Well if you look up the definition the first M stands for massively and applies to a consistent world. Not the actual population of the world. So in order to be massively it must supply a massive world like WOW,GW2,ESO and not like H1Z1 which only supplies a small zone. Even if H1Z1 had 100k players it isn't giving them a massive world making it a multiplayer online game but not a massively one.
Its how mmo world designed and not about how many people. MOBAs still be moba even if 100 vs 100. And EVE online still be felt like mmo even with 200 people (of course that would impact general gameplay activity and economics, but wont change the gameplay). Or look at those small games like Haven and Hearth / Wurm Online - generally having like 100-300 online and 1500 at best times. And still feel being more mmorpg then many others thanks to how game disigned.
Also i would agree that most games dont need more than 30-50 people at same screen to do most activities. What makes world alive is you see how others influence on game - be that SWG player towns, EVE economy markets or reading and socializing about others deeds one dont actually need to participate in to feel being part of.
I personally think the qualifier is not the minimum but the maximum potential of the game.
For example, WOT will allow a 15 vs 15 match and you will never have more then 30 players in the same game at the same time. It is not an MMO because while you may have millions of people online at any time, you can only ever play against 29 others.
For me an MMO needs to not have a specific upper limit (ignoring technical limitations of course).
A game could have only 1 active player but if the game is designed without any upper limit to who can play the same game at the same time in the same space then it is an MMO.
Massively: Large Scale Game. Multiplayer: 2+ Players are multiple players. Online: Self explanatory.
As long as you can have more than one player in a Massive world, It's an MMO.
I I kinda think it means Massively multiplayer = A loads of players instead of a massive gamesize. Otherwise "Gauntlet" would have been an arcade MMO in the 80s and every larger game with 2 or more players are a MMO.
A comparitively small game with many players would still be a MMO but Skyrim ain't one no matter if you run a multiplayer mod and play it with a friend.
Personally I would say it at least needs 64 players in the same zone minimum, and not just in hubs like Guildwars (1). That number could be discussed somewhat, 64 is a good binary number and 32 is hardly very "massive" but many MMOs have opened up new instances when a zone get about 70 or so players (AoC for example, they might have up the numbers by now though). But if anyone want 50 or 100 players with a good argument for why it is massive I support that as well.
A CORPG though can have way fewer players besides in the hubs, 4 players working together would still mean it is a CORPG as long as you have larger hubs with instanced zones.
A game with less players than 64 (or around that) is usually just a regular multiplayer game, no matter if it is action styled like Diablo, FPS style like CS or whatever.
The thing is that we can't make the MMO genre so large that every game with 2 or more players is a MMO, that just confuses everyone and games like that have already been called "multiplayers" since the early arcade machines and the Vic-20. Making the genre super small and only say that MMOs like Wow or UO are the only real MMOs are just as pointless, we have different types of MMOs for that. like Sandbox, tarditional themeparks and so on.
CORPGs can be discussed if they are a sub group to MMOs or multiplayer games, my opinion is that they are a variant of regular multiplayer RPGs though (Guildwars, DDO and STO are typical CORPGs).
And yeah, it could be seen as somewhat unimportant if a game is a MMO or not, but it makes it easier for us to find new games if the genre actually is helpful instead of showing us any game with 2 or more players when we search for it on steam or in a store.
Well if you look up the definition the first M stands for massively and applies to a consistent world. Not the actual population of the world. So in order to be massively it must supply a massive world like WOW,GW2,ESO and not like H1Z1 which only supplies a small zone. Even if H1Z1 had 100k players it isn't giving them a massive world making it a multiplayer online game but not a massively one.
This is a common mistake to make, but your English comprehension isn't quite up to scratch:
Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - refers to the game size
MassiveLY Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - refers to population size
By adding the LY to the end of Massive, it applies the adjective to the next word - multiplayer. MMO is entirely about the multiplayer aspect and has nothing to do with the game size. If we defined "massive" as 1000+ concurrent players, then a 500v500 map in battlefield would make it an MMO.
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Why number of players on server , but not number of players on game ? I mean , look at MOBA , they may have millions players online on one server , but there are limit for 10 players for each game. That's why they call themselves MOBA (multiplayer online) instead MMO (Massively Multiplayer online)
It's a large number of players online in the same world at the same time. I think a game designed for at least 1000 concurrent players should be considered MMO.
It probably isn't possible to follow even fifty people conversing at once. MUD interfaces allowed you to tag and color names, which helped pick out "important" voices from the general chatspam babble.
But a MUD hosting 200 concurrent users was doing very well for itself. So I don't have any issue with drawing your line at a larger number, if that makes ya smile.
Fifty active, talkative mud players probably generate more actual "community" conversation that 20000 guys making Chuck Norris jokes.
