It's a lot closer to survival games than an MMORPG but it does sound very cool with traditional Fallout story quests built in.
What Tod Howard said in the presentation tonight that "you can carry your progress to other servers" and "you won't even notice you're in a different server" sounds to me like they'll be using something like a heavily instanced megaserver tech to handle different servers more seamlessly than what is normal in survival games.
I get what you're saying @BillMurphy, l in that this will be the closest a survival game has ever gotten to a full fledged mmoprg with respect to game play elements, size, quests and scope but I also agree with @blueturtle13 that "dozens" instead of hundreds or thousands is still a key and relevant difference between this and say the Elder Scrolls Online.
Yep, I agree with Blue too. It's just I also don't think, outside of big sieges or cities, I've ever seen more than a few dozen players in one space in an MMO. For all intents and purposes, FO76 is going to look and feel like a Fallout sandbox MMO shooter.
Clesrly you haven't, dont play EVE then.
Or DAOC, or L2, or.....others...
Not a MMORPG, but this one I'm going to play, FFA PVP or not.
I do get Bill's point. Over time mmorpgs have been getting progressively more and more managed with respect to the max number of players that are permitted to be all in one place at a time.
If the graphics and other systems were still the same as the original MMOs from the late '90s and early 2000s, present day connectivity and PC power could have been used to have even more players in the same space than we did back then, before you have to start counting seconds per frame instead of frames per second. And Eve has always been a special case because there's not a whole lot that needs to be rendered in space. I know what graphics Eve has are not bad but it's nevertheless a good example of what could be done with current PC power and low graphics processing demands.
Instead of freezing the graphics at 2000 levels, game developers (thankfully) chose to use the increased specs to give us more and more detailed graphics for environments characters and effects while at the same time focusing on game play that does not require huge number of players on screen to enjoy.
When you put things like that together you do have to start questioning whether the potential to have large number of players on screen means all that much with respect to the players experiencing a world full of other players when the zoning, phasing and channeling tricks that are now common do a good enough job of simulating the experience.
I personally do enjoy large scale PVP and want large crowds for that, but if I'm being honest, that is the only thing I do in MMOs where having those large crowds makes my gaming experience better. With a lot of other things I do in MMOs, large crowds are not needed and sometimes they just get in the way.
So a game like ESO that is heavily instanced and phased and spawns local instances on the fly if a location is getting too crowded for all PVE, but at the same time allows several hundred players to be in one PVP zone at the same time for large scale RvR, suits me fine. I think of it as an MMO and so do most of us with the possible exception of one or two extremists here.
I still can't bring myself to call a game like FO76 an MMO because it never allows more than "dozens" anywhere at any time for any reason. But I do see why some question whether there is any practical difference worth fretting about and I especially see it for people that never participate in large scale PVP - and there has always been quite a few of those players in MMOs.
I don't disagree, and I have no problem if this game only supports 12 per shard or whatever.
But once again I was annoyed when I excitedly read the title and thought FO76 really was going to be more of a traditional MMORPG and it turns out to actually just be a more full featured survival title.
No that its bad that this is the case, I've yet to even try a survival game as I've been waiting for one to "release" and be done right.
Conan seems to have promise and be "almost there," but with the news I'll be practicing by playing FO 4 from now until November.
They had better tone down sniping a bunch or no one will be safe from me, I am deadly at freehand headshot sniping, and am working on doing so on the run.
Same for the combat shotgun, no way they can go live without reigning that in. As that assassin tells Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill 2, I am a fking surgeon with this shotgun, but not that I have to be at this range.
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
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
It is a multiplayer rpg-survival game, not a MASSIVE multiplayer game.
It's an mmo with multiplayer rpg-survival game aspects.
They only showed a bunch of players. When they show hundreds of players together in an open map I can get convinced that it is an MMO.
"Hundreds of players" so which games are mmos today according to you ? I don't know any games right now that you regularly see 100s on the same screen.
An MMO is a game that supports thousands of players in a persistent world map. Lineage and Lineage 2 are classic examples of this.
Says who? Before you said 100s now we are into the 1000s. I don't understand where some of you get this idea you get to decide what is and what is not an mmo. I missed the memo where random guys on the internet are in charge of this.
The idea of what an MMO is has been stagnant for nearly 2 decades. Why do you get to decide that the meaning of the genre gets to just change when this shit Fallout was announced. Seriously... get off of Bethesda’s nuts. This game will suck just like everything else they’ve created over the past 10 years.
There's a difference between a games ability and the actuality of what to expect in a game.
For example, hub based games could have 100 or more people in a hub, but only allow 30 people in an area instance.
Channels, shards, etc. have become a big part of gameplay, everyone has their own ideas of what an MMO should be, and unfortunately, they are all wrong.
