I don't mind them covering overlapping interest games. I just don't see the harm in labeling games correctly so I know what to expect. Used to hate reading about the new MMO that ended up being some type of MOBA.
If you have a traditional always on MMORPG label as such WoW. If its a MMO lite then label it that Destiny. If its a MOBA then label it that. If its a Multiplayer game then label it that. We all know the differences.
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 think MORPG just isn't a popular term. So people just call their games(for example vindictus) MMORPG.
I presume people start calling games like destiny MMOFPS. Because it isn't your typical shooter.
I dont' personal care. The topic just isn't important.
I think you're right. You can't imagine how many times we send out forms to the devs to fill out for inclusion on the list and they don't want to use the classification of "MMORPG". They want their game to be seen as broader than the narrow definition of what an MMORPG is in its classic sense.
MMOs have changed and evolved to the point that most are unrecognizable by 1999's standards with more ways to play alone or in very small groups. I, for one, don't think that's a bad thing, but it certainly changes the "traditional" definition of what an MMO is.
Probably MOG is the more correct term these days.
I dunno though....I trust that most people are wise enough to determine what fits their personal definition of what an MMO is and don't rely on what's on this list or any other and can critically think for themselves. *shrugs*
Well, it wouldn't be a problem if search engines were smart enough to present folks with a list of actual MMO's
Unfortunately they can't so a search brings back hundreds of titles such as Destiny 2 which just wastes time.
You know the correct category is MOG and why would Devs get to "choose' what to classify their games as on this site, especially if they are incorrectly labeled.
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 think MORPG just isn't a popular term. So people just call their games(for example vindictus) MMORPG.
I presume people start calling games like destiny MMOFPS. Because it isn't your typical shooter.
I dont' personal care. The topic just isn't important.
Probably MOG is the more correct term these days.
I dunno though....I trust that most people are wise enough to determine what fits their personal definition of what an MMO is and don't rely on what's on this list or any other and can critically think for themselves. *shrugs*
It's honestly not about depending on your list or not having critical thinking. It's about having items within a category be what they actually are.
If you're in a bookstore and you go to the fantasy section and end up picking up a book to read but the book turned out to be some boring autobiography, well that's an annoying experience to have to deal with. If categories had no meaning, then having to sift through books to find the genre you like would be a nightmare.
I agree wholeheartedly, MOG would be a nice term to fit these games. Or even MORPG/MOFPS if you wanted, but you have the right idea in dropping the first M which is all that really needs to happen.
I somewhat disagree on your other point that MMOs have "drastically changed" since 1999 though....So funny story. I was typing out why I think that and i was looking at how long it was making this already somewhat lengthy post. I think i'll post my thoughts on that topic in a thread of its own and end this here.
It is like people saying there are 14 gender identity. There start with LGBT, after that LGBTQIA, now it become 14.
I don't understand what the purpose is.
We need to start using the term MOG just so MMORPG players can be happy.
I think you're right. You can't imagine how many times we send out forms to the devs to fill out for inclusion on the list and they don't want to use the classification of "MMORPG". They want their game to be seen as broader than the narrow definition of what an MMORPG is in its classic sense.
MMOs have changed and evolved to the point that most are unrecognizable by 1999's standards with more ways to play alone or in very small groups. I, for one, don't think that's a bad thing, but it certainly changes the "traditional" definition of what an MMO is.
Probably MOG is the more correct term these days.
I dunno though....I trust that most people are wise enough to determine what fits their personal definition of what an MMO is and don't rely on what's on this list or any other and can critically think for themselves. *shrugs*
I think most people who care about the term can determine for themselves if what they are looking at fits what they want from an MMO or not for sure. For instance I don't even consider the original Guild Wars or Star Citizen to meet the definition of an MMO but they do provide the type of content that causes me to gravitate to MMOs.
Where the term becomes important though is when you are trying have an intelligent conversation. For instance someone uses this data in an argument, as superdata numbers frequently are sourced in order to dispute the fact MMOs are in decline, etc.
Notice their top MMO on that list. League of Legends. And as you go down the list you realize that over half the list aren't even MMOs.
So essentially when you say "MMOs are in decline" and people are disputing you, you're arguing two entirely different subjects. Because what you are talking about is real, actual MMOs that allow hundreds or thousands of players to inhabit the same world. And they're talking about this mean nothing term that includes LoL, World of Tanks, and DOTA 2.
This is still a topic I care about a lot, even though I probably shouldn't.
First off, there's a large part of me which just hates laziness and corruption. I hold a very real fear that western society is stagnating overall and the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger all the time. Mis-categorising things is a symptom of that stagnation. It takes very little effort to label a game correctly and yet it's not happening. There isn't even a good reason for it.
