I know it sounds absurd. For me online poker games could never, not even in my wildest dreams, be MMORPGs. But I tried to apply the most current definitions of a MMORPG game to online poker games and to my surprise I found out that by these definitions online poker games are MMORPGs.

Applying the definitions of a MMORPG game to online poker games:

1. They are massive (no doubt about that).

2. They are multiplayer (no doubt about that).

3. They are online (no doubt about that).

4. If killing mobs with other players in an instance is role playing, then playing poker with other players in a room is also role playing.

5. They have persistent worlds. At first this sounds crazy, but let me explain it. Online poker games have a lobby (main world) and then they have rooms in which players are playing poker (instanced dungeons). The lobby and the rooms are persistent because every time you log into the game the lobby and the rooms are completely the same (of course inside the same version of the game). It's the same in WOW - every time you log into WOW the world and the instances are completely the same (of course inside the same version of the game).

6. Your character in the game is persistent. Whatever you win or loose in a poker game its permanent for your character. Next time you log into the game you will have the same amount of money as when you logged out of the game.

7. You are developing your character over time. This is even a sandbox element. You don't have levels but you are developing the poker skills of your character by using the skills. After one year of playing your character is better in playing poker then he was at the beginning.

8. Another sandbox element. In online poker games you have full PvP and you can loot other characters.

9. You have also PvE in online poker games, because some type of games can be played with NPCs.

There has to be a mistake somewhere. My reasoning could be wrong or there could be something wrong with the definitions of a MMORPG game.

ok, online poker is a mmo. what do you want, a cookie?

The answer is no

They are not MMORPGs, since its not a roleplaying game

Also they are not massive (>500 players in one enviornment at one time).

Originally posted by Toquio3

ok, online poker is a mmo. what do you want, a cookie?

Now be nice and share your cookie with the poker addict

They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.

I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

Originally posted by Czzarre

The answer is no

They are not MMORPGs, since its not a roleplaying game

Also they are not massive (>500 players in one enviornment at one time).

 

Tell me about roleplaying in WOW for example. I played WOW for six months, explored Kalimdor and Eastern kingdoms, leveled up to 63 and still no sign of roleplaying.

Where in WOW do you have >500 players in one environment at one time?

Originally posted by xaldraxius

They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.

I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius

They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.
I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

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And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

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Because you have a character that progresses in skill. In a poker game you can play a 'role' if you want, a lot of people do, but any progression you make in skill is your own and not the character's.

Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.
I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

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And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

---

 

Because you have a character that progresses in skill. In a poker game you can play a 'role' if you want, a lot of people do, but any progression you make in skill is your own and not the character's.

So the only difference between a MMORPG and a MMOG is that your character must have skills that you can develop and that are independent of your skills as a player.

So if you would implement in an online poker game for example a poker skill. Your character would develop this skill with playing poker. Higher poker skill would mean that the character would have better chances of getting better cards. So characters that played poker for a long time would have more chances of winning a game than new characters. Then this kind of online poker game would be a MMORPG.

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius
 
They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.
I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

---

 
And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

---

 
Because you have a character that progresses in skill. In a poker game you can play a 'role' if you want, a lot of people do, but any progression you make in skill is your own and not the character's.

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So the only difference between a MMORPG and a MMOG is that your character must have skills that you can develop and that are independent of your skills as a player.
 
So if you would implement in an online poker game for example a poker skill. Your character would develop this skill with playing poker. Higher poker skill would mean that the character would have better chances of getting better cards. So characters that played poker for a long time would have more chances of winning a game than new characters. Then this kind of online poker game would be a MMORPG.

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Yeah, I suppose that would work. Of course you shouldn't be able to see what skill level your opponents were at, but you'd have to be at least at a certain level before you could enter different tournaments. To get deeper you could use your winnings to buy clothes for your avatar, you could have player housing where players could sponsor their own tournaments, you could buy a wife/husband/butler to serve virtual drinks and be eye candy like a trophy sort of thing, furniture... etc

It'd be a pretty cool game.

 So the term roleplaying means that your characters has different skills which you can develop with playing the game. Of course you can develop different skills differently and so you can develop a unique character based on his skills.

Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

 
 

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius
 
They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.
I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

 

---

 
And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

---

 
Because you have a character that progresses in skill. In a poker game you can play a 'role' if you want, a lot of people do, but any progression you make in skill is your own and not the character's.

---

 
So the only difference between a MMORPG and a MMOG is that your character must have skills that you can develop and that are independent of your skills as a player.
 
So if you would implement in an online poker game for example a poker skill. Your character would develop this skill with playing poker. Higher poker skill would mean that the character would have better chances of getting better cards. So characters that played poker for a long time would have more chances of winning a game than new characters. Then this kind of online poker game would be a MMORPG.

---

 

Yeah, I suppose that would work. Of course you shouldn't be able to see what skill level your opponents were at, but you'd have to be at least at a certain level before you could enter different tournaments. To get deeper you could use your winnings to buy clothes for your avatar, you could have player housing where players could sponsor their own tournaments, you could buy a wife/husband/butler to serve virtual drinks and be eye candy like a trophy sort of thing, furniture... etc

It'd be a pretty cool game.

