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[Column] General: That's Not an MMO

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  • bliss14bliss14 Member UncommonPosts: 595
    Originally posted by arieste
    Originally posted by Ozmodan
     you see the same world as everyone else

    So basically, the only MMO is EVE then?  Because pretty much every other MMO (maybe with a few smaller exceptions), has people seeing different copies of the world.  Whether it's copies called "servers" or "phases" or "instances" or whatever the technological term is, but there are very few MMOs where everyone is always part of "the same world". 

     

    People really need to worry less about definitions and more about making better games.

     

    And about "real players, real connections", honestly - lol.  I think by most people's definitions a game like GW2 is certainly a MMORPG, yet it is probably the most anti-social, anti-connection game i've ever played.  It's basically dozens of people all soloing next to each other without ever saying hello.  I've probably talked with more people while playing shooters than while doing the raids in GW2.      

     

    And i don't care what label you stick on the things.  I just want good games to play.  All "massively multiplayer" means is that it supports more people than "traditional" multiplayer.  Everything eDeplse is bullshit. 

    Depends on your definition of MMO.  When I played GW2 I would see maybe a hundy of people in a given zone on a given day. Is that a MMO level of people you are playing with?  /shrug.

  • tawesstawess Member EpicPosts: 4,227

    Just like ninja-looting the term MMORPG (and it´s offsprings) have never been and will never be pinned down to just one thing.

     

     

    This have been a good conversation

  • monkey_crushermonkey_crusher Member Posts: 41
    Originally posted by Konfess

    @GameByNight, back in the mid 90's I too a look at MUDs.  I don't know their populations then or now, do you consider them MMOs?  If a MUD had a simultaneous user population over 1000, would that qualify?

     

    The basic question is does a lobby count in determining ownership of the title MMO (not mmorpg, just MMO).  Realize that we may not think of the game lobby as a part of the game, because all we can do their is socialize and interact verbally or textually.  But If I said the lobby is a pre-spawn point or game limbo and added lore support info, could every get on board?

     

    Instead of sounding like champions of MMO purity, you are sounding like old men left behind as the modern world progresses.  "You kids and your rock and roll music, your dungarees and motor bikes.  Why in my day we rode a hoarse and carriage, and we liked it."  I say get on board or get left behind.  We may not always like change, but it is inevitable.

    No.


     

  • beregarberegar Member UncommonPosts: 34

    I can get behind large persistent areas (world) and many players aspect but it's unclear to me what leveling has to do with mmos. It's entirely possible to have a game without gear grind and levels and still call it a MMO. You don't even need to have human avatars playing primary role (i.e. EVE where ships are the main focus).

     

    Still definitions for words change all the time so might as well get used to it. I don't think there is any official party who has created a directive about how many players must be on a single map to call the game a MMO.

    - Beregar

  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987
    Originally posted by Konfess

    @GameByNight, back in the mid 90's I too a look at MUDs.  I don't know their populations then or now, do you consider them MMOs?  If a MUD had a simultaneous user population over 1000, would that qualify?

     

    The basic question is does a lobby count in determining ownership of the title MMO (not mmorpg, just MMO).  Realize that we may not think of the game lobby as a part of the game, because all we can do their is socialize and interact verbally or textually.  But If I said the lobby is a pre-spawn point or game limbo and added lore support info, could every get on board?

     

    Instead of sounding like champions of MMO purity, you are sounding like old men left behind as the modern world progresses.  "You kids and your rock and roll music, your dungarees and motor bikes.  Why in my day we rode a hoarse and carriage, and we liked it."  I say get on board or get left behind.  We may not always like change, but it is inevitable.

    Or maybe the term doesn't need to be corrupted until it loses the ability to describe. What's the motivation to include every action game and MOBA in this category?

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • DAS1337DAS1337 Member UncommonPosts: 2,610

    An article written on MMORPG that directly contradicts it's own MMO game's list.

