The Divorce of MMO and RPG

Jeff wrote to mention a new article up on Gamergod.com discussing the divorce of MMO and RPG. From the article: "At close inspection, their marriage reveals what is sadly becoming the new American love tragedy. Two people with little in common, more in lust than anything resembling love, decide to tie the knot. The rest is a classic example of what happens when two people leave the idea stage of marriage and enter the reality of marriage, and find out they don't like, let alone love, each other."

Comments

Depends

[vga_init]

What makes a good RPG? To the author of the article, it seems to be a game ritch in depth; meaty dialogue, engaging story, the need to live more completely in another world. As he points out, this may not be a good game to pair with the MMO crowd (or most humans, for that matter). Excellent games I've played that contain all of what the author values most have been single player: (spanning across my own lifetime) Quest for Glory all the way up through Morrowind.

There are, however, more aspects that define the genre of RPG. Leveling system is probably the main thing. Also included are the ability to explore, kill things, and acquire items/gold. The authors mention latter two only disdainfully, but one man's trash is another man's treasure. Lots of people playing online like leveling and getting new items. To them that's what the game is all about, and it gives them a fun context within which to socialize with other people in a not necessarily role playing manner.

Based on the title of the article, I thought the auther would give real world examples of the two genres splitting, but it's really just his opinion. As far as I'm aware, most MMO games are still RPGs, and also, as far as I know, their popularity isn't exactly declining. So, when you look at sales as well as user base, is this supposed divorce fiction or reality?

Re:Depends

[JonN]

Lots of people playing online like leveling and getting new items. To them that's what the game is all about, and it gives them a fun context within which to socialize with other people in a not necessarily role playing manner.

To prove the point, just look at Diablo II which is still a very popular game. I personally, and know of many people, only play now for the opportunity to achieve higher levels and finding new and cool items since I finished the game ages ago. Also, I would not call the dialog in Diablo II "meaty", so as said, one man's trash is another man's treasure

Re:Depends

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> You know... role playing. Acting out a
> character isn't really fun for most folks
> unless there are other people around doing the
> same.

In 3 years of playing Everquest, I met precisely one paladin who refused to group with necromancers.

And the only real roleplayers I ever saw were the first 6 months or so being an ogre -- everyone who played an ogre role played. It wasn't too hard, just type like you're dumb, but it was there and it worked.

When I retired that ogre, he was level 19, and almost had a full set of banded armor -- minus one wrist -- and was dual wielding Minotaur axes. That's how long ago it was.

Re:Depends

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

the crux of the problem is that most games don't reward roleplaying. in fact, roleplaying means you are gimping yourself, since you aren't killing monsters, getting loot and progressing the storyline.

I agree with you except the last phrase, "progressing the storyline." It doesn't really progress because of your actions (with a few exceptions noted later.)

In City of Heroes, I just stopped the Council from releasing a warehouse full of Superadine, the drug that makes street thugs into low-level supervillians.

Ok, fine.

Now tell me that there was one single spawn point anywhere out in the main city of trolls or outcast or bonecrushers anywhere that disappeared, even temporarily. One spawnpoint that even reduced the rate of spawn, even temporarily.

Hello? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Yes, the company will move the story along, slowly, to coincide with major publishes and/or expansion packs, in one-time events. But the only "player-led" change I can recall was in Star Wars Galaxies where each server would get/prevent the Rebels from getting one minor power depending on who won control of the most cities for the most days for a particular month or two.

And, though it isn't roleplaying technically, the most exciting thing, invasions, are sorely lacking from MMORPG's. Too many whiners that it's messing up their plans to group with their friends and camp orcs somewhere. SHIT, GOOFBALLS, THERE'S AN INVASION!

But spare me City of Heroes style invasion, which are just temporary spawn points of new monsters. I wanna see the possible loss of control of safety of a whole city area, not just a 2-week long temporary camp spot.

I think he has a good point

[hyfe]

Firstly, I think the author has a good point. Earlier MMO's all had elements of roleplaying in them, aswell as specific codes of conduct. The RP'ers could live peacefully on normal servers, and their opinions were generally respected.

The massive influx of new players into MMORPGs have changed this though. Indictative of the whole problem is the whole cultureclash between veterans and newcomers concerning grouping problem. Old-timers find invites to groups without being asked first extremely offensive and are thus often constantly annoyed in WoW. Personally, I just view them as "we're grouped now because we're in the same area and we'll ungroup as soon as we're not" and don't mind them at all.

RP'ers are, naturally, fairly "extreme" in what they'll accept of player-behaviour. As far as WOW goes atleast, their servers are also filled with nitwits, although the in far less numbers. However, only one asshole is needed to break the immersion, and there are a whole lot of assholes out there. Thus, I think ultimatly the entire RP'ing branch of MMO's are going to be relegated to their own games.

Oh. and while we're on the subject, to the people here mentioning single-player games:
There are very, very few single-player games requiring any sort of being in-character and offering any kind of immerson. Just because something is fantasy doesn't make it actualy roleplaying! Roleplaying requires a modicrum of immersion and character choice beyond Good/Evil. As such, the only games I've played which I'm willing to classify as RPG's, atleast to some extent, are Vampire: Bloodlines and Planescape: Torment.

Re:superiority complex

[TagirTheGreat]

I very rarely post but I most certainly agree with you. I thought I had found a game without imbalance when I first played A Tale in the Desert. On the tutorial map everyone was quite happy doing what amounted alot of time sink sort things. The goal was to build a boat to sail to the mainland if I remember correctly, but to complicate this you had to start with raw materials and build up crafting machines to make progressive steps of materials. This was great on the island everyone was friendly and helpful. But once you hit the main map it was very different. I'd like a game where an incoming group is assigned an island/kingdom/whatever and as it builds up you pass through very well seperated phases. I suppose it would be a leveling of sorts but a leveling of a group of people and not idividuals. Just my 2 cents but I think it might lead to a greater sense of community even among people who would never pick up a true rpg.

mod parent up

[william_w_bush]

some did though. playing everquest i could feel the mud-influence, and after release it seemed like a mud with gfx and a few other addons. as time went by though, they kept adding more and more "heh, the quake kids will like this", and "ok so we just give this to everyone" bs that dumbed the game down unbelievably.

ever play a mud? if you aren't skilled or paying enough attention you will die, a lot, and they can be frustrating, but taking that out of a game so you can sell to a wider audience just cheapens the game.

to this day my favorite rpg memories involve running around gfaydark in the dark trying to find my corpse, before i figured out turning up the gamma = infravision. got really good at finding corpses that way ;)

but whatever, the mud crowd is such a tiny percent of the market compared to 9-22 yr olds who like boobs and running around killing things/people.

so i guess we just let it all burn then...
Damn you capitalism!