Second, I'm English and so I hate seeing the language corrupted. MMO has a very specific meaning in the English language and whilst an absolute number of players cannot be agreed upon (because the term is comparative and thus changes over time), the number must still be massively bigger than standard online multiplayer games. So, it annoys me that the English language itself is being ignored and corrupted, again for no good reason.
Finally, on a personal level, the mis-labeling directly affects me. MMORPG is my favourite genre, and I enjoy MMOs of other genres too. I do not like normal multiplayer games.
So, when a site like this mislabels a game as an MMO, when in fact it isn't an MMO, it wastes my time. I end up reading about games that I think sound interesting, only to find out later that it's not actually an MMO and thus I would never play. Being massively multiplayer is a feature, it's the only unique feature of the genre and it is a feature that is important to some of us. By dismissing it as a feature, you are essentially telling me that my preference for games is invalid, which is insulting.
As Eldurian points out, the mislabeling done by SuperData also prevents intelligent discussions about the state of the MMO industry. From my point of view, the industry is in major decline, with all existing MMOs reporting a drop in players (to be expected, populations nearly always decline) and very few new MMOs being released. But, if you don't understand what an MMO is and use SuperData's reports, you'd think that the industry was doing better than ever, even though it isn't.
(As a side note, I have no problem with sites like this covering non-MMOs. I understand that this needs to happen to keep the businesses alive due to the decline of the MMO genre. That's fine. I only have a problem with mis-labeling games).
OP the acronym does not mean what it once did, I try to only refer to proper MMOs like Lotro as a MMORPG, but usually forget and put MMO.
Here is what's really important: You can divide us into two camps, those who use it the proper way and those who think it does not matter. But all of those posters know that World of Tanks is not the same sort of game as Lotro. Does not matter about what you think about its "MMO" status we know what sort of game it is.
People new to the genre (or to gaming) though expect to see the word MMO used, have a goggle of "What sort of game is World of Tanks". So it is used for convenience rather than its real meaning.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
See, when I see the term "Action MMO", all I think is that the combat is directly controlled by the player (action combat) and that it supports a massive amount of people playing together at once. The first part is true, the second isn't, so I don't get anywhere near the right information.
My preference would be to call it a MOBA. WoT is definitely a multiplayer online battle arena and the term best describes the style of gameplay you can expect. The difficulty is there are a lot of different types of mobas, so then you need sub-genres of mobas which we don't currently have.
I would probably go along the lines of:
MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena = game supports multiple players within an arena/map and you battle one another. (this then describes WoT, LoL, DOTA2 as well as things like Quake 3 Arena, UT, PUBG, Fortnite and Overwatch).
Team Shooter MOBA = a MOBA where you are always on teams and shooting is the primary combat method
Lane-based MOBA = as it sounds. You might rename this "traditional moba" to reflect that the term was coined by games like LoL, but if we're reclaiming moba to mean what it says then in fact the team shooter mobas can a long time before lane based mobas.
Battle Royale MOBA = as it sounds.
I do feel that MOBA, when taken to mean what the words themselves mean (as opposed to it's association with dota and lol), really does describe the type of gameplay you can expect better than any other term.
Also, now that I've typed this out, you can see that this style of gameplay is still extremely popular and actually has been for a very long time. So, whilst Battle Royale games might seem like the current fad, in actual fact it's just a modern twist on an extremely popular format. It makes me wonder what the next innovation in the moba scene will be.
If we can't reclaim MOBA to mean what the English words mean, then I'd just call WoT a team shooter, as again that much more closely matches the gameplay experience than the term "action mmo".
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The lines do seem a bit blurred when it comes to MMO definitions, but there are some that we know rule out games from being classed as MMO's. The main one is that if a game involves 64 players or less, then it definitely is not an MMO, but a variation of whatever multiplayer game exists out there from MOBA's to Co-op online games, for player numbers that are above that then there are further qualifiers that need to be met but at least on that point when it comes to numbers of players, there are games that absolutely cannot be classed as MMO's.
If you want games to be labeled correctly then you need to get the devs or publishers to correctly call it what it is. I'm pretty sure MMORPG weren't the ones to change the meaning of mmo so they could cover more games. While I don't like seeing many games now days called mmo when they clearly aren't I don't let it bother me. Like Suzie said, they have to roll with the changes.
Ask a gamer 8 yrs ago what an MMO is and ask one today and with the exception of a couple titles, you will most likely get different responses. which aren't the fault of this site.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
OP the acronym does not mean what it once did, I try to only refer to proper MMOs like Lotro as a MMORPG, but usually forget and put MMO.