     

    MMORPG, you're getting stranger every day..

  • DrCokePepsiDrCokePepsi Member UncommonPosts: 177
    Christopher Coke, this is the first legit column that i have read on this site that wasn't utter bull. Sir, you are truly an MMORPG player and in light of all the casuals trolling these forums and this site in general, you truly understand and have just portrayed what the situation in MMO's these days are.

    Never fear, your dream MMO will be here....
    just give me a decade or two to finely hone my Game development
    and design abilities as well as start a Game Design Studio.
    Thank you for your patience.
  • NovusodNovusod Member UncommonPosts: 912

    This whole "That's Not an MMO" meme reeks of schadenfreude. People see others having fun in some large online game and then immediately jump down their throat and scream "That Not an MMO." It is over done and ridiculous in the effort that has been made to say Lobby based MMOs are not MMOs. Since when was "open world" added to the definition of MMORPG? People need to chill and stop trying to rewrite the definition of MMORPG almost two decades after it was established.

     

    The history of MMOs goes back to MUDs or Multi-User Dungeons which was followed by a term called graphical MUDs. Some people called graphical MUDs Online RPGs because progress was saved to an online server rather then locally. Shortly after AOL NeverWinter Nights released the term MMORPG was coined. This has nothing to do with open zone size or number of players per map but was based on the size of the server. In 1993 having 100 people on a single server was considered massive. Progress was persistent as characters could be accessed online at any time 24 hours a day. The malcontents of today would probably say NeverWinter Nights was not a MMORPG even though that was the game the term MMORPG was coined to describe.

     

    Today we have online games that are much larger and deeper than NeverWinter nights being scribed as "Not a MMO." Games with many thousands of players per server and have large open towns with 100s of players in town. Even games with 24 man raiding are being relegated to the "Not a MMO" pile because they don't have open zones. When I saw Chris Coke's column I thought it was going to put this "Not a MMO" nonsense to rest. Instead he jumped on the only open world games are MMOs bandwagon. Such beliefs lack perspective of the bigger picture. Open world was never part of the definition of MMORPG but only represents a certain bias for that feature.

     

  • madazzmadazz Member RarePosts: 2,100

    Great writing. Can you get a fellow author on the site to fix his review of Ultima Forever? Adam Tingle doesn't know what an MMO is. Ultima Forever is a 4 player game and contains no massive content what-so-ever. Yet he clearly states it as an MMO.

     

    http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/851/view/reviews/load/282

     

    That is the review. Again, its 4 players MAX. No MMO content at all. This website needs to be clear as to what it knows an MMO is. Articles like this, and then looking at the UO one contradict one another.

  • TealaTeala Member RarePosts: 7,627
    Good article, but in days gone by the term MMORPG stood for what we old timers thought it meant - an online RPG, that had lots of players interacting with one another and that had rules similar to those that we were familiar in regards to RPG's(pen and paper games).   Over the years though RPG has just been kind of twisted and replaced to mean what you decribed and that is OK.   I know the difference between a real MMORPG and a game placed into this catagory of games and that is all that maters to me.  :)
     
  • itchmonitchmon Member RarePosts: 1,999

    it's funny how many mmo players play MOBAs.  I resisted the trend until Smite came along, with its MMO control scheme that made me, well, not suck at it.

     

    it's like, they have a few little homages to MMOs in their design and that lends just enough familiarity to the MMO player that they are ok with playing them.

     

     

    RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.

