makes me excieted for the game is it is bringing the RPG to mmoRPG, which, as many MMOs as iv'e played starting with Meridian 59, have never really seen much of from what I like in single player rpgs. I have been playing Bioware games since Baldures Gate, and to me from what iv'e seen and read...Dec 20th can't come soon enough.
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Comments
The defining line is the presence of players.
League of Legends? Not an MMO because there just isn't anything massive about the amount of players. There aren't more than ten-ish on a server or within an instance of the game at any given moment.
SWTOR has similar issues with instancing, but they aren't as stunted as a multiplayer game. Unlike League of Legends, Global Agenda, or whichever other fragmented game you pick, the core zones on SWTOR house a large amount of players that can fully interact with one another.
The difference of SWTOR is that they partitioned off areas for personal story, those areas are limited not by performance capability, but for the sake of narrative so they could add more to the events (though they could have done a similar thing with better use of phasing and that might have made it a bit more seamless to gamers).
So I'd be drawing the line in MMOs distinctively at their namesake. 'Massively Multiplayer Online' If it doesn't at least approximate that massive part within the actual game, than it's not an mmo. In spite of complaints some whiners, SWTOR does actually support open zones with tons of players all swinging their sabers and shooting things (though to be fair they also still use instances for these zones when it gets too crowded).
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Many Morons Online
At it's core, yes - MMO simply means there are a bunch of people online at the same time. I suppose part of the issue arises in regard to SWTOR and other games comes from how one looks at the MMORPG aspect of a MMO.
Some believe (I kind of go back and forth on this) that in a MMORPG - the whole point of playing the MMORPG as opposed to a SPRPG is that you are there to play with other people. As MMORPGs have become more casual - more action/adventure - and more a MMOGL (MMO Game Lobby) - the other people have mattered less. The games have removed the point of them being MMOs for some. It is more a case for many, that they see them as PORPG (Persistent Online RPG) - as they will log into the game to play by themselves in a persistent world. To an extent, the existence of other players is actually detrimental to the enjoyment of their PORPG.
While SWTOR undoubtedly has most of the common MMORPG features that people think about, there are three key features that are getting a lot of hype:
Cutscenes
Companions
Personal Story
If you are watching a cutscene - you're not playing with others. It's single-player.
Companions remove the need in certain cases of needing to play with others. It's single-player.
Personal story...well, c'mon - it's personal story. It's single-player.
So it is quite easy to see where somebody might state that SWTOR is a single-player game. Also add into this, that it is BioWare that we are talking about. Makers of great MMORPGs? Nope. Makers of great single-player RPGs.
Still, obviously SWTOR has those common MMORPG features . . . but it is also kind of obvious that BioWare has created a PORPG within their MMORPG.
Here is a quote from the MMORPG page on wikipedia...I'm not sure where you got yours from.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.
As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a character (often in a fantasy world) and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game.
Note that persistent world is a key aspect of an MMORPG in this definition. It's not just about having a bunch of players at the same time. the world has to be persistent. I'm not going to argue anything about SWTOR, but I wanted to clear that up.
An MMORPG must have:
1. A lot of people.
2. A persistent world that all those people share.
You can't have just one. You must have both.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
MMORPG have to have ALL of below (no exceptions):
- persistant open world shared by all players at the same time
- a lot of players
- role play meaning that each character is his own individual that can be unique and play a role in a world.
So while f.e. while Ultima Online is mmorpg, Diablo is NOT (diablo is just multiplayer game).
Even though more people will play D3 than there will be playing UO.
League of Legends imho is just MOBA. It is not more an MMO than for example Call of Duty.
I know many people just put MMO on games like LoL, but this is not MMO. You don't have persistant world there. Just lobby + instanced mission maps. It is not more of an MMO than Starcraft 2 is.
Lol is just simply multiplayer game with huge playerbase similarly to Starcraft, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo or any other game that have huge playerbase and allow multiplayer option.
As for Swtor and RPG. Hmm, it seems it will bring single player rpg experience into mmorpg teritory but it won't be more of an rpg than f.e. Utlima, SWG or many other mmorpg's out there. Just diffrent kind content / tools given to a player.
It is like saying that Baldur's Gate is more RPG than f.e. Elder Scrolls is. It is not more - it is just diffrent kind.
A massive amount of players, at all hours of the day/night, logged into a gameworld that persists even after I log off.
That's basically what I consider an MMO. Now we get into murky territory when I start talking about "MMOs in a traditional sense."
A large database with a cool interface.
I've grouped up lots. But the maturity level of the community makes me not to want to group up. That's the problem. I rather solo than listen to bullshit.
Almost every MMORPG released these days is 90% single player, so no, I don't see why people keep thinking SW:TOR is a single player game or at least not any more more so than most modern MMOs. At least with SW:TOR, actions you take in the single player portion of the game may actually feel relevant and fresh due to its voice acting and story-based nature.