"Massive" is less important than "Involved" or "engaged" or "immersed". I'll take a hundred of Simutronics' customers before ten thousand of Blizzard's.
It probably isn't possible to follow even fifty people conversing at once. MUD interfaces allowed you to tag and color names, which helped pick out "important" voices from the general chatspam babble.
But a MUD hosting 200 concurrent users was doing very well for itself. So I don't have any issue with drawing your line at a larger number, if that makes ya smile.
Fifty active, talkative mud players probably generate more actual "community" conversation that 20000 guys making Chuck Norris jokes.
"Massive" is less important than "Involved" or "engaged" or "immersed". I'll take a hundred of Simutronics' customers before ten thousand of Blizzard's.
Yes! But it has nothing to do with the topic at all. Sorry.
I've always rather put the distinction based on early multiplayer games that were client-hosted. Those were limited to... the largest I can think of was 64v64 in Tribes 2.
So basically, if you could host your own server, it isn't an MMO to me.
Another distinction for me, at least, is the world needs to be persistent. That kind of goes with the client-hosted theme, in that those worlds only existed as long as the server was up, and they are pretty much recreated between maps. An MMO, the server stays up, the maps/zones/areas/instances/whatever are perpetually available (although they may not actually be up and running if no one is in them, that part is transparent to the player) - i.e. you aren't waiting on "enough" people to sign onto a map for the map to load and the match to start.
In that vein, I do consider GW1 to be an MMO - it had persistent hubs that players could meet in, even if the maps coming off of that were instanced and private.
But yeah, there is no universal definition that I'm aware of.
To me, being an MMO isn't about how many players are in the same game world simultaneously, but how many could be in that game world eventually. If there is no clear upper bound, it's an MMO.
Thus, a game with a hardware cap of 2 players in the game world at a time that makes that game world permanent can be an MMO, as player 1 interacts with player 2, then logs off. Player 3 logs on, interacts with player 2, who then logs off. Repeat this indefinitely and what player 1 did could theoretically filter through and affect player 1000 eventually. There are server reboots and such, but that doesn't give a clear upper bound of, a game can reach exactly this threshold and never one more.
A lobby game that creates an instance, puts up to 20 players in it, lets them do something or other for a while, then closes that instance and destroys it is no an MMO because no more than 20 players could ever be in the same spot of the same game world. Even if the game later creates another identical instance, it's a different copy of the game world, not literally the same game world as before in any meaningful sense.
Where this gets fuzzy is how much instancing it takes to make a game into a lobby game and not an MMO. A game that clearly has some permanent areas but also some temporary instances such as WoW is still an MMO. I don't see "megaservers" as interfering with this, either; instance #1 of a given area is permanent even if others are not. But what about something like Guild Wars 1, where the only instances that can go over some small cap are the towns and outposts where none of the real action takes place?
I don't think the amount of players determines if a game is considered an MMO or not. The number of players may reflect how well such a game is doing but that's about it. Wouldn't player numbers be determined by server capacity, bandwidth, and game layout?
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Selected Solitaire then looked at the smallest mmo that lists player count it was listed at 4k players and since the official definition states a thousand or more players I am guessing that would be the answer, but early on with various limitations it meant that 50 players in an online game was considered an mmo so basically 50 or more players. Currently most people consider the 1k+ definition, but originally even 50 players on a server counted as an mmo. Technically though a 15 player MUD in the past is also considered an mmo.
Massively: Large Scale Game. Multiplayer: 2+ Players are multiple players. Online: Self explanatory.
As long as you can have more than one player in a Massive world, It's an MMO.
The problem here is one of misinterperatation.
Massively Multiplayer Online
Should read
Massively Multiplayer Online
If it was massive you'd be right but it's massively.
Massively is an adjective describing the Multiplayer. Multiplayer at the time of the creation of "MMO" was around 32 concurrent players so there's your starting number. How much do you need to multiply 32 to get a number that's massive in comparison? The answer to that is how many you need for a game to be an MMO.
I'll give you a clue. It's a much bigger number than 32.
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Or look at those small games like Haven and Hearth / Wurm Online - generally having like 100-300 online and 1500 at best times. And still feel being more mmorpg then many others thanks to how game disigned.
Also i would agree that most games dont need more than 30-50 people at same screen to do most activities. What makes world alive is you see how others influence on game - be that SWG player towns, EVE economy markets or reading and socializing about others deeds one dont actually need to participate in to feel being part of.
For example, WOT will allow a 15 vs 15 match and you will never have more then 30 players in the same game at the same time. It is not an MMO because while you may have millions of people online at any time, you can only ever play against 29 others.
For me an MMO needs to not have a specific upper limit (ignoring technical limitations of course).
A game could have only 1 active player but if the game is designed without any upper limit to who can play the same game at the same time in the same space then it is an MMO.
