Howdy, long-time reader, first time poster.

Lately the line between an online game and an MMO have been blurred, and with recent works in progress(GA/APB/SW:TOR), many have been questioning the legitimacy of a true MMO.

Therefore, my question in an open one. What do you define to be an MMO? What makes an MMO "True"?

This is just a discussion, not a flame war. Keep it civil, but don't be afraid to express your opinion.

#K

A game that totally imerses you in the universe. Teamwork and social functions are a must. Sad to say but most of the new if not all of the new are totally missing the social and teamwork functions and that feeling you get when you are actually having fun. *gulp* did I say fun :P

Then you realize you've been on for the past 6 hours and it felt like a brief moment. 

For me it boils down to 3 things:

- Persistent world.  When you log off the world is still changing (spawning new creatures, other players are still playing, etc)

- Over 50 players able to play in the same area at once.

- Not too heavily relying on instancing.  At least 25% of the world should be "open" (supporting over 50 players listed above).

Examples of games that some may consider MMOs that I don't:  

New MMOFPSes (Planetside would barely make the MMO list, but the rest of them just don't.  I think APB would be a MMO though - not sure yet).

Guild Wars

Lunia, Diablo, most of the online action RPG games.  Their just instanced games and aren't persistent (ie: if all players log off that instance of the game ends).

Edit:  Going to elaborate a bit on what doesn't make a game a MMO.

-  Character advancement and progression.  While these are usually in a MMO it's not an element of a MMO it's an element of a RPG.  Having this doesn't make your game a MMO.

-  Quests.  All single player games have these in some form.  Whether it's passing a level or completing a mission.  Again this is more a RPG element.

-  Character creator/customization.  Again a RPG element.

People who relate forced grouping with MMO's are in my opinion morons.  Presistent world with constant access by many (losely defined) is MMO.  The Sims is an MMO and you do not have to group to fucking make a house...you fucking just need to get a job.  EQ fags invade the internet with their cries of "WHERE IS MY GROUP"  need to be shot.  A game that focuses on what you as the individual can do to effect the world would be the better forcus of a game.

What if a game focused on what the individual could do.  You design something you need done and either do it yourself or determine you need a team depending on how big your dream is.  Where you can be part of something or create something.  Where it was not how many other bored noobs can I get together to go in an instance to get some loot, but where it is can I build something that will effect the world my character is in.

Eve Online sort of does this.  A very good solo pirate can be hell for a corp of many.  The solo can hold up the mining and industry of a region very well if highly motivated and skilled.  In this sense a large amount of pirates can dominate an area of space if organized.

Games with forced social interaction instead of encouraged social interaction of just crap in my opinion.  They are easy to make and build and thus get done.  Games should keep in mind that one person can effect an empire at anytime and many can bring it down.  If both of those ideals are not incorporated the game is not that developed.

But anyway...as I said anyone that thinks MMO means..."Where is my group"...is short sighted and should joing Match.com to find friends in the real world.

A game that's massively multiplayer - 100 or more should safely put it over regular multiplayer

A game that is online

A game that has character advancement or progression

Originally posted by Horusra

People who relate forced grouping with MMO's are in my opinion morons.  Presistent world with constant access by many (losely defined) is MMO.  The Sims is an MMO and you do not have to group to fucking make a house...you fucking just need to get a job.  EQ fags invade the internet with their cries of "WHERE IS MY GROUP"  need to be shot.  A game that focuses on what you as the individual can do to effect the world would be the better forcus of a game.

Ignoring all the ranting how is The Sims a MMO?  Do you even know what a persistent world is?  Are you talking about The Sims Online?

When you are playing the Sims and log off the world ends.  You load up a save state.  This is by very definition NOT PERSISTENT.  Time pass when you log off and nothing happens in the world.

Persistent world isn't the only thing that defines a MMO either.  A MMO needs to be multiplayer.  It even has it in the acronym "MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE" that doesn't mean it needs to have forced grouping and a MMO can have plenty of single player elements in it such as soloing (you could even solo your way to max level in EQ if you picked an appropiate class).

I'm sure there are just as many people who will rant about the me me me mentality ("A game that focuses on what you as the individual can do to effect the world").  Honestly this will never work in a MMO.  You just can't be a hero because there are way too many heroes playing in that world anyway.  You as an individual can't effect the world in a meaningful way (with the exception of a few games which also rely heavily on social elements you rant about like Second Life) due to technological constraints also.

Having fun.

Thats the total oposite of what you saying. Forced group defines a real mmo from what you say then why the F you want to play online??? go play single player games... I know why you want solo online games so you can get your gear and brag to other people, thats the only reason and to talk shit to others on trade channel. MMO for me means cooperation with other people online instead of the dumbass NPC that a single player offers. If you got no social skill don't bother playing an MMO. Perfect example of an MMO is Final Fantasy Online XI and soon to come XIV which many think will be solo friendly but they didn't saw the interview from SE that said solo easy till level 20 so they can have more people playing then its party time.

The above post was directed to Horusra

My definition of an MMO would be EVE/UO.  That's just a personal opinion from the heart.  Pretty much every game that calls itself an MMO besides those two are nothing but instanced linear games (most try to hide the fact with mumbo jumbo marketing);  Basically in my opinion you'd have probably 3 games listed on this site by my standards of what makes a real MMO.  Good thing I'm not an admin!

In the commercial sense of the definition though, persistant dynamic world (instanced or not) that will change according to the actions of the players be it economy, events, etc.  The ability to house thousands of unique characters.  Everything else is usually RPG standards.

I can not tell you what a "TRUE MMO" is, but I can tell you what I feel a MMORPG should be like which is just how I would like/love to see them, which is not a fact in how they should be.
 