We have now moved from is online poker a MMORPG to what would the underlying requierments be for a poker game to be a MMORPG, the answer is in the genre tag (Massive multi-player, online (i.e. thosands of persistent players in a persistent world), Role playing game (primary game play mechanic revolves around the development of a fantastic (fictional) avatar) note this is similar to SIM just remove the fantastic(fictional) part and SIMs are not typicaly thought of as restricted to a single avatar i.e. the SIMs you have a family where RPG sugest a signle avatar.

Any of that sound right?

But to answer a simpler question that I think is at the heart of this, could one make a MMO poker game? yes you could; now would enough people play it to account for the cost and upkeep? I dont think so but I could be wrong there are a lot of poker fans but I get the impresion that they prefer short term victories which means the persistent nature of a MMO would not offer them any thing but would add a lot of cost to the upkeep and dev.

Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

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Originally posted by alecbr

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Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

They are not MMORPGS, but they are MMOGs.
I for one play PKR more than any other online game.

---

 
And why is WOW MMORPG and not MMOG?

---

 

Because you have a character that progresses in skill. In a poker game you can play a 'role' if you want, a lot of people do, but any progression you make in skill is your own and not the character's.

I consider WoW to be a MMO-Adventure not an RPG, since to me any way; WoWs core game mechanic is not the development and manipulation of a single avatar but rather a linear quest arc followed up by instanace driven events. (not knocking on WoW)

But an RPG should be centered around character development and with WoW there is little character development; an Adventure on the other hand is very similar to an RPG but focuses less on the character development and more on the quest/s or other events. Adventure and RPG offten share the same basic game play features such as experance, items, quest, etc. but are very difrent genre over all. 

I agree with you. And this is the same for most MMORPGs. 

Originally posted by alecbr

So if you would implement in an online poker game for example a poker skill. Your character would develop this skill with playing poker. Higher poker skill would mean that the character would have better chances of getting better cards. So characters that played poker for a long time would have more chances of winning a game than new characters. Then this kind of online poker game would be a MMORPG.

Yeah, that'd probably be the bare minimum required to be called an MMORPG.  Without progression, it's merely an MMOG because it lacks progression elements (and RPG in videogames means progression elements.)

Although personally I'd lean strongly on wanting there to be roles to play -- as in more than one advancement path to go down.  Even if all you had were two paths (such as one skill that increased your chance of drawing Pairs, and another that increased your chance of drawing Face Cards.)  It's a lot more about playing a role when you choose a role.

I always find it intriguing how much players seem to care (or at least discuss) what is/isn't a MMORPG.  MMORPG is a genre.  And Genres, like wikipedia says are, "a loose set of criteria for a category of composition".  Loose set of criteria.  Loose.  As in: getting hung up on the nitpicky details is silly.  :P

Originally posted by Czzarre

The answer is no

They are not MMORPGs, since its not a roleplaying game

Also they are not massive (>500 players in one enviornment at one time).

 

Umm you obviously don't know much about online poker, some tourneys have 30,000+ players at once. Check out Pokerstars if you don't believe me.

As for the topic I believe the role-playing aspect is missing in online poker.

 I don't think these are details what the we are discussing here and in other forums.

Take for example first person shooter games (FPS). There is a very clear definition what they are: they are first person games and shooter games. Now let's imagine that these games would be extremely popular and they would make huge revenues. A lot of game companies would for marketing purposes put the label FPS on their games even if it weren't exactly FPS games by definition. So you would get third person shooters or fighting games sold as FPS. The genre FPS would be diluted and there would be heavy discussions on the forums what FPS genre is and what it is not. And you would say then that because genres are a loose set of criteria for a category of composition that we shouldn't discuss such unimportant details as if third person shooters are FPS or if sword fighting is FPS.

The same happened with MMORPG genre.

Originally posted by Bigdavo

Originally posted by Czzarre

The answer is no

They are not MMORPGs, since its not a roleplaying game

Also they are not massive (>500 players in one enviornment at one time).

 

 

Umm you obviously don't know much about online poker, some tourneys have 30,000+ players at once. Check out Pokerstars if you don't believe me.

As for the topic I believe the role-playing aspect is missing in online poker.

Every bluff is a roleplay.

Originally posted by svann

Originally posted by Bigdavo

Originally posted by Czzarre

The answer is no

They are not MMORPGs, since its not a roleplaying game

Also they are not massive (>500 players in one enviornment at one time).

 

 

Umm you obviously don't know much about online poker, some tourneys have 30,000+ players at once. Check out Pokerstars if you don't believe me.

As for the topic I believe the role-playing aspect is missing in online poker.

 

Every bluff is a roleplay.

Czarre if what you'r saying is true, then wouldn't that mean that CO and AoC(perhaps more) aren't mmorpg's? as every zone is instanced and in CO it's most times 100ppl each instance.

I also believe there is no role-playing aspect in online poker. To me role playing means playing a character in a fictional world. With online poker you can pretty much say that the character you are playing is non-existing.

Originally posted by ferdie4

Czarre if what you'r saying is true, then wouldn't that mean that CO and AoC(perhaps more) aren't mmorpg's? as every zone is instanced and in CO it's most times 100ppl each instance.

I also believe there is no role-playing aspect in online poker. To me role playing means playing a character in a fictional world. With online poker you can pretty much say that the character you are playing is non-existing.

Given that 99% of MMORPGs don't fit the definition (or, if they do, 99% of the gameplay within that MMORPG doesn't involve >500 players) it's safe to dismiss the comment as useless extremism.