ESO not MMO

PigofSteel

Elsonso wrote: »

Actually, I think Firor said that he plays on console, but I don't remember which one. (and, as I recall, he is a PVP player)

He is correct in that ESO is not what people consider to be everything an MMO can be. Forum comments are evidence enough of that. By dictionary definitions, it is, but apparently ZOS wants to go their own direction, and are making it a point to do just that.

He plays ? Sure in 999

RupzSkooma

Marketing speech lol

This why every game is called RPG.
And no game is MMO.
Because people tend to avoid MMO tag in their games and love to get it tagged as RPG.

Have 2 or 3 RP elements in a game and it is an RPG.

Linaleah

as much as i hate the style of combat ESO has - this has nothing to do with ESO's status of an MMO. especially since its neither the first, not the only MMO to use this style of combat and movement. its the only one that I know of that embraced animation clipping to this degree, but there is nothing in rules of MMO's that says.. MUST have sticky targeting and specific kind of mouse movement! and neither it is a requirement of rpg's in general.

edited to add, completely missed the whole "must be pc only" claim. well then I guess final fantasy 14, DC online, Neverwinter and a few other games whose name escapes me at the moment (but they are there)... are not MMO's either? despite being marketed as MMOs, playing as MMO's and in case of Final Fantasy 14 - having traditional combat and movement of an MMO as perceived by OP. heh

Elsonso

If anyone wants that MMO content video without the interruptions and commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_2ttuyE1Rg

Norgh

ESO is a single player game with group content available for those who choose to use it.

RupzSkooma

Norgh wrote: »

ESO is a single player game with group content available for those who choose to use it.

You can say vice versa too.

Vevvev

MMO means massively multiplayer online. When I first read what he said I felt like he was out of touch or something. It might not be like the other games, or have the same mechanics as them, but at the end of the day ESO is an MMO by design. You might not play with these other people but you're all sharing the same world and playing the same game.

Goregrinder

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

But his statement "It's an MMO but...I'm not gonna call it that..." makes no sense to me at all. What else would you call an MMO? That's like saying " Well....my Ferrari Enzo is a sports car, sure...but...I'm not going to call it a Sports Car because...I don't want people to have a negative stigma about it......" A Ferrari Enzo can't be anything other than a sports car...it's not a bus, it's not a plane, or a train, or a mini van, or a scooter lol.

I think its kind of said in an interview situation in the heat of the moment, and if you take that into account, you can still intuit what he probably means - almost everyone here, including yourself has acknowledged it. I guess it kind of sux that once you go on the record of saying something in normal conversation as a one-off without the chance to edit yourself, those words are going to be diseminated, overanalysed, pulled to bits and used to fuel forum wars for ever after.

But I think we all know what he actually means.

Yeah that's been the bane of interviews forever, you say something and then it gets immortalized forever.

Elsonso

Goregrinder wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

But his statement "It's an MMO but...I'm not gonna call it that..." makes no sense to me at all. What else would you call an MMO? That's like saying " Well....my Ferrari Enzo is a sports car, sure...but...I'm not going to call it a Sports Car because...I don't want people to have a negative stigma about it......" A Ferrari Enzo can't be anything other than a sports car...it's not a bus, it's not a plane, or a train, or a mini van, or a scooter lol.

I think its kind of said in an interview situation in the heat of the moment, and if you take that into account, you can still intuit what he probably means - almost everyone here, including yourself has acknowledged it. I guess it kind of sux that once you go on the record of saying something in normal conversation as a one-off without the chance to edit yourself, those words are going to be diseminated, overanalysed, pulled to bits and used to fuel forum wars for ever after.

But I think we all know what he actually means.

Yeah that's been the bane of interviews forever, you say something and then it gets immortalized forever.

Yup. ZOS is killing it, and you know you don't have to be here right?

Goregrinder

Elsonso wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

But his statement "It's an MMO but...I'm not gonna call it that..." makes no sense to me at all. What else would you call an MMO? That's like saying " Well....my Ferrari Enzo is a sports car, sure...but...I'm not going to call it a Sports Car because...I don't want people to have a negative stigma about it......" A Ferrari Enzo can't be anything other than a sports car...it's not a bus, it's not a plane, or a train, or a mini van, or a scooter lol.

I think its kind of said in an interview situation in the heat of the moment, and if you take that into account, you can still intuit what he probably means - almost everyone here, including yourself has acknowledged it. I guess it kind of sux that once you go on the record of saying something in normal conversation as a one-off without the chance to edit yourself, those words are going to be diseminated, overanalysed, pulled to bits and used to fuel forum wars for ever after.

But I think we all know what he actually means.

Yeah that's been the bane of interviews forever, you say something and then it gets immortalized forever.

Yup. ZOS is killing it, and you know you don't have to be here right?

I don't have to be where?

Supreme_Atromancer

Elsonso wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

But his statement "It's an MMO but...I'm not gonna call it that..." makes no sense to me at all. What else would you call an MMO? That's like saying " Well....my Ferrari Enzo is a sports car, sure...but...I'm not going to call it a Sports Car because...I don't want people to have a negative stigma about it......" A Ferrari Enzo can't be anything other than a sports car...it's not a bus, it's not a plane, or a train, or a mini van, or a scooter lol.

I think its kind of said in an interview situation in the heat of the moment, and if you take that into account, you can still intuit what he probably means - almost everyone here, including yourself has acknowledged it. I guess it kind of sux that once you go on the record of saying something in normal conversation as a one-off without the chance to edit yourself, those words are going to be diseminated, overanalysed, pulled to bits and used to fuel forum wars for ever after.

But I think we all know what he actually means.

Yeah that's been the bane of interviews forever, you say something and then it gets immortalized forever.

Yup. ZOS is killing it, and you know you don't have to be here right?

Its like buying a new car. No eta.

Elsonso

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

But his statement "It's an MMO but...I'm not gonna call it that..." makes no sense to me at all. What else would you call an MMO? That's like saying " Well....my Ferrari Enzo is a sports car, sure...but...I'm not going to call it a Sports Car because...I don't want people to have a negative stigma about it......" A Ferrari Enzo can't be anything other than a sports car...it's not a bus, it's not a plane, or a train, or a mini van, or a scooter lol.

I think its kind of said in an interview situation in the heat of the moment, and if you take that into account, you can still intuit what he probably means - almost everyone here, including yourself has acknowledged it. I guess it kind of sux that once you go on the record of saying something in normal conversation as a one-off without the chance to edit yourself, those words are going to be diseminated, overanalysed, pulled to bits and used to fuel forum wars for ever after.

But I think we all know what he actually means.

Yeah that's been the bane of interviews forever, you say something and then it gets immortalized forever.

Yup. ZOS is killing it, and you know you don't have to be here right?

Its like buying a new car. No eta.

I forgot about "No ETA".

Jeremy

m12d12_ESO wrote: »

Firor argues, does not include the more intense mechanics that are typically found in games of the category. It lacks the “tab targeting” and “mouse movement” that might be found in other, traditional MMOs and the game is also not “PC-only” or “super hardcore," which sets it apart in Firor's mind.
We have had "Targeting" with TAB for ever it seems and can be pretty hardcore. [snip]

[edited for bashing and name in title]

I don't know who Firor is. But "intense mechanics", "tab targeting", "mouse movement" and "PC-only" have nothing to do with whether or not a game is massively multiplayer and online.

xeNNNNN

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

If you have time, look at the commentary video of Asmondgold to TheLazyPeon - it is not about ESO itself but it is probably one of very few reasonable contents about MMORPG genre

https://youtu.be/OPnaq9ARPcw

I agree with the video commentary. It has become rather sleepy and rinse repeat has become the standard.
I think many saw how WOW worked out and just made something similar with similar monetary projections....creativity is at it's lowest for over a decade now in many different market sectors not just gaming.

Yes, this is evident by Hollywood (or just the entertainment industry in general) as well as music and other things. However I would argue that there is less creative freedom in the gaming industry as a whole for the following reasons;

1) To placate investor demands and time frames, video games as a whole have become an annual commodity that must be churned out for short term gain over longer term sustainability (in the case of MMOs). The entire investor market has turned into a short term monopoly that isn't sustainable in the long run and its driving products and their quality into the ground. There is virtually zero long term investment right now.

2) In regards to video games, software (creatively) is hampered by technology and customers & consumers are hampered by the overwhelming surge in pricing of hardware which they need to run the products in their best quality. Which has caused many video game companies to not be as "creative" as they could because the resources required by the customers is just impossible to maintain.

3) Politics. As sad as it is, politics now intervenes in almost all spheres of creativity to the point where we can no longer be creative with the worlds and characters they make because companies are being harassed by activists and lobbyists whom don't actually care about the products, franchises, stories and worlds they are trying to enforce their real world views on. This forces dev teams to restrict their own creative freedoms in an attempt to not appear X type of bad persons and so forth which frankly corners all creative minds into making a specific type of fiction and or character. its all quite depressing. To much filling in check boxes to placate activism, not enough creativity and solid implementation and general writing of stories. To be clear, its ok if a universe has its own fictional politics (Mass effect for example) but enforcing political statements directly leveraging modern day political divides in fiction as a lynch pin for writing is horrendous and not creative at all and only serves to propagandise a certain point of view which shouldn't be happening, video games are for all by being Apolitical from modern politics, not what checkbox's they have filled for "representation" if you can even call it that not only does it divide people but it does a disservice to those they supposedly wish to raise up. People want to call video games art, but this is why it can never be art.

4) No passion, all greed. The industry has lost its old guard. While I have no doubt that many developers are passionate about what they do, the industry has become far too corporatized for its own good and there are far too many development studios and publishers that care so much about the money they make that they happily sacrifice quality for quantity which in the long run is detrimental to the entire industry from a creative and quality stand point. With the amount of money they make these days, that is evidently a trade they are willing to make.

5) "The wider audience" as its called. This has forced creativity into the ground because whatever sense of uniqueness many franchises had has been obliterated in a desire to make more money from the wider audience that they believe they can attract, however while they have achieved this goal they have utterly decimated the original concepts of their games. The industry now follows trends and with those trends the franchises follow. First it was MOBAs, then it was Battle Royal and so forth. This mass marketing and mass desertion of the original and core fanbases of the franchises a long with the franchises themselves has lead to a great deal of games being dumbed down into a one size fits all mentality with a caveat of buying power or time through a monetary store. I could go on with this specific topic but it has many knock on effects for creative freedom.

Supreme_Atromancer

Jeremy wrote: »

m12d12_ESO wrote: »

Firor argues, does not include the more intense mechanics that are typically found in games of the category. It lacks the “tab targeting” and “mouse movement” that might be found in other, traditional MMOs and the game is also not “PC-only” or “super hardcore," which sets it apart in Firor's mind.
We have had "Targeting" with TAB for ever it seems and can be pretty hardcore. [snip]

[edited for bashing and name in title]

I don't know who Firor is. But "intense mechanics", "tab targeting", "mouse movement" and "PC-only" have nothing to do with whether or not a game is massively multiplayer and online.

Founder of ZOS and creative director of ESO. I think its pretty clear he's acknowledging the distinction between the semantic definition and the baggage that goes along with such a title.

SeaGtGruff

xeNNNNN wrote: »

However I would argue that there is less creative freedom in the gaming industry as a whole for the following reasons;

I would argue that it's mostly about how much money can be made. If people aren't spending a lot of money on a particular thing, you're less likely to see copycatting related to it, because why would people who want to make a lot of money want to bother with copycatting something that doesn't make a lot of money? And copycatting is attractive to those people because they don't have to spend a lot of money developing their own ideas, or paying other people to develop ideas for them.

EDIT-- Sorry, when I read your comment I was taking it as "there's more copycatting in the gaming industry," not "less creative freedom." I wasn't trying to refute any points you made, just saying that "It's all about the money" as people like to say.

xeNNNNN

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

However I would argue that there is less creative freedom in the gaming industry as a whole for the following reasons;

I would argue that it's mostly about how much money can be made. If people aren't spending a lot of money on a particular thing, you're less likely to see copycatting related to it, because why would people who want to make a lot of money want to bother with copycatting something that doesn't make a lot of money? And copycatting is attractive to those people because they don't have to spend a lot of money developing their own ideas, or paying other people to develop ideas for them.

I think its a bit of both really isn't it? If the means and the method could be made easier, would we not take it? Personally I wouldn't because I see value in creating something new without restrictions. But from a business standpoint as a CEO I probably would.

There is a middle ground to be found, the industry just needs to be willing to find it.

EDIT: ah I see, no worries I didn't misunderstand - I got the general thrust of what you were trying to say no need to apologise.

amm7sb14_ESO

What's with all this talk that ESO isn't an MMO or isn't a traditional MMO?

ESO is as formulaic as it gets. It offers literally no new ground or innovation. It's the same formula of MMO's that came before it, and outside of a lack of tab targeting and a more real time combat system, offers nothing new, unique, or innovative to the genre.

It's good at what it does, but what it does is as cookie cutter and as traditional as it gets.

SeaGtGruff

xeNNNNN wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

However I would argue that there is less creative freedom in the gaming industry as a whole for the following reasons;

I would argue that it's mostly about how much money can be made. If people aren't spending a lot of money on a particular thing, you're less likely to see copycatting related to it, because why would people who want to make a lot of money want to bother with copycatting something that doesn't make a lot of money? And copycatting is attractive to those people because they don't have to spend a lot of money developing their own ideas, or paying other people to develop ideas for them.

I think its a bit of both really isn't it? If the means and the method could be made easier, would we not take it? Personally I wouldn't because I see value in creating something new without restrictions. But from a business standpoint as a CEO I probably would.

There is a middle ground to be found, the industry just needs to be willing to find it.

Right, money isn't everything, despite what people like to say. Some people will happily pour their entire lives and life savings into their efforts to create something new and visionary, even if the current state of the world (economics, technology, etc.) can't really support their dreams to the extent that their ideas would be even remotely workable or profitable. The people who seem to only care about making a lot of money think those dreamers are crazy, stupid, brainless, unwise, etc.-- until they see a dreamer whose creative dream pays off, and then they all start falling over themselves to copycat the creative dreamer.

kichwas

So any game that is not World of Warcraft is not an MMO?

That's a rather strange definition of an MMO considering that WoW came in after MMOs had already been around for about 8 years. Almost 20 years if you consider the old text based ones (MUDs) to be MMOs. They were after all, massive multiplayer online roleplaying games. When I played my first MUD in 1988, I was late to the party.

I see 'Firor' is the guy who heads ZOS. Funny that he'd try to define his own successful product out of the genre it's in. But if we recall at the time ESO came out the talk of the town was that MMOs were dead. So everyone who had one was trying to pretend they weren't. Like a bunch of folks trying to 'get back into the closet' - it was an obvious move that just looked... sad...

Now MMOs are doing great, but some of these 'brand leaders' are still stuck in denial.

Morgha_Kul

I've argued for a long time now, that there ARE no real MMOs left. It's a matter of definition.

As I see it, there are three basic types of game, Action games, Adventure games and Strategy games. Strategy games aren't relevant here, so we'll set them aside.

Action games are about the ACTION. That is, you're being challenged by a physical task, and that's the purpose of the game, to DO that task. Pong, Pac-Man, Breakout, Pole Position... even games like Street Fighter and Battlefront, Quake, and other such games are ACTION games, because the point is to do the physical task.

Adventure games are about the STORY. The point of playing an adventure game is to get to the next part of the story. Originally, they were TEXT based, like Zork. Over time, though, there were action elements added to them. The action was engaging, to be sure, but the point of the action was to get to the next story point. The action was not itself the point of playing. There are LOTS of Adventure games.

A major difference between the types of games is how the environments are interacted with.

In an Action game, the environment exists only as an arena for the action, whatever it is. The environment might be very large and detailed, and highly interactive, but it's all window dressing to serve the action.

In an Adventure game, the environment exists only as the story requires, but it's designed to appear larger and fuller. There are entities and activities going on in them that suggest a fully functioning world, even if the player can't actually interact with them. This is designed to immerse the character in the setting. However, the setting is still limited to those areas needed for the story to be told.

Another major difference is that Adventure games tend to have ENDINGS. That is, once the story is told, the game ends. It's not exclusive to Adventure games, some Action games (eg. Street Fighter) do have endings, but it is more typical of Adventures. Given how immersive Adventure games are, with the illusion of a full world to "live" in, players often expressed the wish that they could carry on playing in that world. Of course, they couldn't do that because there was no more content, and no further world to explore.

This is where the MMO finds its origin, they're a variation on the Adventure game. MMOs were created to allow the Adventure game to go on after the story was finished. This was accomplished in two main ways. First, the developers would add new content periodically. Second, the world itself had to be interactive in some way, to allow the players to essentially entertain themselves with the mechanics of how that world works (eg. crafting). This required that the game interact with its world differently than an Adventure game.

In an Adventure game, the story comes first. That is, the developers will come up with the story, then create the world areas needed for that story. In an MMO, the process is kind of reversed. The WORLD is constructed first, and the stories are plugged into it. That is, the world of the MMO could exist and be playable and engaging even with NO quest content at all, and would include areas not relevant to existing content, so that future content could use those areas (or so the game can expand into them).

Most supposed MMOs today are NOT MMOs. Star Trek Online, for example, is an ACTION game, masquerading as an MMO. It offers NO world to exist in, and the only thing to do is the action of the game. There is a crafting system of sorts, but its only purpose is to further the action, and it's only interacted with by doing the action. Star Wars the Old Republic Online is also not an MMO, it's an online Adventure game. I say this because once the story is done... there's nothing left to do. The world of the game is not interactive in any way. If you're not doing the quests, you're not doing anything.

Both games stand on the edge of being defined as MMOs... but what about ESO?

I feel it has enough other content that can be done without reference to any quests, that it can be defined as an MMO. In ESO, I have a character who generally doesn't do quests. He crafts, he explores, he decorates his house... there are other activities than the questing, and the world is larger and feels fuller than STO or SWTOR. ESO could go further, I think, but I do think it qualifies as an MMO. I would have liked to see the game incorporate other elements of older MMOs that provided players with personal content. For example, when I played Star Wars Galaxies, I played a Trader. I searched for resources, harvested them, then crafted items with them that I could then sell from my home on Corellia. In essence, I was running a business. More, my home on Corellia was part of a whole COMMUNITY of homes, a small town created by the players. There were other businesses, a town hall, a couple of bars and a theatre. WE created that with the tools the world gave us, it was content of a type that could keep us entertained without the need for quests or constant developer intervention. THAT is what defines the MMO.

So, is ESO an MMO? Yes, but only just. I think it could do more, but it's better than pretty well anything else on the market.


(I know, there will be people who disagree with my analysis, saying that any online multiplayer game is an MMO, bit I'll disagree preemptively. Just being multiplayer and online doesn't make a game an MMO, or we could consider things like Doom or Quake or Fortnite to be MMOs, and I think they clearly are not. I stand by my definition.)

Goregrinder

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

I've argued for a long time now, that there ARE no real MMOs left. It's a matter of definition.

As I see it, there are three basic types of game, Action games, Adventure games and Strategy games. Strategy games aren't relevant here, so we'll set them aside.

Action games are about the ACTION. That is, you're being challenged by a physical task, and that's the purpose of the game, to DO that task. Pong, Pac-Man, Breakout, Pole Position... even games like Street Fighter and Battlefront, Quake, and other such games are ACTION games, because the point is to do the physical task.

Adventure games are about the STORY. The point of playing an adventure game is to get to the next part of the story. Originally, they were TEXT based, like Zork. Over time, though, there were action elements added to them. The action was engaging, to be sure, but the point of the action was to get to the next story point. The action was not itself the point of playing. There are LOTS of Adventure games.

A major difference between the types of games is how the environments are interacted with.

In an Action game, the environment exists only as an arena for the action, whatever it is. The environment might be very large and detailed, and highly interactive, but it's all window dressing to serve the action.

In an Adventure game, the environment exists only as the story requires, but it's designed to appear larger and fuller. There are entities and activities going on in them that suggest a fully functioning world, even if the player can't actually interact with them. This is designed to immerse the character in the setting. However, the setting is still limited to those areas needed for the story to be told.

Another major difference is that Adventure games tend to have ENDINGS. That is, once the story is told, the game ends. It's not exclusive to Adventure games, some Action games (eg. Street Fighter) do have endings, but it is more typical of Adventures. Given how immersive Adventure games are, with the illusion of a full world to "live" in, players often expressed the wish that they could carry on playing in that world. Of course, they couldn't do that because there was no more content, and no further world to explore.

This is where the MMO finds its origin, they're a variation on the Adventure game. MMOs were created to allow the Adventure game to go on after the story was finished. This was accomplished in two main ways. First, the developers would add new content periodically. Second, the world itself had to be interactive in some way, to allow the players to essentially entertain themselves with the mechanics of how that world works (eg. crafting). This required that the game interact with its world differently than an Adventure game.

In an Adventure game, the story comes first. That is, the developers will come up with the story, then create the world areas needed for that story. In an MMO, the process is kind of reversed. The WORLD is constructed first, and the stories are plugged into it. That is, the world of the MMO could exist and be playable and engaging even with NO quest content at all, and would include areas not relevant to existing content, so that future content could use those areas (or so the game can expand into them).

Most supposed MMOs today are NOT MMOs. Star Trek Online, for example, is an ACTION game, masquerading as an MMO. It offers NO world to exist in, and the only thing to do is the action of the game. There is a crafting system of sorts, but its only purpose is to further the action, and it's only interacted with by doing the action. Star Wars the Old Republic Online is also not an MMO, it's an online Adventure game. I say this because once the story is done... there's nothing left to do. The world of the game is not interactive in any way. If you're not doing the quests, you're not doing anything.

Both games stand on the edge of being defined as MMOs... but what about ESO?

I feel it has enough other content that can be done without reference to any quests, that it can be defined as an MMO. In ESO, I have a character who generally doesn't do quests. He crafts, he explores, he decorates his house... there are other activities than the questing, and the world is larger and feels fuller than STO or SWTOR. ESO could go further, I think, but I do think it qualifies as an MMO. I would have liked to see the game incorporate other elements of older MMOs that provided players with personal content. For example, when I played Star Wars Galaxies, I played a Trader. I searched for resources, harvested them, then crafted items with them that I could then sell from my home on Corellia. In essence, I was running a business. More, my home on Corellia was part of a whole COMMUNITY of homes, a small town created by the players. There were other businesses, a town hall, a couple of bars and a theatre. WE created that with the tools the world gave us, it was content of a type that could keep us entertained without the need for quests or constant developer intervention. THAT is what defines the MMO.

So, is ESO an MMO? Yes, but only just. I think it could do more, but it's better than pretty well anything else on the market.


(I know, there will be people who disagree with my analysis, saying that any online multiplayer game is an MMO, bit I'll disagree preemptively. Just being multiplayer and online doesn't make a game an MMO, or we could consider things like Doom or Quake or Fortnite to be MMOs, and I think they clearly are not. I stand by my definition.)

Any massively-multiplayer online game is an MMO, especially if everyone who plays it exist in the same persistent world. Planetside 2 is a great example of an MMOFPS. If it's not massively-multiplayer, and isn't played online within one persistent world or universe, then it's not an MMO.

Games either fall under that classification, or they don't. Just like a vehicle is either a car or it's a truck. Both are vehicles, but a truck is not a car, a car is not a train, a train is not a plane, a plane is not a boat, a boat is not a duck, a duck is not a rabbit. Definitions matter, and ESO 100% fits under the definition of massively-multiplayer online game, or massively-multiplayer online role-playing game.

xeNNNNN

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

However I would argue that there is less creative freedom in the gaming industry as a whole for the following reasons;

I would argue that it's mostly about how much money can be made. If people aren't spending a lot of money on a particular thing, you're less likely to see copycatting related to it, because why would people who want to make a lot of money want to bother with copycatting something that doesn't make a lot of money? And copycatting is attractive to those people because they don't have to spend a lot of money developing their own ideas, or paying other people to develop ideas for them.

I think its a bit of both really isn't it? If the means and the method could be made easier, would we not take it? Personally I wouldn't because I see value in creating something new without restrictions. But from a business standpoint as a CEO I probably would.

There is a middle ground to be found, the industry just needs to be willing to find it.

Right, money isn't everything, despite what people like to say. Some people will happily pour their entire lives and life savings into their efforts to create something new and visionary, even if the current state of the world (economics, technology, etc.) can't really support their dreams to the extent that their ideas would be even remotely workable or profitable. The people who seem to only care about making a lot of money think those dreamers are crazy, stupid, brainless, unwise, etc.-- until they see a dreamer whose creative dream pays off, and then they all start falling over themselves to copycat the creative dreamer.

Exactly, its all about monopolies, its always a push to gain control of the largest slice of the cake which grants them power over an industry (any industry) Tencent is a great example of that for gaming. Once someone makes something new against all odds they will all jump on it to claim their slice.

My view of them is that they are like vultures as morbid as that is, they circle the prey until it dies stay with it until they've eaten every scrap then move on to the next.

Klad

I think ESO left the MMORPG a couple years back and that's not a bad thing...Trials basically mean nothing but some old fashioned Dungeon Crawling in TES RPG's PVP isn't really important nothing to actually ...conquer crafting is used mainly to improve gear you find, and busy work..the main crux is the story and fashion just like the TES rpg games.

I play this game because it isn't a MMO like WoW or any of its many many clones. It's like Playing Skyrim with friends again NOT A BAD THING.

The developers call it a ORPG, Most game journos call it a ORPG, a huge number of players point out it's not a MMORPG.

I think it's easier for the hate machine to call it a MMORPG, because they need it to be... it makes it easier to shriek fail every chance they get.

TequilaFire wrote: »

So does that mean ESO is not eligible for top MMO awards?

Since MMORPG.COM isn't going to list them in the MMORPG catagory this year I would say yes.

Vhale

I played UO and EQ, ESO feels closer to UO, WoW feels closer to EQ. Or at least, modern WoW. Modern WoW is almost exclusively about running dungeons and raids. And that was pretty much all EQ was. Everything in EQ was about farming spells, exp, keys, then raids. WoW originally added a lot more questing and better crafting but they haven't kept up with it.
UO you could be a solo player, have a house, vet rewards and build towards your own thing. Plus they did have some faction/raid type content. ESO has all that too, plus the Megaserver which means you can almost always play with your friends. WoW is kinda screwed up there as you can't play with friends that go horde. And a lot of people in the US are going horde for because there are more raid guilds. I think that last I saw was something like an 80%/20% division of Horde to Alliance raid guilds and you had to pay something like 60$ to race change if you want to swap. Per toon. That problem EQ did not have and thankfully neither does ESO.

Janus_Cruenti

m12d12_ESO wrote: »

Firor argues, does not include the more intense mechanics that are typically found in games of the category. It lacks the “tab targeting” and “mouse movement” that might be found in other, traditional MMOs and the game is also not “PC-only” or “super hardcore," which sets it apart in Firor's mind.
We have had "Targeting" with TAB for ever it seems and can be pretty hardcore. [snip]

[edited for bashing and name in title]

None of these things are criteria for an MMO

Morgha_Kul

Goregrinder wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

I've argued for a long time now, that there ARE no real MMOs left. It's a matter of definition.

As I see it, there are three basic types of game, Action games, Adventure games and Strategy games. Strategy games aren't relevant here, so we'll set them aside.

Action games are about the ACTION. That is, you're being challenged by a physical task, and that's the purpose of the game, to DO that task. Pong, Pac-Man, Breakout, Pole Position... even games like Street Fighter and Battlefront, Quake, and other such games are ACTION games, because the point is to do the physical task.

Adventure games are about the STORY. The point of playing an adventure game is to get to the next part of the story. Originally, they were TEXT based, like Zork. Over time, though, there were action elements added to them. The action was engaging, to be sure, but the point of the action was to get to the next story point. The action was not itself the point of playing. There are LOTS of Adventure games.

A major difference between the types of games is how the environments are interacted with.

In an Action game, the environment exists only as an arena for the action, whatever it is. The environment might be very large and detailed, and highly interactive, but it's all window dressing to serve the action.

In an Adventure game, the environment exists only as the story requires, but it's designed to appear larger and fuller. There are entities and activities going on in them that suggest a fully functioning world, even if the player can't actually interact with them. This is designed to immerse the character in the setting. However, the setting is still limited to those areas needed for the story to be told.

Another major difference is that Adventure games tend to have ENDINGS. That is, once the story is told, the game ends. It's not exclusive to Adventure games, some Action games (eg. Street Fighter) do have endings, but it is more typical of Adventures. Given how immersive Adventure games are, with the illusion of a full world to "live" in, players often expressed the wish that they could carry on playing in that world. Of course, they couldn't do that because there was no more content, and no further world to explore.

This is where the MMO finds its origin, they're a variation on the Adventure game. MMOs were created to allow the Adventure game to go on after the story was finished. This was accomplished in two main ways. First, the developers would add new content periodically. Second, the world itself had to be interactive in some way, to allow the players to essentially entertain themselves with the mechanics of how that world works (eg. crafting). This required that the game interact with its world differently than an Adventure game.

In an Adventure game, the story comes first. That is, the developers will come up with the story, then create the world areas needed for that story. In an MMO, the process is kind of reversed. The WORLD is constructed first, and the stories are plugged into it. That is, the world of the MMO could exist and be playable and engaging even with NO quest content at all, and would include areas not relevant to existing content, so that future content could use those areas (or so the game can expand into them).

Most supposed MMOs today are NOT MMOs. Star Trek Online, for example, is an ACTION game, masquerading as an MMO. It offers NO world to exist in, and the only thing to do is the action of the game. There is a crafting system of sorts, but its only purpose is to further the action, and it's only interacted with by doing the action. Star Wars the Old Republic Online is also not an MMO, it's an online Adventure game. I say this because once the story is done... there's nothing left to do. The world of the game is not interactive in any way. If you're not doing the quests, you're not doing anything.

Both games stand on the edge of being defined as MMOs... but what about ESO?

