Why do so many people think Guild Wars is an MMORPG?

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: videogames101
...i can play withh all my friends at the same time in a online game in a contiguous world it is a mmorpg...

Unless you have more friends than GW's little group allows 😛 (which I believe is around 8?)

And the world isn't really continuous...

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: DPmaster

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: DPmaster

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k
A 3D graphical server lobby does NOT an MMO make. GW and DDO are not massively multiplayer because of their complete reliance on INSTANCING. Can we at least agree that Diablo/D2 are not MM? Then what if the Battle.NET server was represented graphically as a city (say Tristram/Rogue Encampment). Would Diablo/2 suddenly be considered an MMO? Persistance IS a pre-requisite. Just because MMORPG doesn't have "Persistent World" anywhere in the acronym doesn't mean that doesn't come with it.

For the most part GW is compared to WOW and EQ, both of those games have instancing, and do not have persistent worlds either.

So given your criteria none of these 3 games are MMOs, which I can accept, but what I don't accept is that it's ok to excuse the limitations of some games, but not of GW.

And I am not saying that all the games have the same limitations, or that there's anything wrong with not liking GW, or saying it's less of an MMO than the others.

What I do disagree with are attempts to not discuss or compare the games because of some arbitrary line in the sand that this game is an mmo and that games isn't, just because someones thinks they have the authority to impose such a ruling on the world at large.

That is an incorrect statement for WOW and EQ. What is instanced in those games are dungeons. The rest of the game world is persistent in games like WOW, EQ, EVE, etc. This is directly opposite of what Guild Wars is. In Guild Wars, the entire game world is instanced.

My statement is not incorrect, in fact you confirm it yourself with your statement. If a game has instancing, then that part of the game does not have a persistent world. That is all I said. My point was to refute absolutism in criteria through irony, to give an example of where such narrow-minded thinking leads one.

And to add to that, even the part of the world that is considered "persistent" is only partly persistent. The background is persistent, but the key elements of gameplay are constantly regenerated. So it's kind of persistent on a superficial level, but in other ways it's not persistent at all.

Furthermore, a persistent world is only relevant in terms of what it does to enhance the game. If you think about why a persistent world can potentially enhance a game, it turns out there are several reasons, one of which, as I said before, is that a world that is persistant can evolve and present the player with a different experience each time the player enters the world.

This is an element of a persistent world, that GW is designed to facilitate, without all of the other elements of a persistent world.

WOW and EQ have more of the elements of a persistent world than GW, but they still only have some of the elements, some of the time.

No, you said the worlds were not persistent. The dungeons are instanced. But those are not part of the world (I don't consider them anyways). You will never have to go in to dungeons ever in the game if you do not desire to do so. When you log off of games like WoW or EVE, the game world still continues on without you. That's the most basic definition for a persistent world. Doesn't happen though with games like Guild Wars...once you log off, your game world is reset. In Guild Wars, the game world is your own and no one else's...that's why Guild Wars isn't persistent. In WoW or EVE, the game world is EVERYONE'S game world and not just your own (per server anyways).

If you have no desire to go into the instanced parts (more like 98% of the game) of Guild Wars, you're stuck staring at the login screen. Once you log in, you're instanced in GW. You can't even move to or discover new/different areas of GW without being instanced. With games like WoW, EQ, EVE, etc., that's not the case.

Actually your description of the game world in GW isn't entirely correct. The game world does go on and is influenced to a small degree by what the players that are playing are doing. So if I log off and come back later, I may be in a slightly different world than when I left.

You also aren't instanced when you log in, have you played the release version of the game, or are you basing your opinions on the beta test that took place a year ago ?

And I feel that a good deal of what happens in the "persistent" world of EQ and WOW, is actually a kind of instancing layered on top of a "persistent" background. You kill a monster, after a while it's back, this is a sort of instancing. You do a quest, and someone else gets the same quest in the same area, but you both will have enough monsters or items or npcs to complete the quest, this is basically just instancing disguised as persistance.

As far as EVE, or some other games, I know even less about them than WOW, EQ, or GW, but from what I've heard some of these are quite a bit more true to the ideal of an mmo, but as I would expect, the closer a game gets to emulating the complexity of the real world, the more time and effort it's going to take, to the point that it wouldn't seem like a game to a lot of people, but work.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: Noema
For the same reason many people called Metroid Prime a first person shooter... 🙁

Most people don't know any better...and it's easier for them to pigeon-hole games into categories they don't quite understand. "ZOMG it's an RPG and it's online...it must be an MMORPG!!!1one".

Metroid Prime is more FPS than Guild Wars is MMORPG.