100s of players on screen, very few games do that, and even fewer that do are actually enjoyable.
MMOs don't have specific rules tied to them. There is no clear definition set. a 200 person battle royale game or a 500 person RvR battle, or a 100 person open world FFA, semantics is what it is, and trying to define it is pointless.
Whatever you say it is, someone else will say otherwise, it doesn't change what the game is capable of.
I’n an MMO you could have everyone on the server stand in the same spot and there would be thousands of people “on the screen.” It doesn’t matter if people are spread out or in the same place, they’re all sharing the same persistent world together. Even having a hundred people playing together on a server isn’t massive. Many FPS’ do that but that doesn’t classify them as MMOs. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t ever remember MMO meaning whatever somebody wants it to mean, it’s a specific genre with specific criteria. With the logic of some perspective ole here, I might as well start calling Arma 3 an MMO because there can be 200 people on a server at a time.
Your first mistake is thinking that MMO means you have to have a persistent world. MMO just means Massively Multiplayer and Online... there are MMOFPS games, MMORPGs, MMORacing games... and it doesn't always mean they need a persistent world, just that they need an avenue to play together.
Like I said, you could have 200 people standing in a town or city of some games, then go out to the world where they limit players to 50 in an area, but is it an MMO or is it not? You could have a battle royale game where they allow for 300 people in an arena and they can all stand in the same spot, but does that change anything?
It's not "whatever somebody wants it to be" but it isn't clearly defined either. It's not "567 people is the threshold for MMO, if you can't have more than 567 people than it isn't an MMO"
Nothing is clearly defined, so if Fallout 76 ends up with allowing 60, 120, 150 people in an area, maybe it's mm... "MMO lite" but we know it's not just a co-op or Multiplayer game, it's more than that.
You are somewhat correct in the definition of MMO not requiring a persistent world, I can't agree when MMORPG is used as in the title of the news article.
But the first two letters in both stand for Massively Multiplayer, no getting around that.
Now we can go all day debating whether 300 in a lobby but 12 in a shard qualifies (doesn't for me) but ultimately the name ANET came up for GW1 years ago seems most apt, Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. (CORPG)
Not sure why this site and so many others struggle with the concept.
Heck, "survival game' isn't really a good genre descriptor as someone may one day create one that caters to thousands.
Survival CORPG would be far more suitable for most in the current crop, at least IMO.
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
"Softcore Survival"... so... like the late night Cinemax of survival games...?
Shared world shooter RPG Skinemax survival game. In a league of its own.
"This case of explosive dysentary is makin' me hawny! Still, I need to go to the medical tent to cure it, and to raise the money, I'll have to get 3 of my lady friends together to do a bikini car wash! Tonight, we'll plan the whole thing over a lingerie slumber party, and then get into an impromptu slow motion pillow fight! Those silly boys from the Nuka Cola processing plant better not peep in on us, tee hee!!!"
It is a multiplayer rpg-survival game, not a MASSIVE multiplayer game.
It's an mmo with multiplayer rpg-survival game aspects.
They only showed a bunch of players. When they show hundreds of players together in an open map I can get convinced that it is an MMO.
"Hundreds of players" so which games are mmos today according to you ? I don't know any games right now that you regularly see 100s on the same screen.
An MMO is a game that supports thousands of players in a persistent world map. Lineage and Lineage 2 are classic examples of this.
Says who? Before you said 100s now we are into the 1000s. I don't understand where some of you get this idea you get to decide what is and what is not an mmo. I missed the memo where random guys on the internet are in charge of this.
The idea of what an MMO is has been stagnant for nearly 2 decades. Why do you get to decide that the meaning of the genre gets to just change when this shit Fallout was announced. Seriously... get off of Bethesda’s nuts. This game will suck just like everything else they’ve created over the past 10 years.
There's a difference between a games ability and the actuality of what to expect in a game.
For example, hub based games could have 100 or more people in a hub, but only allow 30 people in an area instance.
Channels, shards, etc. have become a big part of gameplay, everyone has their own ideas of what an MMO should be, and unfortunately, they are all wrong.
100s of players on screen, very few games do that, and even fewer that do are actually enjoyable.
MMOs don't have specific rules tied to them. There is no clear definition set. a 200 person battle royale game or a 500 person RvR battle, or a 100 person open world FFA, semantics is what it is, and trying to define it is pointless.
Whatever you say it is, someone else will say otherwise, it doesn't change what the game is capable of.