Here is what's really important: You can divide us into two camps, those who use it the proper way and those who think it does not matter. But all of those posters know that World of Tanks is not the same sort of game as Lotro. Does not matter about what you think about its "MMO" status we know what sort of game it is.
People new to the genre (or to gaming) though expect to see the word MMO used, have a goggle of "What sort of game is World of Tanks". So it is used for convenience rather than its real meaning.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
Scot, I was never trying to redefine the acronym. I was trying to point out that as a known, established website, MMORPG.com should label games properly (for the benefit of everyone).
You think 10 year olds who find about this site are going to question what they see on the site? That they will google it and say "oh no, wikipedia says this is an action game... well fu** this, MMORPG.com lied to me!"
No, they're going to trust MMORPG.com and spread the misinformation. I remember long ago that after I have discovered this site, it became a knowledgeable authority for me on the MMO subject - now I'm taking things with a couple of grains of salt.
In the end, the issue is quite simple here: (intentional) mislabeling. It's like going to a store to buy some "XXL" underwear. Just that when you get home you find out it's a little tight on you. You're ok with it for a while because you like it, but later find out there was an additional label on top of the actual one which was "XL".
Clearly some of us will know what an MMO is, but in the end this spreading of misinformation will only lead to many pointless arguments over time.
OP the acronym does not mean what it once did, I try to only refer to proper MMOs like Lotro as a MMORPG, but usually forget and put MMO.
Here is what's really important: You can divide us into two camps, those who use it the proper way and those who think it does not matter. But all of those posters know that World of Tanks is not the same sort of game as Lotro. Does not matter about what you think about its "MMO" status we know what sort of game it is.
People new to the genre (or to gaming) though expect to see the word MMO used, have a goggle of "What sort of game is World of Tanks". So it is used for convenience rather than its real meaning.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
Scot, I was never trying to redefine the acronym. I was trying to point out that as a known, established website, MMORPG.com should label games properly (for the benefit of everyone).
You think 10 year olds who find about this site are going to question what they see on the site? That they will google it and say "oh no, wikipedia says this is an action game... well fu** this, MMORPG.com lied to me!"
No, they're going to trust MMORPG.com and spread the misinformation. I remember long ago that after I have discovered this site, it became a knowledgeable authority for me on the MMO subject - now I'm taking things with a couple of grains of salt.
In the end, the issue is quite simple here: (intentional) mislabeling. It's like going to a store to buy some "XXL" underwear. Just that when you get home you find out it's a little tight on you. You're ok with it for a while because you like it, but later find out there was an additional label on top of the actual one which was "XL".
Clearly some of us will know what an MMO is, but in the end this spreading of misinformation will only lead to many pointless arguments over time.
If you don't redefine the acronyms, do you expect MMORPG.com to wave a magic wand and sort it out? It is not easy to be sure what to call these games that's what I am getting at. It is not intentionally misleading, come on put the conspiracy theories away. So if you think MOBA is what WoT should be called stick that in under site suggestions, see what they say.
Action MMO is a very recognised term, if you do that google that's what WoT is supposed to be. For me I looked at this and think they have a "best fit". I wish "MMO" was not being used but common usage has left us stuck with its inappropriate use.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
See, when I see the term "Action MMO", all I think is that the combat is directly controlled by the player (action combat) and that it supports a massive amount of people playing together at once. The first part is true, the second isn't, so I don't get anywhere near the right information.
My preference would be to call it a MOBA. WoT is definitely a multiplayer online battle arena and the term best describes the style of gameplay you can expect. The difficulty is there are a lot of different types of mobas, so then you need sub-genres of mobas which we don't currently have.
I would probably go along the lines of:
MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena = game supports multiple players within an arena/map and you battle one another. (this then describes WoT, LoL, DOTA2 as well as things like Quake 3 Arena, UT, PUBG, Fortnite and Overwatch).
Team Shooter MOBA = a MOBA where you are always on teams and shooting is the primary combat method
Lane-based MOBA = as it sounds. You might rename this "traditional moba" to reflect that the term was coined by games like LoL, but if we're reclaiming moba to mean what it says then in fact the team shooter mobas can a long time before lane based mobas.
Battle Royale MOBA = as it sounds.
I do feel that MOBA, when taken to mean what the words themselves mean (as opposed to it's association with dota and lol), really does describe the type of gameplay you can expect better than any other term.
Also, now that I've typed this out, you can see that this style of gameplay is still extremely popular and actually has been for a very long time. So, whilst Battle Royale games might seem like the current fad, in actual fact it's just a modern twist on an extremely popular format. It makes me wonder what the next innovation in the moba scene will be.
