Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Cuathon

You are right. Clearly all lobby based coop multiplayer games are MMOs. That makes total sense. Its not like those games already had a genre name and companies stick MMO on in order to justify all their ridiculous money sinks.

Did you know that Starcraft 2 is an MMO now? I didn't but thanks for telling me. Excuse me while I go play Draw Something, once one of the most popular MMOs of all time.

Oh, stop being so dramatic.

All of those Shooters have been stealing more and more character-development ideas from MMOs for just years now.  They've got talent trees, they've got story lines, they've got loot collection, they've got questgivers..  We've reached the point where greater and greater fineness is required from the hair-splitting to make any distinction at all.

This is what I said. And what you said.

Understand?

Good.  Where in there did I say "You're so right LB, I totally agree with everything you ever said!?"  Where did I volunteer to explain his arguments? How the hell did we get off on this irrelevancy at all?

And you were being dramatic---reductio ad absurdum is by definition a dramatic tactic.

Reductio is not dramatic. Its illustrative. Distinction between LoL and Starcraft 2 is miniscule. Whereas no one has ever claimed that SC2 is an MMO.

I merely demonstrated that his argument leads to a conclusion which is illogical, therefore his argument is illogical.

Further of note is that all your examples apply to the RPG of MMORPG and have nothing whatsoever to do with the MMO side.

So no, I don't understand what you are saying because it doesn't make any sense.

[mod edit]

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon
"Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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doom with irc does not make doom mmo.

Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

I merely demonstrated that his argument leads to a conclusion which is illogical, therefore his argument is illogical.

Does not follow.

"Remember always that fallacious arguments can arrive at true conclusions."

Originally posted by Cuathon

So no, I don't understand what you are saying because it doesn't make any sense.

And it started not-making-sense right after you demanded I explain someone else's argument.  Easy to avoid--don't do that.

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Originally posted by Icewhite

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Originally posted by lizardbones Definitions exist for things that are inherently what they are, and then there are definitions of ideas. A rose is what it is. You can change the definition, but then you're no longer describing a rose. "MMO" is an idea. It was made up from scratch and doesn't exist outside of human experience. It makes just as much sense for the definition of "MMO" to be one thing as it does for it to be another thing because they are all just concepts.  

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Concreta vs. Abstracta, yes.

Didn't we have the same discussion just a week back, regarding the slippery term "success"?

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Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon
"Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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doom with irc does not make doom mmo.

Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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It's not possible in Doom for the interactions to be persistent. In LoL, your wins and losses are persistent, as well as your team makeup. These things are part of the game itself and not something that people just keep track of outside of the game. You also can't sell things to each other. So I'd would agree.

Now, it also depends on which definition you're talking about too. The original definition was that the game had to have a persistent, shared world. This implied that players had avatars in the world.

The industry is trying to redefine the term "MMO", but they aren't doing it by typing up a definition. They're just throwing out examples of games and calling them MMOs. So I've made some assumptions based on those examples. Their new definition has a shared virtual world. The player's interactions with other players is persistent, even if the world isn't. In LoL, the player has a win/loss record. That is a persistent interaction. *shrug*

I'm not arguing in favor of one definition over the other. I'm trying to clarify what the definitions are, and what would or would not be an MMO, depending on which definition you use. I expect the new definition will win, because it's easier to lump things in under an existing term than to create a new term and have it catch on.

 

Jetman and many other facebook games have leaderboards that are persistant. Does that make them MMOs?

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon
"Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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doom with irc does not make doom mmo.

Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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It's not possible in Doom for the interactions to be persistent. In LoL, your wins and losses are persistent, as well as your team makeup. These things are part of the game itself and not something that people just keep track of outside of the game. You also can't sell things to each other. So I'd would agree.

Now, it also depends on which definition you're talking about too. The original definition was that the game had to have a persistent, shared world. This implied that players had avatars in the world.

The industry is trying to redefine the term "MMO", but they aren't doing it by typing up a definition. They're just throwing out examples of games and calling them MMOs. So I've made some assumptions based on those examples. Their new definition has a shared virtual world. The player's interactions with other players is persistent, even if the world isn't. In LoL, the player has a win/loss record. That is a persistent interaction. *shrug*

I'm not arguing in favor of one definition over the other. I'm trying to clarify what the definitions are, and what would or would not be an MMO, depending on which definition you use. I expect the new definition will win, because it's easier to lump things in under an existing term than to create a new term and have it catch on.

