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[Izayoi]

There seems to be a bit of a disagreement on whether or not the sum of Destiny's parts make it an MMO or not. Some seem to be caught up on the "massive," part, and others think that if it quacks like a duck...

It completely derailed the other thread (in which four out of five points were completely ignored because of the first), so I figured it would be good to have a discussion about it here instead. It pretty clearly warrants its own topic, as it seems to be a contentious issue, to say the least.

Please, please, PLEASE explain the reasoning behind your answer. "No," and other one-phrase answers do NOTHING to move discussion forward. This is a discussion, not a poll.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

No. It has MMO features but isn't an MMO.

 

[bloodyroarxx]

No. It has MMO features but isn't an MMO.

Its as much of an MMO as Guild Wars 1 was.

Central location, with some maps that has open areas for public events otherwise its all instanced

 

[Camp Lo]

Theres not dozens of people playing at once on screen so no, it's not an MMO. It reminds me of PSO so whatever that genre is.

 

[Levito]

No it's not.


It's more akin in scale to Diablo, Phantasy Star, or Guild Wars 1.

 

[Fracas]

Not at all. There are other people in the tower but out in the world there are like 3 people at most.

It's first and foremost an FPS with an option for co-op.

 

[Gekidami]

Its as much of an MMO as Guild Wars 1 was

Not at all then. Even the GW devs said it wasnt an MMO.

 

[FrankCaron]

No.

Massively multiplayer implies that you are playing in a massive, persistent world with many, many people. Massive, at least to me, amounts to more people than you'd have at a really big personal LAN party.

Destiny is a multiplayer shooter with MMORPG-like features, including persistent progression and small scale organic public questing. In many capacities, Destiny's MMORPG-esque design conceits (e.g., the social hub) are largely window dressing for what could alternatively be a menu. Same as PlayStation Home.

 

[GraveHorizon]

What's the minimum number of players to qualify as "Massively Multiplayer"?

 

[CryptiK]

Nope not all.

Thats like calling Borderlands Co-op and MMO

 

[Camp Lo]

What's the minimum number of players to qualify as "Massively Multiplayer"?

4.

 

[Leafhopper]

Its as much of an MMO as Guild Wars 1 was

This. Its basically Guild Wars 1, in terms of how its instanced, albeit done better than Guild Wars 1.

Is it an MMO? To a degree but at the same time no. Is it an RPG? Sure seems like it.

Is it an MMORPG like a WoW or something? Nah.

Basically its like the first PSO.

I don't know if I made this more confusing or helped...sorry if I made more confusing.

 

[Izayoi]

No. It has MMO features but isn't an MMO.

At what point does "having MMO features" constitute a game as being an MMO, though?

What if it has feature parity with most popular modern MMOs, and the only difference is the scale?

Are you arguing it's merely a matter of numbers? How many players need to be in one room before it can be considered "massive"?

Please read the OP, a one-phrase post produces more questions than it does answers.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Destiny fails the most important part of qualifying as a MMO. You have no open world where you can interact with hundreds or thousands of people within that world, there are much less social hooks (Which is not a bad thing most social hooks in MMOs are to cover up the weak systems in MMOs) You at most play with 6-12 people? That's not massive.

There are no macros for you to put up, it's not an MMO. I know people all like to use known shorthand to describe things but you muddy the waters like that.
Likewise PSO2 is not an MMO You only play with 12 people the lobbies are a fucking chatline.

 

[blizzardjesus]

From the wiki, quotes are sourced to bungie.

The game's style has been described as a first-person shooter that will incorporate massively multiplayer online game (MMO) elements, but Bungie has avoided defining Destiny as a traditional MMO game. Instead, the game has been referred to as a "shared-world shooter,"as it lacks many of the characteristics of a traditional MMO game. For instance, rather than players being able to see and interact with all other players in the game or on a particular server—as is the case in many conventional MMO games—Destiny will include on-the-fly matchmaking that will allow players to see and interact only with other players with whom they are "matched" by the game.

 

[Izayoi]

Theres not dozens of people playing at once on screen so no, it's not an MMO. It reminds me of PSO so whatever that genre is.

"Dozens"? So something being an MMO or not is defined merely by numbers? Where do we draw that line?

