What we think of as MMOs are dead. MMOs have become a second rate genre which hardly ever attracts AAA funding.
Yeah .. traditional MMOs probably have run its course. Even Blizz seems to be abandoning Titan, their next-gen MMO. Personally i don't feel bad though ... I would prefer ARPGs, and online shooters to traditional MMOs anyway .. and what i like do not seem to be dying out anyway.
Starting over is not the same thing as abandonment.
and they did not guarantee the new incarnation will be a traditional MMO, or even a MMO, did they?
They also "restart" SC Ghost a couple of times before killing it officially. Do you really think they are still focusing their attention on making a new MMO?
Don't be daft. From what they said, likely they found the game engine insufficient for their purposes so they went back to redesign it. Hence, the programming team is still working on it but all the artists etc. were assigned to other projects.
The MMO genre gets one AAA this year, but will there be one next year or the year after that? Meanwhile the solo genre gets CoD and the rest every single year. MMOs have been abandoned, the serious money is staying with solo games. Solo games which are increasingly multiplayer in fact, taking one of the selling points for a MMO with them. Not with RPG gameplay or a persistent world, but multiplayer all the same.
As for Titan as they say the bigger they are...but the project is so wrapped up in secrecy and has had major direction changes, so hard to say what on earth is going on there.
This battle's probably already lost, OP. As far as I'm concerned once WoW starts selling high level characters (and LOTRO/EQ2/TERA as well) they are barely RPGs anymore as the whole main point of an RPG is to progress your character from weak to strong.
There are already a lot of traditional MMORPGs that aren't really massive (actually hard to think of one that is other than EVE)
They'll keep using the acronym because of marketing but it really doesn't fit most of the games anymore (and I'm not even touching on games like LoL and DOTA that some people claim are MMORPGs now)
It's not a scam though. "Scam" means they are doing something illegal not just misusing a buzzword for marketing reasons.
Calling games MMORPGs when they really are not is only "Legal" because our present society hasn't got enough knowledge or common sense of what is truly moral and immoral to know whether something *IS* moral or immoral. In that department our society is stupid with a capital S. Much of what our Legal system allows in the Business world *IS* Immoral and should be illegal, but unless we get an ELE, or an offworld invasion, or something else catastrophic to wake us the @#$% up we won't ever get our head's screwed on right.
But trying to discuss here that is probably as hard and pointless as Noah trying to explain to the Humans waiting to board the ark why only animals were going to be allowed as passengers.
Dota/Moba's are not MMORPGs. No matter what the Marketers and Players/Posters that agree with them tell us continuously. If a customer wants to believe their lies they are welcome to do so, their choice of course, but I know better. When someone on these boards call a MOBA a MMORPG my reaction is to call "BS", but that too is pointless now.
You are right about one thing... the battle was lost years ago to be honest... and it was lost just as soon as We as a Society decided to let the Business world do whatever they wanted to as long as they made a profit. Once We as a society decided THAT we also flagged ourselves to receive issues like this as a result.
tl/dr: We haven't see nothing yet. (and yes I am disappointed in the current situation and what it will lead to.)
MMOExposed sounds like a sleazy tabloid, run by the likes of Geraldo Rivera or those creepy TMZ people, to look at the seedy underbelly of the MMO community.
HEADLINE: Lan Party Goes Wild! - Gamers dressed in animal costumes called "Furries" hold weekend long lan parties that turn into fetish exhibitions fueled by a new opioid called Kratom.
If this fits your agenda, kudos to you for the bullseye. If not, I suggest a rebrand.
As for Titan as they say the bigger they are...but the project is so wrapped up in secrecy and has had major direction changes, so hard to say what on earth is going on there.
This .. i wouldn't bet money that titan would come out as a traditional MMORPG. May be something like Destiny ...
I think it's important to realize that the names of game genres, like MMORPG, are usually not created or used as some kind of scientific classification that accurately calssifies a game into its proper place...like biological classification. No, they are created and used for marketing/branding purposes...ie to sell products.
No one is going to ever brand their product as a soft cap whatever. And why? Because the average consumer is going to have no freaking idea what that means, regardless of if it is technically accurate or not.
A good genre or sub-genre name should help brand your product so it reaches the right consumers. MMORPG is a pretty decent name...think about it.
It's MASSIVELY multiplayer, so you know that you will be playing with not just a few people, but a lot. It's online, so you know that you can do all your playing from the comfort of your home. And it's an RPG, and you know that you really like that genre.
Also, the MMORPG genre is already established as a kind of "brand." Fans of one MMORPG will very often look for other MMORPGs to play.
If a new company calls their game a soft cap whatchamacallit, normal MMORPG fans may never even find the product.
MMOExposed came up with a definition of what a is considered a MMO and what isnt.
