Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
This and other sites agree MMORPGs don't have to be "massive"
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
Many people are arguing the literal English wording of the term MMORPG. Personally i don't think genre labels are literal, and i think they are just convenient labels for a group of games.
Don't believe me? I think it would be fun to go to some "MMORPG" sites and see how things are categorized.
First up ... MMORPG.com. If you click on "game list", it will say "MMORPG Gamelist - All MMO Games". What is listed under this big MMORPG game list? Amongst others ... we have
Diablo 3, LoL, DDO, the first GW, Vindictus, World of Tanks .. and many that either don't focus on, or have no "massive" MP gameplay.
How about whatmmorpg.com? (http://www.whatmmorpg.com/fantasy-mmorpg-games.php)
LoL is listed under Fantasy MMORPG Games. Mechwarrior Online is listed under sci-fi MMORPGs, right above Eve. There are other non-massive MMOs there, you can find the other listings yourself.
How about mmobomb.com? http://www.mmobomb.com/top-10-free-mmorpg
DDO, and NWO, and Vindictus are on their top 10 list. Other non-massive MMOs are listed .. you can go look at their whole listing.
I suspect very few, even those managing MMO websites care very much about the strict definition of the word "massive" in the label "MMORPG". The term is used quite loosely, if LoL, Diablo, vindictus, DDO and NWO are counted.
Comments
Well first off the term isn't simply a literal statement.
It had previously been defined including the key word 'concurrent users' relatively often. With the simplification of the term to massive, it opened up the analogy of what massive implied and the notion of what an MMO is pretty largely broke down.
For the most part now it more seems to imply that most data is stored and hosted out from a company run server rather than letting players host their own.
Even now that notion is breaking down too though. As we have The War Z (now Infestation) that is classified as an MMO, but they don't even restrict you necessarily to company servers.
Pretty much, if it's online then it fits the ability for someone somewhere to call a game an MMO at this point.
So if we are to follow this notion you lay down, then it's possibly simpler to ask what games aren't 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
In principle I disagree with you on this, and I do not think those websites agree with you either.
If a game is going to be called a Massively Mulitplayer Game, it does need to have a lot of people.
LoL may not be an MMORPG, but if it can hold more people than a traditional multiplayer, it is an MMO, therefore it is massive.
You may think labels are useless, and they do change. However lables are what we use to differentiate and classify things. Classification is needed to help with any kind of search or research. If I am in the mood for an MMO I don't want a spg even if there is some similarity. Labels help with recognition.
Second. While this website may specialize in MMO's, it does not exclusively cater to MMO's, despite it's name. Dairy queen sells more than dairy products too.
I didn't lay down anything. I simply point out the common usage of the term in 3 (and others are welcomed to add) MMORPG sites.
Oh, and no one says it is complex. Just go to the game list on MMORPG.com .. if it is there, then call it a MMORPG. It is an easy way to talk about a list of games to facilitate communications. Nothing more, nothing less.
And yes, if you look at some of those sites, online shooters are also classified as MMO .. again ... people don't seem to care about strict definitions.
And yet .. they list all the games i mentioned as MMORPGs.
I am not looking for a debate of what MMORPG should be ... i simply don't care about labels. I am just pointing out that these sties categorize the aforementioned games as such. Not my categorization, theirs.
I didn't state they weren't. I stated if they have more people than a traditional multiplayer they are massively multiplayer in some capacity. I guess they feel those games meet that definition.
You may not care about labels but once again labels are important in search and recognition. If you don't know what something is called, it makes it harder to search for it. If you do know it is called it makes it usually much easier to search for the things that will fill whatever desire you have.
Actually, yes you did lay stuff down. The moment you scribbled out this post you had some inclination behind it's writing. Some point(s) you desired to get across. The content therein painted the picture and implications.
And I agree, no one said it's complex. Not even I said it was complex. What I did say is that the definition that drove what an MMO was has been simplified. That said nothing to it's complexity, only that it was getting more loosely defined.
If you simply don't care about labels, that's a notion that did not need a thread. If you are going to say labels are unnecessary, then that's a matter subject to reason. If you are to implicitly agree the games that are now labeled MMOs are actually MMOs then that opens up an entirely different can of worms.
I have generally kept a lack of concern how common media degrades the structure of any system,but I'm not going to advocate it's happening on a personal level either.
"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 you click on "game list", it said "MMORPG Gamelist" on the top. Not "some game list". Not "MMORPG and other games".
And this is not the only site. Go to the other one and look at their category headings.
And apparently you don't mind at all if all these games are listed under mmorpg without other genre labels. That is the point. This loose categorization works for you.
