You really wan’t to get the point across that its not an actual MMORPG, don’t you Al3xand3r. lol. I think everyone who has read this knows already and if they didn’t, they need to stop skimming.
The only thing that’s keeping it classified from a true MMORPG is that not everyone in the same district is playing on the same map. I think I’ll continue to call it an MMORPG. See, here’s the thing, if you go into a town, hey, there’s other people here! I can trade with them and talk to them (well I can outside of the town too but you know what I’m saying). They can also join your party from here. There is no seperate games within a district going at once, its all just one district that is being played by many people at the same time. For the maps that aren’t towns, you’re alone (except with a party) mainly so you don’t have to put up with people who are annoying, that grab items right before you do, that you don’t necessarily want to meet, etc. And it also allows for no monthly fees according to you. You can also change your district, or at least you could on the beta test. Since according to you, I’ll just take your word for it, that the different districts are different servers, I thought I should write that FFXI had a bunch of different servers too and still demands a monthly fee! Either they’re just greedy (which is what I think) or the different servers don’t mean anything when it comes to monthly fees.
And of course additional chapters are going to cost money, thats just another name for expansion pack. I don’t know of a company that has released a free expansion pack.
It’s one thing to release an expansion pack or two or three for your popular games and another to have the whole thing planned in a way that will allow you to make a fairly steady income by releasing something new every 6 months… Half of the features the expansions have will propably be things a lot of “real” MMORPGs have from start such as mounts or many more character types if they ever get added to Guild Wars.
Also, I only keep stating it’s not a MMORPG when people act like it’s such a wonder that it doesn’t require a monthly fee. It’s not a wonder. It’s natural. Does Diablo II require monthlee fees? No, it doesn’t. So, why should this game do so when their structure is so similar?
Also, I don’t know how FFXI works so I can’t comment much on that. Other big MMORPGs have several servers too but the big difference is that each server holds thousands of people all being able to chat, trade, explore, combat etc at the same time in the same world, all having the chance to meet each other during all those things and not just when they go in a “town”. That’s fairly different. And of course you can’t server hop in most of them. It’s kind of like alternate universes of the same world I guess since each server will evolve differently according to the players on it.
Still, if FFXI works like Phantasy Star Online then, no, it’s not a real MMORPG and shouldn’t have monthly fees either. Phantasy Star Online shouldn’t do that either in my opinion.
I suppose it also depends on the skill of the designers / programers / whatever that set the whole thing up. Blizzard has been running Battle.net without charging for its services for many many years now. But the creators of the whole thing were pretty much geniouses in that aspect, the same people that are now building ArenaNet and Guild Wars.
I guess not every company is lucky enough to have that requiring them to have more expenses and in turn a monthly fee for their games even if they aren’t real MMORPGs. Or like you said they could just be greedy.
*small addition: I’m not saying the game is bad in any way, I just don’t want people to go all wow for something that is natural and have that affect their decision of purchasing it… Monthly fees should never be an issue for a game that works like Guild Wars does… Buy it for other reasons… I’ve already said I liked it minus a few things…
I knew you didn’t hate it from what you said before, but how exactly do you know what they have planned for this game in the way of more chapters. I’ve never heard anything besides that they plan to release more. Plus, Guild Wars has about the same amount of classes as I’ve seen in just about every game I’ve seen. It also lets you choose a subclass, if you want, which expands a little on them. I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything for mounts since I don’t know what that means. =/
You also can’t keep comparing it to Battle.net, the games that use that are diablo, diablo 2, and starcraft which are far from MMORPGs. Diablo may be an RPG that allows play online but it certainly isn’t set up exactly like this. First off, a difference is that there is no multiple games for different people who want different rooms. I don’t know if district changing is just for beta or not but they are apparantly different servers. You also have to think of FFXI is also an MMORPG and it has different servers. I’m sure other games such as Evercrack have more than one server because if they only used one the lag would be horrible. The main point here is that it doesn’t need a monthly fee to be an MMORPG, let alone almost one.
