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What have "MMOs" become? 40 player max per server is not an MMO....

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  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    thunderC said:
    First of all , I wouldnt call games like dark n light or ark mmos I would call them mmo like. The same way destiny or say diablo 3 are mmo like. I use to be like the rest of you guys with very rigid defintion of what a mmo is and how many people must be playing but latetly. With how uncreative,boring and stale the genre has become I am welcoming these be mmo hybrids with open arms.
    There are so many of these multiplayer online survival games, its literally become a case of played one, played them all, there just isn't any inovation there, just more companies jumping in while there might be some money to be made from it, its like, the 'clone wars' but i think we are already at the stage where there are just too many of them, casualties are inevitable. :/
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    thunderC said:
    First of all , I wouldnt call games like dark n light or ark mmos I would call them mmo like. The same way destiny or say diablo 3 are mmo like. I use to be like the rest of you guys with very rigid defintion of what a mmo is and how many people must be playing but latetly. With how uncreative,boring and stale the genre has become I am welcoming these be mmo hybrids with open arms.
    Anything with max 6 players or less like Diablo are not massive in any sense, those games exsisted before MMOs (like Gauntlet) and I can't think of a single place where 6 people are considered a crowd.

    Heck, even Guildwars: Factions have far more people both in PvE and PvP missions but I could agree with "MMO like" there.

    Diablo 3 is no more "hybrid" then the first game from 1996 besides the single feature of the marketplace.

    But yeah, the MMORPG market have been stale for years.
    Gdemami
  • EldurianEldurian Member EpicPosts: 2,736
    Phry said:
    thunderC said:
    First of all , I wouldnt call games like dark n light or ark mmos I would call them mmo like. The same way destiny or say diablo 3 are mmo like. I use to be like the rest of you guys with very rigid defintion of what a mmo is and how many people must be playing but latetly. With how uncreative,boring and stale the genre has become I am welcoming these be mmo hybrids with open arms.
    There are so many of these multiplayer online survival games, its literally become a case of played one, played them all, there just isn't any inovation there, just more companies jumping in while there might be some money to be made from it, its like, the 'clone wars' but i think we are already at the stage where there are just too many of them, casualties are inevitable. :/
    I think the great part is how Minecraft kicked the whole thing off. The original survival game with the main enemy being zombies.

    Now there are more zombie survival games than you could shake a stick at.

    It really is the same kind of uncreative copy cat nonsense that sunk the MMO genre. It just hasn't been going on as long.
    Gdemamijimmywolf
  • zerocountzerocount Member UncommonPosts: 200
    Loke666 said:

    Anything with max 6 players or less like Diablo are not massive in any sense, those games exsisted before MMOs (like Gauntlet) and I can't think of a single place where 6 people are considered a crowd.

     I dunno, out for the evening with your mate and his new love interest... Two's company three's a crowd!
  • kitaradkitarad Member LegendaryPosts: 8,164
    While I understand the importance of having definitions I do think that if I played a game and it had 40 other people who played it and I get to play and interact with these 40 people meaningfully I would be happy to play such a game if it was a good game. I wouldn't wring my hands and say "but..but it isn't an MMO...I should not be having fun and supporting this game" .

    I mean seeing other people on my screen holds not much value to me if the game is not going to support activities I could participate in with them. If I'm soloing 90% of the time in the game seeing others running about is like the scenery I guess and holds little value realistically to my game experience. I rather have 10- 40 people I actually engage and have spent time with rather than a world populated with hundreds of figures just whizzing past me as they go solo their own game.

    It is not the definition that is the problem it is that even games that are actually MMORPGs in the true sense as some would claim give you a solo experience and just because something has the potential to be more does not make it better in my opinion. What's the point of potential when it does not deliver.
    JeffSpicoliSBFordGolelorn

  • JeffSpicoliJeffSpicoli Member EpicPosts: 2,849
    kitarad said:
    While I understand the importance of having definitions I do think that if I played a game and it had 40 other people who played it and I get to play and interact with these 40 people meaningfully I would be happy to play such a game if it was a good game. I wouldn't wring my hands and say "but..but it isn't an MMO...I should not be having fun and supporting this game" .

    I mean seeing other people on my screen holds not much value to me if the game is not going to support activities I could participate in with them. If I'm soloing 90% of the time in the game seeing others running about is like the scenery I guess and holds little value realistically to my game experience. I rather have 10- 40 people I actually engage and have spent time with rather than a world populated with hundreds of figures just whizzing past me as they go solo their own game.

    It is not the definition that is the problem it is that even games that are actually MMORPGs in the true sense as some would claim give you a solo experience and just because something has the potential to be more does not make it better in my opinion. What's the point of potential when it does not deliver.
    Yes SWTOR is a perfect example if this. I interact with way more people in D n L despite the 70 player cap
    SBFordGolelorn[Deleted User]
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  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    lol .. the MMO definition topic is back :)

    Yeah ... MMO does not have to be "massively MP" anymore. The word "massively" is so pointless that either it is ignored, or the genre will die.

    But what do you expect? Not even games classified as MMOs here on MMOrpg.com need to be "massively MP". 
    MadFrenchie
  • MadFrenchieMadFrenchie Member LegendaryPosts: 8,505
    edited August 2017
    kitarad said:
    It is not the definition that is the problem it is that even games that are actually MMORPGs in the true sense as some would claim give you a solo experience and just because something has the potential to be more does not make it better in my opinion. What's the point of potential when it does not deliver.
    Yes, the fact that developers have shied away from attempting to better utilize the inherent strengths of the genre, as opposed to working to hybridize the experience in an attempt to fill a genre that will always be two steps ahead due to the networking and system performance issues inherent to MMORPGs, means that that MMORPGs have become a cut-rate singleplayer experience with real player scenery, as you put it.

    There's no real reason MMORPGs should be chasing a similar experience to games with a smaller scope in terms of simultaneous players.  It will inherently place the MMORPG at a disadvantage in comparison.

    image
  • GolelornGolelorn Member RarePosts: 1,395
    I'm surprised this many people care about the semantics of MMO vs coop vs multiplayer.
    SBFord
  • HarikenHariken Member EpicPosts: 2,680
    I dunno. I tried playing Istaria (that MMO with a playable dragon) and it had far less people on than most of the popular Ark servers. Minecraft MMO server has far more people playing it than Istaria. istaria literally had 35 people in chat, maybe a few off but super low amount.

    How is that even considered massive at that point?
    Istaria is an old good game. I play it and the thing is,it feels like a real community because you get to know those 35 people and everyone helps each other. So there is something to be said for that.
    [Deleted User]
  • cameltosiscameltosis Member LegendaryPosts: 3,832
    kitarad said:
    While I understand the importance of having definitions I do think that if I played a game and it had 40 other people who played it and I get to play and interact with these 40 people meaningfully I would be happy to play such a game if it was a good game. I wouldn't wring my hands and say "but..but it isn't an MMO...I should not be having fun and supporting this game" .

    I mean seeing other people on my screen holds not much value to me if the game is not going to support activities I could participate in with them. If I'm soloing 90% of the time in the game seeing others running about is like the scenery I guess and holds little value realistically to my game experience. I rather have 10- 40 people I actually engage and have spent time with rather than a world populated with hundreds of figures just whizzing past me as they go solo their own game.

    It is not the definition that is the problem it is that even games that are actually MMORPGs in the true sense as some would claim give you a solo experience and just because something has the potential to be more does not make it better in my opinion. What's the point of potential when it does not deliver.
    Some very good points in this post. 

    If you're having fun then the label doesn't matter, an incorrect label isn't going to change the amount of fun you are actually having. 

    However, the distinction between MMO and normal online multiplayer is important. I do agree that it only means that the MMO has a certain level of potential and that the potential usually isn't reached. However, for me personally, that potential (500+ in the same virtual world) is what I specifically look for. Things like large scale pvp, vibrant communities, easy grouping, guild rivalries etc simply aren't possible on small scale online games. It is why I will never play games like Destiny or The Division, but if they were to be made into proper MMOs then I would. 


    As to the OPs question - why non-mmos are labelled as MMOs - there are a variety of reasons. 


    1) Features -> Marketing

    To be technically classified as an MMO, you only need one feature - a "massive" amount of people that can connect simultaneously to the same virtual environment (defined as 250+ by Garriott and Koster). However, actual MMOs have a lot of other features, such as grouping, leveling, quests, dungeons, raids, vertical progression, crafting, loot etc. 

    By labelling a non-MMO as an MMO, you are hoping to tap into the section of the playerbase that plays MMOs for those other features and who don't really care about the single defining feature of an MMO. Given how many people play MMOs solo and thus only focus on those gameplay features, this is quite a smart move. For example, if you play ESO solo and enjoy the quests, leveling etc, then playing Destiny solo is likely to give you a similar experience, you probably wouldn't even notice or care that ESO is an MMO and Destiny isn't. 

    2) Site Traffic

    If you look around at games that have been labelled as MMOs but actually aren't, the falsehood rarely comes from the developer or the publisher. Devs / publishers are pretty smart people and false advertising is against the law so they don't want to risk it. 

    Most of the mis-labelling is done by the games media. This site has admittedly that it does it to increase traffic - if they only covered proper MMOs, there would be little to cover and site traffic would be too low to generate the advertising revenue required. So, they cover non-MMOs and mislabel them. I would prefer if they still covered non-MMOs and just didn't mislabel them, but that is an individual choice. 

    3) Ignorance

    The subject of what MMO means comes up here on a regular basis. We've had a lot of indepth discussions, links to articles written across the world by industry experts, input from the authors on this site as well as direct input into the discussion by two industry veterans who helped define the term original - Richard Garriott and Raph Koster. 

    From this we arrived at a clear definition - an MMO is a game that supports 250+ simultaneous players within the same game world. 

    However, with no clear gaming authority to "own" the definition or enforce it, combined with the overwhelming majority of players who just don't care about the definition, we result in most people being completely ignorant of the actual definition. 

    I mean, look at something like League of Legends. It's online, it's multiplayer, and 1000s of people play it simultaneously. The only thing that makes it not an MMO is these players are not in the same game world, they are all off in their own small scale instances. 

    The situation is made even worse by the fact that even those games which are truly MMOs tend not to capitalise on that fact. How many games support large scale pvp for example? How many MMO engines can actually support 250 players in the same place, like meeting in a cantina? A large portion of people that have played MMOs won't even notice a difference playing smaller games like Destiny because they've never taken in part in MMO features. 
    GdemamiMadFrenchieCecropiaeugheuforceMajorBiggs
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  • SEANMCADSEANMCAD Member EpicPosts: 16,775
    Multiplayer server RPG games have been around for a very long time, like more than 10 years. They havent until this year been refereed to as an MMO.

    Although its true that the game experience of a multiplayer RPG server with 64 people on it is nearly exactly the same experience as an MMO in regards to what is possible and actual, it still begs the question, why all of the sudden is there a hyper intrest in changing the name of something that has been around for more than 10 years?

    anyone have an asnwer?


    Gdemami

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  • cameltosiscameltosis Member LegendaryPosts: 3,832
    SEANMCAD said:
    Multiplayer server RPG games have been around for a very long time, like more than 10 years. They havent until this year been refereed to as an MMO.

    Although its true that the game experience of a multiplayer RPG server with 64 people on it is nearly exactly the same experience as an MMO in regards to what is possible and actual, it still begs the question, why all of the sudden is there a hyper intrest in changing the name of something that has been around for more than 10 years?

    anyone have an asnwer?


    I've answered this question for you many times in the past, however due to your anti-social nature you are unable to comprehend that other people are able to get joy and value out of social interaction with strangers, nor do you seem able to grasp the concept of being part of a community. 
    Gdemami
    Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman

  • SEANMCADSEANMCAD Member EpicPosts: 16,775
    edited August 2017
    SEANMCAD said:
    Multiplayer server RPG games have been around for a very long time, like more than 10 years. They havent until this year been refereed to as an MMO.

    Although its true that the game experience of a multiplayer RPG server with 64 people on it is nearly exactly the same experience as an MMO in regards to what is possible and actual, it still begs the question, why all of the sudden is there a hyper intrest in changing the name of something that has been around for more than 10 years?

    anyone have an asnwer?


    I've answered this question for you many times in the past, however due to your anti-social nature you are unable to comprehend that other people are able to get joy and value out of social interaction with strangers, nor do you seem able to grasp the concept of being part of a community. 
    I was not asking you.

    sorry what i mean to say is that I have you on ignore so I dont know what your saying and my post was not directed to you
    GdemamiKyleran

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  • TheScavengerTheScavenger Member EpicPosts: 3,321
    edited August 2017
    SEANMCAD said:
    can someone give me a game title that has a max of less than 100 that is labeled as an MMO please?
    As said in the above post. Istaria, had 35 people in chat, to be safe 40 at most

    Ryzom also has very few people playing, though a lot more than Istaria but not sure how much. Ryzom far more active, but probably had 100-200 people playing and anything in that number is pretty good.

    I've played many older indie MMOs, and most are pretty active. Istaria is the main example I can think of, its labeled as an MMO but very dead and has far less people playing than any of the survival sandbox games.
    But they are capable of handling more. MMO is not defined by how many are actually playing it but by how many it can support.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=define+mmorpg&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS751US751&oq=define+mmorpg&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.1904j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Quote straight from google
    "an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously."

    It does not say "a large number of people that CAN participate simultaneously."

    it in fact says a large number of people playing at the same time.

    There is nothing massively multiplayer about a tiny amount of people playing (less than Ark servers).
    Gdemami

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  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Golelorn said:
    I'm surprised this many people care about the semantics of MMO vs coop vs multiplayer.

    Because there is nothing else better to do here, but to flog dead horses. What else can they do? Talk about new AAA MMO development?
    Kyleran
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775


    The situation is made even worse by the fact that even those games which are truly MMOs tend not to capitalise on that fact. How many games support large scale pvp for example? How many MMO engines can actually support 250 players in the same place, like meeting in a cantina? A large portion of people that have played MMOs won't even notice a difference playing smaller games like Destiny because they've never taken in part in MMO features. 
    Why is it "worse"?

    I say it is better for this site who can claim Destiny because it is certainly driving more traffic than classical MMO.

    It is a wash for most players who care less about what MMO is defined as. It is not like they will magically decide to play a game because it is a "true" MMO.

    It is better for this forum because actually there is something to talk about. So what is the problem?
  • MadFrenchieMadFrenchie Member LegendaryPosts: 8,505
    Golelorn said:
    I'm surprised this many people care about the semantics of MMO vs coop vs multiplayer.

    Because there is nothing else better to do here, but to flog dead horses. What else can they do? Talk about new AAA MMO development?
    Congrats on presenting a false dichotomy so succinctly.

    image
  • MadFrenchieMadFrenchie Member LegendaryPosts: 8,505
    edited August 2017
    SEANMCAD said:
    can someone give me a game title that has a max of less than 100 that is labeled as an MMO please?
    As said in the above post. Istaria, had 35 people in chat, to be safe 40 at most

    Ryzom also has very few people playing, though a lot more than Istaria but not sure how much. Ryzom far more active, but probably had 100-200 people playing and anything in that number is pretty good.

    I've played many older indie MMOs, and most are pretty active. Istaria is the main example I can think of, its labeled as an MMO but very dead and has far less people playing than any of the survival sandbox games.
    But they are capable of handling more. MMO is not defined by how many are actually playing it but by how many it can support.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=define+mmorpg&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS751US751&oq=define+mmorpg&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.1904j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Quote straight from google
    "an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously."

    It does not say "a large number of people that CAN participate simultaneously."

    it in fact says a large number of people playing at the same time.

    There is nothing massively multiplayer about a tiny amount of people playing (less than Ark servers).
    Let's go back to your plane example, because I was once an ATCer and there's good insight to be had from considering that more deeply.

    Aircraft are divided into weight classes (well, technically, it has to do with wake turbulence vortices, but this is almost completely dependent upon the size and weight of rhe aircraft, so the principle is essentially the same) based upon their size and weight.  Erego, a Boeing 747 is considered a "Heavy" due to its size and the weight of the plane, being that it's a large passenger plane.  This is the "type" of plane that it is, regardless of the number of souls on board.

    A Boeing 747 with only a pilot and co-pilot still requires ATCers to control the aircraft as a Heavy.  Because the number of folks currently occupying said aircraft does not change the type of said aircraft.