Also, as to the comment about BioWare not being known as a maker of great MMORPGs, I'd say that is irrelevant. How many major MMORPG developers have released a massively hyped title only to have it fall flat on its face or merely coast along on a mediocre number of subscriptions? From moderate successes like Turbine's LotRO and SOE's EQ2 (though that game really should have been more of a success when you look at the effort that went into it at launch) to massive failures like Funcom's Age of Conan and Mythic's Warhammer Online, experience with developing MMORPGs has had little correlation with success. In fact, Rift, possibly the most successful MMORPG developed in years, was developed by a company who had never before released a game.
Also, by your logic, we should all have little faith in Arenanet's Guild Wars 2 seeing as Arenanet is also about to release their very first MMORPG, but I somehow doubt most people lack faith in that company.
For me it means a persistant online world, where thousands of folks build an online community while gaming.
Sadly, it seems a lot of folks think it means an online world where we raid to chase gear, and any MMO that doesn't do this is "phail!!1!"
MMO.
M: massive, the number of connections made to the server/shard is 500 or more. Anyone from the 80's and early 90's knows when it was a lot smaller.
M: multiplayer: As opposed to single player. Think the old days here as well with games like mazewar and games on the PLATO computer system. Followed by muds/mushes and then graphical muds (habitat, AOL NWN, TSN TSOY).
O: Online: Internet.
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For me, it means "this game will probably suck." Most of the time, it does.
I'd be interested to know why you think the people you have spoken to know any better than people who have actually played the game? The whole story based concept of the game means it has to lean towards a single player experience. Or maybe you missed that little detail?
However, mmo means massively multiplayer online. It doesn't mean they have to be playing together, so I guess SWTOR will qualify
Um... you say that the majority of MMORPGs released are single-player, but ask why somebody would think SWTOR a single-player game? You answered the question yourself. Even in defending the single-player aspect of the game, you do not contradict that it is - you simply state that it is better in your opinion than others.
As to why somebody might think SWTOR is more of a single-player game - I provided those reasons: Cutscenes, Companions, and Personal Story. Those are not things that exist in most of the modern MMOs...are they?
How is what a company is well-known for irrelevant? Your posts in general tend to be very defensive, and I've never understood that. Instead of focusing on the fact that I stated that BioWare is well known for their single-player games, you focus on the fact that I stated that they've not done a MMORPG before. You also try to compare that to Trion who had not released a game.
BioWare is very well known for their single-player games. That is not an insult. They have not done a MMORPG. That is not an insult. That people are likely to look at the single-player aspects of the game and believe they will likely be the best part of the game - is neither an illogical leap nor an insult.
We should have little faith? Who said anything about little faith? How is pointing out that BioWare is well known for single-player games a case of stating that we should have no faith in them putting out a MMORPG?
That was not my logic in the least. It was your defensive nature reading into what I typed - what you wanted to read into it.
If you want to label all solo oriented MMORPGs as "PORPGs," go right ahead, but I doubt you'll be the first person to think of a better method of creating an MMORPG that doesn't require a huge time commitment. Everquest was about as group centric as you can get, and you got nowhere in that game unless you devoted hours and hours every single day. I don't have the time to make such a commitment. Even a sandbox MMORPG like EVE is largely unplayable unless you want to spead an exorbitant amount of time researching and learning how to play, and that doesn't even touch the amount of work you'll need to put into the game to just be relevant. In that sense, it comes off as incredibly elitist to say, "Oh well just because you solo 90% of the time, the game really isn't an MMORPG!" Who cares enough to make such a distinction?
Even when the afformented "PORGs" try to implement features like the dungeon finder which encourage playing with others, the same individuals who cry about MMORPGs lacking social purpose then whine about the fact that they don't get the chance to spend two hours in their faction capital spamming the LFG channel, the chance spend 15 minutes running to the dungeon entrance, and the chance to put that boatload of people they group up with regularly on their buddy list despite the fact that they regularly cry that their game doesn't do near enough to promote social interaction. Does anyone besides me see the contradiction in that last part?
Blizzard, BioWare, Turbine, Trion, and others really can't win with that crowd either way they go.
LOTS of people though. Several hundreds if not actually thousands, all piled in together. A handfull of players on a server/node/whatever doesn't make it an MMO. That would be merely an Online Game of some type, be it an Online FPS, RPG, etc. For example, I play some online games that feature 15 to 20 players, and they are by no means MMOs. Some people might call that a chat room with a game attached, and if that's how they see it, well, that's fine by me.
As for what Star Wars is, I truly couldn't care less either way. Let it be whatever people think it is. It makes no real difference.
Let's try not to bait others guys. Thanks!
The part I colored there, I think is part of the big issue that people are missing. Too many people are getting caught up in stating it is one thing or the other, trying to defend it as one thing or the other, and generally lobbing flaming kittens at each other.
SWTOR, from all appearances - is both a single-player game and a multi-player game. You can choose to play it either way or both, but just because a person chooses to play it one way - does not mean that is the only way to play it.
To some it is a single-player game. To some it is a multi-player game. Evidence exists for both to support those statements.
SWTOR is not either one or the other - it offers both. People can play it as they choose.