My friend says Diablo is an mmo. Is he batshit crazy? What do I tell him?>

[mrwingtipshoes]

It's true, I don't really care if the term MMO means something different to others than it does to me, I just posted what I consider to be an MMO and that's all really. Obviously people have different opinions and that's cool.

Actually it kind of does. MMO has a definition just because you want to call an apple and orange doesn't make it an orange.

[Nelrock]

While maybe not the "technical" definition...I've always considered an MMO to be persistent. When you log out...it's still going. You log in...you're not at a saved point...you're wherever the server is, that amount of time later.

[Doriath]

The correct term is Co-op.

^this^
10char

[Torched]

It´s far from being an MMO.
Hell people sometime say that Minecraft is an MMO...... /Facedesk

[tj119]

Batshit crazy? No...he's just stupid.

[Aquamonkey]

- Does Diablo 3 have a persistant world that updates while you are offline? No
- Can you interact with thousands of other players, like meeting them in cities like Stormwind and Org, or randomly meeting other players while you are questing? No (the AH and the chatroom does NOT qualify as this)

What part of WoW is persistent that updates while you are offline? Every mob respawns within a few seconds. Anything dropped on the ground disappears instantly. The only persistent aspects of WoW are content updates, bug fixes, and balancing, none of which are player interaction based. The only player driven world persistence in WoW is the AH.

[Deleted]

Then by your logic is guildwars 1 an mmo? is vindictus an mmo?

And p.s what is l2?

What are those?
I know that first one is made by NCSoft.

l2 is Lineage 2, here's a mere glimpse of what first M in MMO stands for... and that's without castle sieges...

[Goretex]

It's not an mmo, it's a multiplayer dungeon crawler, but really, who cares what the label is. Don't worry about what he wants to call it And you can actually only group with a maximum of 4 (yourself and 3 others) in D3.

lol by this definition SWTOR isn't an MMO, I play it and only 4 players are allowed inan instance so umm. By your definition of an mmo only wow would be one lol.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

What part of WoW is persistent that updates while you are offline? Every mob respawns within a few seconds. Anything dropped on the ground disappears instantly. The only persistent aspects of WoW are content updates, bug fixes, and balancing, none of which are player interaction based. The only player driven world persistence in WoW is the AH.

I was talking about the regular patches yes (content, not balance patches like all games have). And the other players, the rest of you server, the rest of the community. In Diablo 3, you don't have to "keep up" with your guild. If you stop playing for a week, you won't be behind, the game will still be waiting for you. Diablo 3 is a single player game (with multiplayer support). WoW, and ALL MMORPGs are multiplayer games, hence the "MMO" part of the genre-name. There is no such thing as a singleplayer MMO.

No reason to respond to Aquamonkey if he responds to this, as every single one of his posts in this thread so far has either been trolling or just twisting of words and questions that are so stupid/obvious that you start wondering if hes just doing this to get his postcount up, since none of it makes any sense.

[Aquamonkey]

I was talking about the regular patches yes (content, not balance patches like all games have). And the other players, the rest of you server, the rest of the community. In Diablo 3, you don't have to "keep up" with your guild. If you stop playing for a week, you won't be behind, the game will still be waiting for you. Diablo 3 is a single player game (with multiplayer support). WoW, and ALL MMORPGs are multiplayer games, hence the "MMO" part of the genre-name. There is no such thing as a singleplayer MMO.

So content patches are the defining characteristic of an MMO?
There is still a community in D3.
If you miss a week, your clan will leave you behind and move ahead to a harder difficulty without you. In WoW, it's so easy to keep up with VP, LFD and LFR without your guild.

[Wilian]

Alright, since people really want to believe that apples are oranges and claim it's a proper definition let me clarify it.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.

While this is obvious, I've highlighted the important part from the text for those who might not excel at reading comprehension. Diablo doesn't have very large number of players interacting within a game world. Just because game has a lobby and shared market doesn't suddenly mean the game becomes MMO. By that definition ANY game with multiplayer feature and a lobby is MMO and the thought itself is ridiculous.

MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game.

Every time you launch Diablo, it loads a new map, or the one you've saved and it does not keep it always online for the hundreds of other players to enter it. And persistent doesn't mean that it's being patched with new content as some daft people seem to think, it means that the gameworld is always online and players within can shape it through their actions (Even though modern MMO's are less on that evolve part because of the single playery-themeparky way they've gone). This does not happen in Diablo.

Now, if anyone still feels that they don't understand what an MMO is, well.. Uh... Well I feel sorry for your parents! And if you still want to claim that apples are truly them oranges, fine. But don't cry when people point at you and /lol

[Vespian]

Alright, since people really want to believe that apples are oranges and claim it's a proper definition let me clarify it.

While this is obvious, I've highlighted the important part from the text for those who might not excel at reading comprehension. Diablo doesn't have very large number of players interacting within a game world. Just because game has a lobby and shared market doesn't suddenly mean the game becomes MMO. By that definition ANY game with multiplayer feature and a lobby is MMO and the thought itself is ridiculous.

Every time you launch Diablo, it loads a new map, or the one you've saved and it does not keep it always online for the hundreds of other players to enter it. And persistent doesn't mean that it's being patched with new content as some daft people seem to think, it means that the gameworld is always online and players within can shape it through their actions (Even though modern MMO's are less on that evolve part because of the single playery-themeparky way they've gone). This does not happen in Diablo.

