Guild Wars 2

Hydrophidian.4319:

Kana.6793:

The towns are a lobby. The rest of the game is an instanced co-op game.

Calling those areas a “lobby” doesn’t change what they were: persistent. And that they were was critical to the game’s design. People were meant to gather there.

How about this…

The bulk of the game content in City of Heroes was instanced. Most of it could be engaged in by no more than 8 people. So was it not an MMO?

Are you making a distinction due to the “size” of the shared space? The thing is, that’s not a qualifying attribute of a PSW.

Are you saying that GW is disqualified because there was no combat in the shared space? Again, that’s not a qualifying attribute of a PSW (MMOs don’t even have to be games).

I know nothing about City of Heroes, I have never played it, nor do I care to.

The size of the shared space is relevent when classifying it as massively multiplayer, which is what I said. I did not say that size has an bearing on a persistent world nor did I mention combat.

I said that throughout the majority of the game you are placed in a private instance which no longer exists when your party logs out. That is not a persistent world.

Even the towns are not necessarily persistent since new districts are generated based on the number of people trying to access them. Those districts no longer exist after the users have logged out and demand falls.

You are discussing semantics and maths. I think you know what people mean by “GW1 is not an MMO”. Maybe the poor choice of words (to keep it short probably), but it’s perfectly clear what is conveyed by that, whether you can actually refute that or not.

Regardless of what label you put on a game, the primary fallacy is that it should have the same features and design as other games with that label.

Regardless of whether you call GW1 or 2 an MMO or not, it doesnt automatically mean it should have vertical progression, or not.

I’d cheerfully make a MMO-action game where there was no trading, no levels, and no money – just thousands of people with unique builds fighting each other, having adventures and doing all sorts of stuff.

And of course, some idiots will wander along and whine, “But MMOs are all about trading , and levels, and money!!! That’s what MMO players want! Put those things into your game!”

However, the reverse is also true – those people who think just because GW1 didn’t have it, GW2 shouldn’t have it either.

GW2 is its own game and stands on its own merits. It’s obvious that they learned from GW1 and tried to make a compromise between the no-progression players and the enjoy-progression players. Obviously the extremes of either group would be unhappy with this compromise.

But most reasonable people are ok with it. There’s some grind to be enjoyed if you like it, but not too much and it’s not particularly forced.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

I thought that’s what you were referring to. Would you at least agree that they lack the ability for the user to influence the state of the world in any lasting fashion?

Maybe. How broadly does one define ‘influence the state of the world’ and ‘lasting fashion’ and how would that differ from the dynamics of the persistent spaces of other existing MMOs? Frankly, the only game I’ve played that gave me the ability to have a lasting influence on world state is UO.

And yes, it’s a very inclusive genre category… almost to the point of being meaningless. Which is much the case with many such umbrella designations across all forms of media.

That’s actually part of why I started this thread.

Kana.6793:

I know nothing about City of Heroes, I have never played it, nor do I care to.

That doesn’t answer the questions. The bulk of its content was instanced. Its maximum team size (until late in its life) was 8. Was it not an MMO?

The size of the shared space is relevent when classifying it as massively multiplayer

No, it isn’t. There is no size requirement for the shared space.

I did not say that size has an bearing on a persistent world nor did I mention combat.

Which is why asked.

I said that throughout the majority of the game you are placed in a private instance which no longer exists when your party logs out. That is not a persistent world.

Strawman. It’s already been acknowledged numerous times that the majority of the game is not persistent. However, a part of it is. Hence, it qualifies.

Even the towns are not necessarily persistent since new districts are generated based on the number of people trying to access them. Those districts no longer exist after the users have logged out and demand falls.

This is standard architecture for MMOs of all sorts, including GW2 (overflow). Is GW2 now not an MMO?

It’s an interesting read, and my personal opinion on vertical progression aside, that distinction has nothing to do with whether it’s good bad or indifferent. Personally, I’d like to see more horizontal progression in the ‘world’ rather than vertical progression. It’d be much healthier for the soul. But I digress.

CORPG, MMORPG, AARP (I’d post Jon Stewart’s ‘go to’ acronym, but I don’t want an infraction), it doesn’t have anything to do with the discussion of the other.

Your hypothesis is flawed in you are making the argument that since it is an MMO, and it’s predecessor was not, that since the predecessor didn’t have vertical progression, rather horizontal progression, that since this new one is an MMO and not the same as the predecessor, then it should have vertical progression? Because…that’s what MMOs do?

Similar to another thread talking about “what if there were no WoW”, some of the same thoughts apply here. An MMO has some fundamental components, persistent world, many people in that world playing all at once in the same spaces, blah blah blah, but when you start talking about the specific ‘mechanics’ in said MMO, those have always been up for grabs and waiting to be evolved.

EQ gave you experience loss when you died, often times de-leveling you, often times erasing hours of your work. Should we incorporate that?

UO (pre-Trammel) had constant open world PvP (which was really griefing), whether you wanted to or not. It amounted to a few bad souls killing you not because there was some sort of competition or sport going on, but because they knew that it upset you. Should we incorporate that?

You talk about grind. Remember before there were quests (quests were those things that hearts now mask, and mask quite well, in a new, fun organic sense)? That’s right. You went to find 3 goblins standing at a tent. The first fight was tough, you had to ‘break’ those 3 up. Then it was easy, they’d respawn one at a time and you and your party would sit there for hours until you leveled. Should we incorporate that?

Oh, and what if someone else came to your goblin tent? Remember that? Lots of yelling and fighting and reporting? Remember? What was that? Was that this ‘socializing’ that we don’t do any more? Should we incorporate that?