I’n an MMO you could have everyone on the server stand in the same spot and there would be thousands of people “on the screen.” It doesn’t matter if people are spread out or in the same place, they’re all sharing the same persistent world together. Even having a hundred people playing together on a server isn’t massive. Many FPS’ do that but that doesn’t classify them as MMOs. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t ever remember MMO meaning whatever somebody wants it to mean, it’s a specific genre with specific criteria. With the logic of some perspective ole here, I might as well start calling Arma 3 an MMO because there can be 200 people on a server at a time.
Your first mistake is thinking that MMO means you have to have a persistent world. MMO just means Massively Multiplayer and Online... there are MMOFPS games, MMORPGs, MMORacing games... and it doesn't always mean they need a persistent world, just that they need an avenue to play together.
Like I said, you could have 200 people standing in a town or city of some games, then go out to the world where they limit players to 50 in an area, but is it an MMO or is it not? You could have a battle royale game where they allow for 300 people in an arena and they can all stand in the same spot, but does that change anything?
It's not "whatever somebody wants it to be" but it isn't clearly defined either. It's not "567 people is the threshold for MMO, if you can't have more than 567 people than it isn't an MMO"
Nothing is clearly defined, so if Fallout 76 ends up with allowing 60, 120, 150 people in an area, maybe it's mm... "MMO lite" but we know it's not just a co-op or Multiplayer game, it's more than that.
You are somewhat correct in the definition of MMO not requiring a persistent world, I can't agree when MMORPG is used as in the title of the news article.
But the first two letters in both stand for Massively Multiplayer, no getting around that.
Now we can go all day debating whether 300 in a lobby but 12 in a shard qualifies (doesn't for me) but ultimately the name ANET came up for GW1 years ago seems most apt, Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. (CORPG)
Not sure why this site and so many others struggle with the concept.
Heck, "survival game' isn't really a good genre descriptor as someone may one day create one that caters to thousands.
Survival CORPG would be far more suitable for most in the current crop, at least IMO.
You're certainly not wrong. But sometimes it's hard to define what is and isn't an MMORPG. CORPG was certainly a term created and coined by Anet, but it also wasn't really open at the time of coining the term where players would ever meet anyone outside of towns.
In that same sense Phantasy Star Universe was similar, lots of people in towns, but only groups outside, whereas a game like Destiny, well you have lots of people that you can meet in a town, and you can meet them freely in an open world, with some limitations, but then The Division is the reverse of that, where you only meet people in the Dark Zone but in PvE areas it's just you and your group.
All of these games are in some way a hybridization of the genre. Something being massive I've always taken into consideration of what the games are relative to.
I don't know what a developer considers their game or what they don't. If a developer has a world where 100 people are in an area and THEY claim that it's an MMO... an argument could be made, but not a particularly great argument. For example, Closers is considered an MMO... it's largely not an MMO except for hubs. :shrug: I could try and debate the developers on it I guess, but they call it what they call it.
Not sure why people are so hung on the stupid definition - who cares? MMO, not mmo, survival - whatever
Will it have fun gameplay - all that matters to me.
I'm still holding them fast to the "softcore" label. If I can't name my character Pipboy Larry and have it fit thematically, I shall voice my displeasure on every website in existence. I'll even bring back Geocities and make all the original hamster dancers wave their privates at a Bethesda logo...
Not sure why people are so hung on the stupid definition - who cares? MMO, not mmo, survival - whatever
Will it have fun gameplay - all that matters to me.
I guess the same reason the Devs are hung up on not labeling it an MMORPG , simply because they realize its not one..
I dont understand why this site continulally pushes this agenda naming everything an MMO , the game will stand on its own merits as a Multiplayer/Coop game , They do not need to continue labeling things incorrectly ,.. The real question here is why is this Site hung up on mislabeling games .. ?
It doesnt make cents , and when something doesnt make cents it makes dollars , there is an agenda here , a very , unnecessary and transparent agenda .
It's a lot closer to survival games than an MMORPG but it does sound very cool with traditional Fallout story quests built in.
What Tod Howard said in the presentation tonight that "you can carry your progress to other servers" and "you won't even notice you're in a different server" sounds to me like they'll be using something like a heavily instanced megaserver tech to handle different servers more seamlessly than what is normal in survival games.
I get what you're saying @BillMurphy, l in that this will be the closest a survival game has ever gotten to a full fledged mmoprg with respect to game play elements, size, quests and scope but I also agree with @blueturtle13 that "dozens" instead of hundreds or thousands is still a key and relevant difference between this and say the Elder Scrolls Online.
Yep, I agree with Blue too. It's just I also don't think, outside of big sieges or cities, I've ever seen more than a few dozen players in one space in an MMO. For all intents and purposes, FO76 is going to look and feel like a Fallout sandbox MMO shooter.
Clesrly you haven't, dont play EVE then.
Or DAOC, or L2, or.....others...
