Originally posted by DerWotan

2. Games that shouldn't be here

It all started with non MMOGs like League of Legends, Guild Wars went through Diablo III so whats next? You guys don't have unlimited personal so why not focus on the real MMORPGS instead of some DoTa and solo Actiongames?

Focusing on this part.

So you are suggesting that there are so many quality MMOs coming out they should focus all their efforts on covering those?

What?

What MMOs are not being covered?

What MMOs should be that aren't being covered?

How  much covereage can an MMO in development GET?

I think you'll find they cover all the MMOs and have time and effort left over for other things too.  The mmo deveopment community is rather slow, and honestly a lot of games that come out are just not worth hearing about.   Yeah I really wish I knew about the latest Perfect World Pay to win game, or how did I ever live without info on every new Nexon or NCsoft game being shoved in my face every 5 seconds. 

Again even the games that seem like repetative illthought out clones get covereage here.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Your taking "massivly" in the wrong direction.

Its about the possibility, not whether or not it actually is doing it.

I do think GW should be on this website, I dont think GW is an MMO.  DFO and Mortal have the ability to have tons of people in one spot.  (Go look at sieges in DFO).  And DFO is an open world.  As is MO from what I understand.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Do you honestly think that it's mmorpg.com fault that the biggest news in the MMORPG world these days is Skyrim (for example).

As far as what's been released recently, it's the elephant in the room.  MMO or not.

Originally posted by marinrider

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Your taking "massivly" in the wrong direction.

Its about the possibility, not whether or not it actually is doing it.

I do think GW should be on this website, I dont think GW is an MMO.  DFO and Mortal have the ability to have tons of people in one spot.  (Go look at sieges in DFO).  And DFO is an open world.  As is MO from what I understand.

MO is also an open world game with no instancing, thus can also satisfy the "massively" part of MMO in that there's no limit to the number of characters that can be in any part of the world at any time.

GW is a great game for what it does, but it's not an MMO.  ANet doesn't even call it an MMO.

Having said that, I think the overall definition of what constitutes an MMO appears to be changing.  While games like GW or Vindictus can fit this broader definition, a game like Skyrim clearly does not.

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by marinrider

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Your taking "massivly" in the wrong direction.

Its about the possibility, not whether or not it actually is doing it.

I do think GW should be on this website, I dont think GW is an MMO.  DFO and Mortal have the ability to have tons of people in one spot.  (Go look at sieges in DFO).  And DFO is an open world.  As is MO from what I understand.

 

MO is also an open world game with no instancing, thus can also satisfy the "massively" part of MMO in that there's no limit to the number of characters that can be in any part of the world at any time.

GW is a great game for what it does, but it's not an MMO.  ANet doesn't even call it an MMO.

Having said that, I think the overall definition of what constitutes an MMO appears to be changing.  While games like GW or Vindictus can fit this broader definition, a game like Skyrim clearly does not.

Its not massively by itself...

its Massively referring to the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Massively MULTIPLAYER. 

When there were better mmo's and the genre was moving forward, focusing on mmo exclusively was fine.  But let's face the sad state of our beloved genre.  Instead of getting better it has devolved and stagnated.  If not consciously, mmorpg.com is just doing what the rest of us are doing, which is letting our minds wander to other possibilites.

Skyrim is better than any mmo out right now.  It is one of THE great games in this gamers opinion, and more compelling than any mmo out there.  So what if it's single player.  Many mmo's sadly are moving that way anyway.  Too often interaction we do get in mmo's is not satisfying and recent mmos do nothing to advance socialization and community with any meaningful success that I have seen.  The days of EQ and SWG and DAOC are behind us now.  

If mmorpg focuses only on mmo, well interest has waned for the older titles.  I have no interest in the new titles no matter how many times they flash irritatingly on my screen.  If anything the cheap flash adds piss me off.  Stop showing me tits and ass and give me a feature list I can get excited about.

But anyway, bottom line there is little excitement in mmo land except for the die hards, who are ever dwindling and becoming jaded themselves.  

And you can only talk about SWTOR so much because there is only so much to talk about.  

Adding Diablo 3 was/is a huge mistake as far as I'm concerned... and the feature they've got on Arctic Combat... come on guys!  Just make a new site like you've done before.  Make a generic online game site and leave this one to MMORPG's.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Is BF3, CoD or Starcraft an MMO?

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Is BF3, CoD or Starcraft an MMO?

FPS FPS and RTS.

no, they aren't RPGs

Maybe if they were RPGs we'd reconsider.

Originally posted by marinrider

Your taking "massivly" in the wrong direction.

