I prefer Patton, "if everyone is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking"
Then why the hell crusade against folks having their own idea of what an MMO is?
Keep in mind George corrected people who blatantly thought incorrectly with a back hand.
Wrong is not the same as different.
Because he was a realist. The realist in me says the topic is about as important as discussing the markings on a tire at this point. While Bridgestone or Goodyear might have different measures of worth to people, in the end they're just tires, most will just be happy they have a set.
With games it's not the players that are the problem, most don't care what qualifier is used to describe it, in the end it just matters if the game scratches an itch. It's the devs/companies and investors who slap these labels around be it, MMOFPS, MMORTS, MMORPG, MMOracing, MMOwhathaveyou
Some of these genres don't even fit into a massively simultaneous experience. Like an RTS, a true MMORTS would be a chaotic mess (same applies to driving games), so i think the player knows to expect some form of lobby mechanic to be employed where fighting and things like that are concerned. Yet there's usually some kind of shared experience as well (the hub) in MMORTS and racing games that's usually the main overland map where cities & etc stand...
An adventurer's Hub based game is another example that is widely contested in it's qualifying features. SOme want to say it's only an MMO if you're always around lots of players, some say it only matters if there are places many can congregate and meet up (the hub). Who's right, who's wrong (who should Patton bitch slap)? Does it really matter?
I for one fall on the latter question, as it really doesn't dictate which is a better game to me. I look at it more as different ways to allow many to play together. Be it a completely shared experience (typical original MMORPG), or a shared area that leads to content directed for smaller parties (DDO, NW, etc). Most games actually fall somewhere between the two in this day and age.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
1-4 are part of game diversity so pointless debate unless specifically talking about games traditionally considered mmorpg.
F2P has massively impacted the entire gaming industry and is largely driven by greed and exclusiveness. It IS a serious topic worthy of debate and discussion as no single change has impacted the industry this much prior. The transition to it had completely changed how some games are developed and flat out destroyed sub-genre gaming and mainstream development.
To say we can vote with our wallets when it comes to whale hunting is a call to ignorance. How can someone vote with their wallet when it's the smallest percentage of the player base spending most of the wallet?
If you accept F2P (especially the exploitative ones) you are casting away your vote! Developers are rolling around laughing their asses off over how easy it was to convert the populace into lemmings willing to go where big spenders take them while watching the concept of equality in gaming vanish.
5. Stop trying to blackwhite easily definable terms such a "massively multiplayer" and the battle ends, otherwise the resistance continues.
4, 3, 2. Sure, plenty of room for all types of playstyles, game mechanics and preferences.
The issue is the money chases what is popular so some niches are underserved or ignored entirely, at least until the recent crowdfunding trend. (assuming a few MMORPGs succeed)
1. Have to disagree, cash shop gaming is a scourge that should be resisted at most every opportunity. I want a one reasonable price buys all model and don't care if someone else has no issue dropping $20K, I'm still going to call them out as being detrimental to the genre as a whole.
For the most part I agree with Kyleran on this. I understand F2P, B2P and P2P Models are all viable under the right conditions. The problem is that MMORPGs have gotten away from a sustainable model for most people and gone into the realm of people with large amounts of money controlling a game ruining it for 99% of the MMORPG population. This is the wrong model for MMORPGs.
O and on the Playstyle front, I agree there should be room for all playstyles BUT the problem is often people who want to play WOW and play WOW Solo come to new games that are being designed like Ashes or Pantheon and are looking to these games to exactly copy WOW because that is what these people want. I basically say this to these people that are like my wife, if thats what you want just WOW and keep ending back up in WOW Stay in WOW do not blow up the forums demanding that a new game Copy WOW and just put WOW in a new Skin. This is why many MMORPGs are basically dead. Let people like myself who want Group driven MMORPGs to play these games without needing to deal with the same BS we have had for 10+ years. If WOW is so perfect stay there please and dont look at another game.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
You would have to have a paradigm shift and accept that it's a "massive" amount of people accessing the game and that any "one" person in that massive amount of people can party with any other people in that "massive amount of people".
Like I said earlier, Garriot and his team coined the phrase so were they really thinking of massive amount of people in one area (and truth be told most games can't handle that when you start getting upwards of several hundred) or massive amounts of people accessing the game and playing with all the other people accessing the game.
And did he and his team really mean it as a hard and fast definition or were they just coining the phrase on the fly based on what they had? I bet it was the latter.
There is a group of gamers that are really dead set on definitions and very set ways of doing things and who feel very uncomfortable when those definitions/ways stray from what they feel is their concrete form.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I would add "SWG." It's not coming back. It wasn't that good of a game, and if everyone who claimed they played it actually did, it never would have closed.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
When you listen to what the people who actually invented the term say about what they were working on and actually successfully created... Your 200+ is pitifully small and just as irrelevant as a "16 person limited zone" game.
The original meaning and spirit of the term was lost a long long time ago.
can i go out into the world and randomly encounter other players?
can hundreds, if not thousands, of players meet up in a single zone/area at any given time?
if not, not massively multiplayer.
being in a hub or lobby, then doing content with a handful of others isnt an mmo.
and no, games with instanced dungeons dont contradict this. the world at large is still available to everyone on the server, at once.
akin to saying flag football is the same as the NFL
should be called 'Get over it! mmo's are dead, but please let us shame you into not abandoning the site'
Can someone please fill me in on what 'FFA' is an acronym for..?!
The term FFA is usually use along with PvP
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
It generally also means that any player can attack any other player anywhere and at any time. Most FFA PvP games do, however, have some safe spots, usually in the cities where guards patrol. Once you venture out though, you're pretty much fair game.
Can someone please fill me in on what 'FFA' is an acronym for..?!
The term FFA is usually use along with PvP
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
It generally also means that any player can attack any other player anywhere and at any time. Most FFA PvP games do, however, have some safe spots, usually in the cities where guards patrol. Once you venture out though, you're pretty much fair game.
Agreed
Open World PvP essentially covers that, you just have consensual vs non-consensual or PvP server vs PvE server. Rightly or wrongly the big distinction people make with FFA vs the others, is the corpse looting.
Can someone please fill me in on what 'FFA' is an acronym for..?!
The term FFA is usually use along with PvP
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
It generally also means that any player can attack any other player anywhere and at any time. Most FFA PvP games do, however, have some safe spots, usually in the cities where guards patrol. Once you venture out though, you're pretty much fair game.
Agreed
Open World PvP essentially covers that, you just have consensual vs non-consensual or PvP server vs PvE server. Rightly or wrongly the big distinction people make with FFA vs the others, is the corpse looting.
No, FFA just means anyone can attack anyone. "Free for all" doesn't have anything to do with looting. You can have FFA PvP without corpse looting for instance. FFA doesn't only apply to MMORPGs either.
And like you said, you can make FFA consensual (like in WoW) or unconsensual (like in Darkfall). People usually refer to the looting style by saying "full loot." Darkfall is often described as a full loot PvP experience.
How ironic to have an acronym discussion in this thread.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
When you listen to what the people who actually invented the term say about what they were working on and actually successfully created... Your 200+ is pitifully small and just as irrelevant as a "16 person limited zone" game.
The original meaning and spirit of the term was lost a long long time ago.
Actually sounds to me like you and I have pretty much been in agreement this whole time and you're arguing for the sake of arguing lol.
The only thing we don't agree on is that the meaning of MMO has changed. Have some people's perception been skewed? Absolutely, but that doesn't change the meaning.
Can someone please fill me in on what 'FFA' is an acronym for..?!
The term FFA is usually use along with PvP
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
It generally also means that any player can attack any other player anywhere and at any time. Most FFA PvP games do, however, have some safe spots, usually in the cities where guards patrol. Once you venture out though, you're pretty much fair game.
Agreed
Open World PvP essentially covers that, you just have consensual vs non-consensual or PvP server vs PvE server. Rightly or wrongly the big distinction people make with FFA vs the others, is the corpse looting.
No, FFA just means anyone can attack anyone. "Free for all" doesn't have anything to do with looting. You can have FFA PvP without corpse looting for instance. FFA doesn't only apply to MMORPGs either.
And like you said, you can make FFA consensual (like in WoW) or unconsensual (like in Darkfall). People usually refer to the looting style by saying "full loot." Darkfall is often described as a full loot PvP experience.
How ironic to have an acronym discussion in this thread.
Brainfart on my end
WoW on a PvP server, I believe wouldn't be FFA because you can't freely attack people of your own faction.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
And yet you couldn't even say 'Hello' to a single one of
them that wasn't part of your tiny pre-made / auto-matched group.
Also, getting hung up on total numbers is irrelevant... the best way I can
point this out is with an example:
In Destiny, if everyone went out into the open world and stood still, and you
then toured the world, at most you would run into maybe a few dozen unique
players (which may as well be NPCs as you couldn't really interact with, e.g.
say 'hello', to a single one).
If you did the same in say FFXIV, you would run into (and could actually say
'hello' to) hundreds, if not thousands, of unique players... and that is what
makes an MMO an MMO.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
When you listen to what the people who actually invented the term say about what they were working on and actually successfully created... Your 200+ is pitifully small and just as irrelevant as a "16 person limited zone" game.
The original meaning and spirit of the term was lost a long long time ago.
Actually sounds to me like you and I have pretty much been in agreement this whole time and you're arguing for the sake of arguing lol.
The only thing we don't agree on is that the meaning of MMO has changed. Have some people's perception been skewed? Absolutely, but that doesn't change the meaning.
My only argument would be:
That these days, debating about what is and what isn't an MMO is about as futile as debating on what is and what isn't a Sandbox.
I don't even really care whether a game like Destiny (which I've never played) is an MMO or not. But if games like that are moving in an MMO direction I'm all for it. I'm not going to call them out or shit on them, I'm going to cheer them on and hope that Destiny 2 will be more MMO like than Destiny 1
I'm hoping the big kick of awesome virtual world games like Zelda, GTA, Conan Exiles etc. etc. etc. will rub off into a resurgence of Big Open Virtual World MMORPG's because that's my preference.
I can't believe we could play games with thousands of concurrent players like UO, 20 years ago, with cpu rendered graphics and dial up modems. Today we have gigabit connections and graphics cards that have more memory than our hard drives had back then.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
And yet you couldn't even say 'Hello' to a single one of
them that wasn't part of your tiny pre-made / auto-matched group.
Also, getting hung up on total numbers is irrelevant... the best way I can
point this out is with an example:
In Destiny, if everyone went out into the open world and stood still, and you
then toured the world, at most you would run into maybe a few dozen unique
players (which may as well be NPCs as you couldn't really interact with, e.g.
say 'hello', to a single one).
If you did the same in say FFXIV, you would run into (and could actually say
'hello' to) hundreds, if not thousands, of unique players... and that is what
makes an MMO an MMO.
Sure you can. You can send anyone a message and an invite to your chat group while in the lobby. Not much different than most MMOs including WoW and FF14. The open worlds are just huge graphic lobbies not unlike Destiny's small graphic lobby. All the real content and progression are in instances where you don't talk to anyone else..
So they finally added some real in-game chat?? ... Doing a few google searches it sounds like it's (slightly) better than it used to be, but it still uses out of game services like PSN / Xbox Live... so it's not exactly /say
And I can't speak for WoW (which barely sounds like an MMO anymore, at least the way most people play it), but FFXIV still has some open world content worth doing (Edit: in fact, I probably spend about 50% of my time in the open world), so it's more than just a big graphic lobby.
I interacted with other people in the same world. Next.
Does the "MMO" you have in mind have 30 million players that bought and played the game in the last couple of years? I'm not talking about 15 years of account collection. By comparison can you even give me an mmo example? Most mmos by comparison aren't really massive are they. I mean, wtf, a few hundred people on a server? That's massive? No wait, let's make it a few thousand, even though you won't see more than 20 or 30 at a time. MMOs aren't massive in that perspective. I've seen more people run around in the Splatoon lobby than some Massively Multiplayer Online games.
You're arguing from a glass soapbox.
With all of them? Didn't think so. Next.
How many do you usually play with? I have heard that there are 16 players allowed per zone in Destiny. What is a zone? How many concurrent players are there? That I don't know. I know they had talked about servers supporting thousands of users in the same gaming world, but it obviously balances them throughout the world, too.
What's the max on something like WoW or ESO? I've read that ESO allows for 200 people per faction, per instance, per area. I don't know what that amounts to. However, it will never be more than 200 people you can interact with, right?
This is where the "massively" part begins losing its meaning. I don't know how many people are playing in Destiny at once, is there a definitive article covering the number of concurrent players?
I don't know what ESO's "max" is or if they have one, but I'd say the difference between 16 and 200 per faction is pretty .... dare I say, massive? And if ESO has those limitations I'd say it's definitely on the low end for an MMO. It doesn't matter how many you play with, I play most MMO's either solo or with 5 or less friends. I will group with random people from time to time or fight them or fight over spawns with them. There's a big difference. I'm sorry you guys don't see it.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Sure it's not cut and dry when you consider the difference between 200 + people in the same area at the same time, but when you throw in lobby based games or 16 person limited zones and consider them "Massively Multiplayer"? Who is anyone trying to kid? It's just completely irrational thinking.
When you listen to what the people who actually invented the term say about what they were working on and actually successfully created... Your 200+ is pitifully small and just as irrelevant as a "16 person limited zone" game.
The original meaning and spirit of the term was lost a long long time ago.
Actually sounds to me like you and I have pretty much been in agreement this whole time and you're arguing for the sake of arguing lol.
The only thing we don't agree on is that the meaning of MMO has changed. Have some people's perception been skewed? Absolutely, but that doesn't change the meaning.
My only argument would be:
That these days, debating about what is and what isn't an MMO is about as futile as debating on what is and what isn't a Sandbox.
I don't even really care whether a game like Destiny (which I've never played) is an MMO or not. But if games like that are moving in an MMO direction I'm all for it. I'm not going to call them out or shit on them, I'm going to cheer them on and hope that Destiny 2 will be more MMO like than Destiny 1
I'm hoping the big kick of awesome virtual world games like Zelda, GTA, Conan Exiles etc. etc. etc. will rub off into a resurgence of Big Open Virtual World MMORPG's because that's my preference.
I can't believe we could play games with thousands of concurrent players like UO, 20 years ago, with cpu rendered graphics and dial up modems. Today we have gigabit connections and graphics cards that have more memory than our hard drives had back then.
And look where we're at
When something has a meaning and others try to skew that meaning, it's worth debating. I think the flaw in it is that when I read something is an MMO or a sandbox I have certain expectations. If those expectations are not met, I get let down.
I'm 100% for gaming pushing in that direction, as like you that is what I prefer. When they are MMO's, I'll accept it. Until then I will still call bullshit.
There are games that still hold true to what you speak of. Eve online, Darkfall: Rise of Agon, maybe more, I don't really know the limitations of most newer games. Truly open large worlds, single servers without instances.
Can someone please fill me in on what 'FFA' is an acronym for..?!
The term FFA is usually use along with PvP
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
It generally also means that any player can attack any other player anywhere and at any time. Most FFA PvP games do, however, have some safe spots, usually in the cities where guards patrol. Once you venture out though, you're pretty much fair game.
Agreed
Open World PvP essentially covers that, you just have consensual vs non-consensual or PvP server vs PvE server. Rightly or wrongly the big distinction people make with FFA vs the others, is the corpse looting.
No, FFA just means anyone can attack anyone. "Free for all" doesn't have anything to do with looting. You can have FFA PvP without corpse looting for instance. FFA doesn't only apply to MMORPGs either.
And like you said, you can make FFA consensual (like in WoW) or unconsensual (like in Darkfall). People usually refer to the looting style by saying "full loot." Darkfall is often described as a full loot PvP experience.
How ironic to have an acronym discussion in this thread.
Brainfart on my end
WoW on a PvP server, I believe wouldn't be FFA because you can't freely attack people of your own faction.
The genre isn't not growing because "MMO fans" arent in agreement. Its not growing because IT ISNT POPULAR RIGHT NOW. Even if there was some magical treatise that defined what an MMO is or isn't the fact that MOBAs, traditional single player games, and shooters are doing so much better, require less residual resources and appeal to broader audiences wouldnt change. People like to socialize, yes but we have entered an age of fast content consumption where the level of devotion required of the market of the past was more than the market of today; in general, wants. If theres anything MMO fans have to 'get over' it is expecting the scale, scope and budget that WoW had and figuring out the aspects of MMOs that were most important to them INDIVIDUALLY and supporting and playing those.
Yea this is a good point.
I would also add that it is not about what is popular now but what is popular to a particular demographic. Myself, as someone representing the older gamer who remembers the times when we did not have computers, is looking for nothing more than a nice relaxing experience with a bit of excitement tossed in which I can enjoy at my leisure. And you can bet that if I want that, then someone in their twenties or just starting out in gaming, sure as hell doesn't want that. They want something edgier and probably more competitive.
Its a different world too. You say people like to socialize. Well they are doing that now, constantly, at all hours of the day. They don't need it in a game. So many things to do that weren't around for us at the beginning online gaming. Busy lives with families and jobs that don't allow the luxury of time anymore. So games for that demographic need to cater to fast gameplay that can be played in spurts.
Society is evolving and games are evolving. Recently heard smartphones will be on the way out and people will be interacting with VR gear and voice commands instead. I can't imagine how that will affect us all and gaming as well. Will we be playing MMO's as we walk down the street or at our jobs while we work?
So yea, whats popular with the game consumer, as well as advancing tech will likely be the driving force in the future. What we as individuals want is irrelevant, unless of course that is what the majority wants. If people are willing to support VR we will get VR. If not it may end up like 3D.
None of this will stop us from complaining about games however. It's what we do here and pretty sure that will never change!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Comments
With games it's not the players that are the problem, most don't care what qualifier is used to describe it, in the end it just matters if the game scratches an itch. It's the devs/companies and investors who slap these labels around be it, MMOFPS, MMORTS, MMORPG, MMOracing, MMOwhathaveyou
Some of these genres don't even fit into a massively simultaneous experience. Like an RTS, a true MMORTS would be a chaotic mess (same applies to driving games), so i think the player knows to expect some form of lobby mechanic to be employed where fighting and things like that are concerned. Yet there's usually some kind of shared experience as well (the hub) in MMORTS and racing games that's usually the main overland map where cities & etc stand...
An adventurer's Hub based game is another example that is widely contested in it's qualifying features. SOme want to say it's only an MMO if you're always around lots of players, some say it only matters if there are places many can congregate and meet up (the hub). Who's right, who's wrong (who should Patton bitch slap)? Does it really matter?
I for one fall on the latter question, as it really doesn't dictate which is a better game to me. I look at it more as different ways to allow many to play together. Be it a completely shared experience (typical original MMORPG), or a shared area that leads to content directed for smaller parties (DDO, NW, etc). Most games actually fall somewhere between the two in this day and age.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Now... I know I've had to settle for a lot less.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
F2P has massively impacted the entire gaming industry and is largely driven by greed and exclusiveness. It IS a serious topic worthy of debate and discussion as no single change has impacted the industry this much prior. The transition to it had completely changed how some games are developed and flat out destroyed sub-genre gaming and mainstream development.
To say we can vote with our wallets when it comes to whale hunting is a call to ignorance. How can someone vote with their wallet when it's the smallest percentage of the player base spending most of the wallet?
If you accept F2P (especially the exploitative ones) you are casting away your vote! Developers are rolling around laughing their asses off over how easy it was to convert the populace into lemmings willing to go where big spenders take them while watching the concept of equality in gaming vanish.
You stay sassy!
For the most part I agree with Kyleran on this. I understand F2P, B2P and P2P Models are all viable under the right conditions. The problem is that MMORPGs have gotten away from a sustainable model for most people and gone into the realm of people with large amounts of money controlling a game ruining it for 99% of the MMORPG population. This is the wrong model for MMORPGs.
O and on the Playstyle front, I agree there should be room for all playstyles BUT the problem is often people who want to play WOW and play WOW Solo come to new games that are being designed like Ashes or Pantheon and are looking to these games to exactly copy WOW because that is what these people want. I basically say this to these people that are like my wife, if thats what you want just WOW and keep ending back up in WOW Stay in WOW do not blow up the forums demanding that a new game Copy WOW and just put WOW in a new Skin. This is why many MMORPGs are basically dead. Let people like myself who want Group driven MMORPGs to play these games without needing to deal with the same BS we have had for 10+ years. If WOW is so perfect stay there please and dont look at another game.
That depends on how those are segregated. If we're talking about 200 people per zone, per faction then you might have a point, but the reality is that there is more than likely a cap on that, too. Like I believe that WoW caps the number of players in any given zone to somewhere in the same neighborhood as ESO. However, the zones are large enough that you rarely see people. Take a stroll through Ashenvale and tell me about how populated it is. How many people could be supported in a given area at any particular time? Is the "Massively" aspect the ABILITY to congregate with a large number of people in one location at any given time? In that's the case then many of these games with "Mega Server" technologies would likely not qualify as an MMO because there are various load balancing techniques being used in order to mitigate the load created by these users, hence we get shards, instances, etc.
This isn't debating the legitimacy of Destiny as an MMO, by the way, I'm just trying to illustrate that this isn't something that's cut and dry like you're suggesting it is.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Michael
Like I said earlier, Garriot and his team coined the phrase so were they really thinking of massive amount of people in one area (and truth be told most games can't handle that when you start getting upwards of several hundred) or massive amounts of people accessing the game and playing with all the other people accessing the game.
And did he and his team really mean it as a hard and fast definition or were they just coining the phrase on the fly based on what they had? I bet it was the latter.
There is a group of gamers that are really dead set on definitions and very set ways of doing things and who feel very uncomfortable when those definitions/ways stray from what they feel is their concrete form.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
So get over SWG!
The original meaning and spirit of the term was lost a long long time ago.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
It stands for "Free For All" and all it pretty much means is that when you die, anyone can loot your corpse and take all your stuff.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Im sure you meant "Some couldn't care less ..."
That mistake is also a bad trend.
can hundreds, if not thousands, of players meet up in a single zone/area at any given time?
if not, not massively multiplayer.
being in a hub or lobby, then doing content with a handful of others isnt an mmo.
and no, games with instanced dungeons dont contradict this. the world at large is still available to everyone on the server, at once.
akin to saying flag football is the same as the NFL should be called 'Get over it! mmo's are dead, but please let us shame you into not abandoning the site'
Open World PvP essentially covers that, you just have consensual vs non-consensual or PvP server vs PvE server. Rightly or wrongly the big distinction people make with FFA vs the others, is the corpse looting.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
And like you said, you can make FFA consensual (like in WoW) or unconsensual (like in Darkfall). People usually refer to the looting style by saying "full loot." Darkfall is often described as a full loot PvP experience.
How ironic to have an acronym discussion in this thread.
The only thing we don't agree on is that the meaning of MMO has changed. Have some people's perception been skewed? Absolutely, but that doesn't change the meaning.
WoW on a PvP server, I believe wouldn't be FFA because you can't freely attack people of your own faction.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
And yet you couldn't even say 'Hello' to a single one of them that wasn't part of your tiny pre-made / auto-matched group.
Also, getting hung up on total numbers is irrelevant... the best way I can point this out is with an example:
In Destiny, if everyone went out into the open world and stood still, and you then toured the world, at most you would run into maybe a few dozen unique players (which may as well be NPCs as you couldn't really interact with, e.g. say 'hello', to a single one).
If you did the same in say FFXIV, you would run into (and could actually say 'hello' to) hundreds, if not thousands, of unique players... and that is what makes an MMO an MMO.
That these days, debating about what is and what isn't an MMO is about as futile as debating on what is and what isn't a Sandbox.
I don't even really care whether a game like Destiny (which I've never played) is an MMO or not. But if games like that are moving in an MMO direction I'm all for it. I'm not going to call them out or shit on them, I'm going to cheer them on and hope that Destiny 2 will be more MMO like than Destiny 1
I'm hoping the big kick of awesome virtual world games like Zelda, GTA, Conan Exiles etc. etc. etc. will rub off into a resurgence of Big Open Virtual World MMORPG's because that's my preference.
I can't believe we could play games with thousands of concurrent players like UO, 20 years ago, with cpu rendered graphics and dial up modems. Today we have gigabit connections and graphics cards that have more memory than our hard drives had back then.
And look where we're at
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
And I can't speak for WoW (which barely sounds like an MMO anymore, at least the way most people play it), but FFXIV still has some open world content worth doing (Edit: in fact, I probably spend about 50% of my time in the open world), so it's more than just a big graphic lobby.
I'm 100% for gaming pushing in that direction, as like you that is what I prefer. When they are MMO's, I'll accept it. Until then I will still call bullshit.
There are games that still hold true to what you speak of. Eve online, Darkfall: Rise of Agon, maybe more, I don't really know the limitations of most newer games. Truly open large worlds, single servers without instances.
I would also add that it is not about what is popular now but what is popular to a particular demographic. Myself, as someone representing the older gamer who remembers the times when we did not have computers, is looking for nothing more than a nice relaxing experience with a bit of excitement tossed in which I can enjoy at my leisure. And you can bet that if I want that, then someone in their twenties or just starting out in gaming, sure as hell doesn't want that. They want something edgier and probably more competitive.
Its a different world too. You say people like to socialize. Well they are doing that now, constantly, at all hours of the day. They don't need it in a game. So many things to do that weren't around for us at the beginning online gaming. Busy lives with families and jobs that don't allow the luxury of time anymore. So games for that demographic need to cater to fast gameplay that can be played in spurts.
Society is evolving and games are evolving. Recently heard smartphones will be on the way out and people will be interacting with VR gear and voice commands instead. I can't imagine how that will affect us all and gaming as well. Will we be playing MMO's as we walk down the street or at our jobs while we work?
So yea, whats popular with the game consumer, as well as advancing tech will likely be the driving force in the future. What we as individuals want is irrelevant, unless of course that is what the majority wants. If people are willing to support VR we will get VR. If not it may end up like 3D.
None of this will stop us from complaining about games however. It's what we do here and pretty sure that will never change!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!