If we can't reclaim MOBA to mean what the English words mean, then I'd just call WoT a team shooter, as again that much more closely matches the gameplay experience than the term "action mmo".
Now here is an attempt to redefine Action MMO I would put these in as site suggestions and see what they say. Some are a little long but who knows? Like you say though Battle Royal might be being called something else next month, that's partly what I meant by "generic", you can be too specific.
Before you burn me on a stick like some kind of heretic, I want you to take a deep breath, read this (it's rather short) and try to make some logical connections of your own(if possible).
Many years ago, a great passion was born for bringing great numbers of players together. Something to overcome traditional multiplayer games and do what was never done before. In the end they called it... MMO : Massively Multiplayer Online, which then became a new genre of games, with MMORPG being the most widely known. Today we have many types of MMOs... like MMORPGs, MMORTSs, MMOFPS, and MMO-whatever you want. But are they really all MMOs or is this just an over-abused term in order to cater to a bigger audience?
I was just browsing this the other days: https://www.mmorpg.com/games-list , trying to see if I can find something new worthwhile in there. However I remained a bit shocked to see how some titles were categorized, e.g. :
- Destiny 2 - MMOFPS (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 3-6 player party size, and 12 players max in PVP)
- Soulworker - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 4 player party size, and 12? players max in PVP)
- Vindictus - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby (towns), 8? player party size - haven't played this in some time)
And these are just some examples.
Why are these labeled MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online) instead of MOs (Multiplayer online)? Where is the "Massive or Massively" part in them ? Is it the shared lobbies where you can dance with some dozen other players? Can they really compare to actual MMOs like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve Online that actually brought hundreds or more players together, on the same server in the same place? Is it not a very wrong thing to lump them together?
Some of you might not care about the naming. But the way it looks right now, in the future every online multiplayer game with a shared lobby will be named an MMO (it's already happening), just to sell better. And I think it's an insult to both the developers and players that are looking towards creating/getting immersed in a true "massive" experience.
Thanks for reading. You decide the future.
Its a marketing ploy to get more traffic to the site. Its makes the MMO genre worst because the game market going to be filled with more and more NOn-MMOs marketed as MMOs.
This type of thread comes out like once every three weeks.
www.MMORPG.com branched out to cover more games and attract a larger audience and therefore keep themselves in business.
Definitions aren't that important in video gaming. In other fields they are very important.
Cryomatrix
I disagree. If I am looking for a MMO and go to a site like this, and people suggest Destiny, I spend money on the game, I will surely be disappointed in the purchase since I was mislead into believing it was a MMO from other MMO community people from a site built on MMORPG news.
Before you burn me on a stick like some kind of heretic, I want you to take a deep breath, read this (it's rather short) and try to make some logical connections of your own(if possible).
Many years ago, a great passion was born for bringing great numbers of players together. Something to overcome traditional multiplayer games and do what was never done before. In the end they called it... MMO : Massively Multiplayer Online, which then became a new genre of games, with MMORPG being the most widely known. Today we have many types of MMOs... like MMORPGs, MMORTSs, MMOFPS, and MMO-whatever you want. But are they really all MMOs or is this just an over-abused term in order to cater to a bigger audience?
I was just browsing this the other days: https://www.mmorpg.com/games-list , trying to see if I can find something new worthwhile in there. However I remained a bit shocked to see how some titles were categorized, e.g. :
- Destiny 2 - MMOFPS (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 3-6 player party size, and 12 players max in PVP)
- Soulworker - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 4 player party size, and 12? players max in PVP)
- Vindictus - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby (towns), 8? player party size - haven't played this in some time)
And these are just some examples.
Why are these labeled MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online) instead of MOs (Multiplayer online)? Where is the "Massive or Massively" part in them ? Is it the shared lobbies where you can dance with some dozen other players? Can they really compare to actual MMOs like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve Online that actually brought hundreds or more players together, on the same server in the same place? Is it not a very wrong thing to lump them together?
Some of you might not care about the naming. But the way it looks right now, in the future every online multiplayer game with a shared lobby will be named an MMO (it's already happening), just to sell better. And I think it's an insult to both the developers and players that are looking towards creating/getting immersed in a true "massive" experience.
Thanks for reading. You decide the future.
Its a marketing ploy to get more traffic to the site. Its makes the MMO genre worst because the game market going to be filled with more and more NOn-MMOs marketed as MMOs.
Which doesn't really matter as what you consider to be true MMOs are a dying breed. They've been surpassed and supplanted by more profitable, easier to make types of games. Expecting a gaming site to solely focus on dying classic MMOs is about as silly as bitching at a music studio for no longer releasing albums on 8-track tapes.