    Additionally, aircraft can be broken down by category.  Category I is a single-prop plane, Cat II is a multi-prop/turbo-prop plane, and Cat III is a turbojet plane.  As you can imagine, single-prop planes are generally smaller than their Cat II or Cat III counterparts.

    Just as before with weight classes, the number of folks currently occupying the plane has no effect on its class or category.  That is determined by the features of the plane itself.  Yes, it would be only to ride a Boeing 747 with only 5 other people, but it's still a Cat III Heavy Boeing 747, no matter how lonely you feel riding it.
    Gdemami

    image
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Golelorn said:
    I'm surprised this many people care about the semantics of MMO vs coop vs multiplayer.

    Because there is nothing else better to do here, but to flog dead horses. What else can they do? Talk about new AAA MMO development?
    Congrats on presenting a false dichotomy so succinctly.
    false or not .. you looked!
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Torval said:


    My guess is that people only think about it when there are differences in genre and format and even then they're comparing feature implementation and not the semantics of marketing slogans.
    I think gamers  only care about whether an individual game is good. Genre pretty much does not matter. 

    People play Overwatch, because it is a good game ... not because it is a shooter (there are 10,0000 online shooters where no one plays).

    Genre definition is probably more for reporting and data consumption (like what superdata does). And for that, as long as the definition is clear (i.e. everyone knows superdata includes MOBAs in their MMO cat), no one cares if the definition is "correct" or not.


    Sovrath
  • kemono55kemono55 Member UncommonPosts: 124
    Keller said:
    has there ever been activities for 100+ players in a mmo? Players spend most of their time with 4 others in dungeons or 9 others in raid instances? ...
    Lineage II had regularly sieges with 300 or more people involved at the same time, and boss raids with 100 or more people.

    This is something that's been completely lost in "modern" MMOs, in exchange for single player content.
    --

    The Division was considered, by this site, as an MMO.
    Tekken's server hosts thousands of players at the same time, but only supports instances of 2 players.
  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342
    Golelorn said:
    I'm surprised this many people care about the semantics of MMO vs coop vs multiplayer.
    Pissing in the wind is one of the favourites on these boards...
    Kyleran
  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 17,586
    SBFord said:
    It's funny -- as I've watched Camelot Unchained test 3000 bots to try out server load capacity and I see other MMOs bragging about battles with thousands (or hundreds?) of participants, I always think....really? With today's shifting loyalties and players jumping from one game to the next and the next and so on, how many games can realistically expect that more than 100 would actually participate? 

    Just like I hate gigantic crowds in real life, I hate 'em in my games. As @keller said, most people spend the vast majority of their time in any "MMO" with 3-9 other people. Seeing hundreds of others running around that I don't give a damn about doesn't make the experience more compelling -- just more annoying. :D

    Conceptually, I like the idea of servers as they are now, though I don't think it would be bad to allow for up to 200.  I just wish all the games that did such things weren't survival games (yes, I know that those features can be toned way down or even off but the point stands).

    I absolutely LOVED Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds and played on one that regularly had 50-100 people on it with active DMs that were interacting with us. I played on one (GLORWING!) for about 2 years and never felt the world was underpopulated. I miss those days.
    But that's just it.  You can be just like every other game... or you can try to offer what the other games do not.  Small server games are well covered.  So are F2P titles.

    I say BRAVO to folks going against the grain and actually offering us a CHOICE!

    KyleranOctagon7711

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  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,975
    Loke666 said:
    thunderC said:
    First of all , I wouldnt call games like dark n light or ark mmos I would call them mmo like. The same way destiny or say diablo 3 are mmo like. I use to be like the rest of you guys with very rigid defintion of what a mmo is and how many people must be playing but latetly. With how uncreative,boring and stale the genre has become I am welcoming these be mmo hybrids with open arms.
    Anything with max 6 players or less like Diablo are not massive in any sense, those games exsisted before MMOs (like Gauntlet) and I can't think of a single place where 6 people are considered a crowd.

    Heck, even Guildwars: Factions have far more people both in PvE and PvP missions but I could agree with "MMO like" there.

    Diablo 3 is no more "hybrid" then the first game from 1996 besides the single feature of the marketplace.

    But yeah, the MMORPG market have been stale for years.
    Elevators.  Any more than 6 people on them and I won't board.  ;)


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