Yes. GW2 is an MMO. What does that have to do with whether vertical progression is a concept that should be evolved away from, or whether it’s something that needs to stay?

Hydrophidian.4319:

Even the towns are not necessarily persistent since new districts are generated based on the number of people trying to access them. Those districts no longer exist after the users have logged out and demand falls.

This is standard architecture for MMOs of all sorts, including GW2 (overflow). Is GW2 now not an MMO?

Overflow uses this, yes, however with the primary server it is different. If there is nobody in them, they don’t get deleted or reset. They are persistent.

Okay, I think this has pretty much run its course.

There have been multiple challenges to the initial assertion.

They’ve pretty much all fixated on the weakest point of the argument: whether or not Guild Wars qualifies as a persistent world. Note that I admitted this was the weakest point in the original post.

It can be argued that it does qualify. It can be argued that the game’s hub locations were actually the entirety of the world, because they represented the only persistent environment; everything else was instanced. And just because the Guild Wars “world” is small (comparatively), doesn’t mean it’s not an MMO.

Also, many MMOs have both persistent environments and instanced content, including GW2. So having both doesn’t take Guild Wars out of the category, either. Is it the ratio that matters? Some have said yes.

Lasting user influence on world state has also been cited as a relevant factor. This has some weight. But it’s undermined by the fact that such lasting influence only applies to a very narrow selection of games (and Guild Wars 2 ain’t one of ’em).

Bottom line, I think it’s been pretty well revealed that the claim “Guild Wars is not an MMO!” is predicated almost entirely on the idea that it’s not a persistent world (the difference is made up by the CORPG argument, which I’d say I shot in the head in the first post).

So now I ask: what does persistent world have to do with vertical gear progression?

My answer is: absolutely nothing.

Can we now agree on that, maybe?

Technically, it seems to me that Guild Wars qualifies as an MMO (if only barely). Personally, I’ve never really approached it that way. Years ago, back when the game first came out, I was told, ’it’s an MMORPG that you don’t have to play like an MMORPG,’ and that still seems like a fair description to me. It had a massive player base, guilds, team play, and an immersive environment in which I progressed a character… y’know, much like GW2.

Even though I largely ignored its social element, the experience, at its core, was much the same. So does it really matter what anyone calls it? We’re obviously dealing with a lot of the same fundamental ideas in both cases.

Anyway, thanks for participating in this little experimental interlude. Have a good night.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

@Hydrophidian: What parts of GW1 are you describing as a persistent world?

I can’t think of any that satisfy both criteria:

• continues to exist after users have departed; and
• users can affect some kind of lasting change on the state of the world.

I’m glad someone brought this up specifically.

Name one game that actually does either of the above in any meaningful way. Every game currently out there that’s being called an MMO including GW2 reverts to its default state when the players aren’t around, and everything players do is wholly temporary, not lasting. Did you rescue the Ascalon Settlement and wipe out the entire camp of centaurs? They’ll all be back 2 minutes later, reappearing from thin air, to repeat the same attack. Did you farm every resource node in the zone? Tomorrow they will be there again in the same spot. Did you leave a bunch of random bundle items laying around on the ground in a happy face pattern? They’ll all magically vanish after a few minutes.

When people say “persistent world” what they actually mean is an open world where you can randomly encounter other players. That’s it. There is nothing persistent about any of these MMO game worlds, everything is on a timer that resets to default. And besides, these games divide their community into separate servers. What is a server if not a giant instance? There are people, including RL friends, who you cannot play with despite playing the same game because your whole world is an instance. GW2 guesting system is supposed to fix that but guess which launch feature is still missing?

The persistent world is one of the big lies of MMOs, there’s just no way to do it because its natural conclusion is anarchy. The only way to create persistent content is to customize it to individual players, and for that you need… here it is… personal instances. Like in GW1 Factions when you set up your guild hall. Like in Nightfall when you set up your Command Post. Like in EotN when you cleared the Charr out of Grothmar Wardowns, or decked out your Hall of Monuments. Like any number of quests in GW1 that permanently altered what might show up where because you did something. That world is persistent at least to your character. Games like WoW and GW2 have zero persistence. Clear a zone at level 1 then go back at level 80 and it is exactly the same as when you went there earlier. Nothing you do matters, not even after you kill the ultimate bad guy. In fact, you’ll just kill him again, over and over, like the time before it never happened. The game is designed to make you do that. It’s designed to be an unchanging treadmill to nowhere. Maybe that’s what’s meant by persistent world? A world that persists in its state no matter what you do? At least while you’re in a GW1 zone, when you kill something it stays dead. Being dead is a fairly persistent condition, after all. Mobs don’t just rematerialize a minute later like they do (and have to) in an open world. Want to explore a cave? In GW1 you kill everything in the way and then explore to your heart’s content. In other MMOs you kill the mobs once going in and then you have to kill the same mobs again to get out. The definition of grind. Oh yeah and what happened to persistence?

Yeah, saying that these MMOs have persistent worlds and GW1 does not, is a travesty that can only be said with a straight face by people who will eat a kittenandwich and smile as long as they’re told it’s peanut butter. Just a little bit of critical thinking is all it takes to separate truth from fiction.

Leablo.2651:

Roven Leafsong.8917:

@Hydrophidian: What parts of GW1 are you describing as a persistent world?

I can’t think of any that satisfy both criteria:

• continues to exist after users have departed; and
• users can affect some kind of lasting change on the state of the world.

I’m glad someone brought this up specifically.

Name one game that actually does either of the above in any meaningful way. Every game currently out there that’s being called an MMO including GW2 reverts to its default state when the players aren’t around, and everything players do is wholly temporary, not lasting. Did you rescue the Ascalon Settlement and wipe out the entire camp of centaurs? They’ll all be back 2 minutes later, reappearing from thin air, to repeat the same attack. Did you farm every resource node in the zone? Tomorrow they will be there again in the same spot. Did you leave a bunch of random bundle items laying around on the ground in a happy face pattern? They’ll all magically vanish after a few minutes.

When people say “persistent world” what they actually mean is an open world where you can randomly encounter other players. That’s it. There is nothing persistent about any of these MMO game worlds, everything is on a timer that resets to default. And besides, these games divide their community into separate servers. What is a server if not a giant instance? There are people, including RL friends, who you cannot play with despite playing the same game because your whole world is an instance. GW2 guesting system is supposed to fix that but guess which launch feature is still missing?

The persistent world is one of the big lies of MMOs, there’s just no way to do it because its natural conclusion is anarchy. The only way to create persistent content is to customize it to individual players, and for that you need… here it is… personal instances. Like in GW1 Factions when you set up your guild hall. Like in Nightfall when you set up your Command Post. Like in EotN when you cleared the Charr out of Grothmar Wardowns, or decked out your Hall of Monuments. Like any number of quests in GW1 that permanently altered what might show up where because you did something. That world is persistent at least to your character. Games like WoW and GW2 have zero persistence. Clear a zone at level 1 then go back at level 80 and it is exactly the same as when you went there earlier. Nothing you do matters, not even after you kill the ultimate bad guy. In fact, you’ll just kill him again, over and over, like the time before it never happened. The game is designed to make you do that. It’s designed to be an unchanging treadmill to nowhere. Maybe that’s what’s meant by persistent world? A world that persists in its state no matter what you do? At least while you’re in a GW1 zone, when you kill something it stays dead. Being dead is a fairly persistent condition, after all. Mobs don’t just rematerialize a minute later like they do (and have to) in an open world. Want to explore a cave? In GW1 you kill everything in the way and then explore to your heart’s content. In other MMOs you kill the mobs once going in and then you have to kill the same mobs again to get out. The definition of grind. Oh yeah and what happened to persistence?

Yeah, saying that these MMOs have persistent worlds and GW1 does not, is a travesty that can only be said with a straight face by people who will eat a kittenandwich and smile as long as they’re told it’s peanut butter. Just a little bit of critical thinking is all it takes to separate truth from fiction.

insulting people does no good and adds no merit to your post. In fact I think most will dismiss it without a thought. Telling someone what a persistent world is not will never prove to them what it is, if you want to prove that GW1 is a MMO to people who believe its not, then find out what they think a MMO is. Take yourself and your own bias out of the equation if you want to change people’s perception, otherwise its just more useless vitriol.

The industry considers GW1 an MMO. That’s really as far as the discussion needs to go. Everything after that is the kind of nuance-y thing no marketing person cares about

What part of massive multiplayer and online does either GW1 or GW2 not have? Because both are massive multiplayer and online. This by definition is what MMO is. What distinguishes the games within the genre are the type (RPG, FPS, etc) and the features. There are two ways to handle loading of the world, preload it as the player walks though the map or use zones that have a loading screen. These methods go way back to the days of video games designed before windows even existed. The difference is the world is persistent for (most or all?) MMOs. Note that persistent does not mean seamless. As again that is a matter of method used to load the portion of the world the player isn’t currently in. And isn’t a requirement to meet the definition of MMO but then what would be the point of having massive amounts of people playing the same online world at the same time if they aren’t able interactively play it together. Which is why the games are designed that way.

Even GW1 has a persistent world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world except that the story telling all took place in instances. The persistent world in GW1 wasn’t very big but it was there and none the less reflects that shared aspect of MMOs. Arenanet differentiated themselves from the well known MMOs by using the term CORPG for GW1 to distinguish their leading design of the game being the fact that you had to play it with out people in groups in order to do the content. Obviously well skilled players would succeed doing it alone with the aid of AI but the intended way to play was with a group of others for everything.

GW2 however veers away from the everything is designed to do with a group of players and the story encompassed within instances to the solo adventurer who adventures with as many or as few or nobody as seen fit by the players as they play. And done in such a way that no formal grouping is required except for the dungeons which they designed to be for formal grouping. The story takes place in the persistent world (which allows them to have a bigger persistent world) except for your characters personal story which is unique-ish based on character creation choices and in game choices.

You can see where an online game isn’t an MMO with for example Titan’s Quest. Which even though massive amounts of people can be playing it online at the same time the game world is not persistent to all of them. It is unique-ish to each small group of players playing. And no different than if the same group played the game together offline.

I find that most people who want to argue that GW1 isn’t an MMO is because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that they could be playing their favorite MMO without paying a monthly fee or are jealous subconsciously of it’s success without a monthly fee and so refuse to consider it to be equal to said MMO. Please note that I ask that we don’t go down the road of debating the charging of a monthly for games that do that as that always leads to bad behavior breaking forum etiquette rules. But it too often in my experience is brought up as to why GW isn’t a MMO. And since there are games prior to GW1 that never charged a monthly fee that are considered MMOs it is worth bringing up my observation as to why some people have a problem with seeing GW as an MMO.

The only thing persistant about GW1 were the city/ town hubs where you could group up with your friends. Once you left the towns, you were given an instanced area that only you and those in your group could play. This was why people were able to Vanquish areas in Hard Mode. Vanquishing meant you had to kill all the enemies in a zone. Once something was killed it did not respawn.

I remember the devs saying back in the day that GW actually was an CORPG and not an MMO. So yes the Devs themselves did say it wasnt an MMO. Ofc this was years ago so no i dont have a link to the quote, but i still remember it to this day.

People who challenge whether or not the original GW was a MMO are not addressing the facts.

Arenanet, not us, said the GW2 would not have “gear stat progression (vertical progression feature).” They said it for years, did interviews, created videos, etc. explaining the reasons. They said it during the betas. Then after launching the product, they said it again and stated that Exotics would be the max stat gear. They also explained that there would different types of Exotics that could be obtained based on varying degrees of time – easy to get to harder. The only difference would be cosmetics (horizontal progression feature).

I wonder if people even know about the harder Exotics. These items exist and were the real step between “easy to obtain” Exotics and Legendaries.

So the game was sold with the “no gear stat progression” product feature. Many people bought the game because they wanted that feature. Now just 3 months later, they radically alter their product by introducing that feature with a promise that more vertical progression is to come.

Just one of many quotes from a disappointed buyer on a retail site:

“I saw this video called Guild Wars 2 Manifesto (on their main website, great video btw) and wanted very much to try it out. If you have seen the video and want the game because of it, do not buy it. Last weekend, they officially took back everything they said in the video. There was a lot of drama on the forums, with one thread over 11,000 posts long before it got closed. I will not go into detail about the changes, but basically, if you are currently playing another MMO and want to switch to another that is skill based and casual-friendly, this is not the game for you.”

Taken from Arenanet’s “The Endgame Reimagined” article on this site. Dated 9/13/12

“When we looked at the concept of “endgame” for Guild Wars 2, we designed it the same way. We didn’t want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we’ve introduced game elements that you’d normally associate with “endgame” at every level and every possible opportunity….

Sure, once your character reaches max level, we’ve created new and interesting ways to challenge you as a player, but we didn’t want to force you to master an entirely new subset of the game."

The introduction of a new gear tier with an infusion item that has stats and agony is “an entirely new subset of the game.” It goes against their original product design that was available at launch.

You’re pretty much arguing with the same people that say an MMO MUST contain a gear grind in order to be called an MMO. Logic will get you nowhere.

As a side note, I’m sure their response to these games being called mmos and listed as mmos on a site that even has mmo in the title would be almost slightly entertaining:

http://www.mmogames.com/sportsgames/

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

fractal.7039:

…

I have a question? If you don’t mind?

You did ‘not’ have that name since release. Fractal.

Are you a brand new player? Or did you ‘change’ your display name some how post launch of fractals?

Edit: I see you have a post from 2 months ago? Did you ‘know’ they were going to make something called a fractal, or it’s just coincidence?

Sorry, I’m a bit ‘rabid’ about this, because if you got them to change your name, I’m about to go ape kitty on them, as I’ve been hounding on this for months!

Jia Shen.4217:

What part of massive multiplayer and online does either GW1 or GW2 not have? Because both are massive multiplayer and online. This by definition is what MMO is.

Sorry this is not the ENTIRE definition of an MMO. By this singular definition… ANY ONLINE GAME that has a LARGE number of players playing it would be considered an MMO. Call Of Duty is not a MMO. Farmville is not a MMO.

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature a persistent world.

A persistent world (PW) is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits it, and to whose state user-made changes are to some extent permanent.

notebene.3190:

fractal.7039:

…

I have a question? If you don’t mind?

You did ‘not’ have that name since release. Fractal.

Are you a brand new player? Or did you ‘change’ your display name some how post launch of fractals?

Edit: I see you have a post from 2 months ago? Did you ‘know’ they were going to make something called a fractal, or it’s just coincidence?

Sorry, I’m a bit ‘rabid’ about this, because if you got them to change your name, I’m about to go ape kitty on them, as I’ve been hounding on this for months!

No Fractal has been my handle for many games….

I use the name Fractal because fractal means a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. ( I am a math nerd)

I think of my characters as fractals of myself…. and my character names tend to follow famous mathmatical fractals…

Menger – The Menger Sponge
Sierpinski – The Sierpinski Triangle ( actually is where the Triforce from Zelda comes from)
Mandelbrot
Julia

I am nerd and proud of it!!

There are so any horrible games under the MMO umbrella and so many of them based on gear bait/cheap cash shop baits that everyone think this is a norm.

Now you say MMO people assume this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA

Then here’s a game that was going to break the pattern. Not anymore. I think MMO can now be officially be recognized as gambling and conditioning and not a real gaming genre.

I love how people STILL try and convince themselves guild wars 1 was not an MMO LMAO.

Guys, seriously.. it was an online based game, with a massive amount of players interacting with each other constantly.

Does a game not count as an FPS if it isn’t based around corridors and shooting middle easterners/Russians?

Does a game not count as RPG unless you get to choose different story arcs based on player choices?

Genres are VERY BROAD, many overlap with each other. The only purpose of them is to give customers and designers a GENERAL idea about the format of the game.

I have no idea what people are trying to prove by trying to say that massive online game, guild wars 1, was not an MMO.

Yes gw1 was different, it’s world was MOSTLY (not entirely) instanced, which I think led to a much better game (but thats my opinion and different topic). Just because it had a different set up to what you may assume from an MMO, by no means invalidates it as an MMO.

(Is guild wars 2 even a fantasy game? I mean there are no elves anywhere!)

WoW set up a successful format of MMOs, it did NOT define what an MMO should be.

this kinda thought pattern is WHY game developers for mainstream games have such a hard time pushing anything new/innovative, because YOU GUYS can’t seem to contemplate something being different, GW1 did not create a new genre, maybe it created a sub genre, but was still an MMO.

:)

Quaz.4931:

I love how people STILL try and convince themselves guild wars 1 was not an MMO LMAO.