That must be why we call cars our "mounts" and park them in barns
"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”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Honestly, given how many people play MMOs like single-player or very small group games, why not include all kinds of games that can have 100 or so per server in them? Survival games do. Battle royale games do. Even lobby-based games do. The lines have blurred hugely.
I dunno. I like both reading about and covering all kinds of games. We've kept the scope here pretty narrow, tbh.
And, once again, it's adapt or die. We're trying to expand the categories on the Games List and on the featurette slider images by labeling them as what they are.
Exactly. You see people QQ'ing about how mmorpgs aren't massive enough or the world is empty yada yada and then moments later when a new one is announced, its always "will it be solo friendly???" Like wtf....
Just because people are complaining about mmorpgs doesn't mean crap when we're talking about proper categorization of games. Let's say you went to a bookstore that has all the books categorized in different sections based on genre and adult rated ones. You go there with your son to the kids section and find a playboy magazine. Not just one on accident but an entire shelf dedicated to playboy right in the kids section, a reasonable person would be upset at that.
Playboy isn't a kids book just like Destiny 2 isn't an MMO. Most people on this website don't give a crap that mmorpg.com chooses to feature these non mmo's(note i said most people), but a lot of us do dislike when they mislabel a game as in the case of OP.
To me, i'd rather they just left the "category" section on the game list for those games blank if they need time to code a new category(s) for these games. That way least they aren't blatantly falsely categorizing these games as mmorpgs.
I agree with this. If I want to play a MMOFPS, from doing a search I shouldnt get Call of Duty or BF4 or something like that when they not MMOs at all.
Honestly, given how many people play MMOs like single-player or very small group games, why not include all kinds of games that can have 100 or so per server in them? Survival games do. Battle royale games do. Even lobby-based games do. The lines have blurred hugely.
I dunno. I like both reading about and covering all kinds of games. We've kept the scope here pretty narrow, tbh.
And, once again, it's adapt or die. We're trying to expand the categories on the Games List and on the featurette slider images by labeling them as what they are.
Exactly. You see people QQ'ing about how mmorpgs aren't massive enough or the world is empty yada yada and then moments later when a new one is announced, its always "will it be solo friendly???" Like wtf....
Just because people are complaining about mmorpgs doesn't mean crap when we're talking about proper categorization of games. Let's say you went to a bookstore that has all the books categorized in different sections based on genre and adult rated ones. You go there with your son to the kids section and find a playboy magazine. Not just one on accident but an entire shelf dedicated to playboy right in the kids section, a reasonable person would be upset at that.
Playboy isn't a kids book just like Destiny 2 isn't an MMO. Most people on this website don't give a crap that mmorpg.com chooses to feature these non mmo's(note i said most people), but a lot of us do dislike when they mislabel a game as in the case of OP.
To me, i'd rather they just left the "category" section on the game list for those games blank if they need time to code a new category(s) for these games. That way least they aren't blatantly falsely categorizing these games as mmorpgs.
I agree with this. If I want to play a MMOFPS, from doing a search I shouldnt get Call of Duty or BF4 or something like that when they not MMOs at all.
How many First Person Shooter MMOs have there ever been? Don't bother including Third Person Shooters in your reply?
"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”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Gee I don't know OP. But maybe if we keep asking the same tired questions, and ignoring the same tired answers we'll eventually, somehow, reach enlightenment?
well the better question is how far can this new direction of "The Definition of MMO" go?
WIll Call of Duty be considered a MMO? will NBA 2k 18 be considered a MMO? Will Elder Scrolls Skyrim be considered a MMO? again, with no set definition, whats the limit on the changes of the meaning? Anything could possibly be called a MMO with no set definition. That defeats the purpose of having a MMO genre of gaming if anything now days and into the future will be classified as a MMO.
OP the acronym does not mean what it once did, I try to only refer to proper MMOs like Lotro as a MMORPG, but usually forget and put MMO.
Here is what's really important: You can divide us into two camps, those who use it the proper way and those who think it does not matter. But all of those posters know that World of Tanks is not the same sort of game as Lotro. Does not matter about what you think about its "MMO" status we know what sort of game it is.
People new to the genre (or to gaming) though expect to see the word MMO used, have a goggle of "What sort of game is World of Tanks". So it is used for convenience rather than its real meaning.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
So lets say I am looking for an actual MMO Tank fighting game. People suggest WoT. thats not a MMO, and not what I am looking for. I am mostly looking for something like Planetside2 large scale tank battles, but again I get suggested World of Tanks, which sites like this say is one of the top MMO games out there. So what do I do now? What do I search to find what I actually want?