Not a MMORPG, but this one I'm going to play, FFA PVP or not.
I do get Bill's point. Over time mmorpgs have been getting progressively more and more managed with respect to the max number of players that are permitted to be all in one place at a time.
If the graphics and other systems were still the same as the original MMOs from the late '90s and early 2000s, present day connectivity and PC power could have been used to have even more players in the same space than we did back then, before you have to start counting seconds per frame instead of frames per second. And Eve has always been a special case because there's not a whole lot that needs to be rendered in space. I know what graphics Eve has are not bad but it's nevertheless a good example of what could be done with current PC power and low graphics processing demands.
Instead of freezing the graphics at 2000 levels, game developers (thankfully) chose to use the increased specs to give us more and more detailed graphics for environments characters and effects while at the same time focusing on game play that does not require huge number of players on screen to enjoy.
When you put things like that together you do have to start questioning whether the potential to have large number of players on screen means all that much with respect to the players experiencing a world full of other players when the zoning, phasing and channeling tricks that are now common do a good enough job of simulating the experience.
I personally do enjoy large scale PVP and want large crowds for that, but if I'm being honest, that is the only thing I do in MMOs where having those large crowds makes my gaming experience better. With a lot of other things I do in MMOs, large crowds are not needed and sometimes they just get in the way.
So a game like ESO that is heavily instanced and phased and spawns local instances on the fly if a location is getting too crowded for all PVE, but at the same time allows several hundred players to be in one PVP zone at the same time for large scale RvR, suits me fine. I think of it as an MMO and so do most of us with the possible exception of one or two extremists here.
I still can't bring myself to call a game like FO76 an MMO because it never allows more than "dozens" anywhere at any time for any reason. But I do see why some question whether there is any practical difference worth fretting about and I especially see it for people that never participate in large scale PVP - and there has always been quite a few of those players in MMOs.
I don't disagree, and I have no problem if this game only supports 12 per shard or whatever.
But once again I was annoyed when I excitedly read the title and thought FO76 really was going to be more of a traditional MMORPG and it turns out to actually just be a more full featured survival title.
No that its bad that this is the case, I've yet to even try a survival game as I've been waiting for one to "release" and be done right.
Conan seems to have promise and be "almost there," but with the news I'll be practicing by playing FO 4 from now until November.
They had better tone down sniping a bunch or no one will be safe from me, I am deadly at freehand headshot sniping, and am working on doing so on the run.
Same for the combat shotgun, no way they can go live without reigning that in. As that assassin tells Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill 2, I am a fking surgeon with this shotgun, but not that I have to be at this range.
Sounds like you play FO4 like I do. Shotguns and sniper rifles. Who needs anything else? ... except maybe a mini nuke now and then just for fun
"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
It's a lot closer to survival games than an MMORPG but it does sound very cool with traditional Fallout story quests built in.
What Tod Howard said in the presentation tonight that "you can carry your progress to other servers" and "you won't even notice you're in a different server" sounds to me like they'll be using something like a heavily instanced megaserver tech to handle different servers more seamlessly than what is normal in survival games.
I get what you're saying @BillMurphy, l in that this will be the closest a survival game has ever gotten to a full fledged mmoprg with respect to game play elements, size, quests and scope but I also agree with @blueturtle13 that "dozens" instead of hundreds or thousands is still a key and relevant difference between this and say the Elder Scrolls Online.
Yep, I agree with Blue too. It's just I also don't think, outside of big sieges or cities, I've ever seen more than a few dozen players in one space in an MMO. For all intents and purposes, FO76 is going to look and feel like a Fallout sandbox MMO shooter.
Clesrly you haven't, dont play EVE then.
Or DAOC, or L2, or.....others...
Not a MMORPG, but this one I'm going to play, FFA PVP or not.
I do get Bill's point. Over time mmorpgs have been getting progressively more and more managed with respect to the max number of players that are permitted to be all in one place at a time.
If the graphics and other systems were still the same as the original MMOs from the late '90s and early 2000s, present day connectivity and PC power could have been used to have even more players in the same space than we did back then, before you have to start counting seconds per frame instead of frames per second. And Eve has always been a special case because there's not a whole lot that needs to be rendered in space. I know what graphics Eve has are not bad but it's nevertheless a good example of what could be done with current PC power and low graphics processing demands.
Instead of freezing the graphics at 2000 levels, game developers (thankfully) chose to use the increased specs to give us more and more detailed graphics for environments characters and effects while at the same time focusing on game play that does not require huge number of players on screen to enjoy.
When you put things like that together you do have to start questioning whether the potential to have large number of players on screen means all that much with respect to the players experiencing a world full of other players when the zoning, phasing and channeling tricks that are now common do a good enough job of simulating the experience.
