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definition of mmorpg
ASmith84
Member Posts: 979
from wikipedia.org
"Massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of online role-playing video games (RPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world.
As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy setting)[1] and take control over many of that character's actions.[2] MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.[2]"
the key words in this are "persistant world". this means that everyone interacts with each other most of the time. as your playing you have other people playing to around you. not just part of the time, not just in matches, but most of the time. also your on a persistant world. this world has little to no loading screens that is always populated by other players.
now you are all probably wondering this. why are you telling us? some people are confused and call games like guildwars and even counterstrike mmo's. before calling a game an mmo ask this. are you with other people most of the time on a persistant world? on counterstrike and guildwars no, because you are not on a persistant world. guildwars is a "corpg" nowhere on the site or on the box or anywhere unless its someone who isnt part of the team who created it has called it an mmo. they said its "similar" but not excatly. counterstrike is just a fps thats mainly online and its fun but not an mmo.
Comments
I hate the point this out, but...
Your definition of persistant world: This means that everyone interacts with each other most of the time
Wiki's (your source) definition of persistent world: The world is (mostly) always available and world events happen continually.
Guild Wars meets this criteria. So sorry man, you over-played your hand.
Good post.
Also note the absence of reference to character progression treadmills, classes, and phat lewtz.
the world is persistant where your at. once you leave and go somewhere else it resets itself back. the only persistance in the game is outposts.
Really. So the territory battle in Factions is fictional. Interesting.
any game which has instances isn't really a 'persistant world'
Instancing FTL.
How many MMOs dont use at least some form of limited instancing nowadays though?
None but point is guildwars is one big patchwork of instanced zones with chat rooms [ outposts].
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
I barely have any time in EQ2 so far, so I could find I'm way off-base here but so far it's given me the impression it's just a patchwork of *public* instanced zones just like GW is a patchwork of *private* instanced zones. Six of one, half dozen of the other... Instances don't always have to be private, LOTRO is doing a good job of having both public and private instances and instanced zones.
I've yet to see a non-instanced world work well without oh-so-immersive standing in line for respawning bosses, mob trains, and other assinine crap that comes along with it. We'll see how VG fares once it gets itself release-worthy and the first raid goes live but I'm not holding my breath.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Since we're on the subject, please could people stop thinking mmorpg = cooperative multiplayer? Because it doesn't mean that at all, though coop play is one of the things one can do in mmo's
no matter what people say about a game if the developers say it isnt then its not. i would think that the people who made the game know what kind of game they made.
guild wars is not a mmo. it is SIMILAR but thats it. once you go out of an outpost that is YOUR copy of the world. noone can mess with it just you and your team. the only places you actually interact with other people are in outposts. this is why they are makin gw2 to be more of an mmo so you can interact with other people more.
Perhaps you guys should look up "persistent" in the dictionary. I'm not sure you really know what it means. It certainly isn't the opposite of "instanced."
The opposite of "persistent" would be if they turned the servers off once a day (or week or whatever) and failed to save your character information, pending auction transactions, quest states, etc.
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you get to change the way words are defined.
I believe that would be the "role-playing (video) game" part, as RPGs traditionally develop your character through choosing a class, and gaining experience (XP) and better gear. This advancement system is, in my opinion, actually all there is to the "RPG" tag on MMORPGs - unlike what some role-players claim ("mmoRPg dammit - it's made for our way of playing, so stop catering to PvPers and raiders and give us clothing dye and writeable books!").
Can you tell I prefer to keep actual role-playing to the good ol' pen & paper games?
You are misplacing the definition. Persistent World, would mean the world is ever present, which in guild wars, the majority of the world is not. The "turning off" of servers is not the only way one could consider a non persistent state, anything that returns the world back to an original state, e.g., the reseting and separating of instances is indead proof of non persistence. No one is arguing that the outposts and characters aren't persistant, because they indeed are, but the characters aren't "the world" only the inhabitants, and the outposts, although indeed part of the world, only make up a small portion of it.
In other words, the same definition that would be used to make Guildwars an MMO would have to make Yahoo chess one as well.
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You are misplacing the definition. Persistent World, would mean the world is ever present, which in guild wars, the majority of the world is not. The "turning off" of servers is not the only way one could consider a non persistent state, anything that returns the world back to an original state, e.g., the reseting and separating of instances is indead proof of non persistence. No one is arguing that the outposts and characters aren't persistant, because they indeed are, but the characters aren't "the world" only the inhabitants, and the outposts, although indeed part of the world, only make up a small portion of it.
In other words, the same definition that would be used to make Guildwars an MMO would have to make Yahoo chess one as well.
But the persistent bits still persist even when your character is not present (such as when he is in an instance). That's what persistent means!
I will not argue that there are PARTS of the game that are not persistent -- obviously that's true.
The problem is that you don't consider what goes on in the outposts to be part of the game. Apparently, the developers do.
(Also see a previous poster's comment about Factions.)
I don't believe you would strip the "persistent" designation from all games that include instancing, so you cannot take it from GW since GW does in fact have persistent attributes -- even though they are not adventuring spaces.
As I previously stated, if you are going to designate Guildwars as an MMO, which is fine, you must also give the same designation to, Online Chess, the majority of Online games similar to Chess's setup, e.g., Checkers, Backgammon, Poker, Dominoes, and so on.
I don't argue whether Guildwars is an MMO or not, only that you, others, and MMORPG.com must follow the same logic in placing "similar" by definition games on the list to the left. If not, then a clear explanation as to why they won't be included should be made.