How about whatmmorpg.com then? They even have different category list. Don't tell me you think their "fantasy MMORPG" list is not what they think MMORPG should be.
It's an MMO if the person playing it perceives it to be. That's all that matters.
Perception determines the value of your product or cash shop features.
Everything effects peoples perception. Marketing budgets are only so big.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Can't speak for other sites, but on MMORPG.com the games are listed because they are MMORPGs, or are of interest to people who are interested in MMORPGs.
Also, there are definitions forming around the terms, "MMO" and "MMORPG". A general consensus is being reached on what they mean.
MMO
MMORPG
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Actually the MMO part is very literally. RPG is a bit more subjective due to how far someone considers role playing to be.
So yes, to be an MMO, you have to be a Massively Multiplayer Online game. This means a very large amount of people have to be able to interact in the same world at the same time. MOBAs aren't even close to massively and are smaller than most multiplayer games out there. Why anyone tried to give them the MMO label is just plain f**king baffling. Same goes with something like World of Tanks. A lobby and small arena gameplay do not an MMO make. Hell CoD and Battlefield can have 40+ people in a match, yet they don't try to throw MMO on there.
And yes other genres do have literally translations as well. An RTS has to be a real time strategy game. An FPS has to be a First Person Shooter. In fact almost all labels are literally and those who misuse them or try to stretch them to fit other things are simply being moronic.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/27/the-soapbox-actually-that-really-isnt-an-mmo/#continued
No, we're not. We're arguing what MMORPG meant when the phrase was coined by MMO creators.
We don't going around saying that any game where you play a role is an RPG.
We don't go around saying that every game that is first person is an FPS.
We don't go around saying every game that lets you connect to the internet is an MMO.
When someone says RPG they have a general meaning to what they say beyond the literal definition.
And when someone USED to say MMO, it meant, thousands of players in a persistent world interacting at all times.
Marketing has diluted the term after MMO became a buzz word. We're keeping the real definition of the word alive.
I completely agree with you here. Labels have a simple and important function.
And, yeah, why would mmorpg.com (or any other MMO gaming site for that matter) want to cover MMOs only and lose out on what is probably nine times out of ten, a gamer that plays in other video gaming genres? Of course they are going to cover the games that they think MMO players are going to be interested in that happen to not be MMOs.
"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
And the multiplayer and online are kind of redundant.
There are games which aren't played over the internet you know. I guess all board games should be called online games since multiplayer and online are the same thing now....
The reason I can't endorse that article's line of thinking is that someone has to set an arbitrary line where massive begins and ends.
Is massive when hundreds of player interact simultaneously? Is it thousands? Do they have to interact within the same space? Meaning, can 5 interact in one instance while 5 interaction in another and so on until you've reached 100?
Is a game with very miniscule playerbase still a MMO? Let's say I log into Vanguard and only find 34 people online. What is it?
What happens if a game doesn't have enough players? Does it cease to be a MMO because it fails to be massive, or is it granted the name based on a theoretical possibility of that many players interacting? In which case, if you can base it on theory, then you can slippery slope that into "well IF this lobby game like D3 had an open world, it would be massively multiplayer!" So can you or can you not allow "ifs"?
How about a game which has a lot of players playing in a persistent world, but they don't interact on a massive scale, maybe only 50 of them are interacting, is it still a MMO?
Maybe it is best to just retire the term 'MMO' as it doesn't really define much outside of a theoretical model that will shift constantly. "Look 1000 people just interacted simultaneously, it's a MMO!" "Oh, now they're solo'ing again, it's just an RPG now."
Until we retire the term MMO, I will consider any game with massive amount of players playing online a MMO. And that's because I can't accept a definition that it dictated by an arbitrary rule that fluctuates based on who is using it.
Not much on PCs.
Bumping the answer.
There are multiplayer games on PCs that can be played on the same machine or through a LAN.
Also the definition of MMO doesn't indicate that it is on computers. We know them as computer games because we've played them. However, the term does not including PC or even video game so that doesn't work, and as I pointed out there are multiplayer games even on PCs that aren't online. All the words are needed.
Massively - adjective to indicate the size of the multiplayer aspect
Multiplayer - indicates that it people play it together
Online - indicates that it is played through the internet
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I seem to remember some time ago an mmorpg.com staffer chiming in in a similar thread stating that they were covering X non-MMO title because the people that visited the site had shown great interest in it.
Perhaps someone on the mmorpg.com payroll could jump into this thread to clarify the issue. Do you guys believe that a lobby based shooter such as WOT is an MMO, or just a lobby based shooter that has stolen a handful of MMO features such as character progression etc.? Because this would in turn qualify Combat Arms as an mmo. Where does this end really?
Anyways, I would love to hear from someone from this site if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.
"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