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?
Scamming is offering something that is impossible to deliver or contradicts description. Example: I propose you buy a Ferrari from me for just 1000 $ and I give you an Opel with text "Da Big Ferrari" on it. I scammed you, because you received Opel, not Ferrari.
If the game is Massive, it is Multiplayer and if it is Online, it should be called MMO. And players can roleplay there, hence RPG.
Why invent new acronymes when there are enough standard ones? To bring more confusion? To act like a smart person ("you noobs, I created nine thousand twenty four acronymes and you created zero")?
As one player told - there already are enough acronymes, let us just stick to them.
If I ask for a MMO, and you give me Demon Soul, how is that not a scam. Its Massive, its has multiplayer, it has online right?
based on that article, its a MMO. So thats not a scam?
Now to make your head EXPLODE! Candy Crush, Farmville 1/2, etc are MMOs!!!! They have interaction with multiple people, online, and the pool which to interact with is massive.
Scamming is offering something that is impossible to deliver or contradicts description. Example: I propose you buy a Ferrari from me for just 1000 $ and I give you an Opel with text "Da Big Ferrari" on it. I scammed you, because you received Opel, not Ferrari.
If the game is Massive, it is Multiplayer and if it is Online, it should be called MMO. And players can roleplay there, hence RPG.
Why invent new acronymes when there are enough standard ones? To bring more confusion? To act like a smart person ("you noobs, I created nine thousand twenty four acronymes and you created zero")?
As one player told - there already are enough acronymes, let us just stick to them.
If I ask for a MMO, and you give me Demon Soul, how is that not a scam. Its Massive, its has multiplayer, it has online right?
based on that article, its a MMO. So thats not a scam?
You seem very intent that your being scammed by developers over the "Misuse" of the term "MMO", may I suggest that you take this matter higher than a regular forum, it would seem your after some judicial ruling and that these developers who are scamming you are brought to book.
I have no idea who you could possibly speak to on this matter, but here in the UK we would first bring it to the attention of the Trading Standards Authority who would then look into the matter for you, perhaps even be able to recoup some of the money you where scammed out of for miss-sold products.
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?
What we think of as MMOs are dead. MMOs have become a second rate genre which hardly ever attracts AAA funding.
This site recently announced it will now cover solo RPG's. Massively announced it is widening its definition of MMO to include just about any online game. There is a reason this is happening, well funded MMOs are becoming dinosaurs, all that these sites would have left to review is the F2P ones which usually score a 5 to 7.
Last year only two P2P/B2P MMOs launched, the writing is on the wall for MMOs, it has been for years. So expanding your review base is the only thing they can do.
Since I joined this site there have been games using the word "MMO" as a marketing tool to sell more boxes. But that's old news, we have now reached the point where these sites have to rely on relatively poorly funded F2P MMOs for their headlines. Solo gaming sites have a CoD and the rest every year to talk about. This site and massively would have ended up reviewing only F2P MMOs scoring around the 5 to 7 mark. Small wonder they are making this decision.
Why do you think they have been covering ESO and Wildstar so much? It is all that's coming out this year that's looks like it might be any good.
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.
What "game" are you actually playing while sitting in a lobby/queue?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
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.
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.
I wouldn't call it the end of anything really, anything with sandbox play was declared dead, everything was supposed to be a super themepark, and who knows what WoW is doing with Titan, but I wouldn't rule them out of delivering another themepark like WoW, but with something they think is needed to improve their sub numbers, that WoW isn't currently doing (yeah, I know, it just trended up, but I mean longer trending for it). Their was a poster on here that had a sandbox signature, sandbox wording under his name, and told people 24/7 that sandbox gameplay was dead, and would link all these experts 24/7.
A lot of people play online, it would be foolish to just forget about segments, even if they aren't the majority. If people have money they are willing to spend, someone will usually try to take their money eventually.
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.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
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?
