Because the definition of an MMO is only as useful as our distinctions of the various games are.

Yes if you define Massive Multiplayer Online from the words alone games like Call of Duty, Diablo 2 and Darksouls could fit the list.

But is that really helpful for determining the type of the game from a description. It does not.

"Lobby" or "Instanced" should be used to decribe many games but it is seen as negative so it is rarely used. But what other descriptors are good? The problem is not that the definition of MMO is that vague but other descriptors are so vague. If you ask if the Zelda series is an RPG you will get varrying responses. Similar if you ask if Portal is a First Person Shooter.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Loktofeit
 

World as in it exists and functions without player input or presence. MMOs do not need that. In Planetarion's case the game is the environment, but there is actually no world in the game. As much as chess has a world - sort of.

And I agree, people attach way too much baggage on the term - each one something different.

But there is a world in Planetarion. The planets, factories and asteroids all exist in a persistent state world even though that world environment is not readily visible.

As much as the chess pieces on a board.

I'm not following your point here. Yes, in a way you can say a chessboard is a worldspace. That doesn't change the fact that a worldspace is necessary for an MMO. Were you agreeing or disagreeing?

MMORPG should have been stayed with how UO and Meridan defined and created it.

Everything else ranging from themepark instance herp derp to browsergames excel sheet calculations should find (or found) it's own genre.

There is really just to much difference to actually playing something like EQ and going for one of the 10 Million browser "RPGS" where all you do is throw around numbers (and don't even move an avatar).

I guess if you're creating an MMO that's not actually an RPG that has any formal setting, sure. I can't even imagine what that is, though. Quite frankly, whether this "world" in question exists in a virtual or literary space, it's still a necessary variable for any RPG (which, as we all know, are games which tell stories, emergent or linear, and stories consist of characters, their struggles, and the environment in which they inhabit).

Well ofcourse if you want to keep it in the area of graphical interpretation just to be able to make a point...

IMO when we talk about virtual worlds or persistent worlds, the incidental and intentional player interaction is the key.

Sure, for some people wow will feel like a virtual world just because they see other people afk in the city or because they have a 5 minute faction skirmish at the instance entrance before spending 4 hours inside a private "bubble of reality", like i feel "buffed" for doing 10 pushups...

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quirhid
 

I'm not following your point here. Yes, in a way you can say a chessboard is a worldspace. That doesn't change the fact that a worldspace is necessary for an MMO. Were you agreeing or disagreeing?

I think I know what you mean, but a more accurate term, think, would be "gamespace". There is no world in Planetarion still just like there is no world in chess.

Or to put it simply: there is no world world.

[quote]Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.

As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a character (often in a fantasy world) and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player online RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game.

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world. [/quote]

Pretty sure a world of some type is required to be considered a true mmo/mmorpg ;) Without some type of world you pretty much dont have a mmo. Unless you are debating an open world to a linear world then thats a different subject,

Originally posted by Scot

But you are the one who wants to redefine the genre. You admit that MMO's used to have certain features they do not now have, then you say they are not needed, this is still a MMO because you say it is.

To me, it would seem your definition of a MMO is this: if a gaming company wants to call its game a MMO then it is. It does not matter what the gameplay is like if thats the label gaming companies want, then so be it.

What is your defintion of a MMO Quirhad? It seems to me your defintion is as flexible as the latest release into the market. So some clarity would help.

I'm not tying to redefine the genre. Or maybe in your eyes I might be. So far, I haven't much disagreed with what the industry calls an MMORPG. And I haven't said anything about MMOs having certain features they lack now. Planetarion is about 12 years old! It precedes many of the MMOs you imply. It has always been an MMO without a world.

My definition is quite flexible. The term MMO only defines that it  can bring many players together to play with or against each other. What is attached to the end describes the gameplay. The online part is a binary issue: If you can play it off-line, its not an MMO. Any distinction if something is "massive" or not is completely arbitrary, so it basically is what the majority perceive as being massive rather than a definite value. However, massive does not imply that every player should share the same space. If it did, only a handful of games would ever fill that requirement.

I consider this a practical definition. It all goes to hell pretty soon if you start adding feature requirements to it. Rather than focusing on genres and definitions, I tend to look at games individually - case by case. Seeing this "true MMO" garbage makes me sad.