**snip**
Quoth Chicken Little: "The sky is falling!"
Except it isn't. It doesn't really matter to me what marketing comes up with to try and sell their product. I am more than capable enough of as a consumer to realize when a game is blowing hot air. If the game is good enough, it will sell itself. The acronym doesn't make the genre, the game does.
"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."
They could call the games "Mostly Online, Except before you login at the character screen, role playing (sometimes) battle simulators with sandbox-y throw ins for old school players like crafting - as well as noob core PvP (because no one outside the current player base plays hardcore PvP in MMOs anymore - oh and we'll hit you with a box fee, cash shop, and sub fee at 1999 prices (like it costs 14.99 per person to keep the servers up these days) but you'll play it anyway for a MONTH before moving on"
or in short, MOEBYLATCSRPSBSWSYTIFOSPLCAWANCPBNOOTCPBPHPIMAOAWHYWABFCSASFA1PLIC1PPTKTSUTDBYPIAFAMBMO
And we'd still give them our money, or not. Or maybe.
You're wasting your time trying to push this on people that will not correct themselves when it is pointed out that "mobs" can only exist in object oriented design, or that low frame rate is not "lag". (For extra fun : anywhere "mob" is appropriate, player characters are also "mobs"! Surprise!)
One thing being overlooked in this thread is that the first M is "massively", not "massive", and it is married to the second M, "multiplayer". It is either "massively multiplayer" or it is not, and it does not refer to the physical size of the game world. At least from my perspective, lobby based games do not qualify, no matter how many players end up in an instance from that lobby.
I do like the proposed terms of hard cap and soft cap, though. I wish I could filter searches for games by that cap, and eliminate any that use a hard cap, no matter how small that makes the resulting list. Exceptions given for performance or balance reasons, but it can't be a main mechanic. (LDoN in EQ, fine. Continent limits in Planetside 2, fine. WoT or DDO, not so much.)
Originally posted by Castillle I voted no. You can't bring more than 5 people in Deadmines. You can't bring more than 40 people in Molten Core. And have you seen people do 30 man Molten Core when that just released? Absolutely not.
How many players can be in Goldshire or Stormwind? What "percentage" of the gameplay do Dungeons and Raids make up? Maybe that would be a better measure?
[EDIT] Reading further on, I saw a post about dieing games. What is being missed is "possibilities." A game that CAN have 1000s of users online simultaneously is different than a game that can have ONLY 64, and no more.
But what qualifies as "online"?
Am I not "online" if I'm sitting in a lobby waiting for the queue to fire? Is that significantly different than sitting in an in-game city, waiting for the LFG to group me up and 'port me to the instance?
As to the main thread, I wonder if MMOExposed would garner more support if he laid off the hyperbole and the messianic complex?
Online is the easiest term to define. Connected via the Internet (as opposed to a LAN). Now, how one wants to interpret that in the MMO acronym is up for debate. In the very basic of qualifiers, any chatroom would be massively Online, but would it be a game? In some instances, it would as people play mind games with each other
Do *you* want to say that Facebook is an MMO? How about AIM? Or IRC? Heck, MMORPG.com has 1000s of posters online simultaneously and you can PM other posters besides just posting.
Well, there's officially no 'game' there (and 'unofficially' doesn't count.) But there's no 'game' in just the MMO part of the acronym either, so if MMO is just the sum of it's parts... then it would be technically correct to do so, whether I want to or not.
And part of my questioning is aimed at determining whether or not the term 'MMO' is just the sum of it's parts ('massive' + "multiplayer' + 'online') or something more.
What "game" are you actually playing while sitting in a lobby/queue?
The "waiting game" :P
But seriously, it depends on how loosely we want to take the idea of 'playing.' In MTGO, I can be multi-tasking some trades while waiting for a draft to fire - as it's a 'trading card game,' one can argue that trading is included in playing the game.
Your thread makes no sense, its not scamming if you don't find the game you like, hence why your searching in the first place, just keep looking till you find the right one and stop your whining.
I really couldn't give 2 shits if a game sticks to its acronym or not, if its fun its fun. And its up to the player to decide if the game is what you're looking for based on reviews and gameplay videos etc.
what next? are you going to rant about the how the army is scamming you to believe they are shooting role playing games at their enemies?
You seem intent on defending this scam like others have in the past when MMOExposed first brought this subject to our attention. but here. Check out this definition of what a scam is.
As we can see, being mislead is a form of scam. has nothing to do with how fun something is. Thats not the point of the scam. the scam is the misleading part. And thats selling a different product to consumers that were looking for something else out of that product.
Going back to MMOExposed's farm analogy.
If I go to buy a Orange, but the farmer sells me a Peach, since they are calling them Oranges now since they are the color orange, that would be misleading agenda on consumers who were looking to buy Oranges.
Thats a scam.
The fact that the Peach is Orange, is the traditional scam technique of the "Is it Massive? Does it have Multiplayer? Does it have Online play? So it must be a MMO than!..." tactic.
Just because the game has a lot of box sells, and features multiplayer and has online multuplayer, doesnt make the game what any of us are looking for when we originally typed in MMO into the search engine.
Just because the game has a lot of box sells, and features multiplayer and has online multuplayer, doesnt make the game what any of us are looking for when we originally typed in MMO into the search engine.
no search engine guarantees it will come up with games you like.
And it is not like it is a secret that MMOs are more like single player games when they are advertised to be "solo-able". I would say there is no fraud if a dev is advertising "solo-able MMO". Sure you may not like it, but meaning of terms change all the time.
This battle's probably already lost, OP. As far as I'm concerned once WoW starts selling high level characters (and LOTRO/EQ2/TERA as well) they are barely RPGs anymore as the whole main point of an RPG is to progress your character from weak to strong.
Already with SoR players for 2 expansions could be instant leveled to level 80. No difference now
WoW will be at first 1 level 90 (not 100) character per account (or perhaps per client, as too many confuse the too). The character still has to be leveled from 90-100, and that's including all the gear needed to progress (no level 90 BoAs exists now).
In WoW with BoAs there's no need but to obtain even that gear while leveling (all but the belt/gloves/boots/trinkets missing), from 1-85 now. And since players don't get all their spells/abilities until end-game, they couldn't even practice with most from 1-85!
It's a feature where friends/family can level together, instead of having to wait 6 days to level a toon to level 90 to even begin the latest expansion, which is a legitimate gripe when WoD ushers in level 100.
Comments
The MMO genre gets one AAA this year, but will there be one next year or the year after that? Meanwhile the solo genre gets CoD and the rest every single year. MMOs have been abandoned, the serious money is staying with solo games. Solo games which are increasingly multiplayer in fact, taking one of the selling points for a MMO with them. Not with RPG gameplay or a persistent world, but multiplayer all the same.
As for Titan as they say the bigger they are...but the project is so wrapped up in secrecy and has had major direction changes, so hard to say what on earth is going on there.
Calling games MMORPGs when they really are not is only "Legal" because our present society hasn't got enough knowledge or common sense of what is truly moral and immoral to know whether something *IS* moral or immoral. In that department our society is stupid with a capital S. Much of what our Legal system allows in the Business world *IS* Immoral and should be illegal, but unless we get an ELE, or an offworld invasion, or something else catastrophic to wake us the @#$% up we won't ever get our head's screwed on right.
But trying to discuss here that is probably as hard and pointless as Noah trying to explain to the Humans waiting to board the ark why only animals were going to be allowed as passengers.
Dota/Moba's are not MMORPGs. No matter what the Marketers and Players/Posters that agree with them tell us continuously. If a customer wants to believe their lies they are welcome to do so, their choice of course, but I know better. When someone on these boards call a MOBA a MMORPG my reaction is to call "BS", but that too is pointless now.
You are right about one thing... the battle was lost years ago to be honest... and it was lost just as soon as We as a Society decided to let the Business world do whatever they wanted to as long as they made a profit. Once We as a society decided THAT we also flagged ourselves to receive issues like this as a result.
tl/dr: We haven't see nothing yet. (and yes I am disappointed in the current situation and what it will lead to.)
MMOExposed sounds like a sleazy tabloid, run by the likes of Geraldo Rivera or those creepy TMZ people, to look at the seedy underbelly of the MMO community.
HEADLINE: Lan Party Goes Wild! - Gamers dressed in animal costumes called "Furries" hold weekend long lan parties that turn into fetish exhibitions fueled by a new opioid called Kratom.
If this fits your agenda, kudos to you for the bullseye. If not, I suggest a rebrand.
This .. i wouldn't bet money that titan would come out as a traditional MMORPG. May be something like Destiny ...
I think it's important to realize that the names of game genres, like MMORPG, are usually not created or used as some kind of scientific classification that accurately calssifies a game into its proper place...like biological classification. No, they are created and used for marketing/branding purposes...ie to sell products.
No one is going to ever brand their product as a soft cap whatever. And why? Because the average consumer is going to have no freaking idea what that means, regardless of if it is technically accurate or not.
A good genre or sub-genre name should help brand your product so it reaches the right consumers. MMORPG is a pretty decent name...think about it.
It's MASSIVELY multiplayer, so you know that you will be playing with not just a few people, but a lot. It's online, so you know that you can do all your playing from the comfort of your home. And it's an RPG, and you know that you really like that genre.
Also, the MMORPG genre is already established as a kind of "brand." Fans of one MMORPG will very often look for other MMORPGs to play.
If a new company calls their game a soft cap whatchamacallit, normal MMORPG fans may never even find the product.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Quoth Chicken Little: "The sky is falling!"
Except it isn't. It doesn't really matter to me what marketing comes up with to try and sell their product. I am more than capable enough of as a consumer to realize when a game is blowing hot air. If the game is good enough, it will sell itself. The acronym doesn't make the genre, the game does.
Why do we care?
"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."
They could call the games "Mostly Online, Except before you login at the character screen, role playing (sometimes) battle simulators with sandbox-y throw ins for old school players like crafting - as well as noob core PvP (because no one outside the current player base plays hardcore PvP in MMOs anymore - oh and we'll hit you with a box fee, cash shop, and sub fee at 1999 prices (like it costs 14.99 per person to keep the servers up these days) but you'll play it anyway for a MONTH before moving on"
or in short, MOEBYLATCSRPSBSWSYTIFOSPLCAWANCPBNOOTCPBPHPIMAOAWHYWABFCSASFA1PLIC1PPTKTSUTDBYPIAFAMBMO
And we'd still give them our money, or not. Or maybe.
You're wasting your time trying to push this on people that will not correct themselves when it is pointed out that "mobs" can only exist in object oriented design, or that low frame rate is not "lag". (For extra fun : anywhere "mob" is appropriate, player characters are also "mobs"! Surprise!)
One thing being overlooked in this thread is that the first M is "massively", not "massive", and it is married to the second M, "multiplayer". It is either "massively multiplayer" or it is not, and it does not refer to the physical size of the game world. At least from my perspective, lobby based games do not qualify, no matter how many players end up in an instance from that lobby.
I do like the proposed terms of hard cap and soft cap, though. I wish I could filter searches for games by that cap, and eliminate any that use a hard cap, no matter how small that makes the resulting list. Exceptions given for performance or balance reasons, but it can't be a main mechanic. (LDoN in EQ, fine. Continent limits in Planetside 2, fine. WoT or DDO, not so much.)
Well, there's officially no 'game' there (and 'unofficially' doesn't count.) But there's no 'game' in just the MMO part of the acronym either, so if MMO is just the sum of it's parts... then it would be technically correct to do so, whether I want to or not.
And part of my questioning is aimed at determining whether or not the term 'MMO' is just the sum of it's parts ('massive' + "multiplayer' + 'online') or something more.
The "waiting game" :P
But seriously, it depends on how loosely we want to take the idea of 'playing.' In MTGO, I can be multi-tasking some trades while waiting for a draft to fire - as it's a 'trading card game,' one can argue that trading is included in playing the game.You seem intent on defending this scam like others have in the past when MMOExposed first brought this subject to our attention. but here. Check out this definition of what a scam is.
===============================================================
scam
skam/informal
"an insurance scam"
"the scam involved a series of bogus investment deals"
verb
synonyms:swindle, cheat, deceive, trick, dupe, hoodwink, double-cross, gull; More
===================================================================
As we can see, being mislead is a form of scam. has nothing to do with how fun something is. Thats not the point of the scam. the scam is the misleading part. And thats selling a different product to consumers that were looking for something else out of that product.
Going back to MMOExposed's farm analogy.
If I go to buy a Orange, but the farmer sells me a Peach, since they are calling them Oranges now since they are the color orange, that would be misleading agenda on consumers who were looking to buy Oranges.
Thats a scam.
The fact that the Peach is Orange, is the traditional scam technique of the "Is it Massive? Does it have Multiplayer? Does it have Online play? So it must be a MMO than!..." tactic.
Just because the game has a lot of box sells, and features multiplayer and has online multuplayer, doesnt make the game what any of us are looking for when we originally typed in MMO into the search engine.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
no search engine guarantees it will come up with games you like.
And it is not like it is a secret that MMOs are more like single player games when they are advertised to be "solo-able". I would say there is no fraud if a dev is advertising "solo-able MMO". Sure you may not like it, but meaning of terms change all the time.
Already with SoR players for 2 expansions could be instant leveled to level 80. No difference now
WoW will be at first 1 level 90 (not 100) character per account (or perhaps per client, as too many confuse the too). The character still has to be leveled from 90-100, and that's including all the gear needed to progress (no level 90 BoAs exists now).
In WoW with BoAs there's no need but to obtain even that gear while leveling (all but the belt/gloves/boots/trinkets missing), from 1-85 now. And since players don't get all their spells/abilities until end-game, they couldn't even practice with most from 1-85!
It's a feature where friends/family can level together, instead of having to wait 6 days to level a toon to level 90 to even begin the latest expansion, which is a legitimate gripe when WoD ushers in level 100.
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