Michael Jackson is more a womanizing stud than Metroid Prime is a FPS.

Um, I spent more time shooting stuff from a first person perspective than doing much else. I'd say that its a FPS. It certainly isn't a mindless FPS, as it does have those action/adventure elements and it doesn't focus on the running and gunning of your standard FPS. If you want to convince yourself that its something else go ahead and do so, but just because something isn't the "norm" doesn't mean it isn't what it is. Mario Kart is just as much a racing game as Gran Turismo (or F-Zero for that matter), as different of a racing game as they are.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Dumac

Originally posted by: videogames101
...i can play withh all my friends at the same time in a online game in a contiguous world it is a mmorpg...

Unless you have more friends than GW's little group allows 😛 (which I believe is around 8?)

And the world isn't really continuous...

Might as well start calling every single multiplayer game out an MMO, since they all support more than 8 players :disgust:

 

[DPmaster]

Originally posted by: Tom

Actually your description of the game world in GW isn't entirely correct. The game world does go on and is influenced to a small degree by what the players that are playing are doing. So if I log off and come back later, I may be in a slightly different world than when I left.

You also aren't instanced when you log in, have you played the release version of the game, or are you basing your opinions on the beta test that took place a year ago ?

And I feel that a good deal of what happens in the "persistent" world of EQ and WOW, is actually a kind of instancing layered on top of a "persistent" background. You kill a monster, after a while it's back, this is a sort of instancing. You do a quest, and someone else gets the same quest in the same area, but you both will have enough monsters or items or npcs to complete the quest, this is basically just instancing disguised as persistance.

As far as EVE, or some other games, I know even less about them than WOW, EQ, or GW, but from what I've heard some of these are quite a bit more true to the ideal of an mmo, but as I would expect, the closer a game gets to emulating the complexity of the real world, the more time and effort it's going to take, to the point that it wouldn't seem like a game to a lot of people, but work.

I've got 2 lvl 20s (one that beat the game and the other is about 2 towns away from beating the game) and another char that I got up to lvl 16...got it about a week after launch but haven't played it in about 3 months...saving my last char slot for the expansion when it comes out. If I kill someone in Guild Wars, it doesn't really affect someone else's game world. I kill a boss in Guild Wars and then I loot him, no one outside my game world knows that. To the other players of Guild Wars, it doesn't matter to them because they aren't affected by it. In a traditional MMORPG, I kill a boss or NPC and other players know about it or are affected by it. For example, I kill an important NPC/boss that the opposing faction has been trying to kill for a long time and now they're ticked off because I "took" their kill. Now they've got a grudge against me and there is a potential for me to be marked for death by members of the opposite faction. I could be running around the game world and if they see me, they are going to come after and kill me as "payback" for taking their kill...and the rest of the players could see this.

I worded it wrong when I said that you're instanced once you log on...I was implying the areas that you're actually questing/running around killing NPCs, etc was instanced (and not the cities/towns). I would consider the cities/towns persistent (the other 2% in my previous post). However what you have is cities/towns that are then multiple copies of themselves. For example, I'm not really in Ascalon City...I'm in Ascalon City <channel 1> (out of 40 Ascalon Cities for example). I can move from channel 1 to channel 17...everyone on the server isn't really at THE Ascalon City...they're at AN Ascalon City. That's why you often see people comparing GW to Diablo 2. Diablo 2's channels just weren't graphical and intricate as what GW has for its towns/cities.

I understand what you are saying concerning enemy respawning. While it does lessen the sense of belief of the game world, I wouldn't say that it would negate the persistency of the game world. Maybe my definition of persistence is more lax for MMORPGs but as long as the game world is always active and doesn't stop when I quit the game (barring server reboots and crashes of course), I consider it persistent. This is also why I wouldn't consider DDO a MMORPG either...it's in the same boat as GW but the kicker is you have to pay monthly to play DDO.

I would consider games like EVE and UO more of a MMORPG experience than I would games like WoW.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: DPmaster

I kill a boss or NPC and other players know about it or are affected by it. For example, I kill an important NPC/boss that the opposing faction has been trying to kill for a long time and now they're ticked off because I "took" their kill. Now they've got a grudge against me and there is a potential for me to be marked for death by members of the opposite faction. I could be running around the game world and if they see me, they are going to come after and kill me as "payback" for taking their kill...and the rest of the players could see this.

CoH, SWG and WoW don't do this either unless you down Onyxia, or snag a DWB in to get the Fett gear, or kill Hammidon or one of the other badge monsters in CoH. I would hardly call shenanigans on GW for not giving a few monsters to beat out in the public where the other top tier MMOs do to a very limited extent.