- Burying Threads Since 1979 -
no, it doesn't have to make complete sense, nor follow a general rule... That's why people call any game boring an asian grindfest even if it's in no way affiliated with anyone remotely asian... In other words, people pick and choose what they want to categorize even though those ideals aren't used for comparison between other things... (And when people think of video games, or computer games, hardly anyone thinks of chess as one, atleast not in the same sense...)
As far as this topic goes...so what... It should be classified as an mmorpg, because a corpg that's purely online is close enough... I don't want CORPG, LORPG, SORLE, DCKOS, KECJK, etc. popping up all over the place just for one game because of a small difference... Being specific only takes 2 more words, an "MMORPG without instances"...(Edit: and it doesn't change the fact that every place out there classifies it as an mmorpg)
never played Guild Wars.... have played online chess.... have played WoW, EQ, EQII, CoH..... etc etc... etc....
I will not judge any of the games in question here, just looking for clarification....
MMORPG...Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game... i don't even know what a corpg is (Cooperative Online Roleplaying Game) i suspect.....
that is, apparently what guildwars is..... great.... seems to me a world that is predominently instanced should not be an MMORPG as instancing reduces the Massive part... but in that context, isn't EQII a Kinda Large Online Role Playing Game because if no-one is in East Freeport, East Freeport isn't there... same as the CORPG game that is Guild Wars...... WoW is structured differently to allow that seamless and massive feel to it....because there is reduced loading or segregation, but i suspect it's the same way.... servers reboot, no one is in Orgrimmar, Orgrimmar isn't there until someone logs in, if everyone leaves..... Orgrimmar goes away, as part of the structure of saving on server side resources....
what about online chess is massive, to meet the first M condition of MMO? sure it's online, sure it's multiplayer especially in tournament settings or chat environments, but you're talking about a 16 x 16 grid... doesn't meet the first letter condition, seems to me....
just trying to learn here
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
ya. ok. whatever.
but what do i know, i'm only a vanbois i'm told.
MMO's are becoming MMOAG (Massively Multiplayer Action Games).
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
shoes and sandals. whats the difference? sandals you see your toes, shoes you dont. not a huge difference but usually people dont call sandals shoes.
frapacinos, capacinos, coffee all that (yes i know i probably mispelled them i dont like coffee). whats the difference? they are prepared different. you dont see people call all those drinks coffee but they are just simply coffee prepared differently.
anime and cartoons. whats the difference? anime is more detailed and uses a different method or somthing i dont know. tell an anime person his show is a cartoon. he will get mad.(usually they do anyways)
helio and a cell phone. whats the difference. it has myspace mobile lol.
you get the picture yet? its not a big deal just face the fact that guildwars is a corpg and games like counterstrike is a fps.
CORPG, SHMORPG... bah! The devs can call them anything they like but they're all MMORPGs to me. Even this thread. Even my weekly online grocery shopping is an MMORPG!
As I previously stated, if you are going to designate Guildwars as an MMO, which is fine, you must also give the same designation to, Online Chess, the majority of Online games similar to Chess's setup, e.g., Checkers, Backgammon, Poker, Dominoes, and so on.
I don't argue whether Guildwars is an MMO or not, only that you, others, and MMORPG.com must follow the same logic in placing "similar" by definition games on the list to the left. If not, then a clear explanation as to why they won't be included should be made.
Here's your clear distinction: The outposts DO count as part of the game. You are in character, you can trade items, you can get quests and experience a part of the game's lore ONLY in outposts. You cannot experience the game as a whole if you do not explore the outposts and talk to NPCs there.In online board games, the waiting room does NOT count as part of the game. Since there are never more than 2 people actually PLAYING the same game of online chess, it is not Massively Multiplayer. This is also why Diablo 2 does not count as an MMOG: The waiting room is not part of the game.
Your logic and comparison are flawed. Firstly, I said the outposts are persistent, no one is arguing that, so it's a moot point. Secondly, your character is merely an inhabitant, it is not a persistent part, it is merely saved, then reloaded, so again, another moot point. Again, no one is arguing about Outposts, which are a tiny percentage of the game world.
The waiting room IS the outpost, it counts as part of the WORLD, as outposts do in Guildwars, just because chess has no quests or skills to obtain doesn't make the waiting room any less of an outpost for meeting and chatting, the only real persistent location. You never have more than 16 people in Guildwars PLAYING the same game either, and if you want to talk about PvE only, it's 8, so that is far from massively multiplayer. The fact that you are making a connection between the ability for people to take and return "solo" quests doesn't make outposts a mass playing area, merely a mass chat room with solo content. The fact is outposts are the waiting rooms and the instances are the game rooms in GW, if you can't logically come to that conclusion then I am afraid your cognitive faculties aren't strong enough to even discuss what is and what isn't an MMO.
Chess is actually more persistent, as each instance can stay open indefinitely, with or without the original players, all that is required is that someone is in the instance to keep it open. On some level it is also more massive, as there is no limit to the number of players that can join and play, but this is an arguable conclusion.
It's simple, both games have a world, broken up into sections which in turn have a number of channels, each channel allowing for a defined amount of instances, instances where real play takes place and channels where mainly chat takes place. The mere fact that a quest which will be "played out" in the instance can be taken by an individual does in no way assert that the channel is Multiplayer, just multichat with solo missions cued up for use in an instance.
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