Its about the possibility, not whether or not it actually is doing it.

I do think GW should be on this website, I dont think GW is an MMO.  DFO and Mortal have the ability to have tons of people in one spot.  (Go look at sieges in DFO).  And DFO is an open world.  As is MO from what I understand.

So it doesn't matter that despite the potential, there's only 150 people online?  On the same night that GW's running tens of thousands?

Clearly instances mean that all of those people aren't really playing.

Yep, GW's a CORPG, and they've never had any qualms about saying so.  But in terms of player activity, a far more successful game than any of the tiny sandbox fails--and a lot of moderately successful "true" MMOs, too.

I think you're the one taking "massively" in the wrong direction, particularly as a silly pseudo-definition of what this site should or should not be covering.

Really? The site had polls and dicsussion threads aplenty asking how the community would feel about the inclusion of coverage on the "bigger" SPRPGs months ago.

It would seem the majority had no problem with it. Been around here a couple of years now, and I 'm pretty familiar with the tastes of the reviewers and the community - and I (for one) am interested in seeing how people here feel about Skyrim / Diablo 3 / Kingdoms of Amalur (etc.), posts about SPGs always existed as long as I've been coming here, they just got moved to the "general gaming" forum.

How many of ourselves limit ourselves to soley MMOs, in terms of both interest and playtime? I'd bet there are very few who could say they do on both counts. Gamers are gamers. There's a big overlap between MMORPG players and RPG players - let's face it, the former wouldn't exist without the latter.

Whatever "loss of focus" you see OP is more than likely temporary, with Skyrim out for less than a week, it's a hot topic, give it a week or so, and all will be back to focusing on MMOs again (with SWTOR looming on the horizon).

I know a lot of people dislike change, but sometimes, change is a good thing. Personally, (in my opinion - standard disclaimers - all that stuff), I think this is a great change.

i hate that they add all those crappy random download and play "MMO's". I wish it was more focused on just the main stream MMO's. But I understand where they are coming from.

The site seems to be evolving with online gaming.  What you suggest as 'keeping focus' is stagnation. Massively multiplayer online gaming has expanded beyond orcs, elvesm grinding and raiding. It has evolved and emcompasses a broader range of games. While I can empathize with your feeling of being part of a disenfranchised group that enjoys the classic or 'old school' type of MMO, I see MMORPG.com as being very focused and very in touch with where online gaming has progressed to. Now, you can quibble about my use of 'evolve' and 'progress' but that is exactly what is happening.

To simply restrict themselves to only DikuMUD-based MMOs or to, even worse, restrict to only games with a certain pricing structure would be a disservice both to the site and a good portion of its visitors.

So basically does the site need to break down to all its parts?  Should there be an MMOguru, RPGguru, COOPguru, etc to go along with RTSguru and FPSguru?

Wish I could remember where I saw this so I could quote it directly - someone complaining that Skyrim sucked cause it was like an offline solo MMO.  Doh!  Take the MMO out of MMORPG and what are you left with?  Of course folks who are into MMOs are into other games and like talking about them.  Of course this is true about the staff too.

I think they just need to add some kind of tagging system that lets us filter based on the stuff we're interested in.  For example I don't do FPS at all so I would want to exclude anything tagged that way.

I do play RTS sometimes, and actually wonder why they are restricting RTSGuru to RTS (Real Time Strategy)?  What about turn based like Civilization?  Why not just Strategy Guru (though that doesn't quite have the same ring to it as RTSGuru)?  I'm actually betting that if Civilization VI comes out RTSGuru will be covering it.

What about Virtual World/Simulation Games - where does Sims fit in?  Where does Second Life fit in?  Where do non combat MMOs fit in such as ATITD?

As far as FTP verses P2P verses P2W verses whatever other weird acronyms get invented for new complicated payment models it's very hard to keep games classified when they keep changing.  I expect that no matter what they are saying now more games will be going with the model of some fairly extensive free time to try the game out + subscription + cash shop purchases for fluffy horses that they promise won't mean anything.  If they don't have subscriptions they'll have something else that turns into a must have for most players just about when they are done with their fairly extensive free time.  None of the new payment model flux can be a surprise - how else were the devs going to break the magic $15 a month threshhold?