I worded it wrong when I said that you're instanced once you log on...I was implying the areas that you're actually questing/running around killing NPCs, etc was instanced (and not the cities/towns). I would consider the cities/towns persistent (the other 2% in my previous post). However what you have is cities/towns that are then multiple copies of themselves. For example, I'm not really in Ascalon City...I'm in Ascalon City <channel 1> (out of 40 Ascalon Cities for example). I can move from channel 1 to channel 17...everyone on the server isn't really at THE Ascalon City...they're at AN Ascalon City. That's why you often see people comparing GW to Diablo 2. Diablo 2's channels just weren't graphical and intricate as what GW has for its towns/cities.

Actually in GW your character is persistant, and by default of the game's mechanics you affect any shard, channel, whatever YOU want to call it so it because persistant because of the players. Its all a matter of point of view really. In WoW you have 80 individual persistant worlds. In GW you have 1 with many individual switchboards. GW has done away with the Log In Lobby to give you more people to quest with and to affect the world on a bigger level with social tools as well as merchandising. No system is better than the other but trying to call one and apple and one an orange because of how they approached the game... is meh.

I understand what you are saying concerning enemy respawning. While it does lessen the sense of belief of the game world, I wouldn't say that it would negate the persistency of the game world. Maybe my definition of persistence is more lax for MMORPGs but as long as the game world is always active and doesn't stop when I quit the game (barring server reboots and crashes of course), I consider it persistent. This is also why I wouldn't consider DDO a MMORPG either...it's in the same boat as GW but the kicker is you have to pay monthly to play DDO.

I would consider games like EVE and UO more of a MMORPG experience than I would games like WoW.

This really all comes down to the tools the players have at their disposal to make the game world more believably persistant. They all live and breath in an RP way. You log in and you have something to sell then and then you leave and then its not... is persistance. The gameworld is there... you affect it coming and going. Opportunity creates the persistance as much as lost opportunity. There is no more persistance in WoW than in Guildwards... there is just more people adding to the canvas on my quests. The problem with the arguments here that are anti-MMO is that if the GW devs decide to make a world event where many districts can be at an event at one time and interact.... then it is a persistant world. Oh wait... this is called the city. Take away mobs from the cities in CoH/CoV then you have GW in almost every way.

IMHO the reason why the DEVs decided to not call it an MMO, where they could have, is to not have to defend their standpoint in threads like this.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: hooflung
IMHO the reason why the DEVs decided to not call it an MMO, where they could have, is to not have to defend their standpoint in threads like this.

Yeah. It is pretty much a way to cover their asses 😛

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Dumac

Originally posted by: hooflung
IMHO the reason why the DEVs decided to not call it an MMO, where they could have, is to not have to defend their standpoint in threads like this.

Yeah. It is pretty much a way to cover their asses 😛

Speaking as someone that has actually met and discussed it with the devs, I can tell you that you are wrong. My entire point all along is the reason not even they call it an MMO. You only play with 8 other players. There are other RPGs that aren't MMO's and support more players in multiplayer. Diablo had that much and it wasn't an MMO. Why in the world would you think GW was an mmo?

 

[DPmaster]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: DPmaster

I kill a boss or NPC and other players know about it or are affected by it. For example, I kill an important NPC/boss that the opposing faction has been trying to kill for a long time and now they're ticked off because I "took" their kill. Now they've got a grudge against me and there is a potential for me to be marked for death by members of the opposite faction. I could be running around the game world and if they see me, they are going to come after and kill me as "payback" for taking their kill...and the rest of the players could see this.

CoH, SWG and WoW don't do this either unless you down Onyxia, or snag a DWB in to get the Fett gear, or kill Hammidon or one of the other badge monsters in CoH. I would hardly call shenanigans on GW for not giving a few monsters to beat out in the public where the other top tier MMOs do to a very limited extent.

I worded it wrong when I said that you're instanced once you log on...I was implying the areas that you're actually questing/running around killing NPCs, etc was instanced (and not the cities/towns). I would consider the cities/towns persistent (the other 2% in my previous post). However what you have is cities/towns that are then multiple copies of themselves. For example, I'm not really in Ascalon City...I'm in Ascalon City <channel 1> (out of 40 Ascalon Cities for example). I can move from channel 1 to channel 17...everyone on the server isn't really at THE Ascalon City...they're at AN Ascalon City. That's why you often see people comparing GW to Diablo 2. Diablo 2's channels just weren't graphical and intricate as what GW has for its towns/cities.

