What Qualifies as an MMO these day?

alderdale

What it used to be........

A large and persistant game world.

A game where 1000's of people could potentially exists in the same area of the game.

Where about the only loading screen you encountered was the one launching the game.

You did not start the game as a Forgotten GOD, or a super human.  You were a humble person that fought and earned his or her way to greatness.

You had choices to make that felt unique to you and your playstyle.

You sensed a gameworld worthy of exploration and discovery and not something akin to an item vending machine.

A rusty blade was an "upgrade"

Everyone was not your enemy or someone you had to beat down wtfbbq roflcopter own to prove your worth in the real world.

Patience and planning was required and not considered to be an annoyance.

 

According to the people making them these days it's........

Any game that more then one person can log into and see another person  in the same place

Relaunching an online multiplayer version of DOOM with a leveling mechanic might be called an MMO.

 

Well it certainly hasnt been 95% percent of what has shipped in the last 3 years.  I can think of only three games with large persisant game worlds that are worthy of the MMO tag (that arnt just some weird life sim).  Darkfall, Mortal Online and Fallen Earth.  I might throw Rysom in there but....  Two are highly niche PVP centrix Full Loot Prison Planets (one which I admitedly play do to the lack of persistant game worlds).  The other is 10,000 kilometers of sand and poorly modeled broken down shacks.

I hope somebody can again one day make a truely meaningful, persistant, Massive, Multiplayer ONline game world that doesnt look like my dogs but. 

Illius

The industry tentds to slap the term "mmo" onto their products simply so that they can charge a monthley fee.  When met with scruteny they claim that their game features some kind of leveling mechanic and that you can log into a lobby and potentially see hundreds of other people. 

The term itself has lost it's meaning I think.  It has come down to having to physically try whatever new game has come out so that you can decide for yourself if it fits the genre it has been placed in.  Before it used to be that if the game is FPS, it was a first person shooter, RPG's were role playing games and so on.  Now the terms are being amalgomated and transformed into new terms that are far and away removed from any meaning they're trying to convey.

Axehilt

Stating the way things were, without providing the justification of why they were, doesn't get us anywhere.

For example, there's no reason we should be walking around as shit-covered peasants.  We don't have to start as gods, and certainly some degree of fallibility is needed for a character to be interesting, but intentionally starting players as shit-covered peasants isn't exactly required to have a fun game, nor does it really add to a game (compared with one where you start as an aspiring champion of some cause.)

Even if you could cite discrete benefits to each of those old features, nothing says we have to provide those exact benefits in modern games.  In fact people specifically want to experience new things in subsequent games, and criticize genres that stagnate by repeating featuresets too often.

VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by alderdale

What it used to be........

A large and persistant game world.

A game where 1000's of people could potentially exists in the same area of the game.

Where about the only loading screen you encountered was the one launching the game.

You did not start the game as a Forgotten GOD, or a super human.  You were a humble person that fought and earned his or her way to greatness.

You had choices to make that felt unique to you and your playstyle.

You sensed a gameworld worthy of exploration and discovery and not something akin to an item vending machine.

A rusty blade was an "upgrade"

Everyone was not your enemy or someone you had to beat down wtfbbq roflcopter own to prove your worth in the real world.

Patience and planning was required and not considered to be an annoyance.

 

According to the people making them these days it's........

Any game that more then one person can log into and see another person  in the same place

Relaunching an online multiplayer version of DOOM with a leveling mechanic might be called an MMO.

 

Well it certainly hasnt been 95% percent of what has shipped in the last 3 years.  I can think of only three games with large persisant game worlds that are worthy of the MMO tag (that arnt just some weird life sim).  Darkfall, Mortal Online and Fallen Earth.  I might throw Rysom in there but....  Two are highly niche PVP centrix Full Loot Prison Planets (one which I admitedly play do to the lack of persistant game worlds).  The other is 10,000 kilometers of sand and poorly modeled broken down shacks.

I hope somebody can again one day make a truely meaningful, persistant, Massive, Multiplayer ONline game world that doesnt look like my dogs but. 

 I disagree.  The things that make an MMO these days are the things that made an MMO in days of old.  Lots of people in an area that you can interact with online. Lots of people being more than you would typically in a simple multiplayer format so I would say hundreds to thousands.

Those other things you state: worlds, patience, planning, persistant world, choices... those are just sub-genres within the MMO umbrella term.

Venge sunsoar