Guys, seriously.. it was an online based game, with a massive amount of players interacting with each other constantly.

Does a game not count as an FPS if it isn’t based around corridors and shooting middle easterners/Russians?

Does a game not count as RPG unless you get to choose different story arcs based on player choices?

Genres are VERY BROAD, many overlap with each other. The only purpose of them is to give customers and designers a GENERAL idea about the format of the game.

I have no idea what people are trying to prove by trying to say that massive online game, guild wars 1, was not an MMO.

Yes gw1 was different, it’s world was MOSTLY (not entirely) instanced, which I think led to a much better game (but thats my opinion and different topic). Just because it had a different set up to what you may assume from an MMO, by no means invalidates it as an MMO.

(Is guild wars 2 even a fantasy game? I mean there are no elves anywhere!)

WoW set up a successful format of MMOs, it did NOT define what an MMO should be.

this kinda thought pattern is WHY game developers for mainstream games have such a hard time pushing anything new/innovative, because YOU GUYS can’t seem to contemplate something being different, GW1 did not create a new genre, maybe it created a sub genre, but was still an MMO.

:)

How was GW1 different in the way it handled instances from the way Diablo was done?

They were the same, except GW1 was graphic lobbies vs text lobbies. Would you consider Diablo a MMO?

What does gear-progression have to do with the definition of an MMO? It’s a gating mechanic that has no bearing on genre conventions. It’s also very sinister in its treatment of the player base but that’s another story.

Also,
I’ll quote from wiki since that’s where everyone is going, but I hate doing it:

“A persistent world (PW) is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits it, and to whose state user-made changes are to some extent permanent.”

None of the towns in GW1 have anything that can be changed in them, they are static. By the first assertion, GW1 only counts as an MMO in the towns. And by the second assertion, GW1 doesn’t count at all.

We could be here all day hand-picking quotes to support out arguments. Or we could try common sense. It makes no sense to call GW1 an MMO when you think about how that game plays out. No sense.

On a side note, what’s with the WoW assumptions towards people who think like this? I don’t get it, I’ve never played WoW, I’m a GW1 fan and proud of it. /shrugs

Besides, given the bad rep MMO’s get lately, I would think the GW1 crowd would want to distance itself from the genre. I’d be throwin the “coorpg” label all over the place.

I have not played diablo, but does diablo have explorable lobbies? With interactive events?

Maybe in some ways diablo is an mmo, from what I vaguely understand it has it’s own economy and you play with other people, it’s all online based. That checks a lot of boxes.

What I would agree with that gw1 does not fit @neatly" into the typical conception of an MMO, but really it is still an MMO.

But since I have written MMO for the hundredth time in 2 posts, I have become disiullusioned. Call it what bloody want, call diablo a point and click MMO, call GW1 a cooprpg, I mean it was basically the same as fable or some modded oblivion or something right?

MMO is a broad genre that encompasses many things, GW was built in the image of an MMO. Debating the tag seems pointless, GW had many MMO aspects, more than any other genre I know about.

Genres are not templates, they are ideas, concepts. You are correct when you say gw1 was not a typical/normal MMO, or even that it did not have a lot of things MMOs usually would be expected to have, but it was still an MMO.

OP, I really think you’re digging yourself in a hole. It’s like, you’re trying to argue that a game does not require vertical gear progression to be an MMORPG (true, strong argument), but you are doing this by asserting that GW1 was an MMORPG (false, weak argument) and did not have vertical gear progression, therefore MMORPGs do not require vertical gear progression.

Why deliberately make a losing argument for yourself, when you are only trying to prove something that is already known to be true? I mean, you could have brought up UO (definitely an MMORPG) that did not have vertical progression. But instead, you gave yourself the task of “proving” something that even the developers of the game believe in false. GW1 was always, to my knowledge, marketed as a CORPG, not an MMORPG.

Quaz.4931:

I have not played diablo, but does diablo have explorable lobbies? With interactive events?

Maybe in some ways diablo is an mmo, from what I vaguely understand it has it’s own economy and you play with other people, it’s all online based. That checks a lot of boxes.

What I would agree with that gw1 does not fit @neatly" into the typical conception of an MMO, but really it is still an MMO.

But since I have written MMO for the hundredth time in 2 posts, I have become disiullusioned. Call it what bloody want, call diablo a point and click MMO, call GW1 a cooprpg, I mean it was basically the same as fable or some modded oblivion or something right?

MMO is a broad genre that encompasses many things, GW was built in the image of an MMO. Debating the tag seems pointless, GW had many MMO aspects, more than any other genre I know about.

Genres are not templates, they are ideas, concepts. You are correct when you say gw1 was not a typical/normal MMO, or even that it did not have a lot of things MMOs usually would be expected to have, but it was still an MMO.

I see you were not around at the creation of the genre…

There was no term MMO prior to AOL Neverwinter Nights and The Realm Online….. These were the first MMO’s, and they set what the definition of an MMO was… Online persistent worlds with thousands of players playing.

Diablo was not an MMO… it was a game that could be played online with 4 people at one time. You meet and chatted in lobbies, formed your groups and went and played.

That was the standard for CORPG. To meet in a lobby and set out on adventures….

Fast forward to GW1…. same premise as Diablo… meet in town (lobby) .. form a group … go out into an instance with 2-8 people…

The irony in all of this is the original Anet team who designed GW:Prophecies was the people who designed the lobby system for Diablo, which was called B.net. The innovation they did was take the lobby portion of diablo and make it graphical…

delmarqo.5038:

The industry considers GW1 an MMO. That’s really as far as the discussion needs to go. Everything after that is the kind of nuance-y thing no marketing person cares about

Says who? You represent “the industry”?

The industry doesn’t consider GW1 an MMO.

I recall that ArenaNet themselves saddled GW with the CORPG acronym, presumably recognising an opportunity (having designed a game that deviated from the standard EQ/WOW MMORPG model), to distinguish their game by playing on the differences rather than the similarities – a marketing exercise in other words.

We human beings have (quite rationally in my view) realised that we can convey distinctive concepts in a shorthand way once they have become firmly established in the popular consciousness. Naturally though, as we make small deviations from what was established, we have to come up with new shorthand ways of conveying the difference without having to go over the minutiae of it all.

GW was different to most established MMORPGs in some really very significant ways. We could either spend the next 20 years pulling each others hair about it, or just accept that not only was it very different from WoW, it is also very different from GW2?

@lagrangeify

y u so reesnibble!!

I’m onto you! You and your rational discourse and calm demeanor. How dare you soil these forums with reasoned compromise! Begone foul beast!!

Cereally though, I can totally agree to that.

Obsidian.1328:

@lagrangeify

y u so reesnibble!!

I’m onto you! You and your rational discourse and calm demeanor. How dare you soil these forums with reasoned compromise! Begone foul beast!!

Cereally though, I can totally agree to that.

Well I like to buck the trend now and again

Hydrophidian.4319:

Okay, I think this has pretty much run its course.

There have been multiple challenges to the initial assertion.

Yea and you have been hard pressed to get anyone to agree with you that Guild Wars1 is an MMO. Most people in this thread point out the flaws in your reasoning, but debating with you is like talking to a brick wall.

You have the attitude of, “anyone who disagrees with me(which in this threads case is pretty much everyone) is wrong”. So the whole world is wrong? The games own developers admit it’s not an MMO, and you still try to argue that it is.

Amusing to say the least.

dalendria.3762:

People who challenge whether or not the original GW was a MMO are not addressing the facts.

Arenanet, not us, said the GW2 would not have “gear stat progression (vertical progression feature).” They said it for years, did interviews, created videos, etc. explaining the reasons. They said it during the betas. Then after launching the product, they said it again and stated that Exotics would be the max stat gear. They also explained that there would different types of Exotics that could be obtained based on varying degrees of time – easy to get to harder. The only difference would be cosmetics (horizontal progression feature).

I wonder if people even know about the harder Exotics. These items exist and were the real step between “easy to obtain” Exotics and Legendaries.

So the game was sold with the “no gear stat progression” product feature. Many people bought the game because they wanted that feature. Now just 3 months later, they radically alter their product by introducing that feature with a promise that more vertical progression is to come.

Just one of many quotes from a disappointed buyer on a retail site:

“I saw this video called Guild Wars 2 Manifesto (on their main website, great video btw) and wanted very much to try it out. If you have seen the video and want the game because of it, do not buy it. Last weekend, they officially took back everything they said in the video. There was a lot of drama on the forums, with one thread over 11,000 posts long before it got closed. I will not go into detail about the changes, but basically, if you are currently playing another MMO and want to switch to another that is skill based and casual-friendly, this is not the game for you.”

Taken from Arenanet’s “The Endgame Reimagined” article on this site. Dated 9/13/12

“When we looked at the concept of “endgame” for Guild Wars 2, we designed it the same way. We didn’t want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we’ve introduced game elements that you’d normally associate with “endgame” at every level and every possible opportunity….

Sure, once your character reaches max level, we’ve created new and interesting ways to challenge you as a player, but we didn’t want to force you to master an entirely new subset of the game."

The introduction of a new gear tier with an infusion item that has stats and agony is “an entirely new subset of the game.” It goes against their original product design that was available at launch.

This post has no place in this thread and is off topic. The discussion was “Is GW1 considered an MMO” And the answer is NO.

Sure there are a few ppl who “think” that it is. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not.

fractal.7039:

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO.

Quaz.4931:

(Is guild wars 2 even a fantasy game? I mean there are no elves anywhere!)

Since when does “having elves” have anything to do with being an MMO? Plently of real MMO’s are not fantasy, some are futuristic or sci fi.

But Regardless, gw1 was not an MMO, and gw2 is.

“Guild Wars is not an MMO.”

-Ive never seen anyone argue this, within the context of this topic or otherwise(except for in this topic now, since its been brought up).

DegoLocc.5976:

fractal.7039:

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO.

Just curios: where you guys see the border between MMO and no-MMO originating from instanced/non-instanced content btw. persistent/non-persistent world? 10% instanced world is persistent so the game is MMO. 90% intanced world is not persistent so the game is not MMO. What about 80%? 70%? 60%? 50%? Persistent? Not persistent? And… why?

Kathmandu.2417:

DegoLocc.5976:

fractal.7039:

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO.

Just curios: where you guys see the border between MMO and no-MMO originating from instanced/non-instanced content btw. persistent/non-persistent world? 10% instanced world is persistent so the game is MMO. 90% intanced world is not persistent so the game is not MMO. What about 80%? 70%? 60%? 50%? Persistent? Not persistent? And… why?

SWTOR, horrible game, but still an MMO, Why do you ask? It’s also HEAVILY INSTANCED, but unlike guild wars 1, you could have 100’s of players in the same area. THAT is the difference. GW1, towns or lobbys could have more than 8 people too, but you can hardly make a case that the game is an MMO, because it had a “glorified lobby area” when 99% of the rest of the game was only instanced out to you and 7 other ppl at the time. That makes it a CORPG, just like demon souls or dark souls. Not an MMO.

It’s really cut and dry, there is no grey area, GW1 just isn’t massive multiplayer, is more cooperative RPG. You will NEVER come across another player not in your group in GW1 outside of a town or lobby. That is why it’s not massively online. Sure 1000’s of people play, but not all together, they are split up in smaller match making, similar to how COD had thousands playing, but not together.

Also when you and your party leave your instance in GW1 the instance itself ceases to exist, that’s not persistent. Just because the lobbies (towns) are there still doesn’t make it persistent as a game on the whole. In SWTOR, it was heavily instanced, but if everyone logged out the world/zone, said world/zone is still there, and supports MANY GROUPS within the SAME WORLD/ZONE, not just one group, per one world/zone.

Like I said, SWTOR is a poor example of a game, but it’s still an MMO, and heavily instanced, where gw1 was also heavily instanced, but not an MMO. Hope that clears it up for you.

“Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO."

I love how you’re arguing what an MMO is and is not when you yourself admit you think a 16 man mutiplayer map is an MMO. . .

GADefence.5634:

“Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO."

I love how you’re arguing what an MMO is and is not when you yourself admit you think a 16 man mutiplayer map is an MMO. . .

You failed to comprehend what I typed.

I said “alas, it’s not an MMO”,

But by OP’s logic it qualified.

I then noted that it was still closer to being an MMO than gw1 is. Despite it clearly not being one.

It was point to prove the flaw in OP’s logic.

I thought you left GW2 to play PS2, How’d that work out for you?

DegoLocc.5976:

It’s really cut and dry, there is no grey area,

But it obviously is. You differ between MMO’s and non-MMO’s based on quantitative characteristics, not on qualitative. Like: If you can play with N<X players in the same instance, then it is a MMO. If you can play with only N<Z players in the same instance, then it is not a MMO. Like: If you have x% of the world instanced then it’s not a MMO, but if you have y% of the world instanced then it is not.

So either you can give the exact values AND justify them, or we need some qualitative characteristics.

PS: I assume, only ONE game right now allows all the player to be in the same world at the same time, it’s EVE. So all others MMO’s would be not really MMO’s after your definitions. Just MMO-like.

Kathmandu.2417:

DegoLocc.5976:

fractal.7039:

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO.

Just curios: where you guys see the border between MMO and no-MMO originating from instanced/non-instanced content btw. persistent/non-persistent world? 10% instanced world is persistent so the game is MMO. 90% intanced world is not persistent so the game is not MMO. What about 80%? 70%? 60%? 50%? Persistent? Not persistent? And… why?

10% = Not an MMO
90% = MMO

Can you travel the majority of the world(not just “hubs”) and meet people… If the answer is no… it is not an MMO

DegoLocc.5976:

Yea and you have been hard pressed to get anyone to agree with you that Guild Wars1 is an MMO. Most people in this thread point out the flaws in your reasoning, but debating with you is like talking to a brick wall.

Oh, the irony.

Did you read the rest of the post to which you just responded? … Apparently not.

You have the attitude of, “anyone who disagrees with me(which in this threads case is pretty much everyone) is wrong”.

You need to improve your surveillance techniques or something. Or maybe you put your spy cameras on the wrong house.

This makes the fourth time in this thread that you’ve tried to attribute something disparaging to me. Is this the only dialogue setting you have? Do you even know what argumentum ad hominem is?

The games own developers admit it’s not an MMO, and you still try to argue that it is.

So you’ve said. Repeatedly. Except I addressed that very point in the initial post. And then multiple times afterward.

Meanwhile, you’ve failed to bring any support for your argument at all, despite direct requests. If your point were so strong, so evident, shouldn’t you be able to do more than belittle the person you’re arguing with (who also asked you to refrain from it more than once)? And shouldn’t you be able to do this without repeatedly citing your own ‘amusement’ as if it means anything?

In any event, you’re now completely missing the point.

Based on the argument that has unfolded, the assertion that GW1 is not an MMO is predicated almost entirely on the idea that its social hubs don’t qualify as a persistent world.

So, how does this relate to the game systems? What does a persistent world, or lack thereof, have to do with vertical gear progression?

Are you capable of providing a response without being snide and insulting? At this point, I gotta say, I kinda have my doubts.

“I then noted that it was still closer to being an MMO than gw1 is. Despite it clearly not being one.

It was point to prove the flaw in OP’s logic.

I thought you left GW2 to play PS2, How’d that work out for you?"

I’m still playing PS2 and MWO, waiting for more people to get unbugged on PS2.

I would still like to play GW2, and once ANet removed the gear grind or I get a bit more fed up (I assume by next monday) and demand my 300$ back for the game, I’m probably going to stop posting here.

Also, just saying something is doesn’t make it so. MUDs are MMOs, though I’m pretty sure you’re going to argue unless the game had gear grind a MUD was a single player game.

Kathmandu.2417:

DegoLocc.5976:

It’s really cut and dry, there is no grey area,

But it obviously is. You differ between MMO’s and non-MMO’s based on quantitative characteristics, not on qualitative. Like: If you can play with N<X players in the same instance, then it is a MMO. If you can play with only N<Z players in the same instance, then it is not a MMO. Like: If you have x% of the world instanced then it’s not a MMO, but if you have y% of the world instanced then it is not.

So either you can give the exact values AND justify them, or we need some qualitative characteristics.

PS: I assume, only ONE game right now allows all the player to be in the same world at the same time, it’s EVE. So all others MMO’s would be not really MMO’s after your definitions. Just MMO-like.

Aside from the whole “persistent world argument of mine” which you ignored, yes, I’ll give you a numerical example.

4-8 players in same zone=coop RPG or CORPG
16,32, or 64 players in same zone= Multiplayer Online Game, or MOG.
100’s of players in the same zone(+ability to make multiple groups withing that same game zone)=MassiveMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame, or MMORPG.

