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Its not an MMO
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
in Neverwinter
It feels more like a Diablo clone, or GW1 and DDO, its instanced, its online, but not an MMO since there are no real open zones.
There are many games like this, it does not necessarily make them bad games, but it does not make them MMOs either, can we have a sepperate name for these online rpgs or action rpgs.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
I think you need to consider what instancing is.
Is instancing the limitation of the amount of players in any one zone? Couldn't be, that would mean TERA, Guild Wars 2, and Defiance would fall into the category of "NOT OPEN-WORLD".
Maybe it's Open-world that's more the defining term of this post? Is open world the ability to travel from "Zone" to "Zone" without loading? Well those same games also suffer from the inability to travel from "Zone" to "Zone" without loading.
Could it be the size of each area?
Is it the amount of players allowed in each area?
People keep using that word "Instanced" as if there ever was an alternative that removed it from a game. Even World of Warcraft had instances, they simply had a fantastic engine that allowed the preloading of relevant zones. In fact one might say that this was WoW's greatest achievement especially considering how flight paths worked, though knowing this you can probably figure out that the early WoW flight paths were specifically scenic for the purpose of working the current technological limitations, and as those limitations were lifted flight paths were able to be more direct in their routes.
Every single online game has instancing, it's simply how the developers handle the instancing that makes the difference.
I'd say the closest thing you're going to get to not having instancing is Minecraft, but in reality The End and The Nether are both seperate instance from the Overworld.
Personally I enjoy the 5-10-15-25 player maps that separated and limited in order to insure that zerging doesn't occur. I also enjoy that I'm able to freely navigate between instances at will, something I oh so desire from Guild Wars2. Then again I guess that's because in Guild Wars 2, I find that players often fall into one of two categories out in the world, "Warm bodies" or "Pain the Ass". They're mostly Warm bodies when dealing with non-failstate events, but when it comes to any of the temple events, you can be sure that if there is a way to fail, they'll find it.
Also I'm pretty sure that it was either MikeB or another community manager simply defined an mmo to be 500 players on a server. Though this was easily 3+ years ago. Good luck dredging that one up.
GW1 and DDO are actually MMORPGs, the instancing doesn't matter as long as there are hub areas where you can meet up with people and talk freely using your in-game avatars. Path of Exile is a game you can credibly call MP but not MMO because the hub areas are themselves instanced and most interactions between players is limited to chat. Know the difference between the two please.
Dotn bring on this discussion again, as you know exactly what i meant...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
worst argument ever. thx for the laugh tho.
they are still mmos even tho they instance their maps.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Wrong..there are open zones in game.
But then again it is a dungeon crawler so don't know what you expect.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Its not that the game is not what i expected, or it isnt fun. As it is exactly what one might expect from an action based dungeon crawler.
But labeling it as an MMO, will harm the game more then calling it a multi player dungeoncrawler.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Then if we call NWO a multiplayer game then we can call all themepark MMOs multiplayer games and not MMOs
.
NW's hub is instanced too. It is not made obvious but unless you are on a team with someone chances are they are in a different instance then you. This would mean by your definition NW is not an MMO.
I would call it a mMMO or a mini massive multiplayer online game because I enjoy oximorons.
This discussion was held long ago, where a game very close to what we now see in Neverwinter was specifically not called an MMORPG by its developers but an CORPG, stands for Cooperative Online RPG, because there are no massive zones in these games.
Does anyone remember what game i am talking about?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Aren't most mmo's today instanced? So we have shades now of open-worldliness.
DDO it makes perfect sense and works out great. You run DnD modules with groups. Just like how dad use to.
What is right, it is 3D Diablo.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
30 or 40 players in one instanced zone. That's not massively, if you ask me.
diablo is a linear farming game without too much evolving end content. that's what made it great.
it's "end content" is repeatable because it's randomized.
you start on normal, go to the next lvl, do the same again and again till you reached the highest grade.
that's why diablo is no mmo in the traditional sense, and that's why neverwinter is not like diablo.
you also have no "3d lobby" as in mmos (main cities) in diablo.
there are plenty of difference and people tried to pull this off before.
would you say age of conan is a diablo like game? or the secret world?
they use instances too.
doesn't put em in the same category tho.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I got lost in Pirates Skyhold. then again I don't use my glow line. Took me 20 min to get back to Protectors Enclave.
NWO is like 3D Diablo, not a perfect match, but close enough for general purpose usage.
In their open zones, they don't seem to want to put even 30-40 in there, it seems around 15 and they make another zone, that's not even a great raid size zone. Go into map, click change zones, you'll see all the open ones and their numbers. The city has a 150 pop cap.
seen more than that in the larger areas.. the smaller ones wouldn't make sense to have a ton of people as they are a lot more confined and people would be all over each other.. but again this game is a dungeon crawler first and foremost but its not a lobby game in the sense of vindictous
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
You're right about the gameplay being like a 3D Diablo, sure, but I still think Neverwinter is pretty damn sure an MMO.
And really, does this thread have to happen with EVERY new MMO that comes out? Really?
This guy again?
Sorry buddy, you don't make the rules, it is indeed an MMO.
I can't even say nice try, it's certainly his MO to create threads or posts seemingly just to be contrary.
Yeah the game is loaded with instances but there is still an open world where you can see other players. I don't think heavy instancing means that the game is not an MMO. I agree that GW1 was not an MMO but that is because it limited you to 8 players per area and towns were not very interactive. The thing about NW is that there are plenty of out door areas with somewhere around 10-20 people. Those people are "in the world" and it is the same thing as there being 100 people accross a few zones in WoW. The only difference is that there is not a zone line in WoW. EQ had zones where there was usually not too many people in a specific zone and I assure you that is an MMO.
There is nothing wrong with limiting the amount of people in a PvE area to 10-30ish people. Its not like more people in PvE make it more fun.
Prior to hitting level 20, I felt similar to the OP, in that it seemed very gated and instanced, a lot like DDO and GW1.
I dont define MMO's by this though and I just assumed that this game would be like this all 60 levels, but since I got to level 20 last night I can say definativly that NWO has wide open zones, the map was actually quite large, and very well designed.
In this map they even had "dynamic events" type things going on. I had fun doing 1 of them as I took 1st place on the catch the spy's dynamic event. It was not a GW2 dynamic event but it was still fun.
Overall the deeper I get into NWO the harder the game gets and the more interesting the game gets. They introduce item enchants/augments, more open zones with harder mobs and more frequent encounters.
Levels 1-20 are your training and its fun but more fun to come post level 20.