Before you burn me on a stick like some kind of heretic, I want you to take a deep breath, read this (it's rather short) and try to make some logical connections of your own(if possible).
Many years ago, a great passion was born for bringing great numbers of players together. Something to overcome traditional multiplayer games and do what was never done before. In the end they called it... MMO : Massively Multiplayer Online, which then became a new genre of games, with MMORPG being the most widely known. Today we have many types of MMOs... like MMORPGs, MMORTSs, MMOFPS, and MMO-whatever you want. But are they really all MMOs or is this just an over-abused term in order to cater to a bigger audience?
I was just browsing this the other days: https://www.mmorpg.com/games-list , trying to see if I can find something new worthwhile in there. However I remained a bit shocked to see how some titles were categorized, e.g. :
- Destiny 2 - MMOFPS (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 3-6 player party size, and 12 players max in PVP)
- Soulworker - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby, 4 player party size, and 12? players max in PVP)
- Vindictus - MMORPG (an online multiplayer game with shared lobby (towns), 8? player party size - haven't played this in some time)
And these are just some examples.
Why are these labeled MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online) instead of MOs (Multiplayer online)? Where is the "Massive or Massively" part in them ? Is it the shared lobbies where you can dance with some dozen other players? Can they really compare to actual MMOs like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve Online that actually brought hundreds or more players together, on the same server in the same place? Is it not a very wrong thing to lump them together?
Some of you might not care about the naming. But the way it looks right now, in the future every online multiplayer game with a shared lobby will be named an MMO (it's already happening), just to sell better. And I think it's an insult to both the developers and players that are looking towards creating/getting immersed in a true "massive" experience.
Thanks for reading. You decide the future.
Its a marketing ploy to get more traffic to the site. Its makes the MMO genre worst because the game market going to be filled with more and more NOn-MMOs marketed as MMOs.
Which doesn't really matter as what you consider to be true MMOs are a dying breed. They've been surpassed and supplanted by more profitable, easier to make types of games. Expecting a gaming site to solely focus on dying classic MMOs is about as silly as bitching at a music studio for no longer releasing albums on 8-track tapes.
Its a dying breed so why label everything that has a internet connection, a MMO? thats the point. Label it what it is. a MOBA or MOG. MMOs should get the MMO label. Thats not hard to do. And the site could still host Non-MMOs. thats not, and never been the issue, the Issue is when Non-MMOs are INTENTIONALLY mislabeled as MMOs when they are clearly not. It makes searching for actual MMOs more difficult because NON-MMOs will show up in your search results.
Honestly, given how many people play MMOs like single-player or very small group games, why not include all kinds of games that can have 100 or so per server in them? Survival games do. Battle royale games do. Even lobby-based games do. The lines have blurred hugely.
I dunno. I like both reading about and covering all kinds of games. We've kept the scope here pretty narrow, tbh.
And, once again, it's adapt or die. We're trying to expand the categories on the Games List and on the featurette slider images by labeling them as what they are.
Exactly. You see people QQ'ing about how mmorpgs aren't massive enough or the world is empty yada yada and then moments later when a new one is announced, its always "will it be solo friendly???" Like wtf....
Just because people are complaining about mmorpgs doesn't mean crap when we're talking about proper categorization of games. Let's say you went to a bookstore that has all the books categorized in different sections based on genre and adult rated ones. You go there with your son to the kids section and find a playboy magazine. Not just one on accident but an entire shelf dedicated to playboy right in the kids section, a reasonable person would be upset at that.
Playboy isn't a kids book just like Destiny 2 isn't an MMO. Most people on this website don't give a crap that mmorpg.com chooses to feature these non mmo's(note i said most people), but a lot of us do dislike when they mislabel a game as in the case of OP.
To me, i'd rather they just left the "category" section on the game list for those games blank if they need time to code a new category(s) for these games. That way least they aren't blatantly falsely categorizing these games as mmorpgs.
I agree with this. If I want to play a MMOFPS, from doing a search I shouldnt get Call of Duty or BF4 or something like that when they not MMOs at all.
How many First Person Shooter MMOs have there ever been? Don't bother including Third Person Shooters in your reply?
The number of FPS MMOs doesnt matter. The Genre is what it is. Planetside 2 is a MMOFPS. Battlefield 4 is a MOBA. No need to confuse people by combining the two genres into the same thing when clearly they are different. If I want to play a MMOFPS I dont want to do a search on this site and get CoD 8v8 come up as the top suggestion in the future.
Honestly, given how many people play MMOs like single-player or very small group games, why not include all kinds of games that can have 100 or so per server in them? Survival games do. Battle royale games do. Even lobby-based games do. The lines have blurred hugely.