I’m not sure how many people each district will hold but I’m sure its quite a few. The thing about only meeting other people in towns is it allows for you to gain more experience since there isn’t some one else killing everything off, it allows for you to collect items without having to wait for another chance after you’ve missed you opportunity. It’s not just for things like that, it takes down the lag time. You can also always recall yourself to a town that you’ve been at, or at least this is what I have experiened the past two events. In addition to this, if you know anyone that isn’t in your party or guild for that matter, you can still talk to them. Much like the whipser on D2. You can also do a normal talk or shout but thats just for ppl around you as you already know.
I’m sorry, but the more we argue about this, the more I see it as an actual MMORPG. In fact, I really can’t see a difference now. lol. Sorry if that sounded like I was talking out of spite, I’m really not trying to sound like that. Both arguments are worth looking into, but the only real difference I see with Guild Wars and a true MMORPG is the fact that not everyone is on the same map in each district.
I’d also like to add that no monthly fees can be a big deal for a multiplayer game since not only MMORPGs charge a monthly fee. I’m sure they’re out there, just very few of them. Well, I guess that you have to pay fees for Xbox Live too, so all XLive games are going to cost you. Plus, an internet service is required, I’m sure they need to pay for those some how, and they’re not forcing people to buy new chapters so if a whole lot of people aren’t quite ready for the next that could kill them if that was they’re only means of keeping the servers going.
I can’t stop you from posting another argument if you feel the need to, but after that, how about we call off arguing about it and let everyone else decide. I feel that we’ve basically been restating what we have already said and it’s getting a little old.
Huh? The structure of Diablo II’s usage of Battle.Net is almost identical to Guild Wars. The only difference is that the towns areas where you meet more than one people are missing and it only has regular chat instead. Still, the town areas are little more than a 3D chat for Guild Wars with the added ability of trading with people.
Diablo II start -> go in chat -> meet a few people -> decide to play together (can only play with up to 7 people) -> Start a game -> wait for all of them to join (feel free to password it so it’s private like Guild Wars) -> Start adventuring together.
Guild Wars start -> go in town -> meet a few people -> decide to play together (form a party with up to 7 of them) -> Join a quest area (this isn’t just walking around to a new place, it does have loading and such inbetween) -> wait for all of them to join (no need for password system, only your own formed party can join anyway) -> Start adventuring together.
The only differences I see are these:
A) 3D “town chat” with the ability to trade for Guild Wars instead of regular IRC style chat like in D2.
B) The 3D “town chat” works also like a hub level with various “exits” that when passed will trigger loading of whatever quest area you wanted to go to so you don’t have to “start a game” yourself but just “walk to a game”.
C) Other gameplay differences that shouldn’t affect the bandwidth needed, I never tried to say DII is similar in gameplay to Guild Wars, just their structure, the way they are set up.
But, just because you like those aspects better than they are done in a standard MMORPG (though imo any good MMORPG has ways to minimise the impct of such things) doesn’t enable you to call this different game a MMORPG…
Let’s go back to the first true MMORPG, Ultima Online and you’ll see the differences right away…
Continuous world (no loading and stuff when exiting the HUB to join a privately generated quest area) with all players adventuring, chatting, trading, exploring, battling each other wherever they are whenever they want with the chance to meet anyone else in the world while they do any of those things and not just when they chose to ‘jump’ to a “town chat area”. They can affect the world around them by building houses for them and their friends. They can still have guilds, with their own castles and what not. They can still set up guild wars, go to tournaments and do whatever they like.
Yes, this has its down sides. At times you may find yourself getting killed by other players constantly until they get bored. Yes other players may loot the huge monster you spent an hour battling with. Yes perhaps you won’t feel like the “hero” since you won’t seem to have much of an impact to this huge world.
