I just finished reading an article that has definitely left me feeling a little bit triggered.
Ascent: Infinite Realm is that MMO in development by the team that continues to promote how it’s so “shocked PUBG did so well.” Okay, anyway. The quotes from Bluehole’s CEO, Hyo-Seob Kim, are beyond ridiculous.
Trigger #1:
“MMORPGs were very new [ten years ago], with World of Warcraft and all the others,” Hyo-Seob Kim said. “But the play style [stayed] very similar as time passed on, so the players got bored with the system. They started looking to other genres of games.”
10 years ago the MMO genre had already been alive and well for a decade. This is the equivalent of saying WoW was the first MMO.
Trigger #2:
“There are mobile games now, and there are console games. We think we can match that lifestyle, and make an MMORPG that you don’t have to put your entire life into.
I’m always bothered when people try to imply that a MMORPG can be a like a mobile game or a console game. Mobile games are generally meant for play sessions that span mere minutes. Console games are generally designed to be played until beaten, then the player moves on in typically a few weeks. MMOs are meant to be a game where players progress, grow, improve, and develop. I won’t fault someone for trying to define a new niche of MMO that’s meant to be played in bursts, but I take issue with someone implying (or practically saying) that ‘time’ is a key factor is the failure of MMOs. I completely disagree and feel that quality and innovation are the biggest failings.
Trigger #3:
“If something new comes out, it will get higher interest.”
Yikes. The “newer is better” mantra. Again, I completely disagree. In context he’s talking about how players are tired of WoW and older games and their content. Dose of reality: New games are releasing and dying off within DAYS now, not even weeks. New =\= better.
Trigger #4:
This one doesn’t come from a quote, but instead an observation of what type of game this will be, and how it’s calling itself an MMO. I get triggered big time when people call League of Legends or Call of Duty or Diablo MMOs. It’s the same argument made by the people calling loot boxes gambling. It’s all semantics. The term MMO is greater than the sum of its parts. MMOs are not simply games played by lots of people — they have mechanics, features, and play styles associated with them.
A:IR appears, from videos and articles I’ve watched/read, to be all about the intense siege action and battles. This is purely conjecture — though I doubt I’m wrong — that we’re looking at some sort of battleground game full of limited siege mechanics and battles with little or no true MMO. This assumption is reinforced by Hyo-Seob Kim’s remarks about wanting to keep the game easy to jump in and out without having to put in a lot of time.
Not a Trigger but a 5th thing that bothers me:
He implies TERA was designed for the western market, but it was rife with the Asian grind and appeal — up-skirt shots included. That garbage fails in the western market, and if he’s meaning to imply in the article that TERA was a success, I disagree.
You’re right about it all being semantics. Language is all. The thing here is that you are, largely accurately, describing what an MMORPG is, but an MMORPG is an MMO only in the way a horror movie is a movie. MMO is the form, MMORPG is the genre.
I started trying always to use the terms separately a couple of years back but it’s very hard not to slip and just use “MMO” as shorthand for “MMORPG”. No wonder everyone ends up arguing about what is and isn’t included.
I think it’s interesting how the term MMORPG was shortened to MMO, and then MMO became, as you say, more of a “form” than an abbreviated version of MMORPG. In that sense, you’re probably correct — from a language point of view.
I use them interchangeably 100%, but probably should start using “MMO” for the “okay fine you can call yourself an MMO” crowd, and “MMORPG” what what I consider an actual true to form MMORPG.
I am not entirely sure you are correct. Not that anyone will ever know for sure.
I’ve spend 15-20 minutes searching and I couldn’t really find proof of either. Boxes fromn old MMORPGS refer to themselves as RPGS. Wiki states: ‘The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, in 1997.[20] The term probably derives from “MMOG”, which can be traced back to the 1995 E3 Convention, when Dale Addink used it to describe Confirmed Kill.’
This implies MMO as a term existed before MMORPG.
You claim the inverse, and are pretty derogative to the non rpg meaning of the word for some reason. Do you have any proof that mmo is an abbreviation of mmorpg? And why so negative to the non rpg meaning of the word? I mean, it is just a term, and it make sense in pretty much every way for mmorpgs to be a subsection of mmos.
PS: the new comment system refuses to remember my details, intentional or bug?
To my knowledge, comment info has never been remembered on our site. If it was, you may have had some fields auto-populated by your browser.
MMO is an abbreviation of MMORPG simply because we’ve been abbreviating it since the 1999-2001 era when when the more modern “MMO” type games didn’t even exist. When I say “we” I refer to those of us who have been playing and using the terminology since its inception. Granted, we find ourselves now the niche, and just like modern times can take a term and morph it to make it their own, that may have happened with MMO.
Must’ve been auto population then.
As someone who started playing MMOs during lineage 1 and Ultima Online, I’ll agree that those first the term could be used interchangeably, due to no non rpgs being Massive and multiplayer at that time. 2003 Really changed that with Planetside though which was (as far as I am aware), the first MMOFPS.
Nothing got morphed about the mmo term. People use it as massive multiplayer online, then and now. You can debate about the scope of massive (I remember discussing if muds counted as mmos and if that depended on the size of said mud or not.) but the term means what it has always meaned, just as mmorpg still means exactly the same too.