Originally posted by Quirhid

As demonstrated by Planetarion (wikipedia link), Dominion and various other similar games where your planet, kingdom etc. is represented by a webpage(s) of numbers and stats. These games have everything they need to be called an MMO and the ones which have player characters in them (instead of planets or dominions) are fully fledged MMORPGs.

A lack of a world does not unmake an MMORPG and a "true MMORPG" (if you insist such a thing exists) does not need a world nor does it need to be a world simulation.

I view this slightly differently. MMORPG is just a label .. and i know there was plenty of debate of what it is .. and it is not. I think that is irrelevant, and not very useful.

However, what is important is that the players who play "MMORPG" .. what kind of game will attract them. And i agree with you that a world is not always necessarily.

Just look at the games this site covers: Diablo, WOT, LOL, Smite .... there is no consistent virtual world in these games, but their playstyle is close enough to many MMO playstyle. Diablo is very similar to LFD small group dungeoning. WOT is like arena/BG pvp.

I don't believe such a thing as "true MMORPG" exists. They are jsut response to market preferences. And I see a trend of fusing elements from other genres.

Originally posted by Scot

But you are the one who wants to redefine the genre. You admit that MMO's used to have certain features they do not now have, then you say they are not needed, this is still a MMO because you say it is.

To me, it would seem your definition of a MMO is this: if a gaming company wants to call its game a MMO then it is. It does not matter what the gameplay is like if thats the label gaming companies want, then so be it.

What is your defintion of a MMO Quirhad? It seems to me your defintion is as flexible as the latest release into the market. So some clarity would help.

I think you confuse about "who" is redefining the genre. No single person can. All this thread is just discussions.

The devs, and industry press, however, *are* redefining the genre. Many MMOs are more lobby like (don't you agree?). Many MMOs have fast travel, less world features, and more link up with anyone and play features (like friend list and x-server functions).

They are called MMOs not by us, not by anyone here, but by teh gaming press, devs, and so on.

It is now more a convenient label for online games with massive number of players (not necessarily in the same world), and some persistencies to characters.

And if you ask me, working out a "personal" definition is just useless. I don't have a definition of what MMO is ... i use whatever label the gaming press (i.e. IGN, ...) and the purpose is to refer to a collection of games for convenience.

English usage and computer game genres changes and morphs all the time. Don't sound like it is the end of the world if the genre changes.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quirhid
 

I'm not following your point here. Yes, in a way you can say a chessboard is a worldspace. That doesn't change the fact that a worldspace is necessary for an MMO. Were you agreeing or disagreeing?

I think I know what you mean, but a more accurate term, think, would be "gamespace". There is no world in Planetarion still just like there is no world in chess.

Or to put it simply: there is no world world.

You're assuming it doesn't exist because you don't walk/fly/swim in it. It is definitely there, adding context, physics and rulesets that control what can be done and how it can be done within the game world. Planetarion most certainly has a game world that the participants play in.

I think Quirhad is confusing ‘online game’ with MMO. Your definition of a MMO seems to be an online game. There are various genres of online games, you can have a MMO FPS for example. But I see no value in trying to dilute the concept of what a MMO is, in fact I see that as being very detrimental to gaming.

If you like easyMMO’s that’s OK by me, but call it what it is, you can have a different term, mine is a dig at that subgenre so you are not going to pick mine, fair enough. Trying to incorporate every new change of gameplay into the term MMO is pointless and misleading.

Much of this problem is down to game marketing which does not like to use new terms for games which are not already buzz words. So new games come out which are not MMO’s but marketing considerations override common sense.

In fact the abbreviation MMO is now ubiquitously used by the gaming industry for what I think of as easyMMO’s. But I still think of them as MMO’s if you get my drift, just ones where you have to play in easymode.

Originally posted by Scot

I think Quirhad is confusing ‘online game’ with MMO. Your definition of a MMO seems to be an online game. There are various genres of online games, you can have a MMO FPS for example. But I see no value in trying to dilute the concept of what a MMO is, in fact I see that as being very detrimental to gaming.