I personally do enjoy large scale PVP and want large crowds for that, but if I'm being honest, that is the only thing I do in MMOs where having those large crowds makes my gaming experience better. With a lot of other things I do in MMOs, large crowds are not needed and sometimes they just get in the way.
So a game like ESO that is heavily instanced and phased and spawns local instances on the fly if a location is getting too crowded for all PVE, but at the same time allows several hundred players to be in one PVP zone at the same time for large scale RvR, suits me fine. I think of it as an MMO and so do most of us with the possible exception of one or two extremists here.
I still can't bring myself to call a game like FO76 an MMO because it never allows more than "dozens" anywhere at any time for any reason. But I do see why some question whether there is any practical difference worth fretting about and I especially see it for people that never participate in large scale PVP - and there has always been quite a few of those players in MMOs.
I somewhat agree, but remember that the "graphics arms race" is the chief cause of exploding development costs. You can't bitch about monetization methods like we do without acknowledging that we contribute because we demand high poly-counts and HDR lighting everywhere.
Our constant need for pushing the envelope on graphics, and our monetary support of games that do so, do cause priorities to shift within development. The Watch Dogs trailer debate comes to mind.
If fans of truly massively multiplayer games want to experience said massively multiplayer, we first need to recognize that we can't expect the releases to be competitive in the visual department because that costs a shit ton of time, money, and PC resources to run that could be used on other things.
I didn't say that they have to be single player game state of the art but they have to be good enough in that context after you make allowances for the greater need to manage poly counts in multiplayer.
But IMO I'm much more forgiving of low poly counts than they typical fans who bitch incessantly about graphics.
And your tie-in with over the top monetization is buying into the whole "but it costs more to make" tired excuse - It has nothing to do with that, it's all about pushing the ROI envelope because players have shown themselves to be suckers and some studios want to monetize the shit out of them to the breaking point, which, apparently, was SWBF2.
The Witcher 3 had the very best graphics for RPGs when it was released and probably still does. CDPR's restrained monetization shows that no, it's not because of players demanding better graphics.
"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
Todd said there is gonna be quests. But, its only going to be radiant quests. Radiant quests 100%, no actual story
The only "NPC" will be the overseer...which is a machine and the single only source of "quests"
They said ALL humans will be other players
The quests are going to in fact not be quests, but tasks. To explore an area, to explore, get resources and what not
Its literally rust/fortnite with a fallout skin lol. Not even any quests to do and no storyline, unless you think the radiant "quests" are actual quests lol.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
You should have seen what we used to call MMORPG 15+ years ago. They were completely different games with layers of complexity these online survival games can only dream of.
Sadly those days are never coming back due to the new generation of gamers. Let’s just hope they don’t close down those games for a long time so people who enjoy a game with substance can continue to enjoy them.
Todd said there is gonna be quests. But, its only going to be radiant quests. Radiant quests 100%, no actual story
The only "NPC" will be the overseer...which is a machine and the single only source of "quests"
They said ALL humans will be other players
The quests are going to in fact not be quests, but tasks. To explore an area, to explore, get resources and what not
Its literally rust/fortnite with a fallout skin lol. Not even any quests to do and no storyline, unless you think the radiant "quests" are actual quests lol.
Sounds like they just ripped that off from Conan Exiles and transplanted it into their next shitty game, the “tasks” that is.
Todd said there is gonna be quests. But, its only going to be radiant quests. Radiant quests 100%, no actual story
The only "NPC" will be the overseer...which is a machine and the single only source of "quests"
They said ALL humans will be other players
The quests are going to in fact not be quests, but tasks. To explore an area, to explore, get resources and what not
Its literally rust/fortnite with a fallout skin lol. Not even any quests to do and no storyline, unless you think the radiant "quests" are actual quests lol.
He mentioned Robot's are in the game so they could offer out quest lines.
Also terminals and holotapes are in so another source for quests possibly.
Gamers are precious about the label 'MMO'. Some take it to mean that hundreds or thousands of players can be logged into a single zone, or all displayed on-screen. They shackle themselves to a strict definition of the term 'massive' as if it's some gospel handed down from Lord British or somesuch.
And yet, in the same breath, any game that strives for this is met with complaints about performance. There's too much lag. My FPS is terrible. It looks cartoony or primitive like it was launched five years ago.
There's a reason for this, and it's threefold:
First, gamers are fickle. Think about all the other variables of a game - storyline, setting, protagonist and antagonist, weapons, etc. - and players will make a purchasing decision based purely on that. There's actually research firms out there who will calculate how likely we are to buy the game, purely based on a bullet list.