I dunno. I like both reading about and covering all kinds of games. We've kept the scope here pretty narrow, tbh.
And, once again, it's adapt or die. We're trying to expand the categories on the Games List and on the featurette slider images by labeling them as what they are.
Exactly. You see people QQ'ing about how mmorpgs aren't massive enough or the world is empty yada yada and then moments later when a new one is announced, its always "will it be solo friendly???" Like wtf....
Just because people are complaining about mmorpgs doesn't mean crap when we're talking about proper categorization of games. Let's say you went to a bookstore that has all the books categorized in different sections based on genre and adult rated ones. You go there with your son to the kids section and find a playboy magazine. Not just one on accident but an entire shelf dedicated to playboy right in the kids section, a reasonable person would be upset at that.
Playboy isn't a kids book just like Destiny 2 isn't an MMO. Most people on this website don't give a crap that mmorpg.com chooses to feature these non mmo's(note i said most people), but a lot of us do dislike when they mislabel a game as in the case of OP.
To me, i'd rather they just left the "category" section on the game list for those games blank if they need time to code a new category(s) for these games. That way least they aren't blatantly falsely categorizing these games as mmorpgs.
I agree with this. If I want to play a MMOFPS, from doing a search I shouldnt get Call of Duty or BF4 or something like that when they not MMOs at all.
How many First Person Shooter MMOs have there ever been? Don't bother including Third Person Shooters in your reply?
The number of FPS MMOs doesnt matter. The Genre is what it is. Planetside 2 is a MMOFPS. Battlefield 4 is a MOBA. No need to confuse people by combining the two genres into the same thing when clearly they are different. If I want to play a MMOFPS I dont want to do a search on this site and get CoD 8v8 come up as the top suggestion in the future.
Planetside is also the only one I can think of
I don't disagree on terminology: it should be used correctly and new things should have their own names.
As far as I'm concerned this site can cover whatever they feel like covering but I do wish they labeled things properly.
"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”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
If you have a traditional always on MMORPG label as such WoW. If its a MMO lite then label it that Destiny. If its a MOBA then label it that. If its a Multiplayer game then label it that. We all know the differences.
"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
Unfortunately they can't so a search brings back hundreds of titles such as Destiny 2 which just wastes time.
You know the correct category is MOG and why would Devs get to "choose' what to classify their games as on this site, especially if they are incorrectly labeled.
That is what your job should be.
"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 don't understand what the purpose is.
We need to start using the term MOG just so MMORPG players can be happy.
Where the term becomes important though is when you are trying have an intelligent conversation. For instance someone uses this data in an argument, as superdata numbers frequently are sourced in order to dispute the fact MMOs are in decline, etc.
Notice their top MMO on that list. League of Legends. And as you go down the list you realize that over half the list aren't even MMOs.
So essentially when you say "MMOs are in decline" and people are disputing you, you're arguing two entirely different subjects. Because what you are talking about is real, actual MMOs that allow hundreds or thousands of players to inhabit the same world. And they're talking about this mean nothing term that includes LoL, World of Tanks, and DOTA 2.
First off, there's a large part of me which just hates laziness and corruption. I hold a very real fear that western society is stagnating overall and the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger all the time. Mis-categorising things is a symptom of that stagnation. It takes very little effort to label a game correctly and yet it's not happening. There isn't even a good reason for it.
Second, I'm English and so I hate seeing the language corrupted. MMO has a very specific meaning in the English language and whilst an absolute number of players cannot be agreed upon (because the term is comparative and thus changes over time), the number must still be massively bigger than standard online multiplayer games. So, it annoys me that the English language itself is being ignored and corrupted, again for no good reason.
Finally, on a personal level, the mis-labeling directly affects me. MMORPG is my favourite genre, and I enjoy MMOs of other genres too. I do not like normal multiplayer games.
So, when a site like this mislabels a game as an MMO, when in fact it isn't an MMO, it wastes my time. I end up reading about games that I think sound interesting, only to find out later that it's not actually an MMO and thus I would never play. Being massively multiplayer is a feature, it's the only unique feature of the genre and it is a feature that is important to some of us. By dismissing it as a feature, you are essentially telling me that my preference for games is invalid, which is insulting.
As Eldurian points out, the mislabeling done by SuperData also prevents intelligent discussions about the state of the MMO industry. From my point of view, the industry is in major decline, with all existing MMOs reporting a drop in players (to be expected, populations nearly always decline) and very few new MMOs being released. But, if you don't understand what an MMO is and use SuperData's reports, you'd think that the industry was doing better than ever, even though it isn't.
(As a side note, I have no problem with sites like this covering non-MMOs. I understand that this needs to happen to keep the businesses alive due to the decline of the MMO genre. That's fine. I only have a problem with mis-labeling games).
