Pretty much what you said in your article is instant gratification. Borderlands is a game that can be brought up quite quickly, played with a close multiplayer group.When you start you are in the local area of each other. Plus what ever happened is logged in your computer when you leave. In a MMO Nine Toes is still hanging around waiting for someone else to kill him. You might be miles from each other and it might take 30 minutes to get your crap together to play. MMO have a large grind to them also. In a mission to kill Nine-toes, you have to kill x amount of mobs to get to nine-toes, that is part of the mission. You can go through them quite quickly with a group that knows how to play. In a MMO to go through the amount of mobs in the same way would take hours. In a sense MMOs are very time consuming with little results. Games like Mass Effect 2 (awesome game BTW) Borderlands, Left 4 Deads, lets players break loose in a small amount of time, enjoy ourselves and we make a difference each time we log on.
The "features" that you're implying MMO's have by definition are false assumptions based on your previous experience with MMO's. Borderlands could be an MMO simply by adding a persistent space that can serve as a lobby for players to meet up, trade, form parties, show off their gear and gather quests, and it would have no impact how long it would take to kill the mobs leading up to Nine Toes.
This is the problem with people's apprehension to the MMO moniker, they assume that in order to be an MMO they have to have some of these terrible qualities that some bad games set the precedent for.
All MMO refers to is the number of players, and some degree of a persistent online infrastructure.
I respectfully disagree.
In your words a MMO is the number of players and persistence. Ok Borderlands has 4, max. DnD, Champions online has 100 per shard. Everquest 2 has 2000 per shard and Eve Online had 26000 plus on at one time. I agree that Borderlands could be a MMO by the Guild Wars setup. But Guild Wars was not a true MMO. That was an instanced game aka Borderlands. If it would be a true MMO, you would have a lot of people in the same zone competing for the same resources (or random encounters with real people). In Guild Wars, you would never see anyone outside your group in combat zones.
And when the MMO title pops up we are really talking about MMOgames or MMORPG. Because a MMO could be Second Life. But since this is MMORPG.com, I assumed everyone would go with it, my fault.
I think the term "MMORPG" no longer has its original meaning. The meaning it had when Anarchy Online, World of Warcraft,etc were the only MMORPG's was alot different than it is today. In those games there was a "world" that you could just hang out in. You did not even have to do anything to have fun. There were hangouts, and even parties(eg. dancing and drinking). I think the industry needs a new name for what many consider to be an actual MMORPG. Since it no longer embodies the traits of what many believe an "MMORPG" to hold. What the games of new are missing is a "persistent world". Bad integration of instancing has killed this totally. If a game is 100% instanced (eg. STO or AoC), for me it is a "MMORPG", but this term does not describe what games such as Anarchy Online or even World of Warcraft actually are; "MMOPRPG" is more fitting. Massively Multiplayer Online Persistent Role-Playing Game.
I gotta agree with your posts. At the early stages MMO's were much more RPG then they are now. the change, well, it was inevitable, but still something was lost and it sucks ;(
I kinda dislike the tone in your second reply. Yes, most people don't care, but it's not necessarily bad. As long as playing MMOs doesn't ruin us or go into the absurd costs, and allows us to have fun, why whine about the prices?
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
Originally posted by Codenak RPG and FPS, the two genres don't really gell, in my opinion.RPG is character advancement, telling your own story and building your dream. FPS is all about the action and the buzz, the twitch, winning. The twitch will drive those that don't like allout pvp and older gamers away as their reflexes will be hard pressed to compete with the young, we've already seen the posts in the pub. Gamer age averages will be going up as people mature. Older gamers usually have more money, more patience but less time too, we still like playing games though! Maybe the current games mixing the genres are doomed to fail, because they try to appeal to two incompatible player groups. I have one last thought, how do you "win" in an rpg, your story is still being written for as long as you play? Many no doubt will absolutely disagree with me
I heartily disagree. There have been some great games over the years that successfully combine RPG and FPS, and they gel just fine: Dues Ex, Bioshock and Mass Effect to name a few.
If you're not a fan of FPS or "twitch" gameplay, then understandably you won't like FPS/RPG hybrid games. But I think lots of people like both types of games, and for them the combination of the two can be VERY effective and fun.
To me, MMOs have always been defined by a client-server relationship - a persistent database stored on someone else's server on which you exclusively control some component (your character) that can interact with other players in real time.
The game that most recently challenged my definition was Spore - there was a lot of interaction, but it wasn't real-time (each player has their own private universe populated by the creations of others, so I don't lump it in with MMOs). A lot of console games where your character name and some token stats are stored on a server are also a blurry line - I don't have enough experience in the area to decide if the stored data affects multiplayer gameplay enough to be counted.
I've generally ignored facebook games because they seem to be mostly multi-level pyramid schemes in the guise of a game, but some of them probably do meet my definition.
When you force a player to interact with an increasing amount of other players, the chances his game-play will be negatively impacted approaches infinity. An "internet jerk-wad" is worth exactly the same as a nice friendly helpful player to the game. I don't mean this just in dollar terms, but also that the game mechanics themselves don't particularly favor one type of attitude or the other. Note that natural models of player justice exist, but they are somewhat out of favor.
"Back in the day," as it were, the MMO communities were small enough that most people playing were like-minded reasonable adults. Even your hardcore PvPers were respectful of the players behind the keyboard of the characters they killed. In fact, MMOs are following the same trend as the internet, and social networks. There is an rapid expansion as more people join and new connections are made, followed by a rapid contraction as people get sick of bullies, griefers, and parasites whose enjoyment is directly defined as inducing a negative emotional response in others in the worst possible way.
Yes, the MMO industry is in a sad state. When non-mmo games are closer to be a MMO than the so called real MMOGs themselves. What we have now, anyway, are not real MMOGs, they are heavily instanced and that take automaticaly first letter from MMORPG. They call it MMO to have the right of charging 15$ a month for it. There are no other reasons.
I have to add that I totally disagree with whoever said that WoW was an heavily instanced game. Because it wasnt. Yes, there had to be loading screens. Instancing continents is just logical. Its not technicaly possible to have an entire huge world in a single instance. Dungeons were instanced for a balance reasons. But it wasnt a mess like age of conan, champion online, startrek, the incoming starwars or guild war... Eeeeeeesh, guild war started it when you think about it.
So yeah, in short, the lasted MMO we got which was massive, was, World of warcraft. Since then, nothing massve came out at all. And Im talking about a seamless continent at least.
When you force a player to interact with an increasing amount of other players, the chances his game-play will be negatively impacted approaches infinity. An "internet jerk-wad" is worth exactly the same as a nice friendly helpful player to the game. I don't mean this just in dollar terms, but also that the game mechanics themselves don't particularly favor one type of attitude or the other. Note that natural models of player justice exist, but they are somewhat out of favor.
"Back in the day," as it were, the MMO communities were small enough that most people playing were like-minded reasonable adults. Even your hardcore PvPers were respectful of the players behind the keyboard of the characters they killed. In fact, MMOs are following the same trend as the internet, and social networks. There is an rapid expansion as more people join and new connections are made, followed by a rapid contraction as people get sick of bullies, griefers, and parasites whose enjoyment is directly defined as inducing a negative emotional response in others in the worst possible way.
Very well said, but I have to disagree.
It was good for business. It worked.
Blizzard had great success and only had to implement instancing in most raid content and dungeons, the world itself was open to as many players as the server can hold. (please dont throw stones at me for bringing up WoW) So as far as business, it was quite good for them
you are correct about "back in the day", the respectful crowds of long lost mmos are a dying breed indeed.
I think the term "MMORPG" no longer has its original meaning. The meaning it had when Anarchy Online, World of Warcraft,etc were the only MMORPG's was alot different than it is today. In those games there was a "world" that you could just hang out in. You did not even have to do anything to have fun. There were hangouts, and even parties(eg. dancing and drinking). I think the industry needs a new name for what many consider to be an actual MMORPG. Since it no longer embodies the traits of what many believe an "MMORPG" to hold. What the games of new are missing is a "persistent world". Bad integration of instancing has killed this totally. If a game is 100% instanced (eg. STO or AoC), for me it is a "MMORPG", but this term does not describe what games such as Anarchy Online or even World of Warcraft actually are; "MMOPRPG" is more fitting. Massively Multiplayer Online Persistent Role-Playing Game.
Another great post, I had to scroll back just to quote it and say I must concur!
It will be a very long time because the general gaming population despises MMO's because of their rampant suckage over the past few years. Read any other gaming forum when an MMO video or news is released and all you see is 99% fail posts because of what every developer has put out besides WoW, and then on the other side you get the WoW hate. This genre is a shallow shell of what it could be thanks to companies like SOE and Cryptic. Thank god for CCP or it would be a really depressing time.
Originally posted by onetruth An interesting article, but one that fails to note a key point at this development crossroad: This genre hybridization isn't being done for creative reasons, or to better serve the consumer. It is happening because console and single-player game makers want two things that their mmo-making brethren already have: 1) recurring revenue 2) an end to consumers physically owning their product (which will in turn lead to more of 1) If all this co-mingling were being done in the name of making great new games, I'd be all for it. Sadly, the real motives are completely transparent. When game developers get back to designing great gameplay and great stories (instead of great new payment models), I'll start buying games again.
Couldn't agree more mate. Very strange though to find a kindred SP game soul on this forum . (though I do like a bit of mindless mmo grinding from time to time
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Everyone has their own play style, yes mmo are lossing a lot of their holy crap I needs an army to kill that factor, but things evolve. Most gamers have jobs and lives and only a few hours a day to play, we can't waste 3 hours getting a raid together. I will admit I solo, but I can see the difference between an mmo and a basic game pretty clearly. If mass effect 2 were an mmo I'd have to visit every system, do every side quest, and get every upgrade to fight the end boss and live. If borderlands were an mmo I'd not been able to kill the final boss by hiding behind it's tentical on the right side of the screen and punching it over and over till it died.
MMO's are always going to be a little more tricky, where single and co-op games are going to be easier, yes I look forward to the day they decide to make mass effect into an mmo but it needs to be a consol computer cross over mmo released at the same time with functional voice chat. We have the power, we can build it, we need an mmo where we can all talk and it be like in real life, thats what surround sound is for.
To say the line is blurring, while true, is not completely correct MMO's are giving to, they are streamlining their design to be more for short play sessions not a whole week of 22 hour gaming days with two hours of sleep. The real issue is that we are becoming more social via games in this day and age, so more games are becoming online playable. However a properly made mmo should be a world, fully open to the players with endless ways to make that character yours. It should also not be less than 30 hours of game play, I beat ME2 at about 18, and Borderlands at 16 cuase I said to heck with the last three levels and just ran past all the bad guys and did the quest stuff while being shot.
Oh and a side note to all the people blaiming one company or another for how games are, if we all put aside our feelings for one company or another and voiced as one community as a whole what we don't want to see anymore the companies would change. Just saying, games are a multi billon dollar a year industry, if we simply all said nope we want X and we won't buy till we get it, we would get X.
So yeah, in short, the lasted MMO we got which was massive, was, World of warcraft. Since then, nothing massve came out at all. And Im talking about a seamless continent at least. Bah Flame on.
By this definition EQ wasn't an MMO either because each zone was a seperate instance.
Personally I think the problem lies in that there never really was a definition of either parts of MMORPGs. MMO stands for something defferent in peoples minds. Is it an mmo if I can't interact with someone outside my zone other than with a chat? does it have to be a seemless world? Does an instance make it no longer an mmo? and how many people have to on at the same time to make it an MMO? All these things will differ based on personal "taste"
Rpg runs into similar issues. RPGs started from the pencil and paper rpgs like D&D. So what elemets of those games made them an rpg? It seems to me a minimalist interpretation of the term is simply a game in which you take on a personality. So what is today's rpg? Mass Effect 2 is a perfect example of this question. What did they excise from it that makes it no longer an rpg? was it the inventory or the game mechanic? do you need to have stats for it to be an rpg? With out ever having played it Second Life seems to be a more accurate, if minimalistic, rpg than most other rpgs because you take on a personality and live it. So why does that not count?
I believe other posters are correct in saying that the AAA companies are scared to do new or unusual things. That is why many gamers are turning to smaller indie companies for their games, like EVE, Darkfall, and so on. The fact is that there only seems to be a few types of games that have been created, and most games are repeats, or hybrids, of games that have already existed. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that, if the game is done exceptionally well, but it does indeed have to be pretty exceptional, or people won't play it. Why would you want to play a WoW clone, when you're already burned out on the original WoW?
I think that perhaps more study of gamers would help, especially if you can separate the gamer groups well. When you are looking to make a game that appeals to people that have played WoW and are tired of it, you have to do your research on that group. It does no good to use people that currently love WoW as part of your sample, if you are aiming to make games for gamers that are done with WoW-type games. The same goes for creating games for people in any group: what does that group want? Spreading yourself too thin and watering down unique game experiences just sets the game up to fail in the long term.
SWTOR is a clone of WoW when looking at the design of the world and characters. Both have the ugly cartoon look.
And what will keep SWTOR alive is Star Wars fans. Other then that I think it will fail. Who will pay every month for a single player game? Not me.
WoW is the biggest and best for it's a real MMORPG with perfect design that a lot of people understand how to play and are able to play even if they have computer from the 90's. You can see that when playing the game, not that many English players.... thats why I left it... I miss the good old times with Sweden, England, USA, German and France. Now it's Russian or Polish invasion... urgh call me a rasist or whatever... I just can't stand them.
I hope new MMORPG will have servers that split these better.
And less instanced-single-player-worlds. Bring it back to the time when the MMORPG had OPEN worlds, freedom to explore, fights all over the world and not in a special area.
Adios!
Played: From Earth & Beyond, Anarchy Online, Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa (Beta), EvE Online, City of Villians, Atlantica Online, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, RF Online, Second Life, Fallen Earth.
Reading this article, and it's responses I cannot help but hope & pray that Trion are going to "pull a blinder" with their allegedly ground-breaking server side system for Heroes of Telara that allows for dynamic worlds (you know where there is only 1 dragon called Baletetsushmorgidin & if you kill it it's dead forever, it's cave then get's occupied by some cannibilistic trolls you can go bash next week).
I want "Worlds" for MMORPG's to exist in new games, a place that for a few hours a day provides a real sense of escape to an alternate universe that doesn't feel too much like just a game
“They've seen the shedload of cash that WoW makes, and want more than just the $60 retail-box cost you shelled out, but can't apply a subscription model to their games. The next best thing to increase revenues is to sell stuff. Hey kids, wanna buy a fancy new gun or maybe a tea-bagging emote?”
This says it all really, gameplay style is being driven by the desire to make the maximum profit. So fairness, and diversity of play styles are going to be thrown out of the window.
There is nothing wrong with hybrid play models, we do not have to stay as just MMO’s, but when the change is being driven by profit excuse me for thinking it will be for the worse.
So many of us have already complained that far too many MMO’s are now based on WoW with no room for any other ideas, it has stifled the MMO industries creativity. Is that going to now be the fate of FPS too?
Until WoW stops making huge profits gaming compnaies will not stop seeking to emulate it, it has become a albatross around the neck of MMO development.
This should not be a disscussion about whether or not we can expand our definition of what a MMO is, we are not Hobbits in a hole who do not like change. It should be a discussion about whether or not the new is worth embracing. If it is original, diverse and fair then yes it is; if on the other hand it is unoriginal, built on one template and pay to win, it is going to be a dismal future for the genre.
I'm quite excited by the piece-by-piece merging of RPGs with MMOs (see: MMO mechanics in Dragon Age and RPG mechanics in The Old Republic), since I don't believe there has honestly yet been an MMORPG, which is all I've wanted for the last twelve years: pure RPG gameplay, but with friends.
Such a thing hasn't happened. MMOs spawned from MUDs, which were very distant cousins, indeed, from CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Fallout, with very different playing experiences in mind. As such, I always took the MMORPG acronym to be a description not of what the genre was, but what it endeavored to be.
This is why I am excited for The Old Republic. The only reason, in fact. Because otherwise, it's butt-ugly and based on a (however excellent for its time) psi-fi setting I'd rather see laid to rest.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
Pretty much what you said in your article is instant gratification. Borderlands is a game that can be brought up quite quickly, played with a close multiplayer group.When you start you are in the local area of each other. Plus what ever happened is logged in your computer when you leave. In a MMO Nine Toes is still hanging around waiting for someone else to kill him. You might be miles from each other and it might take 30 minutes to get your crap together to play. MMO have a large grind to them also. In a mission to kill Nine-toes, you have to kill x amount of mobs to get to nine-toes, that is part of the mission. You can go through them quite quickly with a group that knows how to play. In a MMO to go through the amount of mobs in the same way would take hours. In a sense MMOs are very time consuming with little results. Games like Mass Effect 2 (awesome game BTW) Borderlands, Left 4 Deads, lets players break loose in a small amount of time, enjoy ourselves and we make a difference each time we log on.
The "features" that you're implying MMO's have by definition are false assumptions based on your previous experience with MMO's. Borderlands could be an MMO simply by adding a persistent space that can serve as a lobby for players to meet up, trade, form parties, show off their gear and gather quests, and it would have no impact how long it would take to kill the mobs leading up to Nine Toes.
This is the problem with people's apprehension to the MMO moniker, they assume that in order to be an MMO they have to have some of these terrible qualities that some bad games set the precedent for.
All MMO refers to is the number of players, and some degree of a persistent online infrastructure.
I respectfully disagree.
In your words a MMO is the number of players and persistence. Ok Borderlands has 4, max. DnD, Champions online has 100 per shard. Everquest 2 has 2000 per shard and Eve Online had 26000 plus on at one time. I agree that Borderlands could be a MMO by the Guild Wars setup. But Guild Wars was not a true MMO. That was an instanced game aka Borderlands. If it would be a true MMO, you would have a lot of people in the same zone competing for the same resources (or random encounters with real people). In Guild Wars, you would never see anyone outside your group in combat zones.
And when the MMO title pops up we are really talking about MMOgames or MMORPG. Because a MMO could be Second Life. But since this is MMORPG.com, I assumed everyone would go with it, my fault.
I only brought up the imaginary guild wars/borderlands mashup mmo to refute your assumption that making borderlands some sort of MMO would not somehow arbitrarily make it "more grindy", or make it take longer to get to nine-toes. If you took Borderlands, and instead of having a multiplayer server browser made New Haven a persistent space to chat, form parties and gather quests, and kept the rest of the game instanced, the gameplay and "grind" would remain unaffected. In your post you mentioned in an MMO borderlands it would take "hours", simply because you added the MMO.
Now, if you take issue with calling the persistent town/instanced world setup type of game an MMO (even though thats apparently the direction the genre is headed, and more and more developer's are considering games with any degree of persistence an MMO [see DDO, STO]), that's another argument entirely
Yes, the MMO industry is in a sad state. When non-mmo games are closer to be a MMO than the so called real MMOGs themselves. What we have now, anyway, are not real MMOGs, they are heavily instanced and that take automaticaly first letter from MMORPG. They call it MMO to have the right of charging 15$ a month for it. There are no other reasons. I have to add that I totally disagree with whoever said that WoW was an heavily instanced game. Because it wasnt. Yes, there had to be loading screens. Instancing continents is just logical. Its not technicaly possible to have an entire huge world in a single instance. Dungeons were instanced for a balance reasons. But it wasnt a mess like age of conan, champion online, startrek, the incoming starwars or guild war... Eeeeeeesh, guild war started it when you think about it. So yeah, in short, the lasted MMO we got which was massive, was, World of warcraft. Since then, nothing massve came out at all. And Im talking about a seamless continent at least. Bah Flame on.
WoW is definitely a heavily instanced game. Darkfall is pretty much the only seamless game worth its salt right now. And yes, it is technically possible, as Darkfall is obviously doing it, and Asheron's Call did in the 90's, one of the first 3d MMO's, years before WoW.
In WoW, sure, there is a persistent world, but once the game actually starts (when you hit the level cap) the gameplay consists entirely of sitting in Dalaran, or warping in to an instanced dungeon, and you never bother exploring the world again. Its just as bad as Guild Wars or DDO (if not worse, simply because of how insulting it is to have a persistent world and not putting it to use whatsoever).
Originally posted by gorgogorn By this definition EQ wasn't an MMO either because each zone was a seperate instance.
There seem to be a lot of people who don't understand the difference between zones and instances. EQ had no instances at all untill the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion and that was..um, four or five years after release or something like that.
A zone (non-instanced) is an area of the game world you have to load into but there is only one copy of it. Anyone who goes to that zone will be in the same place as every other person who goes to that zone.
An instance is when the game creates multiple copies of a zone/area.
If the game allows people who aren't grouped together to enter the same copy of an instance, up to a certain number of people before it creates an additional copy, then it is a public instance.
If it creates a copy of the instance just for you and/or your group and then doesn't allow other people to enter your copy of the instance then it is a private instance.
EQ, up until LDoN, had zones but no instances. Zones of which there was only one per server, which were always up and running even if nobody was there and of which the game never created additional copies.
As to the main topic of this thread I would say the author got the title wrong. The question isn't, "How long untill everything is a MMO?" the question is, "How long until nothing is a MMO?"
Unfortunately it looks to me like where almost there already.
SP and MP games adding online account login and other mmo-like features is a long way from them becoming mmo's. We're in the dark ages of mmo's. Wow the peak and end of the golden age. I used to say that blizzard will have the next big mmo themselves but I don't see how even they can pull us out of this crap. So how soon until everything is mmo? Long time.
Will everything become an MMO, no not in the least.
Will a lot of games switch from a game list lobby to an interactive lobby, probably. But that isn't an MMO or even close to one. Most popular FPS games already had numbers of players similar to or above MMOs. But they just had a list of games and you'd hop in somewhere with 13-23 other players on average.
So yes I think more games will start having some sort of interactive lobby where you can hang out with other people looking for a game, form groups/clans and show off the armor you unlocked. But that isn't even close to what an MMO is so no not everything will become an MMO.
This is one of the better, recent, articles on MMORPG.com. The short answer is how long depends on how you redefine "MMORPG". I tend to agree with more "traditionalist" definitions which don't include any of the games which are basically an advanced Battle.net setup (Meet in a chatroom, form up a group, run a zone, rinse and repeat). And for me personally I'm starting to exclude games which are totally instanced from the MMORPG category. In my opinion these kinds of games fall into MOG (Multiplayer Online Game).
It is interesting that you brought up the console games and tied them into an increasing trend towards micro payments... It wouldn't surprise me to see that as the line between MMORPGs and MOGs begin to blur that we will see more and more games start poping up that are subscription based with micro payments on top.
It used to be that all there was subscription based pricing in MMORPGs then on top of subs some companies added micro payments for account related things like character/account transfers (things that were game related but could be justified as an extra expense because they were outside of the realm of logging in and playing the game). Then on top of subs and account related micro payment they started to add "window dressing" type micro payments like name changes, or costumes, etc. And now we're seeing that on top of subs and account/window dressing micro payments they're starting to add micro payments for things that had always been standard since MMORPGs have existed like armor/weapons, respecs, playable races, etc.
The sad part is that as these developers get greedier and greedier, finding more ways to milk their subscribers for more and more money, today's MMORPGs are starting to become less and less like the subscription only based MMORPGs of old and more and more like advanced versions of Battle.net systems which were always free to use in the first place.
"However, my recent experiences with Star Trek Online have had almost exactly the opposite result. So far, in that game, I haven't interacted with a single other player. Star Trek feels like a single player game. Is it a sign that something cataclysmic is about to happen in the world of MMOs when a console shooter exploits the genre better than a major AAA MMO release from an established industry "playah"?"
I think the problem with STO, is that they took the massive and the rpg out of the mmorpg.
it kinda feels like games are going backwards to the old days of multi player online gaming...like age of empires II, where you would find a match to join and chat while waiting to play.. it's sad they are going in this direction, i'd much rather have more sandbox and more [b]choice[/b].
Comments
The "features" that you're implying MMO's have by definition are false assumptions based on your previous experience with MMO's. Borderlands could be an MMO simply by adding a persistent space that can serve as a lobby for players to meet up, trade, form parties, show off their gear and gather quests, and it would have no impact how long it would take to kill the mobs leading up to Nine Toes.
This is the problem with people's apprehension to the MMO moniker, they assume that in order to be an MMO they have to have some of these terrible qualities that some bad games set the precedent for.
All MMO refers to is the number of players, and some degree of a persistent online infrastructure.
I respectfully disagree.
In your words a MMO is the number of players and persistence. Ok Borderlands has 4, max. DnD, Champions online has 100 per shard. Everquest 2 has 2000 per shard and Eve Online had 26000 plus on at one time. I agree that Borderlands could be a MMO by the Guild Wars setup. But Guild Wars was not a true MMO. That was an instanced game aka Borderlands. If it would be a true MMO, you would have a lot of people in the same zone competing for the same resources (or random encounters with real people). In Guild Wars, you would never see anyone outside your group in combat zones.
And when the MMO title pops up we are really talking about MMOgames or MMORPG. Because a MMO could be Second Life. But since this is MMORPG.com, I assumed everyone would go with it, my fault.
I gotta agree with your posts. At the early stages MMO's were much more RPG then they are now. the change, well, it was inevitable, but still something was lost and it sucks ;(
I kinda dislike the tone in your second reply. Yes, most people don't care, but it's not necessarily bad. As long as playing MMOs doesn't ruin us or go into the absurd costs, and allows us to have fun, why whine about the prices?
I heartily disagree.
There have been some great games over the years that successfully combine RPG and FPS, and they gel just fine: Dues Ex, Bioshock and Mass Effect to name a few.
If you're not a fan of FPS or "twitch" gameplay, then understandably you won't like FPS/RPG hybrid games. But I think lots of people like both types of games, and for them the combination of the two can be VERY effective and fun.
To me, MMOs have always been defined by a client-server relationship - a persistent database stored on someone else's server on which you exclusively control some component (your character) that can interact with other players in real time.
The game that most recently challenged my definition was Spore - there was a lot of interaction, but it wasn't real-time (each player has their own private universe populated by the creations of others, so I don't lump it in with MMOs). A lot of console games where your character name and some token stats are stored on a server are also a blurry line - I don't have enough experience in the area to decide if the stored data affects multiplayer gameplay enough to be counted.
I've generally ignored facebook games because they seem to be mostly multi-level pyramid schemes in the guise of a game, but some of them probably do meet my definition.
Quite frankly, it's not good for business.
When you force a player to interact with an increasing amount of other players, the chances his game-play will be negatively impacted approaches infinity. An "internet jerk-wad" is worth exactly the same as a nice friendly helpful player to the game. I don't mean this just in dollar terms, but also that the game mechanics themselves don't particularly favor one type of attitude or the other. Note that natural models of player justice exist, but they are somewhat out of favor.
"Back in the day," as it were, the MMO communities were small enough that most people playing were like-minded reasonable adults. Even your hardcore PvPers were respectful of the players behind the keyboard of the characters they killed. In fact, MMOs are following the same trend as the internet, and social networks. There is an rapid expansion as more people join and new connections are made, followed by a rapid contraction as people get sick of bullies, griefers, and parasites whose enjoyment is directly defined as inducing a negative emotional response in others in the worst possible way.
Yes, the MMO industry is in a sad state. When non-mmo games are closer to be a MMO than the so called real MMOGs themselves. What we have now, anyway, are not real MMOGs, they are heavily instanced and that take automaticaly first letter from MMORPG. They call it MMO to have the right of charging 15$ a month for it. There are no other reasons.
I have to add that I totally disagree with whoever said that WoW was an heavily instanced game. Because it wasnt. Yes, there had to be loading screens. Instancing continents is just logical. Its not technicaly possible to have an entire huge world in a single instance. Dungeons were instanced for a balance reasons. But it wasnt a mess like age of conan, champion online, startrek, the incoming starwars or guild war... Eeeeeeesh, guild war started it when you think about it.
So yeah, in short, the lasted MMO we got which was massive, was, World of warcraft. Since then, nothing massve came out at all. And Im talking about a seamless continent at least.
Bah
Flame on.
-------------------------------------
Before: developers loved games and made money.
Now: developers love money and make games.
Quite frankly, it's not good for business.
When you force a player to interact with an increasing amount of other players, the chances his game-play will be negatively impacted approaches infinity. An "internet jerk-wad" is worth exactly the same as a nice friendly helpful player to the game. I don't mean this just in dollar terms, but also that the game mechanics themselves don't particularly favor one type of attitude or the other. Note that natural models of player justice exist, but they are somewhat out of favor.
"Back in the day," as it were, the MMO communities were small enough that most people playing were like-minded reasonable adults. Even your hardcore PvPers were respectful of the players behind the keyboard of the characters they killed. In fact, MMOs are following the same trend as the internet, and social networks. There is an rapid expansion as more people join and new connections are made, followed by a rapid contraction as people get sick of bullies, griefers, and parasites whose enjoyment is directly defined as inducing a negative emotional response in others in the worst possible way.
Very well said, but I have to disagree.
It was good for business. It worked.
Blizzard had great success and only had to implement instancing in most raid content and dungeons, the world itself was open to as many players as the server can hold. (please dont throw stones at me for bringing up WoW) So as far as business, it was quite good for them
you are correct about "back in the day", the respectful crowds of long lost mmos are a dying breed indeed.
Another great post, I had to scroll back just to quote it and say I must concur!
It will be a very long time because the general gaming population despises MMO's because of their rampant suckage over the past few years. Read any other gaming forum when an MMO video or news is released and all you see is 99% fail posts because of what every developer has put out besides WoW, and then on the other side you get the WoW hate. This genre is a shallow shell of what it could be thanks to companies like SOE and Cryptic. Thank god for CCP or it would be a really depressing time.
Couldn't agree more mate. Very strange though to find a kindred SP game soul on this forum
. (though I do like a bit of mindless mmo grinding from time to time 
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Everyone has their own play style, yes mmo are lossing a lot of their holy crap I needs an army to kill that factor, but things evolve. Most gamers have jobs and lives and only a few hours a day to play, we can't waste 3 hours getting a raid together. I will admit I solo, but I can see the difference between an mmo and a basic game pretty clearly. If mass effect 2 were an mmo I'd have to visit every system, do every side quest, and get every upgrade to fight the end boss and live. If borderlands were an mmo I'd not been able to kill the final boss by hiding behind it's tentical on the right side of the screen and punching it over and over till it died.
MMO's are always going to be a little more tricky, where single and co-op games are going to be easier, yes I look forward to the day they decide to make mass effect into an mmo but it needs to be a consol computer cross over mmo released at the same time with functional voice chat. We have the power, we can build it, we need an mmo where we can all talk and it be like in real life, thats what surround sound is for.
To say the line is blurring, while true, is not completely correct MMO's are giving to, they are streamlining their design to be more for short play sessions not a whole week of 22 hour gaming days with two hours of sleep. The real issue is that we are becoming more social via games in this day and age, so more games are becoming online playable. However a properly made mmo should be a world, fully open to the players with endless ways to make that character yours. It should also not be less than 30 hours of game play, I beat ME2 at about 18, and Borderlands at 16 cuase I said to heck with the last three levels and just ran past all the bad guys and did the quest stuff while being shot.
Oh and a side note to all the people blaiming one company or another for how games are, if we all put aside our feelings for one company or another and voiced as one community as a whole what we don't want to see anymore the companies would change. Just saying, games are a multi billon dollar a year industry, if we simply all said nope we want X and we won't buy till we get it, we would get X.
By this definition EQ wasn't an MMO either because each zone was a seperate instance.
Personally I think the problem lies in that there never really was a definition of either parts of MMORPGs. MMO stands for something defferent in peoples minds. Is it an mmo if I can't interact with someone outside my zone other than with a chat? does it have to be a seemless world? Does an instance make it no longer an mmo? and how many people have to on at the same time to make it an MMO? All these things will differ based on personal "taste"
Rpg runs into similar issues. RPGs started from the pencil and paper rpgs like D&D. So what elemets of those games made them an rpg? It seems to me a minimalist interpretation of the term is simply a game in which you take on a personality. So what is today's rpg? Mass Effect 2 is a perfect example of this question. What did they excise from it that makes it no longer an rpg? was it the inventory or the game mechanic? do you need to have stats for it to be an rpg? With out ever having played it Second Life seems to be a more accurate, if minimalistic, rpg than most other rpgs because you take on a personality and live it. So why does that not count?
My 2 cents.
Good, thoughtful article on a sobering topic.
I believe other posters are correct in saying that the AAA companies are scared to do new or unusual things. That is why many gamers are turning to smaller indie companies for their games, like EVE, Darkfall, and so on. The fact is that there only seems to be a few types of games that have been created, and most games are repeats, or hybrids, of games that have already existed. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that, if the game is done exceptionally well, but it does indeed have to be pretty exceptional, or people won't play it. Why would you want to play a WoW clone, when you're already burned out on the original WoW?
I think that perhaps more study of gamers would help, especially if you can separate the gamer groups well. When you are looking to make a game that appeals to people that have played WoW and are tired of it, you have to do your research on that group. It does no good to use people that currently love WoW as part of your sample, if you are aiming to make games for gamers that are done with WoW-type games. The same goes for creating games for people in any group: what does that group want? Spreading yourself too thin and watering down unique game experiences just sets the game up to fail in the long term.
Just my two bits.
SWTOR is a clone of WoW when looking at the design of the world and characters. Both have the ugly cartoon look.
And what will keep SWTOR alive is Star Wars fans. Other then that I think it will fail. Who will pay every month for a single player game? Not me.
WoW is the biggest and best for it's a real MMORPG with perfect design that a lot of people understand how to play and are able to play even if they have computer from the 90's. You can see that when playing the game, not that many English players.... thats why I left it... I miss the good old times with Sweden, England, USA, German and France. Now it's Russian or Polish invasion... urgh call me a rasist or whatever... I just can't stand them.
I hope new MMORPG will have servers that split these better.
And less instanced-single-player-worlds. Bring it back to the time when the MMORPG had OPEN worlds, freedom to explore, fights all over the world and not in a special area.
Adios!
Played:
From Earth & Beyond, Anarchy Online, Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa (Beta), EvE Online, City of Villians, Atlantica Online, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, RF Online, Second Life, Fallen Earth.
Reading this article, and it's responses I cannot help but hope & pray that Trion are going to "pull a blinder" with their allegedly ground-breaking server side system for Heroes of Telara that allows for dynamic worlds (you know where there is only 1 dragon called Baletetsushmorgidin & if you kill it it's dead forever, it's cave then get's occupied by some cannibilistic trolls you can go bash next week).
I want "Worlds" for MMORPG's to exist in new games, a place that for a few hours a day provides a real sense of escape to an alternate universe that doesn't feel too much like just a game
“They've seen the shedload of cash that WoW makes, and want more than just the $60 retail-box cost you shelled out, but can't apply a subscription model to their games. The next best thing to increase revenues is to sell stuff. Hey kids, wanna buy a fancy new gun or maybe a tea-bagging emote?”
This says it all really, gameplay style is being driven by the desire to make the maximum profit. So fairness, and diversity of play styles are going to be thrown out of the window.
There is nothing wrong with hybrid play models, we do not have to stay as just MMO’s, but when the change is being driven by profit excuse me for thinking it will be for the worse.
So many of us have already complained that far too many MMO’s are now based on WoW with no room for any other ideas, it has stifled the MMO industries creativity. Is that going to now be the fate of FPS too?
Until WoW stops making huge profits gaming compnaies will not stop seeking to emulate it, it has become a albatross around the neck of MMO development.
This should not be a disscussion about whether or not we can expand our definition of what a MMO is, we are not Hobbits in a hole who do not like change. It should be a discussion about whether or not the new is worth embracing. If it is original, diverse and fair then yes it is; if on the other hand it is unoriginal, built on one template and pay to win, it is going to be a dismal future for the genre.
I'm quite excited by the piece-by-piece merging of RPGs with MMOs (see: MMO mechanics in Dragon Age and RPG mechanics in The Old Republic), since I don't believe there has honestly yet been an MMORPG, which is all I've wanted for the last twelve years: pure RPG gameplay, but with friends.
Such a thing hasn't happened. MMOs spawned from MUDs, which were very distant cousins, indeed, from CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Fallout, with very different playing experiences in mind. As such, I always took the MMORPG acronym to be a description not of what the genre was, but what it endeavored to be.
This is why I am excited for The Old Republic. The only reason, in fact. Because otherwise, it's butt-ugly and based on a (however excellent for its time) psi-fi setting I'd rather see laid to rest.
The "features" that you're implying MMO's have by definition are false assumptions based on your previous experience with MMO's. Borderlands could be an MMO simply by adding a persistent space that can serve as a lobby for players to meet up, trade, form parties, show off their gear and gather quests, and it would have no impact how long it would take to kill the mobs leading up to Nine Toes.
This is the problem with people's apprehension to the MMO moniker, they assume that in order to be an MMO they have to have some of these terrible qualities that some bad games set the precedent for.
All MMO refers to is the number of players, and some degree of a persistent online infrastructure.
I respectfully disagree.
In your words a MMO is the number of players and persistence. Ok Borderlands has 4, max. DnD, Champions online has 100 per shard. Everquest 2 has 2000 per shard and Eve Online had 26000 plus on at one time. I agree that Borderlands could be a MMO by the Guild Wars setup. But Guild Wars was not a true MMO. That was an instanced game aka Borderlands. If it would be a true MMO, you would have a lot of people in the same zone competing for the same resources (or random encounters with real people). In Guild Wars, you would never see anyone outside your group in combat zones.
And when the MMO title pops up we are really talking about MMOgames or MMORPG. Because a MMO could be Second Life. But since this is MMORPG.com, I assumed everyone would go with it, my fault.
I only brought up the imaginary guild wars/borderlands mashup mmo to refute your assumption that making borderlands some sort of MMO would not somehow arbitrarily make it "more grindy", or make it take longer to get to nine-toes. If you took Borderlands, and instead of having a multiplayer server browser made New Haven a persistent space to chat, form parties and gather quests, and kept the rest of the game instanced, the gameplay and "grind" would remain unaffected. In your post you mentioned in an MMO borderlands it would take "hours", simply because you added the MMO.
Now, if you take issue with calling the persistent town/instanced world setup type of game an MMO (even though thats apparently the direction the genre is headed, and more and more developer's are considering games with any degree of persistence an MMO [see DDO, STO]), that's another argument entirely
"So far, in that game, I haven't interacted with a single other player. Star Trek feels like a single player game. "
I was Playing CO and a guy came to me: "let's team to do some mission, I miss teaming"
"you are like the world revenge on sarcasm, you know that?"
One of those great lines from The Secret World
WoW is definitely a heavily instanced game. Darkfall is pretty much the only seamless game worth its salt right now. And yes, it is technically possible, as Darkfall is obviously doing it, and Asheron's Call did in the 90's, one of the first 3d MMO's, years before WoW.
In WoW, sure, there is a persistent world, but once the game actually starts (when you hit the level cap) the gameplay consists entirely of sitting in Dalaran, or warping in to an instanced dungeon, and you never bother exploring the world again. Its just as bad as Guild Wars or DDO (if not worse, simply because of how insulting it is to have a persistent world and not putting it to use whatsoever).
There seem to be a lot of people who don't understand the difference between zones and instances. EQ had no instances at all untill the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion and that was..um, four or five years after release or something like that.
A zone (non-instanced) is an area of the game world you have to load into but there is only one copy of it. Anyone who goes to that zone will be in the same place as every other person who goes to that zone.
An instance is when the game creates multiple copies of a zone/area.
If the game allows people who aren't grouped together to enter the same copy of an instance, up to a certain number of people before it creates an additional copy, then it is a public instance.
If it creates a copy of the instance just for you and/or your group and then doesn't allow other people to enter your copy of the instance then it is a private instance.
EQ, up until LDoN, had zones but no instances. Zones of which there was only one per server, which were always up and running even if nobody was there and of which the game never created additional copies.
As to the main topic of this thread I would say the author got the title wrong. The question isn't, "How long untill everything is a MMO?" the question is, "How long until nothing is a MMO?"
Unfortunately it looks to me like where almost there already.
SP and MP games adding online account login and other mmo-like features is a long way from them becoming mmo's. We're in the dark ages of mmo's. Wow the peak and end of the golden age. I used to say that blizzard will have the next big mmo themselves but I don't see how even they can pull us out of this crap. So how soon until everything is mmo? Long time.
Will everything become an MMO, no not in the least.
Will a lot of games switch from a game list lobby to an interactive lobby, probably. But that isn't an MMO or even close to one. Most popular FPS games already had numbers of players similar to or above MMOs. But they just had a list of games and you'd hop in somewhere with 13-23 other players on average.
So yes I think more games will start having some sort of interactive lobby where you can hang out with other people looking for a game, form groups/clans and show off the armor you unlocked. But that isn't even close to what an MMO is so no not everything will become an MMO.
This is one of the better, recent, articles on MMORPG.com. The short answer is how long depends on how you redefine "MMORPG". I tend to agree with more "traditionalist" definitions which don't include any of the games which are basically an advanced Battle.net setup (Meet in a chatroom, form up a group, run a zone, rinse and repeat). And for me personally I'm starting to exclude games which are totally instanced from the MMORPG category. In my opinion these kinds of games fall into MOG (Multiplayer Online Game).
It is interesting that you brought up the console games and tied them into an increasing trend towards micro payments... It wouldn't surprise me to see that as the line between MMORPGs and MOGs begin to blur that we will see more and more games start poping up that are subscription based with micro payments on top.
It used to be that all there was subscription based pricing in MMORPGs then on top of subs some companies added micro payments for account related things like character/account transfers (things that were game related but could be justified as an extra expense because they were outside of the realm of logging in and playing the game). Then on top of subs and account related micro payment they started to add "window dressing" type micro payments like name changes, or costumes, etc. And now we're seeing that on top of subs and account/window dressing micro payments they're starting to add micro payments for things that had always been standard since MMORPGs have existed like armor/weapons, respecs, playable races, etc.
The sad part is that as these developers get greedier and greedier, finding more ways to milk their subscribers for more and more money, today's MMORPGs are starting to become less and less like the subscription only based MMORPGs of old and more and more like advanced versions of Battle.net systems which were always free to use in the first place.
"However, my recent experiences with Star Trek Online have had almost exactly the opposite result. So far, in that game, I haven't interacted with a single other player. Star Trek feels like a single player game. Is it a sign that something cataclysmic is about to happen in the world of MMOs when a console shooter exploits the genre better than a major AAA MMO release from an established industry "playah"?"
I think the problem with STO, is that they took the massive and the rpg out of the mmorpg.
it kinda feels like games are going backwards to the old days of multi player online gaming...like age of empires II, where you would find a match to join and chat while waiting to play.. it's sad they are going in this direction, i'd much rather have more sandbox and more [b]choice[/b].