Talk:Massively multiplayer online role-playing game/Archive 2

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Archive 2
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This archive page covers approximately the dates between November 2005 and April 2006.

Note: "History of MMORPGs" was created entirely out of "MMORPG", some of this discussion no longer pertains to material on the main page.

This is not a *complete* archive - relevant notes that were created during this period have been left on the main talk page. I take full responsibility for the decisions regarding what was "relevant" and what was not. --Beefnut 20:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


Contents

Are all MMORPGs mob/loot/XP-based?

The second paragraph of the article starts off describing all MMORPGs as involving killing, mobs, loot, XP - but I think this could be disputed, and an assumption like that makes the whole article very unprofessional. It seems that someone should move all of that information into a new section on the "traditional", "standard", or "stereotype" MMORPG, with a note that this has been the form of 99% of them from their beginnings to the current day. The only alternative, it seems, is to define the MMORPG as a gametype involving action- and item-based character progression, in comparison to other big multiplayer role-playing universes such as Second Life. -Beefnut 19:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the MMO genre is under a period of refining. The classic MMO has the goal to collect more gold, experience, and loot than everybody else. This tends to cause the players with more time devoted toward the game to have more raw power, and this raw power is the most important factor towards determining the outcome of a conflict (such as PvP). Some modern games are attempting to move away from this, most often by limiting levels or requiring more complex combat skills. I think the two distinct "new" categories are the persistent world (like The Sims Online or Second Life) and CORPG (notably Guild Wars). These games still fall under the term MMORPG (persistent online world, create a character with it's own identity), they are missing or deemphasise the necessity to gain levels, requirement to put in time, and other elements considered "standard" of MMORPGs. I think these should be mentioned, but for most purposes, I think it is safe to describe MMORPGs in this standard sense. Since the titles which deviate from the mold are notable, their mention in the article should be enough to allow the rest of the article to remain unchanged and still be relevent. --Bakkster Man 20:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Private Servers, Poor Translation?

The whole part about chinese servers seems to be a poor translation (possibly from chinese) because I'm not sure of the contents factual basis I'll leave corrections to an expert. Thealternativescott 11:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Addition of Random Events By RuneScape

I added the Random Events part to the Bots section as I feel it represents another possible line of attack. I know this may seem bias by mentioning RuneScape but I believe it is the only one to act in this way. Does any one else have any more information on MMORPG developer action related to Bots. Philipwhiuk 23:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that while Random Events in Runescape discourage autoers, the creators stated that Random Events also were designed to break up the monotony of experience gain.

AMMORPG?

I ran across AMMORPG, which is currently an orphan, a stub, and unwatched. Googling suggests that the term does exist, but is very very limited in actual use, and I have no idea if people really consider "adult MMORPGs" a seperate subject. Would it be worth changing to a redirect here, or is there the potential for actually writing a useful article on the subject?

Thanks all, Shimgray | talk | 01:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Amateur development spam

Just finished removing multiple hits by Argentum Online and Realm fighter that muddied the waters. Mr Mulligan has done some good work in this regard also. I wasn't certain if there were substantive edits between 25 Dec and 30 Dec, so I removed things individually. I think it's back to the Myrdred version from the 25th now. Sigh. --Habap 19:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Amateur development

This title is not appropriate - I know a lot of open source developers that do a better job (and spend more time doing it) than fully employed "professionals", if that's what you mean. Please change this title. Jmfj 02:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

"Amateur" only denotes that they are not getting paid for it; it doesn't have to mean "shoddy". -- nae'blis (talk) 05:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
This section is about folks who are not paid to develop MMORPGs. While you may assert (and we probably all agree) that much paid development is worthless, it is irrelevant. The section discusses unpaid, amateur development.
I disagree. You can't say for sure they are not being paid for it. Jmfj 02:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Anon 69, you also can't be serious that amateurs are spending more than 60+ hours every week for months developing games. In general, either you are paid very poorly to spend that many hours doing it or you have some other job. None of the amateurs I've known (a small sample, admittedly) spent more than 20 actual hours on it per week and those that spent that many actually weren't any good (and probably weren't actually "working" those 20 hours.)
I fail to see how the number of hours per week comes into play here... Jmfj 02:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Everyone thinks they have a great game idea and could also do it professionally. Very few people can (not me, either), and they work endless, unglamorous hours for pay that hardly beats being an amateur.
Open source and amateur are not the same thing. This section is about amateur development. If there is any paid open source game development, perhaps we should consider a section on that.
Some of the amateur developmen is better than some commercial development. This section is about projects that people have done for free. Sometimes those projects are also open-source. I feel that changing the name is unnecessary. --Habap 05:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I disagree - you don't have to use "open source" if that's not what you mean - however if you mean free-of-charge -- well - use "free-of-charge games". "Amateur" is widely used as "inferior" or below professional grade. Please rectify. Jmfj 02:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
How about "Non-corporate development"? Then simply remove all use of "amateur" and add a note about how such games are often free to play, or offer extra incentives for paying customers. --Beefnut 02:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Hell, I'm going to "be bold" and make the changes myself. Feel free to revert. --Beefnut 02:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a compromise -- go for it... Jmfj 02:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's silly, but it works for me. --Habap 04:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Amateur/independent development