Secondly, there's a huge range of hardware out there amongst the PC player base. According to the Steam Hardware survey, most of us are rocking a quad-core processor with 8MB RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1060, driving a 1080p display. That's plenty for a session of WoW or GW2, or running through Destiny 2. But don't expect Destiny 2 quality graphics in a game that supports WoW's number of players in one place - the hardware requirements would be such that only a few gamers could play it.
Thirdly, the infrastructure itself has changed. With few exceptions, most developers don't buy their own hardware anymore. Instead, they use cloud platforms, harnessing hundreds or thousands of virtual machines to power our games. This has huge benefits in controlling costs, as capacity can be scaled up or down as it's needed. But it also means that the live game experience (player locations, weapon physics prediction, caching, managing NPCs and monsters, etc.) needs to be carved up into chunks that a virtual machine can hold. As we've seen from games like Ark etc., this will usually cap out at around 64 players, although you can use bridging or megaserver tech to make this much more transparent and dynamic (e.g. ESO).
These are huge shared experience games, that offer Persistence (experience carries over between game sessions), Progression (working towards long-term goals beyond completing the immediate story), and Partnership (the ability to form guilds or clans that have an additional purpose in-game). Saying that they're not MMOs purely because of who you can see on screen regardless of who you play with is *extremely* narrow-minded.
On the flip-side, call a game 'Multiplayer' or 'Co-op', and people immediately think of games like DOOM, Starcraft or (now) Stardew Valley. Almost always takes a bit of work to set up and usually lasts for a single session. There's no implied Persistence, Partnership or Progression. The label isn't sufficient to describe the wide scope of the game. It's a label that falls waaaay short.
TL:DR If you can play with thousands or millions of people, regardless of how many are in your sharded instance, plus it includes Persistence, Partnership, and Progression, it's an MMO.
Player of games, smither of words, former of opinions, and masher of keys. WildStar Columnist Currently playing: WildStar, Guild Wars 2, EVE Online, Vain Glory.
Not sure why people are so hung on the stupid definition - who cares? MMO, not mmo, survival - whatever
Will it have fun gameplay - all that matters to me.
You are correct ,the title of or the definition is not a big deal however....
Thew only problem i have with devs claiming their game is a MMO,is their game has very little MMO,but only add the login screen because they want to utilize an ongoing cash shop,an ideal that wouldn't work with a single player game. So yes you are correct,it doesn't matter,it is more about the WHY the devs are calling their games MMO's and that is GREED to get more money out of a single player game than it is worth.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Not sure why people are so hung on the stupid definition - who cares? MMO, not mmo, survival - whatever
Will it have fun gameplay - all that matters to me.
You are correct ,the title of or the definition is not a big deal however....
Thew only problem i have with devs claiming their game is a MMO,is their game has very little MMO,but only add the login screen because they want to utilize an ongoing cash shop,an ideal that wouldn't work with a single player game. So yes you are correct,it doesn't matter,it is more about the WHY the devs are calling their games MMO's and that is GREED to get more money out of a single player game than it is worth.
your missing the point .. The Devs are not callin it an MMO ,to the contrary they are calling it a Multiplayer game ... ... go figure
I said this the other day,i have been doing pvp for 20 years,we never had cash shops and we never needed to pay anything on going.Examples Quake...Unrealtournament,Half life pvp,we can even toss in Counterstrike during it's vanilla days.
Now a days,the Fortnites and the HOTS and the LOL and every other game seems to have some form of ongoing costs,some form of a cash shop and that is why we see login screens.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Gamers are precious about the label 'MMO'. Some take it to mean that hundreds or thousands of players can be logged into a single zone, or all displayed on-screen. They shackle themselves to a strict definition of the term 'massive' as if it's some gospel handed down from Lord British or somesuch.
And yet, in the same breath, any game that strives for this is met with complaints about performance. There's too much lag. My FPS is terrible. It looks cartoony or primitive like it was launched five years ago.
There's a reason for this, and it's threefold:
First, gamers are fickle. Think about all the other variables of a game - storyline, setting, protagonist and antagonist, weapons, etc. - and players will make a purchasing decision based purely on that. There's actually research firms out there who will calculate how likely we are to buy the game, purely based on a bullet list.
Secondly, there's a huge range of hardware out there amongst the PC player base. According to the Steam Hardware survey, most of us are rocking a quad-core processor with 8MB RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1060, driving a 1080p display. That's plenty for a session of WoW or GW2, or running through Destiny 2. But don't expect Destiny 2 quality graphics in a game that supports WoW's number of players in one place - the hardware requirements would be such that only a few gamers could play it.
