TrayDay

What is an MMO, and what isn't? There was the central question in a hearty debate in the Massively offices yesterday after some of us watched (or attended) the Nintendo and Sony E3 press conferences. It's an old question, but it's all the more relevant in the context of E3 this year.

At the Nintendo conference, a game called Animal Crossing: City Folk was announced for the Wii. In that game, each player has his or her own persistent town hosted on Nintendo's servers. There are likely thousands of players, but only four players can be in each town at a time. Is Animal Crossing: City Folk an MMO? On one hand, you have thousands of players in persistent worlds. On the other: only four players per world? That doesn't sound very massive! We decided it's not, but what do you think?

A couple of hours later, Sony announced a PlayStation 3 game called MAG, which stands for "Massive Action Game." In MAG, up to 256 players battle over control points in a persistent battlefield. There's even character advancement. Is MAG an MMO? That depends on just how many players have to be in the world for it to be called "massive," doesn't it? You might say that there should be thousands. Then again, some first generation MMOs like Meridian 59 didn't usually have much more than a couple hundred people on each server. Tough call?

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MrWafflez

An MMO?

A MMO.

Massively fails. Go read Keen and Graev.

As far as I am concerned, a MMO is:

- An online game in which the world is always changing, so it's not sunny no matter when you play. It goes through a cycle even when you're not online.
- An online game where there are hundreds of other real players you can interact with. This includes lobbies, towns, etc. By hundreds, 256 wouldn't work. I would say 400+ minimum.
- Must have some form of "party" play that supports at least 6 people.

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TrayDay

Party play is a must for any game online unless it's having to be pure pvp based arena type game but even those too have party play; Fury.

Also I'm beginning to think that it's going to be a while for sony to actually get into gear. But they are still going to fight the fight.

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Junkyarddawg

Bah, sony isn't going to win this "fight". It's business to win in the video game industry, it's bad business to be way ahead of the competition. If sony/microsoft managers to knock the other one off guess what happens? Games get even MORE unoriginal, crappy, just churned out for money then they are now. Why try when you have no competition or your competition is so far behind they can't do anything? The best thing for sony and microsoft, is for them to always be equal and at the same level. That way they are forced to make better games to out do each other instead of just slapping together some crappy game and saying, "Guess what, if you wanna game you have to buy this, I know it sucks and I don't care, its your only choice. Since its the only one you can buy, I'm gonna put no effort into it that way I make lots of money."

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Jrgsubzero

*hugs his Wii*

Nintendo always has been a great provider of nice games.

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hiboy2004

So RuneScape isn't a MMO? It doesn't have night or a party system.

Or do you make special exemptions? In which case anything you say is void and null.

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Alivada

*trades his wii*
The casual wii imo failed all the games are to easy and you can try with your eyes closed and wave the stick (apart from brawl one of the only good games). The DS on the other hand owns the PSP (i have both) in gameplay and it has better games.

For an MMO though i want a huge world with at least 500+ players. I don't see room based games as being MMOs because all though there are lots of people online you arn't all in the same world.

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Catch 22

Actually, since they've updated the graphics, Runescape looks more moderate, compared to they're previous Java graphics.
Runescape took a big leap, now all the non-members must wait until Runescape's new HD option is closed-beta in order for them to use the new HD function... that's if JAGeX Ltd. isn't a hog company, which they are, and let non-members use HD.
and yet not to mention, I knew this was going to happen, with the newer graphics, and RS being updated to suit, well, become closer to today's graphics, the Membership fee's are raising at least $1-2.00, if not more.
JAGeX Ltd. announced that, like 1-2weeks ago.

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MrWafflez

No, Runescape is not a MMO.

There's no multiplayer involved.

(Note: I know nothing of how this assist/lend/clan stuff works as of yet)

Massively Online Role Playing game. MORPG.

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Simei

You aren't the same person that said TF2 wasn't an FPS are you..

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