Quite simple really.

It takes, more than just the player number to make an MMO, but that is the general requirement of players in the same zones, that the game must support to be considered as a true MMO.

it has a world map with only pve available in which you dont require a party, guild, friends or anything to play in it but in dungeons.
it has a separate world of equallity team vs team pvp type.
it has a separate world which shares your equipment in the pve map for mass pvp.

this sums up the game pretty much

Here’s the basic exchange I’ve seen many times in recent days:

“I wish GW2 approached gear in the same was as Guild Wars.”
“But Guild Wars is not a MMO!”

After the debate in this thread, here’s what I think that exchange has become:

“I wish GW2 approached gear in the same was as Guild Wars.”
“But Guild Wars lacks a persistent world!”

…Does that seem nonsensical to you? ’Cuz it seems nonsensical to me.

fractal.7039:

Kathmandu.2417:

DegoLocc.5976:

fractal.7039:

GW1 was not an MMO. It had less than 10% of the world that was persistent. 90% of the game was instanced.

GW1 was a graphical Diablo…. instead of Chat Room you had towns….once you left a town you cannot meet new people in your instance.

GW2 is an MMO…. 90% of the world is persistant.

Yup, By their logic, red dead redemptions online sandbox mode was an MMO as well.

Funny thing is, it’s closer to being an MMO than GW1 is. But alas still not an MMO.

Just curios: where you guys see the border between MMO and no-MMO originating from instanced/non-instanced content btw. persistent/non-persistent world? 10% instanced world is persistent so the game is MMO. 90% intanced world is not persistent so the game is not MMO. What about 80%? 70%? 60%? 50%? Persistent? Not persistent? And… why?

10% = Not an MMO
90% = MMO

Can you travel the majority of the world(not just “hubs”) and meet people… If the answer is no… it is not an MMO

Exactly

fractal.7039:

notebene.3190:

fractal.7039:

…

I have a question? If you don’t mind?

You did ‘not’ have that name since release. Fractal.

Are you a brand new player? Or did you ‘change’ your display name some how post launch of fractals?

Edit: I see you have a post from 2 months ago? Did you ‘know’ they were going to make something called a fractal, or it’s just coincidence?

Sorry, I’m a bit ‘rabid’ about this, because if you got them to change your name, I’m about to go ape kitty on them, as I’ve been hounding on this for months!

No Fractal has been my handle for many games….

I use the name Fractal because fractal means a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. ( I am a math nerd)

I think of my characters as fractals of myself…. and my character names tend to follow famous mathmatical fractals…

Menger – The Menger Sponge
Sierpinski – The Sierpinski Triangle ( actually is where the Triforce from Zelda comes from)
Mandelbrot
Julia

I am nerd and proud of it!!

Ok thanks. A-Net is off the hook…for now!

I think the argument over GW1’s designation as an MMO or CORPG is interesting from a semantic or taxonomic point of view, but not very useful in the practical sense. Fundamentally these arguments hinge on matters of definition, and definitions in game design are by their nature subject to constant change. Arguably the term “MMORPG” itself is more significant for its connotations (a big persistent world, probably painted with WoW’s brush in one way or another, usually with some kind of subscription, usually with some kind of progression system) rather than its stricter denotation (a roleplaying game with a large, persistent world inhabited by a virtual community).

@OP, your argument is intelligent and nuanced, and I’m not trying to dismiss it. Clear definitions are essential to clear arguments. But I think your argument isn’t really about whether or not GW1 is an MMORPG; it’s about whether or not we should dismiss GW1’s ideas because of how we choose to label the game.

This is the elephant in the room that everyone seems to be ignoring. It’s not that GW1 is or isn’t a CORPG or an MMORPG. That distinction is predicated on GW1’s omission from most discussions on MMORPGs. We have a habit of conveniently leaving Guild Wars 1 out of the picture whenever we discuss the genre, as if Guild Wars 1 were a bizarre fluke or some kind of half-breed hybrid and therefore excluded from the discourse. Like Guild Wars 1 is the Third Party that never gets a seat on the debating table.

Guild Wars 1 is an outlier—it is a rare breed of MMORPG that shamelessly undermines nearly every conventional mechanic and design trope endemic to the genre: subscription costs, open worlds, high level caps, loot progressions, rigid class definitions, gear-driven PVP. And precisely because it’s so weird, so different, so obviously an outlier, the game becomes conveniently (and tragically, and erroneously) excluded from serious discussions about the future of the MMORPG.

If we’re going to have a serious discussion about what an MMORPG should and should not be, then logically speaking, we’re doing ourselves a disservice by limiting our discussion to MMORPGs which neatly conform to the mold of World of Warcraft. We should be at least entertaining the idea that every other game is doing it wrong, and Guild Wars 1 is doing it right, at least for the sake of argument.

So, OP: I think your argument is well presented and your points well taken. However, I think that fundamentally an argument over semantics (Is this game an MMORPG or not?) may be fascinating in an abstract way, but misses the point, which is: Why are we dismissing GW1’s design whenever we talk about MMORPGs? Even if it isn’t an MMORPG—who cares? This is a successful, seven year old game that doesn’t look at all dated, successfully implemented some wildly original game mechanics, bucked MMORPG conventions (to be fair—before they became conventions) and somehow avoided a subscription cost.

Any game designer worth their salt should be interest in considering the merits of Guild Wars 1, regardless of how we define its genre/subgenre, when imagining what the MMORPG of tomorrow will look like.

That discussion certainly starts with an argument over taxonomy, but should never end there.