I think it would be right to include the Star Wars Combine in this category, it seems to be a shoo-in with more than 30,000 individual players (2500-3000 per week), having existed for nearly ten years, and having sufficient notability. I'm adding it to the list, please offer any criticism/support for the edit on the talk page. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 02:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Genre challenges

The section on 'genre challenges' was almost doubling the length of the article so I did the logical thing and split it to MMOG genre challenges. I didn't make it MMORPG genre challenges because everything in it is applicable to *MMOG. --Kevin 21:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Current article condition

I've spent some time cleaning the article up, fixing the problems noted in the last featured article submission. It's been submitted for peer review, possibly for the first time, in preparation for nominating it again. Do you see any problems with it which need to be addressed? Kevin 12:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The article has come a long way but its not a FAC yet :) Just a few things that I see while skimming it...
  • The first sentence in the article: "An MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) is an online computer role-playing game in which a large number of players play together or against one another in the same game at the same time." - Is there another way to say "players play"? Or another word to use instead of "players" right here?
  • There should be no 1-2 sentence paragraphs - there is a one-sentence paragraph followed by a two-sentence paragraph in the introduction and another one (the first paragraph) in the history section.
  • Lots of red links =/
  • There are no internal citing of sources, and actually the reference section is kind of short for a FAC.
  • I don't really think the language is "compelling, even brilliant" - we should probably get some non-gamers to copyedit :)

--Naha|(talk) 13:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I changed "players can play together or" to "players can interact together or", which might be better. --AySz88^-^ 01:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Cool! --Naha|(talk) 05:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok I've been thinking ..there is something wrong with the last sentence in the opening paragraph: This interaction between a virtual world, always available for play, and an ever-changing, potentially worldwide stream of players characterizes the MMORPG genre. Its too wordy and hard to understand...or maybe not too wordy ..maybe the words are just in the wrong places ..I don't know ..I just don't read it right the first couple times through. But it needs to be said because it is a very valid and important statement. Somehow we have to reword it ..and I'm having only minor luck. Here is the one thing I have come up with so far: (puncuation may need to be corrected)

  • The interaction created between a virtual world that is always available for play, and an ever-changing, worldwide stream of players defines the MMORPG genre. comments? --Naha|(talk) 23:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Another thing, the first two sentences in the paragraph about EverQuest both end with "into the Western mainstream." Thats bad juju! I'm doing some other minior copyediting on the article at the moment, I might come back and try to fix this in a little bit if I can think of another phrase to use. --Naha|(talk) 23:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I keep thinking of things. While we can't list every single MMORPG ever invented in this article, there are a few notables that have no mention as of yet..namely, EverQuest II, World of Warcraft. and Star Wars Galaxy! Yeah SWG was a flop, but it was a unique flop ..and could be mentioned in the same paragraph (along with EQ II) regarding the Station Pass thingy (where you can have one subscription to all games that SoE currenly publishes or whatever). There is already a small mention of this, we could expand on it. Somehow we gotta fit these games in there!

SoE also currently has The Matrix Online (another bit of a flop, but none-the-less a semi-unique MMORPG). And there are many more MMORPGs that came out around the same time frame ...like an explosion of the genre ..everyone has to be making an MMORPG (yet many of them not doing so hot). This could be mentioned in the closing part of the history section. Don't think I see anything in our article about Lineage II yet either.

EQII and WoW were also instrumental in stealing a huge portion of the player base from EQ and other existing MMOs, causing the older ones to suffer big time subscription-wise. --Naha|(talk) 00:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Help bring MMORPG to Featured Article Status!

Is there anyone else interested in helping to turn MMORPG into a WP:FA? It still has a long way to go, but with a handful of people working on it ..I think we can do it :) Anyone? :P If you are interseted, please speak up here and start taking a look at the suggestions I have made above, and the suggestions on the most recent Peer Review Thanks!

P.S. The reason I'm bringing this up is because it looks like the person who WAS taking the lead in improving the status of this article to FAS has been banned from Wikipedia - so his shoes need to be filled. --Naha|(talk) 00:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I can focus my (limited for now) Wiki time here to try to help. Coll7 00:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Any amount of effort is greatly appreciated! --Naha|(talk) 01:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Knowing that this page has gotten press coverage and might get more gives me plenty of motivation. I'll get started right away. --Beefnut 06:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


Article title

Wikipedia articles shouldn't be acronyms, so this article should be renamed. Yet if we rename it, we should be certain of what to name it, so we don't have to rename it again. I'd say Massively multiplayer online role-playing game would be the right one, mainly because...

  • Most of the pages that don't link directly to MMORPG are redirected from it.
  • The word massively refers to multiplayer, not game. If it would be massive, the game itself could be huge while still maintaining only a couple of players. Thus it is more informal to use massively.
  • Although the word has a well-known abbreviation, it's still just a generic term and not some company, which is why it should be lowercase.