Here is what's really important: You can divide us into two camps, those who use it the proper way and those who think it does not matter. But all of those posters know that World of Tanks is not the same sort of game as Lotro. Does not matter about what you think about its "MMO" status we know what sort of game it is.
People new to the genre (or to gaming) though expect to see the word MMO used, have a goggle of "What sort of game is World of Tanks". So it is used for convenience rather than its real meaning.
In the games list on this site WoT is an "Action MMO", that's all we need to see to have a reasonable idea of what sort of game WoT is, those like us in the know or the newbies.
If you think other terms would be better, do try and put them into Site Suggestions, I have tried to think up better ones but never got far. Remember the terms have to be generic and understandable by people who don't know gaming well. Good luck with that.
My preference would be to call it a MOBA. WoT is definitely a multiplayer online battle arena and the term best describes the style of gameplay you can expect. The difficulty is there are a lot of different types of mobas, so then you need sub-genres of mobas which we don't currently have.
I would probably go along the lines of:
MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena = game supports multiple players within an arena/map and you battle one another. (this then describes WoT, LoL, DOTA2 as well as things like Quake 3 Arena, UT, PUBG, Fortnite and Overwatch).
Team Shooter MOBA = a MOBA where you are always on teams and shooting is the primary combat method
Lane-based MOBA = as it sounds. You might rename this "traditional moba" to reflect that the term was coined by games like LoL, but if we're reclaiming moba to mean what it says then in fact the team shooter mobas can a long time before lane based mobas.
Battle Royale MOBA = as it sounds.
I do feel that MOBA, when taken to mean what the words themselves mean (as opposed to it's association with dota and lol), really does describe the type of gameplay you can expect better than any other term.
Also, now that I've typed this out, you can see that this style of gameplay is still extremely popular and actually has been for a very long time. So, whilst Battle Royale games might seem like the current fad, in actual fact it's just a modern twist on an extremely popular format. It makes me wonder what the next innovation in the moba scene will be.
If we can't reclaim MOBA to mean what the English words mean, then I'd just call WoT a team shooter, as again that much more closely matches the gameplay experience than the term "action mmo".
Closers Online - Steam if you like weabo side scrolling game
Black Dessert Online - RMT free game you need to spend 15 hours + playing this game (so many things to do)
The main one is that if a game involves 64 players or less, then it definitely is not an MMO, but a variation of whatever multiplayer game exists out there from MOBA's to Co-op online games, for player numbers that are above that then there are further qualifiers that need to be met but at least on that point when it comes to numbers of players, there are games that absolutely cannot be classed as MMO's.
Ask a gamer 8 yrs ago what an MMO is and ask one today and with the exception of a couple titles, you will most likely get different responses. which aren't the fault of this site.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
Scot, I was never trying to redefine the acronym. I was trying to point out that as a known, established website, MMORPG.com should label games properly (for the benefit of everyone).
You think 10 year olds who find about this site are going to question what they see on the site? That they will google it and say "oh no, wikipedia says this is an action game... well fu** this, MMORPG.com lied to me!"
No, they're going to trust MMORPG.com and spread the misinformation. I remember long ago that after I have discovered this site, it became a knowledgeable authority for me on the MMO subject - now I'm taking things with a couple of grains of salt.
In the end, the issue is quite simple here: (intentional) mislabeling. It's like going to a store to buy some "XXL" underwear. Just that when you get home you find out it's a little tight on you. You're ok with it for a while because you like it, but later find out there was an additional label on top of the actual one which was "XL".
Clearly some of us will know what an MMO is, but in the end this spreading of misinformation will only lead to many pointless arguments over time.
Action MMO is a very recognised term, if you do that google that's what WoT is supposed to be. For me I looked at this and think they have a "best fit". I wish "MMO" was not being used but common usage has left us stuck with its inappropriate use.
Now here is an attempt to redefine Action MMO I would put these in as site suggestions and see what they say. Some are a little long but who knows? Like you say though Battle Royal might be being called something else next month, that's partly what I meant by "generic", you can be too specific.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
WIll Call of Duty be considered a MMO? will NBA 2k 18 be considered a MMO? Will Elder Scrolls Skyrim be considered a MMO? again, with no set definition, whats the limit on the changes of the meaning? Anything could possibly be called a MMO with no set definition. That defeats the purpose of having a MMO genre of gaming if anything now days and into the future will be classified as a MMO.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I don't disagree on terminology: it should be used correctly and new things should have their own names.
As far as I'm concerned this site can cover whatever they feel like covering but I do wish they labeled things properly.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED