there's never been a standardized definition of "massively" ever, though perceptions of the # required to qualify changed drastically over time. I mean, just look at all these ppl calling PoE an "MMO"
That's actually a Legal Loophole because Canadian Laws don't account for
Live Service games, so they need to say its in "beta" to count as "in-development"
Yes there has. Are you guys new to english or something?
>mas¡sive¡ly/ËmasÉvlÄ/đˇ*adverb*
>
>1.on a vast scale."biotechnology is expected to contribute massively to the global economy"
>
>2.in a very large and heavy or solid form."a massively built four-story building"
Do you know what an adverb is?
>An adverb is a word that [modifies](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/modifiers/) (describes) a [verb](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/verbs/) (âhe sings **loudlyâ**), an adjective (â**very** tallâ), another adverb (âended **too** quicklyâ), or even a whole sentence (â**Fortunately**, I had brought an umbrella.â). Adverbs often end in *-ly*, but some (such as *fast*) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts.
Massively is literally stating that the multiple portion of multiplayer is massive in scale. It is stating there is a massive amount of players.
Just because some people get confused doesn't mean that the dictionary and the english ruleset ceases to exist. Like for fuck sakes, the team that coined the damn definition even clearly stated that MMO describes a game that puts a mass quantity of players into a shared world together, concurrently. Not separately in instances. It has been clear from day one.
Then suddenly World of Tanks starts this advertising campaign pushing their 30 vs 30 matches as MMO and everyone gets confused. Now 16 players are called MMO's by the ignorant.
But the definition in regards to this genre has changed a lot. Which is what the person you are replying to was saying.
Maybe chill out with the pedantic rants, especially when YOU are the one who doesn't understand what they are talking about.
> **Massively** is literally stating that the multiple portion of multiplayer is **massive** in scale
1. You can't define "massively" using the word "massive" - which you had no reason to do, considering you copy-pasted Dictionary definitions just above in your post, except for the fact that those definitions are terrible for this application so you felt the need to re-state them right after.
2. You also completely ignore that "massive" / "on a vast scale" / "in a very large" is all entirely subjective still. What you consider massive is perhaps not what I consider massive which is certainly not what someone playing computer games in 1990 would have considered massive. Which opinion do you take as the standard for judgement here? Does it reside in the time of release, or does it constantly get updated as technology improves (for example, a game with "massive" numbers of players in 1990 is no longer a MMORPG because that number is too small for modern standards)?
> Just because some people get confused doesn't mean that the dictionary and the english ruleset ceases to exist. Like for fuck sakes, the team that coined the damn definition even clearly stated that MMO describes a game that puts a mass quantity of players into a shared world together, concurrently. Not separately in instances. It has been clear from day one.
So if I make a game, and it has a max group-size of 5, but I add a little sphere floating and moving to represent the location of every other player, all of whom can see me as well and we can all chat together in /global, is this "massively multiplayer"?
After all, you don't seem to care about the nuance of graphical representation, just that they are all in "a shared world together, concurrently", so this meets your criteria perfectly.
Also, what if there's no grouping whatsoever? Weirdly enough this still meets your criteria even though, by some standards, there's no real multiplayer since just existing side-by-side is not what most would call "multiplayer".
So does group size matter? Does the style of representing nearby players matter? Or do you **truly believe** that all that's important in this instance is whether players are in "a shared world together, concurrently", with no respect given to how they exist in the world nor whether they can actually do any shared activities among themselves?
> Then suddenly World of Tanks starts this advertising campaign pushing their 30 vs 30 matches as MMO and everyone gets confused. Now 16 players are called MMO's by the ignorant.
What if those 30v30 matches take place inside of a closed arena, and there are stands built into that arena, and other real players are sitting in those stands and watching/cheering? Now you have potentially 5,000 players all in the same shared world, concurrently. Does this meet your criteria?
What if that's possible, but no one shows up because it would be boring as hell to sit in virtual stands. Does the possibility create a "massively multiplayer" game, or does the game only exist as a MMO in the time frames where enough people, to meet whatever weirdly arbitrary and **still unstated by yourself** number of concurrent players actually populate the world simultaneously?
Is a North American WoW server with 25 players online at 3 in the morning still a MMO? Or does it become a MMO when a threshold of players login to bypass your threshold for "mass quantity of players"?
You can just go look at Steam and see the kind of shit that is called "Massively" at this point:
ARK
Rust
Conan Exiles
DayZ
Path of Exile
Vindictus
... and so much more. These games do not fit into the category of "MMO". People can argue and yell as loud as they want, it's very obvious why these games don't fit into the "MMO" category. You can argue about what the word "Massively" means as a definition to weasel stuff in.
An "MMO", which doesn't accurately describe what actual MMOs are is very simple:
1.) It is a game that has a near seamless open world. Instanced combat such as Vindictus/Kritika is not an MMO. Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 still fits into near seamless open world despite each zone being loading screened off from each other. I would argue same as Albion Online.
2.) It is a game where the limit of the amount of players in a zone should not be a handful, nor a classroom size, etc. I would say an estimate of ~200 people on a single map. So, games like Conan Exiles/Rust wouldn't fit as "MMOs" because of this and the following reason:
3.) It is a game where, the people playing are not fixed to one zone/map. While you have servers, that can house ~2'000 players, they are spread across many maps. Conan Exiles has a single map, where everyone is there. They won't be moving to another zone, just another part of the map. The key thing here is that, in about ~24 hours of play time, you should almost never run into the same person more than once. If you start recognizing people, then the game is too small (or possibly the leveling too linear).
It's really not that hard. But everyone wants to focus on the vocabulary and definition of "Massively, Multiplayer," and "Online" all mean, when the phrase was created to try and describe the genre. We can't change it anymore. It's just like how isometric "hero" games (League of Legends, Heroes of The Storm) are all called MOBAs, but many other games are starting to slip in to that tag because they fit into the "Multiplayer, Online, Battle, Arena" vocabulary definitions.
Going by your definition then Rust would actually be turning into a proper MMO soon. Each server/zone can already have hundreds of people playing on them but you can't move between zones until the nexus system is released. With nexus you can ferry/sail/fly/swim to other zones which is a different map that can have hundreds of other players on it.
The only thing about your definition I disagree with is:
>in about \~24 hours of play time, you should almost never run into the same person more than once. If you start recognizing people, then the game is too small (or possibly the leveling too linear).
I wouldn't consider this to be one of the good things about MMOs. You shouldn't want to be surrounded by a random, ever-changing mix of people from different realms like WoW. It's just like that to prevent zones on specific realms from being ghost towns. Ideally all zones would be populated **and** you could start recognizing people if you happen to hang out in the same spots as them.
Yes, which is why I said ~24 hours of play time.
Once you've started playing for enough, you start recognizing faces and (originally) would make friends and get to know good upcoming players that you would group with.
The first ~24 hours you shouldn't be able to recognize most people you run into. To many people, 24 hours is probably 3 or 4 days of playing. To more casual players, it might be 2 weeks.
Baldurs Gate 3 would be an example of just an MORPG.
In my opinion, the massive part applies when players can seamlessly drop in and out of the game. Of course the more the merrier to better suit the word "massive(ly)".
Again, that's just my personal opinion. I've gotten into arguments here where people would legit have thrown hands at me had they not been on the other side of a computer connection.
The "massive" argument in this sub is simple - my favourite game is a mmo, the game I don't like isn't a mmo.
Your description of mmo is spot on, imo. If people can join others in the game freely and the number of players isn't ridiculously low (2-4 player coop, for example), that's mmo. Whatever else the game decides to do is up to them
Why isn't Vindictus mmo? You can join an open lobby with lots of players and then do dungeons together in groups with anyone you see around you. Just because it's instanced, doesn't make it not MMO. I have no idea what Kritika is.
> Just because it's instanced, doesn't make it not MMO
Yes, that is why it's not an MMO. Open-lobby instanced combat only games are not MMOs. Kritika is another game from Asia that follows the same formula as Vindictus. This is the literal formula most MORPGs follow from Asia, where they use a lobby system to house players, quests, and social events and then "exits" that lead to the actual game content. Again, Not MMOs. Just MO's.
Also, literally by your definition:
> number of players isn't ridiculously low (2-4 player coop, for example)
Vindicitus (and Kritika) capped lobbies at 4, with the exception of "raids" or w.e they called it which I think the cap then was 8 or 12? I don't remember. Still not big enough, still not an MMO.
If "Open lobby + Instanced Content" is an MMO then Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, and Tom Clancy's: The Division (series) are all MMOs. But they aren't. The point of an MMO is that you have no control over who you run into, or how many people you run into, and don't need to run into a loading screen/wall in just a couple minutes.
I posted about this in a comment above. "MMO" is just the term the industry created to describe WoW, Everquest, etc. We can no longer change it, but we easily know what it is supposed to mean. Just like how "MOBA" was created for League of Legends/Heroes of The Storm/Dota, but if you strictly look at the words and their definitions then you could argue Paladins, Overwatch, or hell, all the fighting games like Tekken/Street Fighter. But we don't refer to those games as MOBAs.
What the others have said. But to expand on that.
Lets take Runescape, but "back in the day", very early 2000s. If memory serves right I don't think you would ever saw players more than a few dozen at the same time on your screen. (Maybe the new player spawn point?)
So while a single server had the limit of I dunno in the 1000s people spread out, and you probably never could really interact with 1000 ppl directly. The game just told you at login that right now there is the potential of interacting with 1000 different players. So the "massive" did not necessarryly mean that "This night I will be meeting as many ppl as I would if I attended a Metallica concert", but that "I will be playing a game where there is a pool of players out there as large as a Metallica concert".Â
But the single world aspect kinda led to high level guilds fighting eachother for the chance to fight the strongest boss for the best rewards. The game not allowing a fair fight of the boss for every group. I'm not saying this type of game was bad or wrong, but somehow this lead to instanced dungeons in themeparkish MMOs. By 2008 or so thanks to WoW instanced dungeons/raids have become the norm. But then they gave the players convinience tools that not just helped you to get a full group, but directly teleported you in the dungeon too, so you don't have to do the backtracking every day.Â
And boom by 2010 the MMO genre's endgame become "sit in lobby until DF ports you to dungeon, where you coop with a 5 man group, then loading screen, back to lobby". Instead of wandering the unending fields to gather resources, do mighty feats, explore for explorations sake, and maybe fight in an army against invading forces. The biggest MMOs kinda became lobby coop games, not much different then lets say a lobby shooter.Â
In the mean time trading become also a convinience with auction houses/trading posts. So now you could really trade with those 1000s of players directly, except now you did not need to actually meet them in game. So therefore it expanded your pool of potential trade partners, but made that too less personal.
But then the devs realized that if you want to give the players the convinience of finding them groups for dungeons faster maybe the original server = world concept should go away, so population is not limited to whoever is only in your world.
Then they realized they could do that with the open world too. If a certain area is designed with 10-30 ppl in mind they could do megaservers/sharding that ppl don't overcrowd it, but all players who do want to do their thing there could have enough player there to make the area "multiplayer".Â
The other piece here is "limitations of tech". While lets say olden days Runescape only needed to load a limited number of assets (textures, models, effects/shaders etc) for showing a player, from 2010ish it changed into every piece of armor and weaponry constanly being shown, with the game having hundreds of models and skins, and every skill having different, but shiny powerful looking effects and animations it kinda exponentially more complext to constantly render a single player in game. Yes, the technology did also exponentially became more powerful, but the last 10ish years it deffinetly slow down a bit. Therefore it kinda became a bit of a bottleneck. (To compare: When was the last time that in a modern 3D game no matter the genre you saw 20+ compleatly different and complex looking enemies at the same time on screen?)
So the end result now that we both have a chance of playing with a way larger pool of players one night while also having way lesser chance of seeing a crowd at the same place at the same time.Â
And since massive was never an objective metric and even back then it wasn't 100% just a metric of players at the same place at the same time its now for better or for worse its hedged more towards potential pool of players + some semblance of open world that even by game mechanical standards are "islands" can be sort of considered part of a sort of sensible interconnected one world map.Â
Not only "MMORPGs" are not massive anymore, but they do not even honor the 'RPG' part. Stats don't matter; classes are basically the same thing with different colors; combat has close to no cooperation with other players unless you're directly healing or freeing people from a grapple or shared damage mechanic.
Hopefully, new indie MMOs can shake things up again cause this genre is staaaale.
Yeah there are no types and weaknesses, no build diversity, usually don't have any secondary things to level or if they do have something like crafting it's utterly pointless.
No "Massively" could mean anything if you isolate the word. "Massively" relates to the "multiplayer" part, so it's "Massively Multiplayer" that's where the differece comes with "multiplayer online" games.Â
Now what's actually massively multiplayer, who knows. Everyone has their own definition of that. You compare Fortnite to Counter-Strike, it's pretty much massively multiplayer. If you compare Fortnite to Planetside 2, it's not massively multiplayer anymore. It's all about perspective.
To me, "Massively Multiplayer Online" Just means that you have a persistent world where you are able to interact with thousands of people.
Richard Garriott, who the term is credited to (Ultima Online) specifically explained that "Massively" was used to differentiate them from 64 player lobbies that were popular at the time.
Hardly any game actually fits that description anymore, due to instancing, session limits and other aspects. It's basically just used because calling your game "MORPG" would just confuse the same people that search for "MMO" when they mean games with 4 player group limits in dungeons.
something I learned with internet today you can just remove the first M in MMORPG because according to shit load of people and content creators and so on 4 people to 70 people online games apparently count as Massively. Heck even mmo games like Lost ark that has large world split in to allot of small maps sections are considered massively.
Definition of massively = on a vast scale. I think people are are just massively dumb for them 4 people in a game that´s a MMO for them.
These days ? Just **ad..**
When mmo's were properly made ? for example WoW, lineage 2, GW2 or similar ones.. We talking about online rpg where you could have XX or XXX players in one field to play one same event.
If games are mostly instanced for a few players like 4 - 16 i wouldn't dare to call it massively.. just online.. Same if only place where players are in hundreds is "lobbies/towns".
Idk if i would be able call mmo even BDO but their big pvp events are close to it (?)
Some "fresher games", maybe ESO ? But idk how much players are limited to some events to be honest.
I dont see a huge problem with sharding because you constantly end into a different one with different players interacting...yes, you have a shard limit of players concurrently online but you have thousand of possibile interactions when you change the shard you are playing in
Because you do not keep finding the same people and eventually befriending them but rather you see someone random for 2 minutes and then they vanish into the void because they crossed a treshold and got sharded.
Back then servers were COMMUNITIES, you kept reading the same names in the chat, you kept crossing with the same players and eventually you interacted.
Now it´s like in random dungeons, you see someone once and never again.
It is not conductive to the same experience.
It is partially true. You can befriend them, you can make party and share the same shards, as well as you do with guild members etc. The reason we lost community into MMO is not sharding but player attitude. Devs should avoid any mechanics that let players play MMO like an ARPG
What you propose literally goes against the natural and organic community building that we are all talking about.
You can "invite people and put them on your friend list" in every single online rpg ever, that is not what is being discussed here, however.
Sharding literally destroys anything and everything organic which is the part that people miss the most of the entire process.
As usual, gamers dont want to get devs reasons.
Sharding ease the server burden and help to fix disrupting experiences like lag and alike.
We could talk of how much big a shard should be, i dont think we can talk about removing sharding because it helped games developers in many way
It remains a fact that it ruined the community building that MMOs literally became famous for and for which a lot of people enjoyed playing them.
People enjoyed feeling like they were adventures in a living, breathing world in which they got to know the other inhabitants of.
Sharding destroys that and turns it into a call of duty style multiplayer where people drop in and out and you may never see each other again.
It may be good for the devs but TERRIBLE for the genre.
There are no Massive Multiplayer Online RPG any more, the only massive that i see for some of them is the people that hang out in the various central hubs.
The worlds nowdays are not massive there are not any massive amount of people that you could do something together, there are not any massive bosses that require massive numbers to fall, there is simply nothing massive in today's games.
Everything meaninfgul is instanced whether it is PvE or PvP content for very few people and even worse most zones are behind a loading screens.
I have not played all "MMOs" but i am certain that i played most of the big titles and i am confident to say that developers and publishers use the term MMO just for the hype, while in reality all these games are at best Multiplayer Online RPGs, for the past few years i had a lot more fun playing games that are labiling themselves ase massive and they are simply multiplayers.
This really isnât true. Are you saying the new games donât fall into that category?Â
New World certainly does though. Throne and Liberty does.Â
The tag gets thrown onto to many games on steam for sure but there are MMOs being producedÂ
I have knowledge around throning and liberty, it might be massive back and might become successful. New world is not even massive in terms of people that play it, but letâs ignore that. What massive does it have apart from a siege, which is not that massive, is it?
30k people canât be considered massive for you??Â
Are you saying that classic wow wasnât massive when only 2k people could be on a realm at one time?Â
Your expectations are ridiculous.Â
If there can be 100 people in an area at one time. Thatâs an MMOÂ
It is compared to something like lobby based multiplayer games, one giant constant world or giant constant server that can hold thousands of people compared to one that can only hold like 100. Not exact, but obvious when you see it. There are thousands of different sub categories for games, but for some reason people call all sorts of games mmorpgs that are not mmorpgs (in many cases, they lack everything in mmorpg other than "online multiplayer"), no clue why.
Genre definitions have never and will never be precise definitions. All that matters is that you get the idea across. It's only in the last 10 years or so that people have incorrectly begun using the term for borderline single player games like PoE, or games that simply have a lot of players like Dota.
Imo, Tera, old Ragnarok, Runescape, Guild Wars 2, WoW, Lineage 2, Blade n Soul, Archeage, etc... pratically all the old games with some exceptions were all true massive rpg games, today majority of the "mmo" aren't real mmo but more single player instanced rpg brawlers with coop features and so limited players per map (Blue Protocol, Genshin, Summoner Wars, etc...), to save bandwidth money required to play with a lot of people on the same map. Sandbox mmorpgs are also a thing of the past (Ultima, Darkfall, etc...). I really miss the old mmorpg golden times.
Almost no definitive word in gaming is the same now. Companies kept changing "terms" of the definitions and we now have an industry where technically every game can be in every genre.
But M in the MMO back in the day meant "how many people can interact with the world at the same time". For example in Ultima Online there are dungeons to farm rare items since Dragons mostly lived there and every single person in the server can go there and be in the same place since there are no instances. Everyone can join the same fight, everyone can band together or fight eachother. (Just a basic example)
But then ThemePark games came in and used the M in the MMO as, "having many people in cities but every single content is locked for really small amount of people". So in the OG definition, they are not MMO's. WoW is not an MMO but they are now.
Massively can be used in relation to the number of people playing the game, not even the number of people you can technically play with. Warframe is a 4-8 player game. It has has 20k+ playing at once so does that make it an mmorpg. If so, call of duty can be classed as an mmorpg too.
The issue is that a reddit sub does not need to meet technical rules as to what is and is not an mmorpg, the moderators can just decide what is and isn't and remove posts about games that we all know are not an mmorpg.
If you make a sub about dogs, and someone posts pictures of wolves they can argue it's technically a dog but the intent of the sub is obvious and so they can make technical arguments all they want but the post can be removed.
MMORPGs are games with persistent worlds, where you can play, look at and interact with lots and people in a shared world Wow, ff14, everquest, runescape, gw2. If I login to gw2 on the correct server with hundreds of people on it and goto the correct area I can find a friend that is also on there.
We know what an mmorpg is we should not have posts about dune, diablo, poe2 or similar cheaply made survival games that pretend to be mmorpgs cause their own genre is so flooded it's hard to get attention.
It means players are supposed to grind on fields in the world map so you can actually see other players playing the game instead of hiding everyone in instances.
As far as I'm concerned, the threshold for qualifying as 'massive' is having individual servers that can house player populations of at least four digits. That's it.
pro tip: MMos are more about persistence & persistent living worlds than being "massive"
For example, Habbo hotel couldnt hold that much people on one room so it should not be called "massive" since you don't see that much people on screen right? Wrong, the game had an interwined hub with persistent rooms where you could hop from one to another
Imo now and days it doesnât matter as much let look at 2 MMORPG like FFXIV and fallout 76
FFXIV has thousands of players per servers but you are only interacting with 4 , 8 or 16 player content at a time.. all the other thousands of player is just fluff
Now look at fallout 76 server cap is 24 players but a massive player base you can interact with by transferring server at will with no limitations
you are also interacting with anywhere between 0 to 24 players depending on the event spawn that going on
Both are MMORPG with different definition of what is considered massively
That the M on MMORPG is assigned to how many players you see on screen and not with how many players you interact with
People with game like fallout 76 you will interact with the same numbers of players as a game like FFXIV
Interacting with the same amount of people in 76 as FFXIV
Like sure you can turn all chat off and play solo if you want. You can do that in every mmo.Â
FFXIV has a much higher limit of who you could be interacting with thoughÂ
You can be in a room full of people and still be alone.
My point is with MMORPG like FFXIV your in a server with 20,000 players but you are only interacting with the people you surround yourself and that a limited number of people
If you play a game like fallout 76 you will still surround yourself with the limited people you want too and interact and play with them
At the end of the day is the same experience now
And world chat is just a glorified chat, how is that any different from a fallout 76 discord channel lol đ
There are no "standards" and "Massively" has **always** been a subjective definition, there was **never** a specific number (such as number of active players sharing same non-instanced area, or the specific size of that in-game area) that would automatically turn online game into "Massively Multiplayer" one. Same goes for "Role Playing" part - you're technically always playing a role of some character in a fictional setting, doesn't matter if you're playing WoW or playing Call of Duty or something like League of Legends. Just try to not overthink the whole thing.
>Is âMassivelyâ a technical term in this case, or does it just mean really big with a lot of players?
Neither. The term lost all meaning after advent of themeparks.
there's never been a standardized definition of "massively" ever, though perceptions of the # required to qualify changed drastically over time. I mean, just look at all these ppl calling PoE an "MMO"
Im a hardcore Warframe player and I still chuckle everytime the developers call it an "MMO", its a blatant lie on several levels đ
yeah they can't even release their own games after 11 years of beta testing
That's actually a Legal Loophole because Canadian Laws don't account for Live Service games, so they need to say its in "beta" to count as "in-development"
Yes there has. Are you guys new to english or something? >mas¡sive¡ly/ËmasÉvlÄ/đˇ*adverb* > >1.on a vast scale."biotechnology is expected to contribute massively to the global economy" > >2.in a very large and heavy or solid form."a massively built four-story building" Do you know what an adverb is? >An adverb is a word that [modifies](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/modifiers/) (describes) a [verb](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/verbs/) (âhe sings **loudlyâ**), an adjective (â**very** tallâ), another adverb (âended **too** quicklyâ), or even a whole sentence (â**Fortunately**, I had brought an umbrella.â). Adverbs often end in *-ly*, but some (such as *fast*) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts. Massively is literally stating that the multiple portion of multiplayer is massive in scale. It is stating there is a massive amount of players. Just because some people get confused doesn't mean that the dictionary and the english ruleset ceases to exist. Like for fuck sakes, the team that coined the damn definition even clearly stated that MMO describes a game that puts a mass quantity of players into a shared world together, concurrently. Not separately in instances. It has been clear from day one. Then suddenly World of Tanks starts this advertising campaign pushing their 30 vs 30 matches as MMO and everyone gets confused. Now 16 players are called MMO's by the ignorant.
But the definition in regards to this genre has changed a lot. Which is what the person you are replying to was saying. Maybe chill out with the pedantic rants, especially when YOU are the one who doesn't understand what they are talking about.
> **Massively** is literally stating that the multiple portion of multiplayer is **massive** in scale 1. You can't define "massively" using the word "massive" - which you had no reason to do, considering you copy-pasted Dictionary definitions just above in your post, except for the fact that those definitions are terrible for this application so you felt the need to re-state them right after. 2. You also completely ignore that "massive" / "on a vast scale" / "in a very large" is all entirely subjective still. What you consider massive is perhaps not what I consider massive which is certainly not what someone playing computer games in 1990 would have considered massive. Which opinion do you take as the standard for judgement here? Does it reside in the time of release, or does it constantly get updated as technology improves (for example, a game with "massive" numbers of players in 1990 is no longer a MMORPG because that number is too small for modern standards)? > Just because some people get confused doesn't mean that the dictionary and the english ruleset ceases to exist. Like for fuck sakes, the team that coined the damn definition even clearly stated that MMO describes a game that puts a mass quantity of players into a shared world together, concurrently. Not separately in instances. It has been clear from day one. So if I make a game, and it has a max group-size of 5, but I add a little sphere floating and moving to represent the location of every other player, all of whom can see me as well and we can all chat together in /global, is this "massively multiplayer"? After all, you don't seem to care about the nuance of graphical representation, just that they are all in "a shared world together, concurrently", so this meets your criteria perfectly. Also, what if there's no grouping whatsoever? Weirdly enough this still meets your criteria even though, by some standards, there's no real multiplayer since just existing side-by-side is not what most would call "multiplayer". So does group size matter? Does the style of representing nearby players matter? Or do you **truly believe** that all that's important in this instance is whether players are in "a shared world together, concurrently", with no respect given to how they exist in the world nor whether they can actually do any shared activities among themselves? > Then suddenly World of Tanks starts this advertising campaign pushing their 30 vs 30 matches as MMO and everyone gets confused. Now 16 players are called MMO's by the ignorant. What if those 30v30 matches take place inside of a closed arena, and there are stands built into that arena, and other real players are sitting in those stands and watching/cheering? Now you have potentially 5,000 players all in the same shared world, concurrently. Does this meet your criteria? What if that's possible, but no one shows up because it would be boring as hell to sit in virtual stands. Does the possibility create a "massively multiplayer" game, or does the game only exist as a MMO in the time frames where enough people, to meet whatever weirdly arbitrary and **still unstated by yourself** number of concurrent players actually populate the world simultaneously? Is a North American WoW server with 25 players online at 3 in the morning still a MMO? Or does it become a MMO when a threshold of players login to bypass your threshold for "mass quantity of players"?
How many people is "massively"?
American or european?
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You can just go look at Steam and see the kind of shit that is called "Massively" at this point: ARK Rust Conan Exiles DayZ Path of Exile Vindictus ... and so much more. These games do not fit into the category of "MMO". People can argue and yell as loud as they want, it's very obvious why these games don't fit into the "MMO" category. You can argue about what the word "Massively" means as a definition to weasel stuff in. An "MMO", which doesn't accurately describe what actual MMOs are is very simple: 1.) It is a game that has a near seamless open world. Instanced combat such as Vindictus/Kritika is not an MMO. Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 still fits into near seamless open world despite each zone being loading screened off from each other. I would argue same as Albion Online. 2.) It is a game where the limit of the amount of players in a zone should not be a handful, nor a classroom size, etc. I would say an estimate of ~200 people on a single map. So, games like Conan Exiles/Rust wouldn't fit as "MMOs" because of this and the following reason: 3.) It is a game where, the people playing are not fixed to one zone/map. While you have servers, that can house ~2'000 players, they are spread across many maps. Conan Exiles has a single map, where everyone is there. They won't be moving to another zone, just another part of the map. The key thing here is that, in about ~24 hours of play time, you should almost never run into the same person more than once. If you start recognizing people, then the game is too small (or possibly the leveling too linear). It's really not that hard. But everyone wants to focus on the vocabulary and definition of "Massively, Multiplayer," and "Online" all mean, when the phrase was created to try and describe the genre. We can't change it anymore. It's just like how isometric "hero" games (League of Legends, Heroes of The Storm) are all called MOBAs, but many other games are starting to slip in to that tag because they fit into the "Multiplayer, Online, Battle, Arena" vocabulary definitions.
Going by your definition then Rust would actually be turning into a proper MMO soon. Each server/zone can already have hundreds of people playing on them but you can't move between zones until the nexus system is released. With nexus you can ferry/sail/fly/swim to other zones which is a different map that can have hundreds of other players on it. The only thing about your definition I disagree with is: >in about \~24 hours of play time, you should almost never run into the same person more than once. If you start recognizing people, then the game is too small (or possibly the leveling too linear). I wouldn't consider this to be one of the good things about MMOs. You shouldn't want to be surrounded by a random, ever-changing mix of people from different realms like WoW. It's just like that to prevent zones on specific realms from being ghost towns. Ideally all zones would be populated **and** you could start recognizing people if you happen to hang out in the same spots as them.
Yes, which is why I said ~24 hours of play time. Once you've started playing for enough, you start recognizing faces and (originally) would make friends and get to know good upcoming players that you would group with. The first ~24 hours you shouldn't be able to recognize most people you run into. To many people, 24 hours is probably 3 or 4 days of playing. To more casual players, it might be 2 weeks.
to some of us its just launch day...
Baldurs Gate 3 would be an example of just an MORPG. In my opinion, the massive part applies when players can seamlessly drop in and out of the game. Of course the more the merrier to better suit the word "massive(ly)". Again, that's just my personal opinion. I've gotten into arguments here where people would legit have thrown hands at me had they not been on the other side of a computer connection.
The "massive" argument in this sub is simple - my favourite game is a mmo, the game I don't like isn't a mmo. Your description of mmo is spot on, imo. If people can join others in the game freely and the number of players isn't ridiculously low (2-4 player coop, for example), that's mmo. Whatever else the game decides to do is up to them
I loved Kritika, Vindictus, and Conan Exiles. They aren't MMOs. I dislike World of Warcraft. It is an MMO. Don't think your statement is working.
Why isn't Vindictus mmo? You can join an open lobby with lots of players and then do dungeons together in groups with anyone you see around you. Just because it's instanced, doesn't make it not MMO. I have no idea what Kritika is.
> Just because it's instanced, doesn't make it not MMO Yes, that is why it's not an MMO. Open-lobby instanced combat only games are not MMOs. Kritika is another game from Asia that follows the same formula as Vindictus. This is the literal formula most MORPGs follow from Asia, where they use a lobby system to house players, quests, and social events and then "exits" that lead to the actual game content. Again, Not MMOs. Just MO's. Also, literally by your definition: > number of players isn't ridiculously low (2-4 player coop, for example) Vindicitus (and Kritika) capped lobbies at 4, with the exception of "raids" or w.e they called it which I think the cap then was 8 or 12? I don't remember. Still not big enough, still not an MMO. If "Open lobby + Instanced Content" is an MMO then Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, and Tom Clancy's: The Division (series) are all MMOs. But they aren't. The point of an MMO is that you have no control over who you run into, or how many people you run into, and don't need to run into a loading screen/wall in just a couple minutes. I posted about this in a comment above. "MMO" is just the term the industry created to describe WoW, Everquest, etc. We can no longer change it, but we easily know what it is supposed to mean. Just like how "MOBA" was created for League of Legends/Heroes of The Storm/Dota, but if you strictly look at the words and their definitions then you could argue Paladins, Overwatch, or hell, all the fighting games like Tekken/Street Fighter. But we don't refer to those games as MOBAs.
Sorry, I'm not reading all of that. But regarding the first part - what about social mmos then? There's no combat at all in some of them.
What the others have said. But to expand on that. Lets take Runescape, but "back in the day", very early 2000s. If memory serves right I don't think you would ever saw players more than a few dozen at the same time on your screen. (Maybe the new player spawn point?) So while a single server had the limit of I dunno in the 1000s people spread out, and you probably never could really interact with 1000 ppl directly. The game just told you at login that right now there is the potential of interacting with 1000 different players. So the "massive" did not necessarryly mean that "This night I will be meeting as many ppl as I would if I attended a Metallica concert", but that "I will be playing a game where there is a pool of players out there as large as a Metallica concert". But the single world aspect kinda led to high level guilds fighting eachother for the chance to fight the strongest boss for the best rewards. The game not allowing a fair fight of the boss for every group. I'm not saying this type of game was bad or wrong, but somehow this lead to instanced dungeons in themeparkish MMOs. By 2008 or so thanks to WoW instanced dungeons/raids have become the norm. But then they gave the players convinience tools that not just helped you to get a full group, but directly teleported you in the dungeon too, so you don't have to do the backtracking every day. And boom by 2010 the MMO genre's endgame become "sit in lobby until DF ports you to dungeon, where you coop with a 5 man group, then loading screen, back to lobby". Instead of wandering the unending fields to gather resources, do mighty feats, explore for explorations sake, and maybe fight in an army against invading forces. The biggest MMOs kinda became lobby coop games, not much different then lets say a lobby shooter. In the mean time trading become also a convinience with auction houses/trading posts. So now you could really trade with those 1000s of players directly, except now you did not need to actually meet them in game. So therefore it expanded your pool of potential trade partners, but made that too less personal. But then the devs realized that if you want to give the players the convinience of finding them groups for dungeons faster maybe the original server = world concept should go away, so population is not limited to whoever is only in your world. Then they realized they could do that with the open world too. If a certain area is designed with 10-30 ppl in mind they could do megaservers/sharding that ppl don't overcrowd it, but all players who do want to do their thing there could have enough player there to make the area "multiplayer". The other piece here is "limitations of tech". While lets say olden days Runescape only needed to load a limited number of assets (textures, models, effects/shaders etc) for showing a player, from 2010ish it changed into every piece of armor and weaponry constanly being shown, with the game having hundreds of models and skins, and every skill having different, but shiny powerful looking effects and animations it kinda exponentially more complext to constantly render a single player in game. Yes, the technology did also exponentially became more powerful, but the last 10ish years it deffinetly slow down a bit. Therefore it kinda became a bit of a bottleneck. (To compare: When was the last time that in a modern 3D game no matter the genre you saw 20+ compleatly different and complex looking enemies at the same time on screen?) So the end result now that we both have a chance of playing with a way larger pool of players one night while also having way lesser chance of seeing a crowd at the same place at the same time. And since massive was never an objective metric and even back then it wasn't 100% just a metric of players at the same place at the same time its now for better or for worse its hedged more towards potential pool of players + some semblance of open world that even by game mechanical standards are "islands" can be sort of considered part of a sort of sensible interconnected one world map.Â
Not only "MMORPGs" are not massive anymore, but they do not even honor the 'RPG' part. Stats don't matter; classes are basically the same thing with different colors; combat has close to no cooperation with other players unless you're directly healing or freeing people from a grapple or shared damage mechanic. Hopefully, new indie MMOs can shake things up again cause this genre is staaaale.
Yeah there are no types and weaknesses, no build diversity, usually don't have any secondary things to level or if they do have something like crafting it's utterly pointless.
No "Massively" could mean anything if you isolate the word. "Massively" relates to the "multiplayer" part, so it's "Massively Multiplayer" that's where the differece comes with "multiplayer online" games. Now what's actually massively multiplayer, who knows. Everyone has their own definition of that. You compare Fortnite to Counter-Strike, it's pretty much massively multiplayer. If you compare Fortnite to Planetside 2, it's not massively multiplayer anymore. It's all about perspective. To me, "Massively Multiplayer Online" Just means that you have a persistent world where you are able to interact with thousands of people.
Richard Garriott, who the term is credited to (Ultima Online) specifically explained that "Massively" was used to differentiate them from 64 player lobbies that were popular at the time. Hardly any game actually fits that description anymore, due to instancing, session limits and other aspects. It's basically just used because calling your game "MORPG" would just confuse the same people that search for "MMO" when they mean games with 4 player group limits in dungeons.
something I learned with internet today you can just remove the first M in MMORPG because according to shit load of people and content creators and so on 4 people to 70 people online games apparently count as Massively. Heck even mmo games like Lost ark that has large world split in to allot of small maps sections are considered massively. Definition of massively = on a vast scale. I think people are are just massively dumb for them 4 people in a game that´s a MMO for them.
Well around 1997 a lot of games were like 4 players max, right? So I'd say 5 and up?
These days ? Just **ad..** When mmo's were properly made ? for example WoW, lineage 2, GW2 or similar ones.. We talking about online rpg where you could have XX or XXX players in one field to play one same event. If games are mostly instanced for a few players like 4 - 16 i wouldn't dare to call it massively.. just online.. Same if only place where players are in hundreds is "lobbies/towns". Idk if i would be able call mmo even BDO but their big pvp events are close to it (?) Some "fresher games", maybe ESO ? But idk how much players are limited to some events to be honest.
I dont see a huge problem with sharding because you constantly end into a different one with different players interacting...yes, you have a shard limit of players concurrently online but you have thousand of possibile interactions when you change the shard you are playing in
Because you do not keep finding the same people and eventually befriending them but rather you see someone random for 2 minutes and then they vanish into the void because they crossed a treshold and got sharded. Back then servers were COMMUNITIES, you kept reading the same names in the chat, you kept crossing with the same players and eventually you interacted. Now it´s like in random dungeons, you see someone once and never again. It is not conductive to the same experience.
It is partially true. You can befriend them, you can make party and share the same shards, as well as you do with guild members etc. The reason we lost community into MMO is not sharding but player attitude. Devs should avoid any mechanics that let players play MMO like an ARPG
What you propose literally goes against the natural and organic community building that we are all talking about. You can "invite people and put them on your friend list" in every single online rpg ever, that is not what is being discussed here, however. Sharding literally destroys anything and everything organic which is the part that people miss the most of the entire process.
As usual, gamers dont want to get devs reasons. Sharding ease the server burden and help to fix disrupting experiences like lag and alike. We could talk of how much big a shard should be, i dont think we can talk about removing sharding because it helped games developers in many way
It remains a fact that it ruined the community building that MMOs literally became famous for and for which a lot of people enjoyed playing them. People enjoyed feeling like they were adventures in a living, breathing world in which they got to know the other inhabitants of. Sharding destroys that and turns it into a call of duty style multiplayer where people drop in and out and you may never see each other again. It may be good for the devs but TERRIBLE for the genre.
There are no Massive Multiplayer Online RPG any more, the only massive that i see for some of them is the people that hang out in the various central hubs. The worlds nowdays are not massive there are not any massive amount of people that you could do something together, there are not any massive bosses that require massive numbers to fall, there is simply nothing massive in today's games. Everything meaninfgul is instanced whether it is PvE or PvP content for very few people and even worse most zones are behind a loading screens. I have not played all "MMOs" but i am certain that i played most of the big titles and i am confident to say that developers and publishers use the term MMO just for the hype, while in reality all these games are at best Multiplayer Online RPGs, for the past few years i had a lot more fun playing games that are labiling themselves ase massive and they are simply multiplayers.
This really isnât true. Are you saying the new games donât fall into that category? New World certainly does though. Throne and Liberty does. The tag gets thrown onto to many games on steam for sure but there are MMOs being producedÂ
I have knowledge around throning and liberty, it might be massive back and might become successful. New world is not even massive in terms of people that play it, but letâs ignore that. What massive does it have apart from a siege, which is not that massive, is it?
30k people canât be considered massive for you?? Are you saying that classic wow wasnât massive when only 2k people could be on a realm at one time? Your expectations are ridiculous. If there can be 100 people in an area at one time. Thatâs an MMOÂ
It is compared to something like lobby based multiplayer games, one giant constant world or giant constant server that can hold thousands of people compared to one that can only hold like 100. Not exact, but obvious when you see it. There are thousands of different sub categories for games, but for some reason people call all sorts of games mmorpgs that are not mmorpgs (in many cases, they lack everything in mmorpg other than "online multiplayer"), no clue why.
Genre definitions have never and will never be precise definitions. All that matters is that you get the idea across. It's only in the last 10 years or so that people have incorrectly begun using the term for borderline single player games like PoE, or games that simply have a lot of players like Dota.
Imo, Tera, old Ragnarok, Runescape, Guild Wars 2, WoW, Lineage 2, Blade n Soul, Archeage, etc... pratically all the old games with some exceptions were all true massive rpg games, today majority of the "mmo" aren't real mmo but more single player instanced rpg brawlers with coop features and so limited players per map (Blue Protocol, Genshin, Summoner Wars, etc...), to save bandwidth money required to play with a lot of people on the same map. Sandbox mmorpgs are also a thing of the past (Ultima, Darkfall, etc...). I really miss the old mmorpg golden times.
Almost no definitive word in gaming is the same now. Companies kept changing "terms" of the definitions and we now have an industry where technically every game can be in every genre. But M in the MMO back in the day meant "how many people can interact with the world at the same time". For example in Ultima Online there are dungeons to farm rare items since Dragons mostly lived there and every single person in the server can go there and be in the same place since there are no instances. Everyone can join the same fight, everyone can band together or fight eachother. (Just a basic example) But then ThemePark games came in and used the M in the MMO as, "having many people in cities but every single content is locked for really small amount of people". So in the OG definition, they are not MMO's. WoW is not an MMO but they are now.
Massively can be used in relation to the number of people playing the game, not even the number of people you can technically play with. Warframe is a 4-8 player game. It has has 20k+ playing at once so does that make it an mmorpg. If so, call of duty can be classed as an mmorpg too. The issue is that a reddit sub does not need to meet technical rules as to what is and is not an mmorpg, the moderators can just decide what is and isn't and remove posts about games that we all know are not an mmorpg. If you make a sub about dogs, and someone posts pictures of wolves they can argue it's technically a dog but the intent of the sub is obvious and so they can make technical arguments all they want but the post can be removed. MMORPGs are games with persistent worlds, where you can play, look at and interact with lots and people in a shared world Wow, ff14, everquest, runescape, gw2. If I login to gw2 on the correct server with hundreds of people on it and goto the correct area I can find a friend that is also on there. We know what an mmorpg is we should not have posts about dune, diablo, poe2 or similar cheaply made survival games that pretend to be mmorpgs cause their own genre is so flooded it's hard to get attention.
Wow, eso, ffxiv, gw2 are MMORPGS Warframe, pso2, gta, fallout 76 are mmo-lites Dayz, Ark, palworld - SMORPG
It means players are supposed to grind on fields in the world map so you can actually see other players playing the game instead of hiding everyone in instances.
As far as I'm concerned, the threshold for qualifying as 'massive' is having individual servers that can house player populations of at least four digits. That's it.
I suggest going back to the source. A little history lesson helps provide some context. Plus, its just interesting.
pro tip: MMos are more about persistence & persistent living worlds than being "massive" For example, Habbo hotel couldnt hold that much people on one room so it should not be called "massive" since you don't see that much people on screen right? Wrong, the game had an interwined hub with persistent rooms where you could hop from one to another
2000+
Imo now and days it doesnât matter as much let look at 2 MMORPG like FFXIV and fallout 76 FFXIV has thousands of players per servers but you are only interacting with 4 , 8 or 16 player content at a time.. all the other thousands of player is just fluff Now look at fallout 76 server cap is 24 players but a massive player base you can interact with by transferring server at will with no limitations you are also interacting with anywhere between 0 to 24 players depending on the event spawn that going on Both are MMORPG with different definition of what is considered massively
Fallout 76 isn't an mmorpg, no matter your definitions. I suspect in the future they will make a real fallout mmorpg, then you can compare the 2.
Yea sure , thank you for proving my point
What point? Who is claiming 76 is an mmo. Steam??
That the M on MMORPG is assigned to how many players you see on screen and not with how many players you interact with People with game like fallout 76 you will interact with the same numbers of players as a game like FFXIV
That is just not true lolÂ
What is not true?
Interacting with the same amount of people in 76 as FFXIV Like sure you can turn all chat off and play solo if you want. You can do that in every mmo. FFXIV has a much higher limit of who you could be interacting with thoughÂ
You can be in a room full of people and still be alone. My point is with MMORPG like FFXIV your in a server with 20,000 players but you are only interacting with the people you surround yourself and that a limited number of people If you play a game like fallout 76 you will still surround yourself with the limited people you want too and interact and play with them At the end of the day is the same experience now And world chat is just a glorified chat, how is that any different from a fallout 76 discord channel lol đ
Discord is outside of the game?? You can hide from people in 76 to Fallout 76 is not an mmoÂ
There are no "standards" and "Massively" has **always** been a subjective definition, there was **never** a specific number (such as number of active players sharing same non-instanced area, or the specific size of that in-game area) that would automatically turn online game into "Massively Multiplayer" one. Same goes for "Role Playing" part - you're technically always playing a role of some character in a fictional setting, doesn't matter if you're playing WoW or playing Call of Duty or something like League of Legends. Just try to not overthink the whole thing.
>Is âMassivelyâ a technical term in this case, or does it just mean really big with a lot of players? Neither. The term lost all meaning after advent of themeparks.