I feel it has enough other content that can be done without reference to any quests, that it can be defined as an MMO. In ESO, I have a character who generally doesn't do quests. He crafts, he explores, he decorates his house... there are other activities than the questing, and the world is larger and feels fuller than STO or SWTOR. ESO could go further, I think, but I do think it qualifies as an MMO. I would have liked to see the game incorporate other elements of older MMOs that provided players with personal content. For example, when I played Star Wars Galaxies, I played a Trader. I searched for resources, harvested them, then crafted items with them that I could then sell from my home on Corellia. In essence, I was running a business. More, my home on Corellia was part of a whole COMMUNITY of homes, a small town created by the players. There were other businesses, a town hall, a couple of bars and a theatre. WE created that with the tools the world gave us, it was content of a type that could keep us entertained without the need for quests or constant developer intervention. THAT is what defines the MMO.

So, is ESO an MMO? Yes, but only just. I think it could do more, but it's better than pretty well anything else on the market.


(I know, there will be people who disagree with my analysis, saying that any online multiplayer game is an MMO, bit I'll disagree preemptively. Just being multiplayer and online doesn't make a game an MMO, or we could consider things like Doom or Quake or Fortnite to be MMOs, and I think they clearly are not. I stand by my definition.)

Any massively-multiplayer online game is an MMO, especially if everyone who plays it exist in the same persistent world. Planetside 2 is a great example of an MMOFPS. If it's not massively-multiplayer, and isn't played online within one persistent world or universe, then it's not an MMO.

Games either fall under that classification, or they don't. Just like a vehicle is either a car or it's a truck. Both are vehicles, but a truck is not a car, a car is not a train, a train is not a plane, a plane is not a boat, a boat is not a duck, a duck is not a rabbit. Definitions matter, and ESO 100% fits under the definition of massively-multiplayer online game, or massively-multiplayer online role-playing game.

I already covered that, at the end of my post. There are plenty of multiplayer online games that aren't MMOs. By definition, a first person shooter is an Action game. That it's played online doesn't make it an MMO, it's still an Action game.

Again, it comes down to what you can do in the game when you're not doing the "content." If all you can do is quests, then it's still just an Adventure game. If all you can do is battles (eg. first person shooting), then it's an Action game. The MMO is defined by the world of the game being content in itself.

Snowstrider

It is just marketing and he is trying to make ESO sound more unique then it is

bmnoble

m12d12_ESO wrote: »

Firor argues, does not include the more intense mechanics that are typically found in games of the category. It lacks the “tab targeting” and “mouse movement” that might be found in other, traditional MMOs and the game is also not “PC-only” or “super hardcore," which sets it apart in Firor's mind.
We have had "Targeting" with TAB for ever it seems and can be pretty hardcore. [snip]

[edited for bashing and name in title]

And yet here I am subscribing and playing this MMO not those others they want to compare it too. To me those other ones could stand to be more like ESO not the other way around, if they were I would probably be subscribed to more than just ESO now.

I use to play and subscribe to SWTOR for years eventually once I got caught up to the content and discovered the release of new content was at a glacial pace, I considered ESO as a way to pass the time till new content got released and I would eventually go back.

While I have visited SWTOR a few times doing what little new story content they had release since then, since the rest of the MMO style activities never interested me in the first place when I was more active, though I did PVP quite a bit back then but with all the gearing changes since I left I am miles behind got no desire to grind over there to catch back up at this point, since after playing ESO's combat the cool down based combat rotations and tab targeting really bored me.

As soon as I finished the new content in SWTOR I always came back and played ESO.

I played Star Trek Online for a number of years on the PS4 eventually lost interest.

I tried out a number of Asian pay to play MMO's lost interest in those extremely quickly, they were very pretty that was about it.

Elsonso

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

There are plenty of multiplayer online games that aren't MMOs. By definition, a first person shooter is an Action game. That it's played online doesn't make it an MMO, it's still an Action game.

Again, it comes down to what you can do in the game when you're not doing the "content." If all you can do is quests, then it's still just an Adventure game. If all you can do is battles (eg. first person shooting), then it's an Action game. The MMO is defined by the world of the game being content in itself.

An MMO game is any game that has a very large number of players online simultaneously on the same "server". (Server in quotes because cloud makes this fuzzy. )

People tend to shorten "MMORPG" to just "MMO" because RPG games dominate, but lots of other genres could be an MMO if someone wanted to make one.