A lot of people play online, it would be foolish to just forget about segments, even if they aren't the majority. If people have money they are willing to spend, someone will usually try to take their money eventually.
Yes, a lot of people play online .. but who says MMORPG is the only way to attract them? MOBAs, card games, online ARPGs, hybrids .. new ideas like Destiny .. there are many ways.
Don't tell me you think a majority of players who play some MMOs will only play MMOs and nothing else.
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.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
The problem is that the term MMORPG has so much ambiguity attached to it, it's impossible to get everybody to agree on what it actually means. It's like trying to get a roomful of people to agree on a single interpretation of Nostradamus' prophecies; it's simply not going to happen, ever.
I really don't care what they choose to define an MMO as. If somebody is stupid enough to allow themselves to be 'fooled' by the supposed misuse of an acronym, then quite frankly they deserve to get ripped off.
Oh, and while it's cool when Dr. Doom refers to himself in the third person... well, you're not him. As far as I know.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
A lot of people play online, it would be foolish to just forget about segments, even if they aren't the majority. If people have money they are willing to spend, someone will usually try to take their money eventually.
Yes, a lot of people play online .. but who says MMORPG is the only way to attract them? MOBAs, card games, online ARPGs, hybrids .. new ideas like Destiny .. there are many ways.
Don't tell me you think a majority of players who play some MMOs will only play MMOs and nothing else.
I don't think I said that. Not sure where you thought I implied that. You make my case for me though, their are many ways to attract people, like you said, including traditional type mmos, along with everything else. The super big budgets will go with what is/was hot when they were funded, but people will make everything (if it is well made/received is another story).
The problem is that the term MMORPG has so much ambiguity attached to it, it's impossible to get everybody to agree on what it actually means. It's like trying to get a roomful of people to agree on a single interpretation of Nostradamus' prophecies; it's simply not going to happen, ever.
I really don't care what they choose to define an MMO as. If somebody is stupid enough to allow themselves to be 'fooled' by the supposed misuse of an acronym, then quite frankly they deserve to get ripped off.
Oh, and while it's cool when Dr. Doom refers to himself in the third person... well, you're not him. As far as I know.
No, its pretty simple really. People who come to this site had something in mind before it started pushing other games off as MMORPG's because they were multiplayer, popular and online.
MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer = hundreds or more playing online together on the same world. Online = persistent online world. RPG = Role playing game. Every game covered by this site before the inclusive measures took place all fit into that definition or MMO of a different genre.
I think you guys are kind of missing the point to what the OP is making, and why it's kind of a big deal.
What they're doing is changing the meaning of the acronym (MMO) to arbitrarily justify marketing strategies. Why is this important?
"MMO" is an acronym that people have come to understand in the past 10 years. There is no head scratching when it comes to this. It's a general consensus - when you think of MMO, you think of WoW, EQ, DAoC, SWG. These games, while different, are fundamentally providing the player base with the same core concept. That core concept is a PERSISTENT GAME WORLD where THOUSANDS OF PLAYERS interact with one another. Even if the game has instances somewhere inside of it's tech... it still has that persistent element that continues to exist outside of your being logged in. In these other games, if no one is in the game world - the game world does not exist. That is the core, fundamental difference between Online Games and MMO's. Don't even try to argue this - this is the classically accepted definition of the acronym and you know it.
But that still doesn't explain why messing with the definition of the acronym is important:
Let's take Mass Effect 3 for example. Lot's of people played that game. Some hated it, some loved, it doesn't matter. The point is, a massive amount of people played it. BAM - Suddenly, ME3 is massive. Then it has online options for play - sort of like Call of Duty or whatever. Bam - Suddenly it's massive and it's online. But it's also multiplayer because you're playing online with other people. BAM - Suddenly, we have an MMO on our hands. Enter the marketing department:
"Hey guys, since we technically have an MMO on our hands, we can technically charge them for the box, put an item shop on there for microtransactions, and also charge a subscription if we wanted. Even better, we can charge the subscription even just to play the main campaign."