I want my MMORPG to be everything a single player RPG can not be, but has everything a single player RPG has but instead of being guided by NPC's like single player games it's the community aspect that sets it apart from single player RPG's. Where NPC's in a single player RPG run shops, a MMORPG has players owning shops, where a S.RPG has NPC's that are able to group with you, in a MMORPG we have players to group with, also MMORPG do NOT force grouping, they give players a choice to either group or if people want to play solo but still be involved with many community aspect. It's a virtual world, not in the sense of lets say Second Life or The Sims, they might be fun for people but I personaly do not consider them MMO's, which does not mean what I say is fact but again pure how I see them. 

To me Star Wars Galaxies is what felt like a real MMORPG, as to me a MMORPG should never be a combat game only cause there are tons of other games in different genre's that have already mastered combat in their games and are limited to combat only, where MMORPG should excel and be so mcuh more then just limited to combat here and combat there. I also am not satisfied with games to be called MMO when I am not able to meet hundards and hunderds if not thousands of people on the same server, anything near 100/200 people per server is to me the next lvl in regular multiplayer games, which does not mean thhose type of games can not be fun cause they sure can be allot of fun.

But due to experiance and seeing how people react and act I rather wish that some upcomming games would lose the MMO tag and would continue to creat a new genre, namely that of Online Action Game, that way expectations can become more realistic as the only thing we then understand is that the game will have action and will be online. But because certain games carry the tag MMORPG people expectations goes futher then what the game actualy seem able to deliver.

Keep in mind what I said is pure my own personal opinion, it's not a fact but pure how I would like/love to see this genre. 

Originally posted by LynxJSA

A game that's massively multiplayer - 100 or more should safely put it over regular multiplayer

A game that is online

A game that has character advancement or progression

I agree with this guy.

Any game that has these three elements is an MMO; everything else that people assert is "necessary" is merely representative of their own personal opinions and preference.

A "True MMO" is a game that is:

1. Massive

2 . Multiplayer

3. Online

Plus it can have almost any genre tagged on to the end of it.

MMO = Massivelly multiplayer online : 1000+ players on the same world , not separated.  Meaning - 100 players is not massive. Creating "instances" - servers that hold 10 players is not massive.

RPG = Persistant , advancing character.

I have quite simple requirements.

Massive Multiplayer: Multiplayer game having a lot of people (compared to other multiplayer games) able to interact with each other at will within the game(engine).

Online: Game must not work offline.

Worlds and characters come with the RPG aspect of the game.

Community and how well players can play with each other with the gameplay mechanics the designers give us.

Originally posted by Albos

Thats the total oposite of what you saying. Forced group defines a real mmo from what you say then why the F you want to play online??? go play single player games... I know why you want solo online games so you can get your gear and brag to other people, thats the only reason and to talk shit to others on trade channel. MMO for me means cooperation with other people online instead of the dumbass NPC that a single player offers. If you got no social skill don't bother playing an MMO. Perfect example of an MMO is Final Fantasy Online XI and soon to come XIV which many think will be solo friendly but they didn't saw the interview from SE that said solo easy till level 20 so they can have more people playing then its party time.

This is not a personal attack on what Albos said but I wanted to point out that the forced grouping aspect of MMOs is by far a personal opinion.  A game like FFXI has persisted over the years with the idea of forced grouping.  This alone does not make it the right or only option.  Two things come to mind, in regards to FFXI, that make me cringe when a company tells me that I must group in order to do almost anything in the game: 1) Waiting on others to form, or join, a group in order to level up / PVE. 2) Endgame bosses that take over 20 hours to kill.

All that said, I enjoyed FFXI.  It had an immersive world, fun gameplay and classes.  By the time I left the game (yes, thats what you do when an MMO is not fun, threatening the dev's that you're going to quit unless they fix "X" aspect of the game means very little to them) I had become frusterated by the forced grouping aspects of the game.  I'm also hoping FFIV fixes the majority of what I eventually could not stand about FFXI.  I'm not saying I don't like playing with others.  The opposite would be more honest.  My favorite moments of playing MMO's has come from playing with others.  Just because you may not be grouped with others in no way limits the community and what effect you or anyone can have on it.  Horusra brought up a good point with EVE as the example.  Individual players can have a major impact on the game universe when given the option and freedom to do so. 

I would love to see a game dynamically adapt to the size and makeup of a party.  You could still include content that limited solo players by making the minimum group size to two or more for certain PVE objectives.  With scaling group vs. PVE content the game would also need to scale the loot to match it, both in quantity and quality.  From a gameplay standpoint it would still encourage players to work together without forcing so much structure on them that it becomes a grind in itself.  Taking a game like WOW as an example, so much of the game revolves around needing X number of players for a group, made up with X number of certain class roles (WOTLK has tried to change this to some extent, but certain class roles eventually get left out at some point in order to min/max and the basic structure of X tanks + X dps + X healers still applies).  What's wrong with grouping up with people I enjoy playing with, or even trust in some cases?  Isn't that part of what makes an MMO so enjoyable?

Beware the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

1) One big game world (instead of many individual levels)
2) An open game world (instead of many instances)
3) The world supports hundreds of players at the same time
4) Gameplay is focused on group and community activities

LynxJSA's definition seems to be the standard for new players that came with WOW, but Lobotomist's definition is more correct and represent the MMORPG definition since Lord British created it.

One is the popular definition, the other is the correct, yet ignored/despised/forgotten one.

I prefer Lobotomist definition because it embrace the persistent virtual dinamic aspect of the world and character progression in it while also highlighting the importance of what is considered massive

Both aspects serve the purpose of removing all the instanced games and those without the persistence aspect out of the definition.