But imo the feeling of being in a huge world filled with other people can’t be compared to a game that seems to just have an attitude of "ok here you go, lots of people in this town. Get up to 7 of them to form a party with you and then go battle monsters and complete quests together before returning to the town, trading whatever loot you found there and repeating the process or going up against another party in one of our different game modes.
That’s far different from "ok here’s this huge world, you can do this, and that, and this, and that. Go on, and make a new life here now in whatever way you chose to do so. Go alone, make a party, join a guild, be good, help others, be a thief, be a player killer, be a trader, a craftsman, decide to be a player killer hunter, explore, build houses, castles…
The selection of skills and their impact on the character type is also quite huge as far as I remember with some requiring a huge ammount of practicing them before getting any real results…
I don’t see why such an ability has an impact to our “argument”.
As above, I don’t see why such an ability has an impact to our “argument”.
If they are very few it’s for a reason… And yes, you are right, there are non MMORPG games that require monthly fees, such as Tactics Arena Online (though it’s optional you get many benefits) but they are usually run from very small companies or even single individuals which don’t exactly have the ability to set up something as good/huge as Battle.Net or ArenaNet…
I don’t see why X-Box live has anything to do with this. It’s a whole different service. Also, the way you say all this, I guess Blizzard has gone bankrupt by now with running Diablo II with no monthly fees all these years (it’s still hella popular surprisingly)…
Anyway, again, just because this type of game may be more likable than a MMORPG to some (hell, some may not even have enough time to properly play a MMORPG since they require a lot more time to get enjoyment out of them usually), doesn’t make it able to be called a MMORPG on itself…
But, just because you like those aspects better than they are done in a standard MMORPG (though imo any good MMORPG has ways to minimise the impct of such things) doesn’t enable you to call this different game a MMORPG…[/quote]
ARRRGGG!!! It’s too hard arguing with a smart person I’m not going to argue with all your points since not only did you show me up on a few but I don’t want to argue and never did.
Scott wanted us to keep going so I am.
I’m not saying its a true MMORPG just because I like certain aspects of it better than a standard MMORPG. I’m saying It’s basically an MMORPG because you can do just about everything you can in any other, the only difference is that there is a hub and not everyone in the district is going to be with you at the same time.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
I don’t see why such an ability has an impact to our “argument”.[/quote]
I was just mentioning at least one reason why not being with thousands of people at the same time is good, though I do like that feeling as you posted.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
As above, I don’t see why such an ability has an impact to our “argument”.[/quote]
It does impact the argument because you mentioned something about being able to chat with people on a post. I was just stating that it allows you to chat with people that aren’t in your party.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
I don’t see why X-Box live has anything to do with this. It’s a whole different service. Also, the way you say all this, I guess Blizzard has gone bankrupt by now with running Diablo II with no monthly fees all these years (it’s still hella popular surprisingly)…[/quote]
The XLive thing was about having to pay for online mulitiplayer. It doesn’t matter who you’re paying, some people don’t wan’t to or can’t pay for online games period. I am one of those people who can’t because I don’t have a credit card and I can’t use my parent’s (I’m only sixteen, just saying that so no one tells me to just go get one). And for the comment about extra chapters, I was merely stating that they need to pay for the servers somehow and if no one wanted to buy new chapters after a while, they’d have to shut it down. Diablo 2 just has one expansion pack and that was apparanlty not thier means of keeping the servers up. That original comment had nothing to do with battle.net. It was just stating that I don’t think they’re going to be releasing chapters every six months for the money to keep it running. Also, I don’t know about this, since I’m not well educated about it, but wouldn’t hosting multiple servers cost more money than just one with every person who owns the game on it? If they really need the money, wouldn’t Battle.net and/or the Guild Wars servers cost money? Please tell me, I really dont know :anjou_embarassed:
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
Anyway, again, just because this type of game may be more likable than a MMORPG to some (hell, some may not even have enough time to properly play a MMORPG since they require a lot more time to get enjoyment out of them usually), doesn’t make it able to be called a MMORPG on itself…[/quote]
I’m really now just saying that if you give me an exact definition of an MMORPG and how this is not one, I’ll whole heartedly attack the status people are giving it. But as you allready know it stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Well, it’s online, many people are playing it at once and can play together, and its a role playing game.