Now, your standard expectation for a simple story based single player RPG has morphed into a huge money scam based purely on someone mucking about with a few unestablished accronyms with some fancy legal terms. This equals "players get screwed again."
Frankly, I no longer buy the excuse that game companies are hurting because of the economy. The gaming entertainment industry has done nothing but grow during the last era and it is precisely because no one is legally allowed to keep them in check. People with a voice that others listen to, like MMORPG, Gamespot, IGN, etc, need to be that voice. And they simply aren't being that voice. Why? Because they get money kick-backs from the production companies. Even more evidence they aren't hurting for cash.
The problem is that the term MMORPG has so much ambiguity attached to it, it's impossible to get everybody to agree on what it actually means. It's like trying to get a roomful of people to agree on a single interpretation of Nostradamus' prophecies; it's simply not going to happen, ever.
I really don't care what they choose to define an MMO as. If somebody is stupid enough to allow themselves to be 'fooled' by the supposed misuse of an acronym, then quite frankly they deserve to get ripped off.
Oh, and while it's cool when Dr. Doom refers to himself in the third person... well, you're not him. As far as I know.
No, its pretty simple really. People who come to this site had something in mind before it started pushing other games off as MMORPG's because they were multiplayer, popular and online.
MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer = hundreds or more playing online together on the same world. Online = persistent online world. RPG = Role playing game. Every game covered by this site before the inclusive measures took place all fit into that definition or MMO of a different genre.
How did you get "online = persistent online world"? Online just means online -> you can't play it offline.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think you guys are kind of missing the point to what the OP is making, and why it's kind of a big deal.
What they're doing is changing the meaning of the acronym (MMO) to arbitrarily justify marketing strategies. Why is this important?
"MMO" is an acronym that people have come to understand in the past 10 years. There is no head scratching when it comes to this. It's a general consensus - when you think of MMO, you think of WoW, EQ, DAoC, SWG. These games, while different, are fundamentally providing the player base with the same core concept. That core concept is a PERSISTENT GAME WORLD where THOUSANDS OF PLAYERS interact with one another. Even if the game has instances somewhere inside of it's tech... it still has that persistent element that continues to exist outside of your being logged in. In these other games, if no one is in the game world - the game world does not exist. That is the core, fundamental difference between Online Games and MMO's. Don't even try to argue this - this is the classically accepted definition of the acronym and you know it.
But that still doesn't explain why messing with the definition of the acronym is important:
Let's take Mass Effect 3 for example. Lot's of people played that game. Some hated it, some loved, it doesn't matter. The point is, a massive amount of people played it. BAM - Suddenly, ME3 is massive. Then it has online options for play - sort of like Call of Duty or whatever. Bam - Suddenly it's massive and it's online. But it's also multiplayer because you're playing online with other people. BAM - Suddenly, we have an MMO on our hands. Enter the marketing department:
"Hey guys, since we technically have an MMO on our hands, we can technically charge them for the box, put an item shop on there for microtransactions, and also charge a subscription if we wanted. Even better, we can charge the subscription even just to play the main campaign."
Now, your standard expectation for a simple story based single player RPG has morphed into a huge money scam based purely on someone mucking about with a few unestablished accronyms with some fancy legal terms. This equals "players get screwed again."
Frankly, I no longer buy the excuse that game companies are hurting because of the economy. The gaming entertainment industry has done nothing but grow during the last era and it is precisely because no one is legally allowed to keep them in check. People with a voice that others listen to, like MMORPG, Gamespot, IGN, etc, need to be that voice. And they simply aren't being that voice. Why? Because they get money kick-backs from the production companies. Even more evidence they aren't hurting for cash.
Bartoni33 noticed something while reading this post. Notimeforbs made an awesome post without resorting to third-person ego- tripping. Bartoni33 is sure that more people will agree with Notimeforbs and understand his post than the OP (bartoni33 will not say OP's name, OP said it enough in his... OP).
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
Sadly this type of false advertising has been going on for years. MMORPG.com has also been supporting it by having World of Tanks ads running which clearly claim the game is an MMO. As well as hosting lots of other non-MMO games. I'm going to continue to only use the term on actual MMOs, as the term is meaningless when Doom and Pong suddenly become MMOs retroactively. Holy crap, 1,000 people played Pong concurrently in 1975! We have our first succesful MMO!
Interestingly, something similar is happening among the player base itself with Pay2Win games. As these games become more prevalent and more people start playing them, they attempt to redefine P2W to make their game not fall under the term. Perhaps they are embarrassed of playing such a game because of the negative view some hold of it. Hearthstone is a good example. It's silly, really. You're not a bad person for playing a F2P game.
Now, can we just agree on calling ducks, ducks?
The article poses the question on how many players in a game at once before a game becomes an MMO. Do we know? I don't, and neither does he. But let's be honest, we both probably have a rough idea, and if we really wanted to, with a little effort could probably find out. When did the term appear and which games used it then? Looking at Ultima Online's server cap and saying "somewhere close to that number or higher" is probably a good qualifier. Not knowing what the result of 3446 divided by 765 is doesn't mean I can say it's 2 and be correct.
Does LoL have roughly the same amount of players in a game as Ultima Online? I'm betting UO can hold far more than 10 players, without even looking it up.
The problem is that the term MMORPG has so much ambiguity attached to it, it's impossible to get everybody to agree on what it actually means. It's like trying to get a roomful of people to agree on a single interpretation of Nostradamus' prophecies; it's simply not going to happen, ever.
I really don't care what they choose to define an MMO as. If somebody is stupid enough to allow themselves to be 'fooled' by the supposed misuse of an acronym, then quite frankly they deserve to get ripped off.
Oh, and while it's cool when Dr. Doom refers to himself in the third person... well, you're not him. As far as I know.
You know, MMORPG does not really have any ambiguity attached to it. What is has is the internet effect attached to it. That effect being the same effect that a phrase goes through during a game of Chinese Whispers which, coincidentally is also known by about 5 other names as well due to the same effect, where no one takes the time to write something down when its important and so by the time someone actually cares the thing ends up meaning something completely different.
I first heard the term MMORPG during the announcement of Everquest. I remember this distinctly because I was already playing a game that was an online mulitiplayer role playing game (Dark Sun Online) and remember thinking how they stole the idea and were trying to make it their own.
Fast forward 2014 and wikipedia is giving credit to the term to Richard Garriott. I wonder though, since Garriott and McQuaid are working together, if we could ever get one of them to spill on who really came up with the term.
Bottom line though, the games that both Richard Garriott and Brad McQuaid helped create are very specific kinds of games. Thus, there is no ambiguity when it comes to what kind of game one should expect when someone says that it is an MMORPG.
Comments
How is Call of Duty any different from a normal FPS? Like Halo for instance?
An example of a MMOFPS: PlanetSide 2
An example of an FPS: Crysis 2
The difference is clear. Call of Duty is an FPS, not an MMOFPS.
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?
Now to make your head EXPLODE! Candy Crush, Farmville 1/2, etc are MMOs!!!! They have interaction with multiple people, online, and the pool which to interact with is massive.
You seem very intent that your being scammed by developers over the "Misuse" of the term "MMO", may I suggest that you take this matter higher than a regular forum, it would seem your after some judicial ruling and that these developers who are scamming you are brought to book.
I have no idea who you could possibly speak to on this matter, but here in the UK we would first bring it to the attention of the Trading Standards Authority who would then look into the matter for you, perhaps even be able to recoup some of the money you where scammed out of for miss-sold products.
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?
Lol
HMAOG - did you mean eqnext landmark? I love your defintion.
What we think of as MMOs are dead. MMOs have become a second rate genre which hardly ever attracts AAA funding.