Thirdly, the infrastructure itself has changed. With few exceptions, most developers don't buy their own hardware anymore. Instead, they use cloud platforms, harnessing hundreds or thousands of virtual machines to power our games. This has huge benefits in controlling costs, as capacity can be scaled up or down as it's needed. But it also means that the live game experience (player locations, weapon physics prediction, caching, managing NPCs and monsters, etc.) needs to be carved up into chunks that a virtual machine can hold. As we've seen from games like Ark etc., this will usually cap out at around 64 players, although you can use bridging or megaserver tech to make this much more transparent and dynamic (e.g. ESO).
These are huge shared experience games, that offer Persistence (experience carries over between game sessions), Progression (working towards long-term goals beyond completing the immediate story), and Partnership (the ability to form guilds or clans that have an additional purpose in-game). Saying that they're not MMOs purely because of who you can see on screen regardless of who you play with is *extremely* narrow-minded.
On the flip-side, call a game 'Multiplayer' or 'Co-op', and people immediately think of games like DOOM, Starcraft or (now) Stardew Valley. Almost always takes a bit of work to set up and usually lasts for a single session. There's no implied Persistence, Partnership or Progression. The label isn't sufficient to describe the wide scope of the game. It's a label that falls waaaay short.
TL:DR If you can play with thousands or millions of people, regardless of how many are in your sharded instance, plus it includes Persistence, Partnership, and Progression, it's an MMO.
Neither my brother nor any of his friends that play Destiny 2 consider it an MMO. EDIT- and while we're at it, while still a flawed sample, it absolutely appears the majority of the folks who visit here don't consider it an MMO experience, either.
Honestly, Destiny 2 is so far away from even feeling like an MMO I'm baffled as to why people continue to use it as an example of the "expanded" definitipn. Even the lobby towns are very limited in player counts compared to, say, Stormwind. It's not even close to comparable.
You get out in the field, and you literally don't see any more than roughly a squad's worth of folks. How does that "feel" like an MMO? Because the game matches for you? That's a huge stretch.
If we're going by feels, how the heck do you explain NOT including a franchise like Battlefield then? When you can play matches of 64v64 (larger than pretty much all instanced PvP in MMORPGs, save for a few like Alterac Valley), but nobody here or throughout the industry tries to label it an MMO, then I'm sorry, but there's absolutely no consistency and the label becomes useless. That game will auto-match you, just like Destiny. Is it because it's session-based? The how does LoL qualify?
What makes Destiny different from Vermintide? A lobby that still doesn't have a massive (by any stretch of the word) amount of players in it you can barely interact with aside from emotes? That's pretty thin. Again, is it because it's session based with no physical lobby? Then again, I ask: why is LoL and other MOBAs included? Once you're on mission in Destiny, you won't see but a handful more players simultaneously than the team you can matchmake with in Vermintide, so that's not a differentiator between Vermintide and Destiny, either.
When your own expanded definition proves hypocritical, one likely should review it for rationale and consistency.
That's my main beef. Those espousing an expanded definition don't do it out of any real objective assessment of multiplayer features, but the "feels." That doesn't hold a lot of logical weight.
EDIT- the argument for the expanded definition too often boils down to "yea yea, it doesn't include massive multiplayer, but it's multiplayer enough for ME. Therefore, it's an MMO." But that's not how genres work.
Todd said there is gonna be quests. But, its only going to be radiant quests. Radiant quests 100%, no actual story
The only "NPC" will be the overseer...which is a machine and the single only source of "quests"
They said ALL humans will be other players
The quests are going to in fact not be quests, but tasks. To explore an area, to explore, get resources and what not
Its literally rust/fortnite with a fallout skin lol. Not even any quests to do and no storyline, unless you think the radiant "quests" are actual quests lol.
As much as I love Fallout, if this above list pans out to be true I'll be skipping this. No NPCs, or sorely limited NPCs? Other players all over the place, which IMO brings absolutely nothing to the gameplay and will most likely serve only as a detriment to what used to be a single-player experience? Running around gathering resources, I would assume with which you will craft some sort of base, and that will apparently be able to be damaged/destroyed by other players?
I'm sorry but this is dumbing down of the worst kind. Hey maybe they'll have a Battle Royale mode! Wouldn't that be great? So they can be just like everybody else! Pointless gameplay all 'round!
Now I'm officially disappointed. I thought Bethesda was too well-adjusted to their strengths to give in to the latest hype train.
Comments
But once again I was annoyed when I excitedly read the title and thought FO76 really was going to be more of a traditional MMORPG and it turns out to actually just be a more full featured survival title.
No that its bad that this is the case, I've yet to even try a survival game as I've been waiting for one to "release" and be done right.
Conan seems to have promise and be "almost there," but with the news I'll be practicing by playing FO 4 from now until November.
They had better tone down sniping a bunch or no one will be safe from me, I am deadly at freehand headshot sniping, and am working on doing so on the run.