 

Jetman and many other facebook games have leaderboards that are persistant. Does that make them MMOs?

Please tell me you are joking  

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Cuathon

I merely demonstrated that his argument leads to a conclusion which is illogical, therefore his argument is illogical.

Does not follow.

"Remember always that fallacious arguments can arrive at true conclusions."

You would need to have a quote that is the inverse of that. I said that his argument arrived at a false conclusion, and is therefore false, true arguments cannot arrive at false conclusions. Better work on that reading comprehension.

Originally posted by Cuathon

So no, I don't understand what you are saying because it doesn't make any sense.

And it started not-making-sense right after you demanded I explain someone else's argument.  Easy to avoid--don't do that.

No. You said that shooters are copying MMO gameplay. That is not true. Shooters are copying RPG gameplay. That had nothng to do with LB's argument. I was responding specifically to what YOU said. Your derails are getting tiresome. See ironically YOU are refuting things I never said while yelling at ME for refuting things YOU never said. Which I did not in fact do in the case you are referencing.

[mod edit]

erm

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon
"Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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doom with irc does not make doom mmo.

Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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It's not possible in Doom for the interactions to be persistent. In LoL, your wins and losses are persistent, as well as your team makeup. These things are part of the game itself and not something that people just keep track of outside of the game. You also can't sell things to each other. So I'd would agree.

Now, it also depends on which definition you're talking about too. The original definition was that the game had to have a persistent, shared world. This implied that players had avatars in the world.

The industry is trying to redefine the term "MMO", but they aren't doing it by typing up a definition. They're just throwing out examples of games and calling them MMOs. So I've made some assumptions based on those examples. Their new definition has a shared virtual world. The player's interactions with other players is persistent, even if the world isn't. In LoL, the player has a win/loss record. That is a persistent interaction. *shrug*

I'm not arguing in favor of one definition over the other. I'm trying to clarify what the definitions are, and what would or would not be an MMO, depending on which definition you use. I expect the new definition will win, because it's easier to lump things in under an existing term than to create a new term and have it catch on.

 

Jetman and many other facebook games have leaderboards that are persistant. Does that make them MMOs?

Please tell me you are joking  

According to the argument LB put forth the requirements to be an MMO are records of interactions and a virtual world. Jetman has a virtual world, the cave you fly in, and it has a record of the wins and losses of players, the leaderboard. I am merely following his argument to its logical conclusion.

I don't think that LoL is an MMORPG much less Jetman.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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Originally posted by Cuathon Quizz, the real indicator of mmo status is massively multiplayer. How many people does your activity affect? LoL is not an MMO because the actions in one game do not change the experience of players within the whole game. EvE is an MMO because the actions of any given player permanently alter the experience of many other players.   MMO is the new ironically, or the new literally. Does the rampant misuse of ironic in popular culture change the meaning? I would say no. Therefore the same applies to MMO. Unfortunately the people who make sense are vastly outnumbered by the plebs so we can't assume that anything means what it meant 10 minutes ago much less 10 years ago.

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The original definition of MMO depended on a persistent, shared world. This allowed for a massive amount of interaction. Player 0 could do something in the world that Player 1,000 could see and that Player 10,000 could see, even though there were limited slots on the server and all the zones were instanced, etc. It wasn't how many players were on and interacting at any given time, it would was how many interactions were happening over a long period of time because the world was persistent. If you drop the persistent, shared world requirement (which the industry seems to be doing), you can still have a massive amount of interaction. Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction. Definitions exist for things that are inherently what they are, and then there are definitions of ideas. A rose is what it is. You can change the definition, but then you're no longer describing a rose. "MMO" is an idea. It was made up from scratch and doesn't exist outside of human experience. It makes just as much sense for the definition of "MMO" to be one thing as it does for it to be another thing because they are all just concepts.  

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You are right. Clearly all lobby based coop multiplayer games are MMOs. That makes total sense. Its not like those games already had a genre name and companies stick MMO on in order to justify all their ridiculous money sinks.