Agree so this doesn't take too long. :) - Sylph 10:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion of this in the Archive. The general consensus was to move it from the spelled out version to MMORPG. I don't think a move back to the spelled out version is merited. As you see from the vote, everyone who voted for any of the options voted for MMORPG. --Habap 15:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


Archetypes

Would anyone like to help create a RPG Archetypes article, or find a related article topic to add this information to? I am looking to have an article including common character types (pyromancer, meat shield, healer, etc), plot characters (friendly NPC who is actually evil, love interest, badass with a heart of gold, etc), world area (asian theme, technology theme, floating magic city, monastary). Hopefully this will be a good source of information. --Bakkster Man 19:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The RPG Archetypes article is up and needing work. --Bakkster Man 01:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

BattleMaster

Okay, the reason why this BBMMORPG should be mentioned specially is that, you cannot win this game. The game mechanics and playing worlds are purposely designed to let world domination impossible. The game does not reset, some realms have existed for more than 5 real years while other realms be formed and destroyed by players, literally let the game has its own developing history written all by the players. The goal of the game, if there is any, is try to reach those goals you set to yourself and have fun with other players. So far I have yet to see any other BBMMOG that gives such freedom level of development. -- G.S.K.Lee 14:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. If we do include it in the article, the sentence that lists it ought to concentrate on the fact that it doesn't reset and has this history/freedom, rather than the mechanics of the game.
So, I'd support it being added as long as the sentence focusses on this unique aspect. Perhaps...
In BattleMaster, the game world never "resets", so that player realms have existed for more than 5 real years while other realms be formed and destroyed by players. Thus, the game has its own developing history as lived and written all by the players.
Not sure where it would go in the section, but I think something along these lines would be useful. --Habap 17:58, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've put it under the example section. -- G.S.K.Lee 16:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

PLATO and MMORPGs

Richard Bartle has some issues with the history section of this article: [1] - most notably that, in his opinion, games are being included in the history of MMORPGs simply because they're older and share some facets of the genre, rather than because they were actually part of the history. Does he have an argument? Auz 11:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

First Graphical MMORPG

As noted above, yes, I do have some issues about the claims made for PLATO games as being the spring from which all all things MMORPG sprang. I also have issues regarding why I'm not simply going to edit/impose my own view on this Wikipedia entry (and related others, eg. that for MUD). I will say, though, that if you collectively decide to take the PLATO route then you can't claim NWN was the first graphical MMORPG because those early PLATO games (including ones that would undeniably be recognised as virtual worlds, eg. Avatar) were graphical.

Another early graphical game usually mentioned in the same breath as NWN and SoY was Kingdom of Drakkar, which came out in 1992 on MPG-NET and was, as with NWN, pretty well the same as IOK except with bitmaps (and a little animation) instead of ASCII graphics.

RichardBartle 10:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Being ..who you are, you obviously know what you are talking about. I would like to believe that most Wikipedian's do as much research as possible and try to make the articles as factual as possible regarding what information they can find. Everyone doesn't always find everything. People make mistakes. Instead of ranting and accusing people of the information being "what people would wish us to believe is fact?" ...please feel free to make corrections and Be bold in updating pages. You have the background, you have the credentials. Set us straight! Use citations! But, don't just assume people state incorrect information as fact on purpose as if they have some hidden agenda. Give the editors here some credit. Wikipedia is not perfect, no one claims it to be. Its an experiment. But if you care about it enough to rant about it, then there must be something worthwile going on here. Please help out! We could really use more people like you around here with first hand knowledge of whatever industry a given article is about. --Naha|(talk) 19:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

As someone who saw both games, it's a matter of terminology and we could clarify it. I don't know about pedit5 and dnd, but Dungeon and the PLATO tradition tied to MUDs and Rogue drew maps on the screen using alphanumeric text to show the player their position, the walls/doors around them, and the location of enemies, NPC's etc. In that sense they absolutely were graphical. NWN (primitively) showed actual pictures of the environment, enemies and action and used the graphical functions of the machine to do so. I think it's a good point that "text based" can be confusing since both the "narrate your way through the action" games and the "look at the map and then read the narration" games (which felt VERY different to play) fall under that category. Any good ideas on how to name them separately, and then on a term to apply to NWN since it's a third distanct style of display? Coll7 22:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Text MMORPGs

There is a need of clarification of some concepts, like:

  • Browser-Based MMORPG (I think this article's section about it should be splitted)
  • Online Text Based MMORPG (OTBRPG - related to MUD and/or MOO?)
  • Turn-Based MMORPG

Waldir 00:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Addiction

I came here looking for some information on addiction to MMORPGs -- folks in Korea dropping dead after 72 hours straight gameplay, etc. Would it be worth mentioning this facet of the MMORPG community in this article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stewartjohnson (talk • contribs) 02:26, February 3, 2006 (UTC).

See the archive for discussion on Health risks. I think there was one reported heart attack death by a Korean gentleman after playing for 72 hours straight. Since millions of people play these games and few stay awake for 72 hours straight, I think one death that can be attributed to staying awake drinking caffeine for 72 hours is the risk, not the gaming. --Habap 15:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If you're looking for addiction in general, you probably wanted computer addiction. --AySz88^-^ 20:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)