Thanks, I’m still bugging them to allow players to ride striders. HELP IN THE CAUSE EVERYONE!
Also, this once again, feels like we’re just saying what we’ve already been saying. So can we please stop arguing, everyone’s heard these once before. Plus I like you and i don’t want you to dislike me.
I’m not well educated in that aspect either but I figure if Blizzard can run all those Diablo II servers and not ask money for it (really, they don’t!) then it’s propably something a lot easier / less costly to do than set up a network that will run a huge continuous ever evolving world… Else Blizzard would really have shut down by now, how many great selling games have they made after Diablo II? Not many I’d gather apart from the recent World of Warcraft (which is pay to play). And yet Battle.Net has not once gone down and Diablo II has a ton of players as always…
I gave an example of the first true MMORPG (Ultiam Online) so I figure that’s a fairly valid definition of this type of games.
I suppose to me the key points are that the world is continuous and you can at any time meet other people and socialise with them regardless of what you may be doing rather than just have a set number of areas where people can meet with others and a set number of quest areas where you can only by yourself or a few friends* (though that would maybe be a nice feature for normal MMORPGs to employ as well but not separate, just on top of the rest continuous world stuff)*…
If we go by your “it’s online, many people are playing it at once and can play together” definition then every single relatively popular multiplayer game out there is “massively multiplayer” too…
Just because Counter-Strike has thousands of people playing it at the same time in different servers (different private quest areas anyone?) and can at any time just join a server that the people they want to play with are (assuming it’s not full) doesn’t make it a massively multiplayer game when the max player limit per match is 32 players… What would that make Battlefield 1942 (64 players) or Joint Ops (up to 150 players depending on the server’s ability)? Massively Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooters?
Also, the developers of Guild Wars listed it as a MMORPG as well at the beginning of this all I believe but I think that now even their site just calls it a MORPG instead… I’d have to look that up again.
Anyway dunno why you’d think I won’t like you if we keep at it? @_@
I know about Diablo 2 since I play it just to let you know.
About the remark about MMOFPS, yea, you could call joint ops that lol jk. There actually is a game with the genre MMORTS that was reviewed by xplay, according to a couple of my friends anyway. I read what I wrote about the massively multiplayer thing and I realised that it really didn’t make much sense.
And the idea of you not liking me if we keep at it came from arguing with people on other forums I used to use such as newgrounds. Then again, it was way different issue (I was arguing with Liberals about politics and I’m a conservative republican so I think you know what I’m talking about.)
I’ve never played Phantasy Star Online but I was told it was an MMORPG, why wasn’t it one? Was it set up like this or something? Just wondering
As far as I know Phantasy Star Online was set up like diablo 2 as well. When you logged on, you appeared in a lobby area to meet with other people and then go adventuring with a few of them if you decided to form a party. I have only played the offline mode though so I’m not 100% sure.
There’s a MMOFPS as well btw, I’m not quite sure how it all works, it’s called PlanetSide and is quite a popular game I believe.
I’ve heard of PlanetSide but had no idea it was like that. Thanks for telling me about Phantasy Star, I’ve never even seen a screenshot for it to tell you the truth.
Back to the topic, Guild Wars, if we do end up making a guild, how are we going to chose the guild leader? Just do something like make a moderator the leader if one of them has it or what? Also, we can decide the colors for our emblem now if you want. I personally like Red and Black, they mix well together. I’m not sure if you need 2 or 3 colors, I’ll ask my friend tomorrow since he already made a guild during the beta test once…thought the guild hall was lost lol. I think that happened to everyone’s guild hall though. But we can start taking suggestions now.
I’m not going to argue with all your points since not only did you show me up on a few but I don’t want to argue and never did.