Did you know that Starcraft 2 is an MMO now? I didn't but thanks for telling me. Excuse me while I go play Draw Something, once one of the most popular MMOs of all time.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon "Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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  doom with irc does not make doom mmo. Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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It's not possible in Doom for the interactions to be persistent. In LoL, your wins and losses are persistent, as well as your team makeup. These things are part of the game itself and not something that people just keep track of outside of the game. You also can't sell things to each other. So I'd would agree. Now, it also depends on which definition you're talking about too. The original definition was that the game had to have a persistent, shared world. This implied that players had avatars in the world. The industry is trying to redefine the term "MMO", but they aren't doing it by typing up a definition. They're just throwing out examples of games and calling them MMOs. So I've made some assumptions based on those examples. Their new definition has a shared virtual world. The player's interactions with other players is persistent, even if the world isn't. In LoL, the player has a win/loss record. That is a persistent interaction. *shrug* I'm not arguing in favor of one definition over the other. I'm trying to clarify what the definitions are, and what would or would not be an MMO, depending on which definition you use. I expect the new definition will win, because it's easier to lump things in under an existing term than to create a new term and have it catch on.  

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Jetman and many other facebook games have leaderboards that are persistant. Does that make them MMOs?

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Originally posted by lizardbones

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Originally posted by Nitth

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Originally posted by Cuathon
"Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction."

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doom with irc does not make doom mmo.

Mmo/rpg also has a concurrent connection requirement.

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It's not possible in Doom for the interactions to be persistent. In LoL, your wins and losses are persistent, as well as your team makeup. These things are part of the game itself and not something that people just keep track of outside of the game. You also can't sell things to each other. So I'd would agree.

Now, it also depends on which definition you're talking about too. The original definition was that the game had to have a persistent, shared world. This implied that players had avatars in the world.

The industry is trying to redefine the term "MMO", but they aren't doing it by typing up a definition. They're just throwing out examples of games and calling them MMOs. So I've made some assumptions based on those examples. Their new definition has a shared virtual world. The player's interactions with other players is persistent, even if the world isn't. In LoL, the player has a win/loss record. That is a persistent interaction. *shrug*

I'm not arguing in favor of one definition over the other. I'm trying to clarify what the definitions are, and what would or would not be an MMO, depending on which definition you use. I expect the new definition will win, because it's easier to lump things in under an existing term than to create a new term and have it catch on.

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For the record i don't believe "mmo's" require a persistent world.
I think the persistent part derives from the rpg aspect of mmorpg. I mean think about it; what other genres have worlds? (not stages or maps)

Now a shooter classically contains a map on which players are allowed an avatar. Its perfectly acceptable in my book to call a game that hosts a massive amount of concurrent users on a map, at the same time an mmo.

LoL as it stands now is not massive, You have a maximum of 10 concurrent users (maybe more for custom) that no ware near qualifies for massive. thats why it should be labeled moba or such.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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Originally posted by Cuathon Quizz, the real indicator of mmo status is massively multiplayer. How many people does your activity affect? LoL is not an MMO because the actions in one game do not change the experience of players within the whole game. EvE is an MMO because the actions of any given player permanently alter the experience of many other players.   MMO is the new ironically, or the new literally. Does the rampant misuse of ironic in popular culture change the meaning? I would say no. Therefore the same applies to MMO. Unfortunately the people who make sense are vastly outnumbered by the plebs so we can't assume that anything means what it meant 10 minutes ago much less 10 years ago.

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The original definition of MMO depended on a persistent, shared world. This allowed for a massive amount of interaction. Player 0 could do something in the world that Player 1,000 could see and that Player 10,000 could see, even though there were limited slots on the server and all the zones were instanced, etc. It wasn't how many players were on and interacting at any given time, it would was how many interactions were happening over a long period of time because the world was persistent. If you drop the persistent, shared world requirement (which the industry seems to be doing), you can still have a massive amount of interaction. Player 0 can interact with Player 1,000 in LoL. They can also interaction with Player 2 and Player 10,000. It allows for a massive amount of interaction. The only thing that's been dropped as a requirement is the persistent, shared world. It has nothing to do with the number of people and nothing to do with making a permanent, sandbox style change to the world. Players can interact through an Auction House and it's still an interaction. Players can send each other mail and it's an interaction. Definitions exist for things that are inherently what they are, and then there are definitions of ideas. A rose is what it is. You can change the definition, but then you're no longer describing a rose. "MMO" is an idea. It was made up from scratch and doesn't exist outside of human experience. It makes just as much sense for the definition of "MMO" to be one thing as it does for it to be another thing because they are all just concepts.  

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You are right. Clearly all lobby based coop multiplayer games are MMOs. That makes total sense. Its not like those games already had a genre name and companies stick MMO on in order to justify all their ridiculous money sinks.

