I think that part of what makes Fortnite not strictly an MMO is that, as I understand it, you don’t create your own “original character” – you play one of the stock characters in the game, though you have some ability to customize the character’s look.
Also, compared to a traditional MMO, a game like Fortnite doesn’t have a lot in the way of storyline or plot – its focus is on combat, and though there may be some level of “story” hung upon the setting, it’s not like a game like Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, or Star Wars: The Old Republic, where you play through a series of missions (solo and/or as part of a group) to experience a story.
I’d say MMORPGs are a subset of MMOs. The important part of MMOs are a character that develops as the player advances and a persistent world that doesn’t reset each play session.
And some largish number of concurrent players. That is harder to judge, because different games have zones, instances, servers, shards, etc built in different ways. Look at how WoW implements zones. It’s hard to have more than several hundred characters in view of each other, but it’s still an MMO.
MMORPGs have more detailed character development and bigger worlds, with storylines and detailed NPCs.
For example, Planetside 2 is an MMO, but not an MMORPG. It has character development and a persistent world. And on the order of a thousand concurrent players per continent. But no storyline. It’s an MMOFPS (first person shooter).
Bottom line, I don’t think the MMO genre is dying; instead it’s evolving. Something like WoW might not be viable for a new game, but there’s a lot of the MMO gamut to explore still.
Oh, I thought of game I’m watching looking towards: Playable Worlds, by Raph Koster. I don’t know how it will turn out, be he’s a great MMO designer.
I’ve never heard the term “MMO” used as anything other than an abbreviation of an acronym that would otherwise be quite annoying to say out loud, but I’ll concede the point.
If we’re using “MMO” to simply mean any online game with lots of concurrent players, of course it’s not dying. I was exclusively talking about MMORPGs both in this thread and in the post that inspired it.
But there’s really only been one MMO like WOW in terms of popularity. There have been many online role playing games that are basically Dungeons and Dragons, but in terms of popularity, WOW is on its own planet. For quite awhile it had more active users than all other MMORPGs combined; it peaked at about 12 million subscribers, a number never approached by any other game. Even now, just WOW Classic has more subscribers than most MMOs.
The thing is that online RPGs are basically what computers are made for, game-wise. It’s kind of the ultimate gaming experience and computers are only getting better. As long as people have computers they’re gonna want games, and immersive role playing games are going to be popular forever. What you need for the next WOW is a really good game, put out by a company that knows what it’s doing, and which is, to be honest, cooler than what’s come before.
I liked The Old Republic, and it had some good innovations, but honestly it’s just a D&D game with the Star Wars license and better dialogue. It’s not a different GAME. All of them are the same and most are distinctly inferior to WOW; I have tried almost all of them, and invariably in very little time I realized I play playing a WOW game but worse. What it’ll take for an MMORPG to get to ten or fifteen million users is for someone to take the next step up.
Speaking of “massively” multiplayer, I do think a large part of the changing landscape is due to, well, other people being annoying. The dream was to have worlds populated with tons of player characters running around and interacting but that also means a ton of people competing for your resources (both environmental and monsters) and being obnoxious in chat channels and potentially griefing and breaking any ambiance of exploring the Forbidden Lost Tomb of Anngeth the Forgotten when there’s thirty other people in the zone claiming camps on rooms. So there’s been a move to more instanced content in these games and more newer games with maybe a social hub or auction house but most of it happens in your own little world. There’s no reason why a game like The Division or Red Dead Online couldn’t be an MMORPG – they have stories, missions/quests, NPCs, merchants, character progression, combat, classes/roles/professions, distinct zones/regions, a bunch of clothes to play Barbies with, etc – except that they largely happen in servers of four to maybe sixteen people. And would be absolutely awful to play on a server of even a hundred people.
My girlfriend was big on WOW, then her interest waned, now it’s been rekindled a little by mucking around on the Classic server with her old guild.
I tried it, but could never get past being able to see all the other players doing the same quests. It made the whole “you’re the only one who can help us” schtick seem a bit ridiculous.
For her it was all about doing raids with a team of people, all I want is to be immersed in a story.
In one sense. But, in terms of computer RPGs, the term is usually reserved for open world games with some sort of character progression in either classes or branched skills and a mission/quest system (plus a handful of lesser things). Just being really into the idea that you’re a plumber trying to rescue a princess or that you’re a hungry sphere in a haunted labyrinth isn’t enough to qualify.
I play every tabletop game as if it’s an RPG. I make up backstories and motivations for characters and act out what they’re doing. Especially a game like Pandemic or Flashpoint. Many video games too.
That doesn’t mean they actually are though.
I dressed my character in Division II as a park ranger and named him Ranger Danger (real name Daniel Cornelius Danger). My story is that he was working in Rock Creek Park when everything went down and he’s totally uncomfortable running around the urban environment, but America needs him.
It’s not a real RPG though, it’s a loot shooter and my character has zero identity; you don’t even get to name your character. Not officially anyway.
You’re assuming that the names of genres are descriptive and make sense. Compare the “MOBA” genre: That stands for “Multiplayer online battle arena”. Which, taken literally, could include almost any online game.
I think we will see a resurgence in MMORPG’s as immersive technologies advance. Oculus and the like are still pretty expensive, and still aren’t quite there yet in terms of simulating reality unobtrusively and faithfully.
Haptic technologies are still in their infancy, and I think that once they actually become a viable product, that will increase the immersiveness of games substantially.
As long as you are sitting there, staring at a screen, and using a mouse and keyboard or controller to move and interact with the world, there will be a limit to how many games can fill that niche.
Once you have the technology to make someone really feel as though they are there, I think that that niche will grow.
I don’t know if this will help or hurt the discussion, but below is a list of MMORPGs (as defined by them on MMORPG.com, a fairly old site that - of course - got a makeover that added a lot of big pictures that made it harder to get to the actual lists. Ordered by release date, newest first.