    Currently Playing EVE, ESO

    Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

    Dwight D Eisenhower

    My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

    Henry Rollins

  • sanshi44sanshi44 Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
    Realy wish i could say MMO have Huge persistant world but nowadays they dont, Rift you can run from one side to the other in 15 minutes, FF14 you can go from gridania to Uh'dah to vesper bay then to La Noscea in like 20 minutes, gone of the days where world truely felt huge back in EQ it could take you hours to run from one side of the map to the other in games. God even runescape took you awhile to go from the east side to the west side of the map in member worlds but not any more you can run from one side to the other in less than 20 minutes in 90% of moderm MMOs realy is a sad day for RPG when you world feels so small :(
  • sanshi44sanshi44 Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
    Originally posted by Ozmodan
    Originally posted by jbombard
    Big, Persistent World? How much of the worlds we play are in really persistent, unless you mean it doesn't matter what you do and the world will persist in the state it was designed.  The worlds we play in are anything but persistent, if you kill it it will simply respawn, for the most part you cannot make changes to these worlds that will persist.  The developers may patch in changes that persist but that isn't what we are talking about.  If being persistent is a requirement of an MMORPG there aren't many MMORPGs.

    You do not understand what he means when he says persistent world.  It means that you see the same world as everyone else and the world is not an instance for you and your group.  It has nothing to do with the ability to actually change the game world.

    Good article.  I agree with it.  

    I really don't understand how people can play a MOBA after playing a MMO, there a tremendous amount of depth difference, besides MOBA's having about the worst playerbase possible.

     Modern MMO game, players probaly spend 80% of their time if not more in instances which should be classified as persitant, can we truly classify these games as MMOs nowadays???

  • sanshi44sanshi44 Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
    Originally posted by arieste
    Originally posted by Ozmodan
     you see the same world as everyone else

    So basically, the only MMO is EVE then?  Because pretty much every other MMO (maybe with a few smaller exceptions), has people seeing different copies of the world.  Whether it's copies called "servers" or "phases" or "instances" or whatever the technological term is, but there are very few MMOs where everyone is always part of "the same world". 

     

    People really need to worry less about definitions and more about making better games.

     

    And about "real players, real connections", honestly - lol.  I think by most people's definitions a game like GW2 is certainly a MMORPG, yet it is probably the most anti-social, anti-connection game i've ever played.  It's basically dozens of people all soloing next to each other without ever saying hello.  I've probably talked with more people while playing shooters than while doing the raids in GW2.      

     

    And i don't care what label you stick on the things.  I just want good games to play.  All "massively multiplayer" means is that it supports more people than "traditional" multiplayer.  Everything else is bullshit. 

     Basicly the only games that are/were fully presistant were games pre WoW, Everquest, EvE, Runescape and so on. But when WoW came long the game industry shifted to instaning. so realy there arnt many True persistant worlds out there anymore.

  • itchmonitchmon Member RarePosts: 1,999
    @ sanshi44

    Anarchy online and EQ1 had instancing long before wow. There was a whole EQ expansion based on instances, called LDON

    RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.

    Currently Playing EVE, ESO

    Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

    Dwight D Eisenhower

    My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

    Henry Rollins

  • FusionFusion Member UncommonPosts: 1,398
    Originally posted by Konfess

    Same goes for AO (Anarchy Online).  I'm sure none here have played it, since so few have.  The wilderness had visible shimmering boundaries for its many zones.  The game seemed like a copy of SWG in so many ways to me except for this.  These two games are classics of the MMO genre but fail your definition as I read it.  What say you to that?

    Doesn't fail in the definition by the least bit, he mentioned zones and AO has zone, yet one zone can still pack the entire population of the server in the one zone, zones or not it's still persistant.

    ps. snickered at your comment about "copy of SWG", since AO was a 2001 release and SWG 2003 :)

    pss. I did play it back in 2002 for about a year.

     
    http://neocron-game.com/ - now totally F2P no cash-shops or micro transactions at all.
  • TolrocTolroc Member UncommonPosts: 111
    My main game right now is Marvel Heroes, yet I agree with the writer; it isn't a MMORPG. It is an online ARPG. Now, it not being a MMORPG doesn't make me enjoy it any less. I enjoy it for what it is. A MMORPG should have a massive amount of people on a single server and a persistant world.
  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987
    MOBAs are a mini game that got out of hand, and are now infecting the host (MMORPGs) organisms.