 

Did you know that Starcraft 2 is an MMO now? I didn't but thanks for telling me. Excuse me while I go play Draw Something, once one of the most popular MMOs of all time.

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The idea that concepts can't change is just wrong. Concepts can and do change. When they do, the definitions change with them. You can change a concept by promoting a definition for the concept and getting people to accept it too. "MMO" is a concept, and as such it can change. It might change because the industry is promoting a new definition for the term.

As far as SCII and the others being MMOs, it depends on which definition you're using. The legacy definition doesn't include SCII as an MMO. Nor does it include LoL, CoD, D3 or any other lobby based game. The new definition does allow for those games to be MMOs, but I don't think either definition allows for Draw Something.

I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on. I do know that to have a meaningful conversation, you have to be able to understand both definitions and both 'sides'. You have to understand how the new definition is different, and how it's not nonsense. That doesn't mean you have to agree with it.

 

Well flower is just as much a concept as MMO. Can we redefine flower to include boulders? Rose might be concrete but flower is just a category of objects with arbitrarily decided characteristics.

Draw Something has a record of wins and losses in its scoring system, it has persistent characters engaged in competition. It has a virtual world, a conceptual space in which 2 minds attempt to communicate. It doesn't have physical landscapes if that is what you are disagreeing with. Draw Something's userbase is the whole of facebook potentially.

I understand both sides of the argument. But you can't have a meaningful conversation about it because as you say concepts are arbitrary.

A meaningful conversation requires common ground whereby you manipulate a persons beliefs to show that if they believe this they must believe that. That is how debate works. 

Why do some people believe one definition and some the other? Because that's what they were told! Some of us were told this is an MMORPG by people like Bartle, Koster, and Garriot.

Other people were told this is an MMORPG by marketers who wanted us to buy their games so they could suck us dry of money. Just like some people believe in Jesus because an authority figure, their parents, told them he was real, and some people believe in Allah instead.

If the distinction is arbitrary we need to look at the source. One definition is sourced from the originators of the idea. Another is sourced from men in suits coopting the word because they saw that people would pay more money for a game that used that word.

Why do you think there arent any equally rage filled debates about other genres? Because no one could use a redefinition of that word to make shitloads of money so no one gives a fuck about it.

No one has any arguments about what is or is not a platformer. Like any other word whose redefinition doesn't result in a power exchange people are fine with the word meaning what it means.

Why do people argue over interpretations of the Constitution? Because redefining legal language means real life physical and economic and political gains for the various sides.

I'm sorry, I understand why some people think things that aren't MMOs are, its because they've been fooled by marketers into parting with their money.

Does it make people feel bad to know that they've been duped? I don't care, its not my fault they don't use their brains to think about anything but what the popular kids are playing and who Snooki and Kim are having sex with this week.

The IMPORTANCE of this war might not be the same as whether marriage includes gay people. But its CAUSES and the PRINCIPLES involved are identical. Protecting and increasing the wealth of the kyirarchy, aka the people who already have most of the power and money.

Originally posted by Quizzical

They're definitely multiplayer and online games, and MMO doesn't and shouldn't automatically imply MMORPG.

That leaves the question as how many players it takes to be "massively" multiplayer, and that's nearly impossible to define.  Even if we agree that 2 players per instance is not massively multiplayer and 10,000 is, I don't think you can justify saying that n players per instance is not massively multiplayer and n+1 is for any value of n.

And even if you could, the number of players per instance varies in many games, whether by area of the game, time of day, or whatever.  Surely it doesn't make sense to claim that a game is an MMO at peak hours and is not an MMO in the middle of the night.

"MMO" is shorthand for "MMORPG" as far as I use the term, and that's how I read it, so YES MMO to me = MMORPG.

But hey.... even THIS webite can't tell the difference between a mmorpg and a mmofps,or any other kind of online game.... (and there many different kinds and should be dealt with individually with seperate websites imo) so I am not surprised that your useage of the term MMO Quizzical is the one often used. I do not fault you for this, but I will always disagree with it.

As far as how many people it takes for it to be "Multiplayer"? Well I am old school on that one, 500 is enough for me and I do NOT agree with Instancing in MMORPGs anymore after how I have seen it used. I also tack on to that arbitrary popluation number a "feature requirement" for a game to be multiplayer.... at least 20% of all content must require 2 or more Players to work together in a group to complete it. That was how the old MMORPGs worked and as far as I am concerned that is how they STILL should work. I do not agree witht eh newer idea that almost all MMORPG content should be soloable. **If you want a solo game then go play a console game or single player PC game, not a MMORPG.