Actually in GW your character is persistant, and by default of the game's mechanics you affect any shard, channel, whatever YOU want to call it so it because persistant because of the players. Its all a matter of point of view really. In WoW you have 80 individual persistant worlds. In GW you have 1 with many individual switchboards. GW has done away with the Log In Lobby to give you more people to quest with and to affect the world on a bigger level with social tools as well as merchandising. No system is better than the other but trying to call one and apple and one an orange because of how they approached the game... is meh.

I understand what you are saying concerning enemy respawning. While it does lessen the sense of belief of the game world, I wouldn't say that it would negate the persistency of the game world. Maybe my definition of persistence is more lax for MMORPGs but as long as the game world is always active and doesn't stop when I quit the game (barring server reboots and crashes of course), I consider it persistent. This is also why I wouldn't consider DDO a MMORPG either...it's in the same boat as GW but the kicker is you have to pay monthly to play DDO.

I would consider games like EVE and UO more of a MMORPG experience than I would games like WoW.

This really all comes down to the tools the players have at their disposal to make the game world more believably persistant. They all live and breath in an RP way. You log in and you have something to sell then and then you leave and then its not... is persistance. The gameworld is there... you affect it coming and going. Opportunity creates the persistance as much as lost opportunity. There is no more persistance in WoW than in Guildwards... there is just more people adding to the canvas on my quests. The problem with the arguments here that are anti-MMO is that if the GW devs decide to make a world event where many districts can be at an event at one time and interact.... then it is a persistant world. Oh wait... this is called the city. Take away mobs from the cities in CoH/CoV then you have GW in almost every way.

IMHO the reason why the DEVs decided to not call it an MMO, where they could have, is to not have to defend their standpoint in threads like this.

I've never played CoH or SWG so I'm not too familiar with them but I'm not too sure what you mean with the statement, "WoW don't do this either unless you down Onyxia". In fact, the scenario I described above was related to something that happened to me. I was running around the Western Plaguelands and decided to stop by the lumber camp. I noticed 3 Horde there attacking all the NPCs around the area. So I decided to avoid them and go a little east from where they were. I then spot an elite NPC walking around so I decided to kill it. It proceeded to drop plans for Frostguard. Apparently, these guys were camping the area waiting for this elite NPC to show up so they could kill it and loot the plans. These guys WERE NOT happy and proceeded to chase me through Eastern Plaguelands. They had a friend on the Alliance side message me later letting me know that they had been camping that area for 6 days now waiting for that elite NPC to show up. Apparently they were trying to get those plans for their guild. The friend also let me know that I was to be "killed on sight" by any and all of their guild members and to "watch my back". Now I've let my guild know about this so they've got me covered just in case. Of course WoW won't have quite the interaction and world involvement as other games such as EVE.

Concerning a player's character in GW being persistent, I was looking more at the world being persistent rather than the character itself.

 

[DPmaster]

Originally posted by: videogames101
It's a game where everyone can play together, mmorpg, as long as i can play withh all my friends at the same time in a online game in a contiguous world it is a mmorpg, just screw the technicalities. Guild Wars is a MMO, just accept it.

I can do this with Quake 1 or Half-Life 1. I don't go around calling them MMO or MMOFPS (and you shouldn't).

 

[Patt]

Geez gents ... it is just semantics ...

 

[DPmaster]

Originally posted by: Patt
Geez gents ... it is just semantics ...

Hey I just like to debate these things. 🙂

With that in mind..."it is just semantics"...go talk to a lawyer or sign any contract written by a lawyer (which they pretty much all are) and he/she will smile at you and say, "it sure is!" 😉

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Dumac

Originally posted by: videogames101
...i can play withh all my friends at the same time in a online game in a contiguous world it is a mmorpg...

Unless you have more friends than GW's little group allows 😛 (which I believe is around 8?)

And the world isn't really continuous...

Ever heard of a guild? More like 100 players...
Once factions is out you will be even more wrong.
AKA, one world, fighting for land
Also economy is more in effect by what YOU do then in any other game. You can affect NPC prices for every other player.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Ever heard of a guild? More like 100 players...
Once factions is out you will be even more wrong.
AKA, one world, fighting for land
Also economy is more in effect by what YOU do then in any other game. You can affect NPC prices for every other player.

You can't play with your guild though, you can only play with 8 people at a time. There is no persistent world. Having NPC's doesn't suddenly make it an MMO, nor having an economy. Diablo had an economy, Diablo had NPC's, and Diablo wasn't an MMO.