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • GrumpyMel2GrumpyMel2 Member Posts: 1,832

    I agree with the author as well. Words have meaning, or are supposed to. Publishers who label thier games "MMO's" when they aren't are doing thier customers and themselves a disservice. Just because something isn't an "MMO" doesn't mean it can't be fun or enjoyable but if you are looking for a specific experience and don't get it....that's NOT good marketing nor good customer experience.

    If I went to a car dealer and they tried to sell me an "off-road" vehicle that wasn't capable of going off road, I would never look at another offering from them again, because I couldn't trust I was being sold what I was actualy looking for.....it just ends up being a waste of my time and thiers.

     

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719

    Having or not having instances is not a defining characteristic. Having your online experience be mostly instanced without you having a choice about it is.

    In WOW you can choose to stand in Stormwind and do nothing but join instanced groups but you don't have to do that. In Diablo 3 your options are play in your private instance or in one with a few other players. There is no open world "massively multiplayer" option there.

    Also...wtf doe having servers have to do with anything? Saying servers are instances is a pathetic attempt to stubbornly not understand the difference between an MMO and the wannabes. 

    "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”

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    ― CD PROJEKT RED

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Kyleran

    "What gamers want ... is new game play patterns different from what they've experienced before" - Axehilt

    Been thinking about this one, in light of the contrary evidence (quite popular "revivals" for EQ, DAoC, probably many others).

    It really would make a good topic, all on its own.

    MMORPG.com debate team? Do gamers really embrace change?

    You've got fifteen years of anecdotal evidence accumulated, Trammel, ToA, NGE, 'sequel' titles, 'failed' clones; the works.

    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.

  • ray12kray12k Member UncommonPosts: 487
    I approve the ops views. But hell im ganna go play the mmo its called kirbys racing game.... jokes=P
  • jbombardjbombard Member UncommonPosts: 598
    Originally posted by Ozmodan
    Originally posted by jbombard
    Big, Persistent World? How much of the worlds we play are in really persistent, unless you mean it doesn't matter what you do and the world will persist in the state it was designed.  The worlds we play in are anything but persistent, if you kill it it will simply respawn, for the most part you cannot make changes to these worlds that will persist.  The developers may patch in changes that persist but that isn't what we are talking about.  If being persistent is a requirement of an MMORPG there aren't many MMORPGs.

    You do not understand what he means when he says persistent world.  It means that you see the same world as everyone else and the world is not an instance for you and your group.  It has nothing to do with the ability to actually change the game world.

    Good article.  I agree with it.  

    I really don't understand how people can play a MOBA after playing a MMO, there a tremendous amount of depth difference, besides MOBA's having about the worst playerbase possible.

    I believe the word for that is open world.  

    Different servers are not much more than separate instances of the world, many MMORPGs have instanced zones, even open world games like WoW have instanced zones that disappear when populations are low.  Servers comedown and are basically reset during maintenance, the only things that are truly persistent in these games are things that are patched in.   While I prefer open world, zone instancing is not a bid deal to me because it affects the population of the area far less than the server pop does.  Dungeon and raid instancing is problematic, but getting rid of those pretty much gets rid of those activities.

     

    I agreed with most of the article, and I am probably getting too nit picky on the meaning of persistent.  If he means Open World, I don't think having a load screen between zones is a big enough detractor to remove a game from the MMO genre.  If he means persistent state where player actions impact the world and that impact remains even after a server restart, then there are very very few games that meet the OPs standard of MMO.

  • TalinthisTalinthis Member UncommonPosts: 26

    kinda tricky here. is it an mmorpg? yes, there is a large community of people online. but then again..

     

    is it an mmorpg? Nope. small maps low amount of people in the game RTS type matches that last for the duration of the battle like what this post says. can be interpreted both ways.

     

    to me, definitely the second option. it is not an mmo unless there are a thousand people to interact with, possibly all at once (in game obviously)

     
     
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