This site recently announced it will now cover solo RPG's. Massively announced it is widening its definition of MMO to include just about any online game. There is a reason this is happening, well funded MMOs are becoming dinosaurs, all that these sites would have left to review is the F2P ones which usually score a 5 to 7.
Last year only two P2P/B2P MMOs launched, the writing is on the wall for MMOs, it has been for years. So expanding your review base is the only thing they can do.
Since I joined this site there have been games using the word "MMO" as a marketing tool to sell more boxes. But that's old news, we have now reached the point where these sites have to rely on relatively poorly funded F2P MMOs for their headlines. Solo gaming sites have a CoD and the rest every year to talk about. This site and massively would have ended up reviewing only F2P MMOs scoring around the 5 to 7 mark. Small wonder they are making this decision.
Why do you think they have been covering ESO and Wildstar so much? It is all that's coming out this year that's looks like it might be any good.
Too close to GTFO.
Or was that intentional?
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.
What "game" are you actually playing while sitting in a lobby/queue?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
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.
I wouldn't call it the end of anything really, anything with sandbox play was declared dead, everything was supposed to be a super themepark, and who knows what WoW is doing with Titan, but I wouldn't rule them out of delivering another themepark like WoW, but with something they think is needed to improve their sub numbers, that WoW isn't currently doing (yeah, I know, it just trended up, but I mean longer trending for it). Their was a poster on here that had a sandbox signature, sandbox wording under his name, and told people 24/7 that sandbox gameplay was dead, and would link all these experts 24/7.
A lot of people play online, it would be foolish to just forget about segments, even if they aren't the majority. If people have money they are willing to spend, someone will usually try to take their money eventually.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
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?
Yes, a lot of people play online .. but who says MMORPG is the only way to attract them? MOBAs, card games, online ARPGs, hybrids .. new ideas like Destiny .. there are many ways.
Don't tell me you think a majority of players who play some MMOs will only play MMOs and nothing else.
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.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The problem is that the term MMORPG has so much ambiguity attached to it, it's impossible to get everybody to agree on what it actually means. It's like trying to get a roomful of people to agree on a single interpretation of Nostradamus' prophecies; it's simply not going to happen, ever.
I really don't care what they choose to define an MMO as. If somebody is stupid enough to allow themselves to be 'fooled' by the supposed misuse of an acronym, then quite frankly they deserve to get ripped off.
Oh, and while it's cool when Dr. Doom refers to himself in the third person... well, you're not him. As far as I know.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
I don't think I said that. Not sure where you thought I implied that. You make my case for me though, their are many ways to attract people, like you said, including traditional type mmos, along with everything else. The super big budgets will go with what is/was hot when they were funded, but people will make everything (if it is well made/received is another story).
No, its pretty simple really. People who come to this site had something in mind before it started pushing other games off as MMORPG's because they were multiplayer, popular and online.
MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer = hundreds or more playing online together on the same world. Online = persistent online world. RPG = Role playing game. Every game covered by this site before the inclusive measures took place all fit into that definition or MMO of a different genre.
I think you guys are kind of missing the point to what the OP is making, and why it's kind of a big deal.
What they're doing is changing the meaning of the acronym (MMO) to arbitrarily justify marketing strategies. Why is this important?
"MMO" is an acronym that people have come to understand in the past 10 years. There is no head scratching when it comes to this. It's a general consensus - when you think of MMO, you think of WoW, EQ, DAoC, SWG. These games, while different, are fundamentally providing the player base with the same core concept. That core concept is a PERSISTENT GAME WORLD where THOUSANDS OF PLAYERS interact with one another. Even if the game has instances somewhere inside of it's tech... it still has that persistent element that continues to exist outside of your being logged in. In these other games, if no one is in the game world - the game world does not exist. That is the core, fundamental difference between Online Games and MMO's. Don't even try to argue this - this is the classically accepted definition of the acronym and you know it.
But that still doesn't explain why messing with the definition of the acronym is important:
Let's take Mass Effect 3 for example. Lot's of people played that game. Some hated it, some loved, it doesn't matter. The point is, a massive amount of people played it. BAM - Suddenly, ME3 is massive. Then it has online options for play - sort of like Call of Duty or whatever. Bam - Suddenly it's massive and it's online. But it's also multiplayer because you're playing online with other people. BAM - Suddenly, we have an MMO on our hands. Enter the marketing department:
"Hey guys, since we technically have an MMO on our hands, we can technically charge them for the box, put an item shop on there for microtransactions, and also charge a subscription if we wanted. Even better, we can charge the subscription even just to play the main campaign."
Now, your standard expectation for a simple story based single player RPG has morphed into a huge money scam based purely on someone mucking about with a few unestablished accronyms with some fancy legal terms. This equals "players get screwed again."
Frankly, I no longer buy the excuse that game companies are hurting because of the economy. The gaming entertainment industry has done nothing but grow during the last era and it is precisely because no one is legally allowed to keep them in check. People with a voice that others listen to, like MMORPG, Gamespot, IGN, etc, need to be that voice. And they simply aren't being that voice. Why? Because they get money kick-backs from the production companies. Even more evidence they aren't hurting for cash.
How did you get "online = persistent online world"? Online just means online -> you can't play it offline.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Bartoni33 noticed something while reading this post. Notimeforbs made an awesome post without resorting to third-person ego- tripping. Bartoni33 is sure that more people will agree with Notimeforbs and understand his post than the OP (bartoni33 will not say OP's name, OP said it enough in his... OP).
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
Sadly this type of false advertising has been going on for years. MMORPG.com has also been supporting it by having World of Tanks ads running which clearly claim the game is an MMO. As well as hosting lots of other non-MMO games. I'm going to continue to only use the term on actual MMOs, as the term is meaningless when Doom and Pong suddenly become MMOs retroactively. Holy crap, 1,000 people played Pong concurrently in 1975! We have our first succesful MMO!
Interestingly, something similar is happening among the player base itself with Pay2Win games. As these games become more prevalent and more people start playing them, they attempt to redefine P2W to make their game not fall under the term. Perhaps they are embarrassed of playing such a game because of the negative view some hold of it. Hearthstone is a good example. It's silly, really. You're not a bad person for playing a F2P game.
Now, can we just agree on calling ducks, ducks?
The article poses the question on how many players in a game at once before a game becomes an MMO. Do we know? I don't, and neither does he. But let's be honest, we both probably have a rough idea, and if we really wanted to, with a little effort could probably find out. When did the term appear and which games used it then? Looking at Ultima Online's server cap and saying "somewhere close to that number or higher" is probably a good qualifier. Not knowing what the result of 3446 divided by 765 is doesn't mean I can say it's 2 and be correct.
Does LoL have roughly the same amount of players in a game as Ultima Online? I'm betting UO can hold far more than 10 players, without even looking it up.
You know, MMORPG does not really have any ambiguity attached to it. What is has is the internet effect attached to it. That effect being the same effect that a phrase goes through during a game of Chinese Whispers which, coincidentally is also known by about 5 other names as well due to the same effect, where no one takes the time to write something down when its important and so by the time someone actually cares the thing ends up meaning something completely different.
I first heard the term MMORPG during the announcement of Everquest. I remember this distinctly because I was already playing a game that was an online mulitiplayer role playing game (Dark Sun Online) and remember thinking how they stole the idea and were trying to make it their own.
Fast forward 2014 and wikipedia is giving credit to the term to Richard Garriott. I wonder though, since Garriott and McQuaid are working together, if we could ever get one of them to spill on who really came up with the term.
Bottom line though, the games that both Richard Garriott and Brad McQuaid helped create are very specific kinds of games. Thus, there is no ambiguity when it comes to what kind of game one should expect when someone says that it is an MMORPG.