You need to read and understand what instancing is. You aren't all playing in one world, you are all playing in seperate worlds. You are in your own game when you play, not playing with everyone else. You should have figured that out the first time you left the gate and nobody else was there with you.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: Dumac

Originally posted by: videogames101
...i can play withh all my friends at the same time in a online game in a contiguous world it is a mmorpg...

Unless you have more friends than GW's little group allows 😛 (which I believe is around 8?)

And the world isn't really continuous...

Ever heard of a guild? More like 100 players...
Once factions is out you will be even more wrong.
AKA, one world, fighting for land
Also economy is more in effect by what YOU do then in any other game. You can affect NPC prices for every other player.

You say that i can affect NPC prices like I didn't know that.

Anyone should have noticed that black dye was 1k, than jumped up to 4k in a very short amount of time.

I found that kind of silly and stupid; 4 thousand dollars for some armor dye?

And btw, those 100 players can't play together can they? If they could, maybe GW would be massive...

 

[mb]

I can't believe this discussion is still going on. Does it REALLY matter? There is no entry for MMORPG in any dictionary that outlines a set of rules that a game must follow to be called an MMORPG.

 

[Dumac]

^ is right. This topic should die.

I am, of course, not helping by replying.

 

[Tom]

DPmaster and others-

just wanted to say I appreciate all of your insights, which is all my point is, there are games that are worth comparing, even if they all don't fit into a particular genre to the same degree.

 

[Fox5]

Most MMORPGs are just as instanced as guild wars.
Some like Anarchy Online don't even have 8 players at a time in a single area, even if it's not instanced. (though it's really only the cities that are not instanced, kind of like guild wars...in fact, many MMORPGs are instanced once you get outside the city.....and many have very few rpg elements at all, like lineage 2)
Of course, that could just be a case of other games being called MMORPG when they're not.

BTW, guild wars doesn't let you quest or grind with more than 8 people, but the PVP competition things allow up to....64 players I think.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Found this on IGN:

Text

The first thing that needs to be said is that Guild Wars is not an MMO. There's a lot of misunderstanding going around, but GW is an online RPG that blends elements from Diablo-style online multiplayer, while integrating some MMO elements.

 

[mb]

Oh man would you shut up already? Do you work for Blizzard to hate Guild Wars so much? Everytime someone mentions it you have something negative to say.
It simply falls into the MMORPG catagory because it does not fit Action, Adventure, Family, Fighting, Platform, Puzzle, Racing, Simulation, Sports, or Strategy catagories.

Heck I might even put "Guild Wars is an MMORPG" in my sig just so you can have something more to cry about.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: supafly
Oh man would you shut up already? Do you work for Blizzard to hate Guild Wars so much? Everytime someone mentions it you have something negative to say.
It simply falls into the MMORPG catagory because it does not fit Action, Adventure, Family, Fighting, Platform, Puzzle, Racing, Simulation, Sports, or Strategy catagories.

Heck I might even put "Guild Wars is an MMORPG" in my sig just so you can have something more to cry about.

Go ahead, I have had sigs disabled for over a year 😛
and you forgot the fantasy category😉


If you look, I do not really bash Guild Wars itself, just its community (I bash WoW's community more) and the fact that it is often mislabeled as an MMORPG.

 

[mb]

Ok, I will just type it at the bottom of all my posts.
-------------------------
Guild Wars is an MMORPG

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Tom
And who gets to decide what mmo means ? You think it means lots of people all playing at the same time ? well, no game does this all the time, so by your definition there are no mmos.

If you have a good enough reason, you can convince me to change my mind. But just repeating over over that GW is not an MMO because you say so, that is what is ridiculous.

You could start with a more precise definition of what an MMO is, in your mind ? And then what games qualify given the criteria you've established.

But you don't have the right to impose your criteria on the rest of humanity, or anyone else's criteria either, just because they or you say it is so.

You are so clueless it's scary. I've said it a billion times and yet you still can't comprehend such a simple statement. Guildwars is not massively multiplayer, therefore cannot be considered an MMO. You do know what MMO stands for, right?

Read this

Maybe then you'll figure it out. I've been in the MMO biz for nearly 10 years, so as a matter of fact I can and will impose any criteria I see fit. I've been on development crews for both MUDs and MMOG's, I've worked at major fansites, and I've played literally hundreds of MMO's, including some that have never seen the light of day. I don't want to toot my horn, but apparently you need some kind of justification for what I'm saying. I am telling you right now, if anyone in this thread can tell you what an MMO is, I can.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. errrr.

😕

yeah.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: supafly
Ok, I will just type it at the bottom of all my posts.
-------------------------
Guild Wars is an MMORPG

There we go 🙂