So given the state of flux in payment methods how does MMORPG.com keep up?  Go by what the games call themselves or disect it into what it really is?  I can tell you if you just try and compare all the sub games out there who have gone 'FTP' or are going 'FTP' before the end of the year it would be a mess, and almost impossible unless you yourself were a high level FTP player.  Now that might be some interesting articles - compare playing each FTP to level 20 with absolutely no money spent.  Then level 40, etc.  Not what everyone speculates is possible but what a player is actually able to do, with how long it took them to do it.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

The site seems to be evolving with online gaming.  What you suggest as 'keeping focus' is stagnation. Massively multiplayer online gaming has expanded beyond orcs, elvesm grinding and raiding. It has evolved and emcompasses a broader range of games. While I can empathize with your feeling of being part of a disenfranchised group that enjoys the classic or 'old school' type of MMO, I see MMORPG.com as being very focused and very in touch with where online gaming has progressed to. Now, you can quibble about my use of 'evolve' and 'progress' but that is exactly what is happening.

To simply restrict themselves to only DikuMUD-based MMOs or to, even worse, restrict to only games with a certain pricing structure would be a disservice both to the site and a good portion of its visitors.

 

Well said..

For people like the OP the biggest factor seems to be commercialization of their chosen past-time. It's no different than the Skaters, Punk-rockers and Hardcore-Kids I grew up around. Many of which are still stuck in the mentality we had as teenagers. Anything popularized by mass media is bad, no questions, no exceptions. Even if they loved it before it was commercialized and it hasn't changed after, it's still bad.

The MMO world is a multi-billion dollar industry at this point, you're no longer unique in your interest in it, and never again will be, it's time many accept that or move on. Posts like the the OP's remind me far too much of my 30+ year old friends who still rag on what's on MTV or the radio, as if it shoud matter to me in the slightest bit.

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Is BF3, CoD or Starcraft an MMO?

FPS FPS and RTS.

no, they aren't RPGs

Maybe if they were RPGs we'd reconsider.

What about a MMOFPS?

Many valid points in this thread but at the end of the day, if you are unhappy with the direction this web site is taking, the only productive thing you can do is:

1. Notify the powers that be you are unhappy with the content/direction of the web site.
2. Inform them what content/direction you would like to see.
3. State you will not be visiting the web site until things change.
4. Stick to your guns and do not visit MMORPG.com.

Lets be honest with ourselves here for a second.. I've seen complaints everyday and have seen and read them for quite some time.. Are not we bored of what is being offered in the MMO industry thus far? I mean, Rift did well but that was earlier this year.. In between SWTOR and Rift there has been 0, notable P2P releases to captivate an audience such as this one..

However we have had tons of notable releases in other genre's, particularly this Fall, that just rocked the gaming scene as a whole.. It is fitting to fill the void with talk about games that are interesting enough to speak about..

I've seen alot of people who still visit here who have said to have sworn off mmo's all together for the time being..

I wouldn't say the site is losing it's focus, more like a temporary shift while the industry stabilizes and braces for change as the "king" slowly breaks apart..

It's sort of like the part where the mind control machine is destroyed and we all wake up looking at each other confused..

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

While GuildWars is a solid game...it is NOT a MMORPG, "MMO stands for Massivly Multiplayer Online" Guild wars didn't get the memo about massivly.

Neither did Mortal or Darkfall or a host of others, despite GW outselling all of them combined?  What's your point?

Is BF3, CoD or Starcraft an MMO?

FPS FPS and RTS.

no, they aren't RPGs

Maybe if they were RPGs we'd reconsider.

So MMO have to be RPG?  Even that's obviously false that's kinda interesting lol

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by marinrider

Your taking "massivly" in the wrong direction.

Its about the possibility, not whether or not it actually is doing it.

I do think GW should be on this website, I dont think GW is an MMO.  DFO and Mortal have the ability to have tons of people in one spot.  (Go look at sieges in DFO).  And DFO is an open world.  As is MO from what I understand.

So it doesn't matter that despite the potential, there's only 150 people online?  On the same night that GW's running tens of thousands?

Clearly instances mean that all of those people aren't really playing.

Yep, GW's a CORPG, and they've never had any qualms about saying so.  But in terms of player activity, a far more successful game than any of the tiny sandbox fails--and a lot of moderately successful "true" MMOs, too.

I think you're the one taking "massively" in the wrong direction, particularly as a silly pseudo-definition of what this site should or should not be covering.

Going by your definition CoD or Halo should be one of biggest MMO's dwarfing all other beside WoW and few Asian titles.

Since CoD / Halo / BF3, Starcraft II players are playing in an instances.

At same time only diffrence betweeen Multiplayer and MMO would be how many players are playing it meaning their total number.

That would propably make Quake I, Unreal Tournament, Starcraft I, Diablo I and II  and Counter Strike biggest MMO's in "ancient times" and we should rewrite history records that state Ultima Online, Lineage and Everquest were biggest MMO's of that times.