Now, if anyone still feels that they don't understand what an MMO is, well.. Uh... Well I feel sorry for your parents! And if you still want to claim that apples are truly them oranges, fine. But don't cry when people point at you and /lol

This is basically it. There is no such thing as Diablo being an MMO. A game that connects players through a hub with an instance of a game with a player limit below a hundred (that's an AND/AND) is not considered to be an MMO. It has to be persistent, continuous. The world is always online, besides patches/maintenance, etc, and people can interact with the world itself, as well as with instanced zones, such as "dungeons". Diablo has a central hub, Battle.net, and each new game is a single instance of a world, but is finite (bosses do not respawn) and the instance "dies" after all players have left.

[Drifted]

lol by this definition SWTOR isn't an MMO, I play it and only 4 players are allowed inan instance so umm. By your definition of an mmo only wow would be one lol.

By grouping with maximum of 4 players he means you can have max 4 players per one server. That's hardly the same thing as 4 man flashpoints in TOR. Thou there is a limit how many players can be in the same planet before server creates a new instance of that planet. From my experience that is about 100 players before new instance of that planet is created.

D3 isn't MMO. At least for me. MO (Multi-player Online) yes but not Massively.

[Deleted]

lol by this definition SWTOR isn't an MMO, I play it and only 4 players are allowed inan instance so umm. By your definition of an mmo only wow would be one lol.

Hmm... I'm guessing you don't understand how it works, in D3 you can ONLY ever have 4 players in a game. Anywhere in the world. Not in a group / party. In an entire game realm. The fact that MMOs such as WoW and SW:TOR have "instanced" groups, does not detract from the fact that you have more players on a realm that can meet up in the world if you so desire. I haven't played TOR but I assume that outside of an instance/raid you can still meet people in the world who are also playing on the same realm, and that the realm continues to play even if you are not logged on, yes? In D3 you can't - no one exists on your realm except the 3 other people and you had to actually set your game to invite friends (or open), for those people to play. There is no chance you'll ever run into anyone if you haven't set the permissions to an open game.

Furthermore, when you log off and your party ends, so does the world. Your progress is saved and the game ends, your "world" does not go on without you. When you choose to play again, you enter a new world, with your saved progress, it's not continual. It is no different to playing a Co-op game other than the fact that you have to play it online.

[kendro1200]

Batshit crazy? Really?
Is it massive? Is it a multiplayer game? Is is online? If yes, yes and yes, the game in question is an MMO.

D3 is online, it is multiplayer, but it is not massive. MMORPG is massive multiplayer online rpg, having a large number of people in the lobby doesn't count. The fact that D3 limits the number of people in each game to 4 is the very identifier that makes it not a MMO. What makes a MMORPG is a rpg that allows a large number of people (more than 300) play in a persistent world and let their characters directly interact with one another at any point. All players participating on the server could choose to all go to one spot and interact with one another. D3 doesn't allow for that, users can interact with one another in chat, but a single character can only interact with three other characters (ignoring whatever pvp limitations they eventually put in). D3 is a hack n slash rpg, end of story.

[davesurfer]

You could consider the Bnet lobby to be MMO without a virtual environment. There are plenty of MMORPGs that only have instances with a character limit of 4-6 for areas outside "cities". D3 just wouldn't have a virtual environment other than the chat rooms (assuming it's like D2).

Since the RMAH and regular AH are persistent across all instances, I would definitely consider D3 to be MMO.

Well does that make Team Fortress 2 an MMO?
A lobby with tons of people
Games with more than 4 players
Crafting
Weapons and hats can be traded to any players and is persistent across all instances

[melodramocracy]

It's not an MMO, but it will blur the lines a little as far as the RMAH is concerned.

---------- Post added 2012-02-03 at 04:17 PM ----------

Pretty much this. An MMO doesn't have to be something you play with millions of people even though you can only have a few in one game at a time. It is massive, multiplayer online game. Thus it is a MMO, Regardless of how you see it, you cannot claim it as other wise.

there must be a cutoff point... I've never heard anyone refer to all the various FPS games out as MMO's. So, what number of players differentiates co-op, for example, from MMO?

[Sanguinesun]

To the OP:

It seems you're more frustrated on attempting to convince him one way or the other more than a chicken/egg debate.

So tell him he's right and he's wrong and drop the discussion from there with him. This in turn will irk him and he'll seek to continue the debate. Simply block him from doing so and you'll have turned the frustration tables back on him.

[Sj]

Some people are missing the point of the word "Massively."

The term MMO describes a game in regards to its interactive game world. While you may be in a lobby where you can interact with hundreds or even thousands of other players, the actual gameplay portion of the game determines whether or not the multiplayer is massively multiplayer. You can only have 8 people actually interact with each other's characters/sprites/avatars? That means it's not massively multiplayer because there is an gameplay-induced limit on the number of players you can simultaneously play with. An MMO has limitations on simultaneous players imposed by technical limitations.

With the way the online gaming genre has changed, the lines between what's MMO and what's not have blurred a little bit. That being said, there are still lines. Diablo 3 falls on the side of the not MMO line. The in-game features and lobbies do not offset the fact that there is a low limit on the number of player characters that can interact with each other in game world.

[skatblast]

Theres not really much of a arguement, you can only have 4 people in a game with you at a time, so no its not a "MMO". Is starcraft 2 a MMO?

---------- Post added 2012-02-04 at 09:46 PM ----------

lol by this definition SWTOR isn't an MMO, I play it and only 4 players are allowed inan instance so umm. By your definition of an mmo only wow would be one lol.

Before your in an instance your in a world with hundred-thousands of people, thats why its a MMO. In diablo 3 you are never around more than 3 other people.