A comparitively small game with many players would still be a MMO but Skyrim ain't one no matter if you run a multiplayer mod and play it with a friend.
Personally I would say it at least needs 64 players in the same zone minimum, and not just in hubs like Guildwars (1). That number could be discussed somewhat, 64 is a good binary number and 32 is hardly very "massive" but many MMOs have opened up new instances when a zone get about 70 or so players (AoC for example, they might have up the numbers by now though). But if anyone want 50 or 100 players with a good argument for why it is massive I support that as well.
A CORPG though can have way fewer players besides in the hubs, 4 players working together would still mean it is a CORPG as long as you have larger hubs with instanced zones.
A game with less players than 64 (or around that) is usually just a regular multiplayer game, no matter if it is action styled like Diablo, FPS style like CS or whatever.
The thing is that we can't make the MMO genre so large that every game with 2 or more players is a MMO, that just confuses everyone and games like that have already been called "multiplayers" since the early arcade machines and the Vic-20. Making the genre super small and only say that MMOs like Wow or UO are the only real MMOs are just as pointless, we have different types of MMOs for that. like Sandbox, tarditional themeparks and so on.
CORPGs can be discussed if they are a sub group to MMOs or multiplayer games, my opinion is that they are a variant of regular multiplayer RPGs though (Guildwars, DDO and STO are typical CORPGs).
And yeah, it could be seen as somewhat unimportant if a game is a MMO or not, but it makes it easier for us to find new games if the genre actually is helpful instead of showing us any game with 2 or more players when we search for it on steam or in a store.
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Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - refers to the game size
MassiveLY Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - refers to population size
By adding the LY to the end of Massive, it applies the adjective to the next word - multiplayer. MMO is entirely about the multiplayer aspect and has nothing to do with the game size. If we defined "massive" as 1000+ concurrent players, then a 500v500 map in battlefield would make it an MMO.
I mean , look at MOBA ,
they may have millions players online on one server , but there are limit for 10 players for each game.
That's why they call themselves MOBA (multiplayer online) instead MMO (Massively Multiplayer online)
You would bestow the adjective "massively" to qualify the noun "multiplayer".
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A "massively game" or "massively world" doesn't make any sense.
"Massively multiplayer" does, and 2 is not what I consider massively multiplayer.
But a MUD hosting 200 concurrent users was doing very well for itself. So I don't have any issue with drawing your line at a larger number, if that makes ya smile.
Fifty active, talkative mud players probably generate more actual "community" conversation that 20000 guys making Chuck Norris jokes.
"Massive" is less important than "Involved" or "engaged" or "immersed". I'll take a hundred of Simutronics' customers before ten thousand of Blizzard's.
So basically, if you could host your own server, it isn't an MMO to me.
Another distinction for me, at least, is the world needs to be persistent. That kind of goes with the client-hosted theme, in that those worlds only existed as long as the server was up, and they are pretty much recreated between maps. An MMO, the server stays up, the maps/zones/areas/instances/whatever are perpetually available (although they may not actually be up and running if no one is in them, that part is transparent to the player) - i.e. you aren't waiting on "enough" people to sign onto a map for the map to load and the match to start.
In that vein, I do consider GW1 to be an MMO - it had persistent hubs that players could meet in, even if the maps coming off of that were instanced and private.
But yeah, there is no universal definition that I'm aware of.
Thus, a game with a hardware cap of 2 players in the game world at a time that makes that game world permanent can be an MMO, as player 1 interacts with player 2, then logs off. Player 3 logs on, interacts with player 2, who then logs off. Repeat this indefinitely and what player 1 did could theoretically filter through and affect player 1000 eventually. There are server reboots and such, but that doesn't give a clear upper bound of, a game can reach exactly this threshold and never one more.
A lobby game that creates an instance, puts up to 20 players in it, lets them do something or other for a while, then closes that instance and destroys it is no an MMO because no more than 20 players could ever be in the same spot of the same game world. Even if the game later creates another identical instance, it's a different copy of the game world, not literally the same game world as before in any meaningful sense.
Where this gets fuzzy is how much instancing it takes to make a game into a lobby game and not an MMO. A game that clearly has some permanent areas but also some temporary instances such as WoW is still an MMO. I don't see "megaservers" as interfering with this, either; instance #1 of a given area is permanent even if others are not. But what about something like Guild Wars 1, where the only instances that can go over some small cap are the towns and outposts where none of the real action takes place?
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Massively
Multiplayer
Online
Should read
Massively Multiplayer
Online
If it was massive you'd be right but it's massively.
Massively is an adjective describing the Multiplayer. Multiplayer at the time of the creation of "MMO" was around 32 concurrent players so there's your starting number. How much do you need to multiply 32 to get a number that's massive in comparison? The answer to that is how many you need for a game to be an MMO.
I'll give you a clue. It's a much bigger number than 32.