Soundoff - It's Time to Kill the MMO

It's Time to Kill the MMO

There was a time when saying a game was a massively multiplayer online game meant the game was a persistent virtual world with community-building aspects that went hand in hand with the game play. But these days, any game that allows more than a few dozen players to be connected to it -- even if they are only connected to a tiny fragment of the game -- is being called an MMO.

Technically, they fit the definition. But, as I said in my Hellgate: London preview, some of these games may fit the definition, but they are not to be confused with World of Warcraft or Everquest.

I call them "online hub" games. These are games like Guild Wars and Hellgate: London where a small fraction of the game -- usually cities or trading areas -- allows for massive amounts of players while most of the game -- the parts you actually play -- are instanced.

I believe they are the future of multiplayer gaming, and they aren't really much different than any multiplayer game where you can find people to play with through a service like GameSpy. After all, at this moment there are over one hundred thousand players all connected together playing Half Life. There's an area they can go to and talk to each other, meet up, and then go into an 'instance' of Half Life to play the game.

It makes sense that game developers would move this area into the game where players can walk around as their avatars and do some of the mundane tasks in the game like buy new equipment. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a future Tiger Woods Golf let everyone hang out in the pro shop, look for new golf clubs to buy, maybe trade putters, and put together foursomes before they head out onto the golf course.

I think it’s a great direction for multiplayer games to head, but these games are not MMO's in the same sense that World of Warcraft, Dark Ages of Camelot and other community-building games were and, since they are often called MMO's, the term has become about as descriptive as saying a game is "multiplayer" -- which is nice to hear since it tells you that you can play it with your friends, but it really doesn't tell you anything about the game itself.

So what's the big deal?

It's time to start calling games like World of Warcraft what they are: Virtual Worlds. And it's time to start calling games like Guild Wars what they are: multiplayer games.

The title of a genre should be descriptive. It should tell you something about the game. If I buy a role playing game, I know to expect a character-building and item-gathering game. If I buy a first person shooter, I know to expect a lot of running around and shooting. There was a time when buying an MMO meant you would run around in a world where you could run into other characters almost anywhere, where part of the game was the community and the politics and the diplomacy and the bickering and the feuds and the drama and the spying.

But, as more of these 'hub' games hit the market, the distinction of being a massively multiplayer online game loses its meaning. And when the name of the genre loses its connection to a certain type of game, it becomes more difficult for us players to figure out which one is the type of game that we enjoy and which one is just a multiplayer game.

I see this confusion all the time even from people that have played the game. When I go into the beta forums for one of these 'hub' games, I see people talking about how the game will 'live or die' by its community and how it currently doesn't have enough 'community building' aspects. But these games don't need strong community to do well. They need good, fun gameplay that competes with other multiplayer games of the same type.

Unfortunately, MMO has become too good of a marketing term. So we are going to see it slapped onto many games that technically fit the description but bear no real resemblance to the community-centric virtual worlds that first became known as MMO's.

Eventually, something will have to give. I see more and more multiplayer games going to the online 'hub' design concept. It's just too good of a design and is easy to fit into many different types of multiplayer game. And, heck, I think it's pretty exciting and cool. It brings together more possibilities for the game and it makes hooking up with other players much easier.

But lumping them into the same category as Everquest does a disservice to everyone involved.

Some players come away from the game thinking it is bad because they are judging it by the wrong standards. I've seen this time and time again with Guild Wars: "It is a horrible MMO. It is entirely instanced, and I hate instances." And yet, the same person will happily meet up with others online to play a quick game of Halo in an 'instance' hosted by one of the players.

And Virtual World games are in danger of being lost in the shuffle. They have always been much fewer in numbers than multiplayer games, and they will continue to be few in numbers because of the costs involved in their development. As more and more 'hub' games come out, they will be harder to find in the haystack, and they will begin being judged by the wrong standards as people who expect undisturbed multiplayer-type gameplay become disturbed that another group of players are killing all the monsters in the dungeon they want to explore.

A distinction has got to happen at some point. So, we might as well start calling these games like Everquest and World of Warcraft what they are: Virtual Worlds.

Posted by Dan on 09/26/07