Same for the combat shotgun, no way they can go live without reigning that in. As that assassin tells Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill 2, I am a fking surgeon with this shotgun, but not that I have to be at this range.
"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
"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
But the first two letters in both stand for Massively Multiplayer, no getting around that.
Now we can go all day debating whether 300 in a lobby but 12 in a shard qualifies (doesn't for me) but ultimately the name ANET came up for GW1 years ago seems most apt, Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. (CORPG)
Not sure why this site and so many others struggle with the concept.
Heck, "survival game' isn't really a good genre descriptor as someone may one day create one that caters to thousands.
Survival CORPG would be far more suitable for most in the current crop, at least IMO.
"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
In that same sense Phantasy Star Universe was similar, lots of people in towns, but only groups outside, whereas a game like Destiny, well you have lots of people that you can meet in a town, and you can meet them freely in an open world, with some limitations, but then The Division is the reverse of that, where you only meet people in the Dark Zone but in PvE areas it's just you and your group.
All of these games are in some way a hybridization of the genre. Something being massive I've always taken into consideration of what the games are relative to.
I don't know what a developer considers their game or what they don't. If a developer has a world where 100 people are in an area and THEY claim that it's an MMO... an argument could be made, but not a particularly great argument. For example, Closers is considered an MMO... it's largely not an MMO except for hubs. :shrug: I could try and debate the developers on it I guess, but they call it what they call it.
See if I don't!
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
But IMO I'm much more forgiving of low poly counts than they typical fans who bitch incessantly about graphics.
And your tie-in with over the top monetization is buying into the whole "but it costs more to make" tired excuse - It has nothing to do with that, it's all about pushing the ROI envelope because players have shown themselves to be suckers and some studios want to monetize the shit out of them to the breaking point, which, apparently, was SWBF2.
The Witcher 3 had the very best graphics for RPGs when it was released and probably still does. CDPR's restrained monetization shows that no, it's not because of players demanding better graphics.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Todd said there is gonna be quests. But, its only going to be radiant quests. Radiant quests 100%, no actual story
The only "NPC" will be the overseer...which is a machine and the single only source of "quests"
They said ALL humans will be other players
The quests are going to in fact not be quests, but tasks. To explore an area, to explore, get resources and what not
Its literally rust/fortnite with a fallout skin lol. Not even any quests to do and no storyline, unless you think the radiant "quests" are actual quests lol.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Currently playing: WildStar, Guild Wars 2, EVE Online, Vain Glory.
Thew only problem i have with devs claiming their game is a MMO,is their game has very little MMO,but only add the login screen because they want to utilize an ongoing cash shop,an ideal that wouldn't work with a single player game.
So yes you are correct,it doesn't matter,it is more about the WHY the devs are calling their games MMO's and that is GREED to get more money out of a single player game than it is worth.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Now a days,the Fortnites and the HOTS and the LOL and every other game seems to have some form of ongoing costs,some form of a cash shop and that is why we see login screens.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Honestly, Destiny 2 is so far away from even feeling like an MMO I'm baffled as to why people continue to use it as an example of the "expanded" definitipn. Even the lobby towns are very limited in player counts compared to, say, Stormwind. It's not even close to comparable.
You get out in the field, and you literally don't see any more than roughly a squad's worth of folks. How does that "feel" like an MMO? Because the game matches for you? That's a huge stretch.
If we're going by feels, how the heck do you explain NOT including a franchise like Battlefield then? When you can play matches of 64v64 (larger than pretty much all instanced PvP in MMORPGs, save for a few like Alterac Valley), but nobody here or throughout the industry tries to label it an MMO, then I'm sorry, but there's absolutely no consistency and the label becomes useless. That game will auto-match you, just like Destiny. Is it because it's session-based? The how does LoL qualify?
What makes Destiny different from Vermintide? A lobby that still doesn't have a massive (by any stretch of the word) amount of players in it you can barely interact with aside from emotes? That's pretty thin. Again, is it because it's session based with no physical lobby? Then again, I ask: why is LoL and other MOBAs included? Once you're on mission in Destiny, you won't see but a handful more players simultaneously than the team you can matchmake with in Vermintide, so that's not a differentiator between Vermintide and Destiny, either.
When your own expanded definition proves hypocritical, one likely should review it for rationale and consistency.
That's my main beef. Those espousing an expanded definition don't do it out of any real objective assessment of multiplayer features, but the "feels." That doesn't hold a lot of logical weight.
EDIT- the argument for the expanded definition too often boils down to "yea yea, it doesn't include massive multiplayer, but it's multiplayer enough for ME. Therefore, it's an MMO." But that's not how genres work.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo