Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Let's just squash this right here, right now
SnaKey
Member Posts: 3,386
No more arguments. I'm right. You're wrong. So there. I'm a huge MMO buff and I've played almost every single game to the left, plus alot more. Not to mention, I want to be a game designer and I am working on my own IPA MMO in C++ w/ a buddy of mine, so I look at actual mechanics of games, not just the flashy stuff that's in your face.
I just got GW this week, but I knew when it was in beta that it wasn't really a MMO just from the stuff I read on forums about it. Then I started looking into it and knew it wasn't.... I don't read FAQs much though 
The only reason I got it recently, was because I thought it was more like D2 (which I hate) than anything else.... I realized it was about PVP competition and I rock at PVP competition, so I got it.
------------------------------------------
Linkage to the ACTUAL Guild Wars FAQ where this is written
Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?
Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences. Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, loot stealing, and standing in a queue in order to complete a quest.
Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. In Guild Wars much of the tedium of traveling through the world has been eliminated. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they have previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.
Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-vs-guild warfare or the international tournament. Engaging in combat is always the player's choice, however; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.
Players in Guild Wars can play with or against players from around the world in the global tournaments and arenas. And while players are initially placed in a region based on their selected language (so that there is a greater likelihood that others will be speaking their language) they can join up in the always-available International District to form parties and to play with anyone from anywhere in the world.
Comments
You've quoted the same reason that EVERYBODY ELSE quotes. Guild Wars IS a MMORPG, but it's not a conventional MMORPG. Once in a while, a game will come along that creates its own genre. But there will also be games that improve on a certain genre or create a different version of it. Guild Wars doesn't create any new genres, it's simply a different implementation of an existing one.
Using the Guild Wars FAQ as proof is simply stupid. That's like if I were to create a game and say "It's not a First Person Shooter, it's a First Person Action Adventure with Role Playing Elements, abbreviated FPAARPG." Does that mean it's not a FPS, SIMPLY because I called it something else? To cite a real game example, what would you call Thief? It's definitely not a traditional FPS, but it is definitely a FPS.
So hence, Guild Wars is a different TYPE of MMORPG, but still is a MMORPG. To further the proof, Guild Wars instances everything. Well, would you call EQ2 a MMORPG? You do? Did you know that the zones in EQ2 can only support around 80 people per INSTANCE of the zone? So does that mean EQ2 is not a MMORPG then?
I see your argument, but MMORPG is good enough for me. Yes all of GW's questing space is instanced, but you have the ability to interact with the thousands in town before you head out on a quest, hence MMO. I don't feel this is enough of a difference to create a new category.
-Hunt'n
-----------------------
Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
Yes it's a corpg. Or like I like to call it, a persistent rpg version of UT.
Well its still a mmorpg.. Why wouldnt it be an mmorpg? becouse of the instancing? And it has a shitload of players so if gw isnt an mmorpg then what is? still an rpg game in a mmo world..
What more can u ask?
I have to agree somewhat with aranha here. MMORPG, or even just MMO's, are characterized by that phrase (Massively Multiplayer Online games). I find it rather a dumb phrase, but that's what SOE (go figure) came up with when they made EQ and started brandishing it around to label the genre.
The ONLY point of contention that Guild Wars has as an MMO is the first M. "Massively".
What qualifies something as massive? Well the context of the usage in the phrase basically means large game, large number of players. If you look at the actual game area of GW, it's pretty big. (atleast I find it big, and yes I have played EVE) The only contention is the number of players, because everything is instanced. This means that if 500 people are in the town of Old Ascalon, you won't necessarily be able to see all those 500 people. It doesn't mean they're not playing. They don't just magically disappear (ok well maybe they do, but they're still connected and playing).
So you can't really fault someone who wants to say it is, but you can't really fault someone who wants to say it isn't an MMO. It's a matter of opinion, not fact.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
That's really why I don't like ppl calling it a MMORPG. The game is not about bossing, the game is not about PVE at all. PVE is mearly a way to become more powerful than if you make a PVP char only... and really.... not much more powerful.
How many MMORPGs do you know that let you start off as max lvl?
To me. GW resembles the Warcraft Mod on Counter Strike more than any other game I've ever played.
But some of you made some very good points.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
Reaches way the hell down into the bag of "Do I Give a Crap About This?" and comes up empty.
~ Ancient Membership ~
This discussion has been to the glue factory already.
1. Its a massive multiplayer online game - Check!
2. Its a Roleplay friendly and rpg based as intended - Check!
If its instanced or not doesnt matter.. its still a mmorpg from the above facts
Yes, and the OP brings this argument up in every single thread he post in. I think he has a bet with somebody to see how many people he can bore into paralysis with his argument. Well...hes just got 1 more victim, me.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett
Look the OP is an idiot.
Why? Not because of his opinion of what GW is, whether it's right or wrong, but the fact that there is nothing about what he wrote up for disagreement. How can someone be right when he doesn't even make a point, or try to present an argument in favor of something. Read his post, this is not a smart person.
Interesting thought process. You hate D2, and since GW is more like D2, you got GW.
so...
They should just call these things Muds cause thats all they are. Multi-User dungeons. Brad McQuad had to coin a new term for whatever reason but it's the same damn thing.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Yeah. I worded that weird.
I meant it as in: I waited so long to get it because I thought it was like D2. I ended up getting it because I learned it was about PVP Competition moreso than anything else.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
Oh come on! No credit for me butchering your post a bit?
so...
In an attempt to derail this conversation into something else you've probably heard before...
SnaKey: about your pictures in your .sig. At first glance it looks like you're saying WoW is a puddle (shallow) and Eve is a tundra (cold, harsh and even more shallow.) Is that supposed to be a damning condemnation of Eve, or is the second picture just getting obscured in thumbnail form?
LARP is live action role-play, and therefore completely disqualified from any category of computer game. And anyone who's calling their MORPG a "LARP" is an idiot.
On a more semantical note... to be an MMORPG a game must be *massive* in addition to being multiplayer, online and having RPG characteristics. To be a MUD, a game must be multi-user and focus on dungeoins. The two may coincide on occasion, but frequently do not (many MUDs don't hit 'massive,' and most MMORPGs don't do much dungeon-crawling if any.)
I have found guildwars to be structured somewhat like WoW. You get an "X" amount of players in your groups for some quests and instances, X-1 players sometimes your screwed like when 1 player goes AFK. X-2 players usually means your screwed. X-3 players means give it up, reform a new group or get someone to powerlevel you. X-4 players means your solo.
Instanced or not, the feeling I get is the same force-fed ratmazes I played in Quake 1 with either game. They are ratmazes.