If you like easyMMO’s that’s OK by me, but call it what it is, you can have a different term, mine is a dig at that subgenre so you are not going to pick mine, fair enough. Trying to incorporate every new change of gameplay into the term MMO is pointless and misleading.

Much of this problem is down to game marketing which does not like to use new terms for games which are not already buzz words. So new games come out which are not MMO’s but marketing considerations override common sense.

In fact the abbreviation MMO is now ubiquitously used by the gaming industry for what I think of as easyMMO’s. But I still think of them as MMO’s if you get my drift, just ones where you have to play in easymode.

May be that is what it should be. Certainly there is no "virtual world" in the name of "MMO". And massive can refer to the fact that you can be matched with massive number of players in arena pvp or co-op dungeon.

MMO .. and MO .. does not differe that much as a label. And you can always have sub-genres.

But once again, this is just labels. We are talking about non-MMO online games on this site anyway.

Originally posted by Quirhid

I'm not tying to redefine the genre. Or maybe in your eyes I might be. So far, I haven't much disagreed with what the industry calls an MMORPG. And I haven't said anything about MMOs having certain features they lack now. Planetarion is about 12 years old! It precedes many of the MMOs you imply. It has always been an MMO without a world.

That gamespace that Planetarion players interact in is called the game world.

Originally posted by Quirhid

As demonstrated by Planetarion (wikipedia link), Dominion and various other similar games where your planet, kingdom etc. is represented by a webpage(s) of numbers and stats. These games have everything they need to be called an MMO and the ones which have player characters in them (instead of planets or dominions) are fully fledged MMORPGs.

A lack of a world does not unmake an MMORPG and a "true MMORPG" (if you insist such a thing exists) does not need a world nor does it need to be a world simulation.

Only looked at what you linked that game looks more like a RTS than a RPG. Sure you can do away with the world and rely on instanced locations which is majorly boring after awhile. I wouldn't mind seeing a twist to what we see now but I honesty like to explore and not feel as though I'm running through a tunnel.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quirhid

I'm not tying to redefine the genre. Or maybe in your eyes I might be. So far, I haven't much disagreed with what the industry calls an MMORPG. And I haven't said anything about MMOs having certain features they lack now. Planetarion is about 12 years old! It precedes many of the MMOs you imply. It has always been an MMO without a world.

That gamespace that Planetarion players interact in is called the game world.

If you're playing a game, any game, which requires you to take on the role of an individual character, that character cannot exist outside of an environment. Much like Planetarion's situation, even if you're not physically moving a model through a virtual space, the universe or worlds that game takes place within still bares literary existence.

Originally posted by trenshod

 

Only looked at what you linked that game looks more like a RTS than a RPG. Sure you can do away with the world and rely on instanced locations which is majorly boring after awhile. I wouldn't mind seeing a twist to what we see now but I honesty like to explore and not feel as though I'm running through a tunnel.

And that depends on what you like.

LOL has more active players than WOW .. and all it is .. is instanced pvp. So not everyone needs to explore to have fun.

Originally posted by Lawlmonster

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quirhid

I'm not tying to redefine the genre. Or maybe in your eyes I might be. So far, I haven't much disagreed with what the industry calls an MMORPG. And I haven't said anything about MMOs having certain features they lack now. Planetarion is about 12 years old! It precedes many of the MMOs you imply. It has always been an MMO without a world.

That gamespace that Planetarion players interact in is called the game world.

If you're playing a game, any game, which requires you to take on the role of an individual character, that character cannot exist outside of an environment. Much like Planetarion's situation, even if you're not physically moving a model through a virtual space, the universe or worlds that game takes place within still bares literary existence.

Agreed. Not just literary existence, but actually designed as such during the development of the game.

---

Originally posted by Quirhid
As demonstrated by Planetarion (wikipedia link), Dominion and various other similar games where your planet, kingdom etc. is represented by a webpage(s) of numbers and stats. These games have everything they need to be called an MMO and the ones which have player characters in them (instead of planets or dominions) are fully fledged MMORPGs.

A lack of a world does not unmake an MMORPG and a "true MMORPG" (if you insist such a thing exists) does not need a world nor does it need to be a world simulation.

---