In regards to the OP: As far as what the "Industry" does, well, they do what they want to do. When the "MMO Industry" decides to use the term MMO to stand for practically every type of multiplayer online game then just proves they either don't know the difference between them or don't care what the difference is, and I think they really don't care to be honest. They car eabout their quarterly reports and their stock prices and dividends, not about MMORPG or any other Online gaming in my opinion.

The days when MMO Devs actually cared sincerely about MMORPGs and other Online Games is over. Devs, and the Marketing Execs that are their Supervisors care about their paychecks first, and thier games second. As far as I am concerned they might as well go make Widgets in China.

I make no apologies for my opinion, nor will I change it no matter how many people buy a pretty box at Walmart and go home and install it to discover they just bought a MMORPG...

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Originally posted by Gardavsshade
"MMO" is shorthand for "MMORPG" as far as I use the term, and that's how I read it, so YES MMO to me = MMORPG.

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Then i would beg you to reconsider your ideal, Your limiting yourself the possibilities of what a Massively Multiplayer on line Game could be.

Free from the constraints of rpg rules if it wants to be.

Originally posted by Nitth

 

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Originally posted by Gardavsshade
"MMO" is shorthand for "MMORPG" as far as I use the term, and that's how I read it, so YES MMO to me = MMORPG.

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Then i would beg you to reconsider your ideal, Your limiting yourself the possibilities of what a Massively Multiplayer on line Game could be.

Free from the constraints of rpg rules if it wants to be.

No. I am perfectly content with MMORPG being a narrowly defined and particular genre of online gaming that appeals to a small minority.

To me the biggest problem in MMORPG genre is that there are far too many people joining it that want to change it into something it wasn't before. I have one word to say to that kind of mentality....

Begone.

If you don't like how MMORPGs were and are, then go elsewhere for your entertainment. There are many, MANY, other gaming options to enjoy. I enjoy MMORPGs as they were, I want to see them go back to what they were, and I will not apologise for my opinion on that.

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Originally posted by Cuathon
Well flower is just as much a concept as MMO. Can we redefine flower to include boulders? Rose might be concrete but flower is just a category of objects with arbitrarily decided characteristics.

Draw Something has a record of wins and losses in its scoring system, it has persistent characters engaged in competition. It has a virtual world, a conceptual space in which 2 minds attempt to communicate. It doesn't have physical landscapes if that is what you are disagreeing with. Draw Something's userbase is the whole of facebook potentially.

I understand both sides of the argument. But you can't have a meaningful conversation about it because as you say concepts are arbitrary.

A meaningful conversation requires common ground whereby you manipulate a persons beliefs to show that if they believe this they must believe that. That is how debate works. 

Why do some people believe one definition and some the other? Because that's what they were told! Some of us were told this is an MMORPG by people like Bartle, Koster, and Garriot.

Other people were told this is an MMORPG by marketers who wanted us to buy their games so they could suck us dry of money. Just like some people believe in Jesus because an authority figure, their parents, told them he was real, and some people believe in Allah instead.

If the distinction is arbitrary we need to look at the source. One definition is sourced from the originators of the idea. Another is sourced from men in suits coopting the word because they saw that people would pay more money for a game that used that word.

Why do you think there arent any equally rage filled debates about other genres? Because no one could use a redefinition of that word to make shitloads of money so no one gives a fuck about it.

No one has any arguments about what is or is not a platformer. Like any other word whose redefinition doesn't result in a power exchange people are fine with the word meaning what it means.

Why do people argue over interpretations of the Constitution? Because redefining legal language means real life physical and economic and political gains for the various sides.

I'm sorry, I understand why some people think things that aren't MMOs are, its because they've been fooled by marketers into parting with their money.

Does it make people feel bad to know that they've been duped? I don't care, its not my fault they don't use their brains to think about anything but what the popular kids are playing and who Snooki and Kim are having sex with this week.

The IMPORTANCE of this war might not be the same as whether marriage includes gay people. But its CAUSES and the PRINCIPLES involved are identical. Protecting and increasing the wealth of the kyirarchy, aka the people who already have most of the power and money.

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