Would MAG or Battlefield be considered MMOs, by your definition?

 

[Kabuki Quantum Lover]

No, it's more like Phantasy Star Online as a first person shooter.

 

[Doombacon]

It's an MMO with FPS combat.

Some people get hung up on the open world sections being limited to a certain number of people, however this is a really good design choice for MMOs in my opinion. Doing this limits overcrowding zones, particularly at launch, and helps deal with areas being totally dead on some servers later into the life of the game by jamming everyone together still.

The only reason Bungie is not advertising it as an MMO is because people make assumptions about the combat system from that genre label that does not hold true for this game.

Edit: There are actually people who think PSO isn't an MMO? The fuck?

 

[Rezae]

So much emphasis around here on pinning down a specific classification on something, which these days gets harder and harder to do. So many games blend so many genres now.

Tons in the DOTA2 thread about the term RTS, MOBA, ARPG... and people getting so heated with it. Same thing with next-gen vs current gen vs last gen .. which gen is which.

Why? Why stress out over small technical language?

 

[Terrified]

The feel of an MMO...

 

[kewlmyc]

If it is an MMO, it sure has hell doesn't really feel like it. It has some qualities of one, but when I think Massively Multiplayer, I don't think Destiny. So, I'll say no, but it has some of the features of one.

 

[Valnen]

Its as much of an MMO as Guild Wars 1 was.

Central location, with some maps that has open areas for public events otherwise its all instanced

What about free roam mode? Destiny has that right? I don't think Guild Wars 1 had anything like that did it?

The line of what makes an MMO an MMO seems to be getting blurrier lately.

 

[AkuMifune]

Will all my teammates get mad if I'm not playing my class "properly"?

 

[Shrennin]

I could see Destiny eventually becoming a full fledged MMO with its sequels, but as of right now it is most assuredly not an MMO. I'm pretty sure Bungie doesn't call Destiny an MMO and Destiny is most similar to the original Guild Wars, which ArenaNet never said was an MMO unlike with Guild Wars 2.

I think Destiny is on the path of developing systems that will eventually translate well for actual console MMOs, but it's not there yet.

 

[K.Sabot]

They give you MMO things to do (which arguably can be a bad / boring thing) and put it in a slightly bigger Halo 2 / 3 level.

By no means does it represent the Massive part of MMO.

 

[Zakalwe]

What's the definition of an mmo these days?

 

[SerTapTap]

mMOG. moderately Multiplayer Online Game.

But no, it has some elements that are clearly inspired by MMOs like party quests, but that doesn't make you an MMO. It does some cool auto-match making stuff, but it's really no more massive than PVP in something like CoD, what makes it feel MMOy is that it's auto-matchmaking you into a PvE instance. But the design is clearly much smaller in scale, bosses take ONE fireteam, and actually don't allow multiples in story missions, whereas many MMO bosses require tons.

The social element is cool, and more integral to the game than it is in Borderlands, but for the most part it's a game designed for 3 people to play and accidentally bump into other groups of 3 people. There's no hoards of people selling gear in the cities, there's no party begging to do large bosses, there's essentially no persistence, it's more like a bunch of shared instances that presumably spin up and wind down at will.

 

[Leafhopper]

What's the definition of an mmo these days?

Supposed to be Massively Multiplayer Online game but, its that Massively part that's debated.

 

[Izayoi]

Destiny fails the most important part of qualifying as a MMO. You have no open world where you can interact with hundreds or thousands of people within that world, there are much less social hooks (Which is not a bad thing most social hooks in MMOs are to cover up the weak systems in MMOs) You at most play with 6-12 people? That's not massive.

There are no macros for you to put up, it's not an MMO. I know people all like to use known shorthand to describe things but you muddy the waters like that.
Likewise PSO2 is not an MMO You only play with 12 people the lobbies are a fucking chatline.

See, I've been playing MMOs for a very long time now, and I disagree with you that PSO2 isn't an MMO. Just because it doesn't fit the typical genre-norm of "big empty field full of players hitting things on the head and gathering flowers" doesn't disqualify it from being an MMO, in my mind.

 

[Zakalwe]

Supposed to be Massively Multiplayer Online game but, its that Massively part that's debated.

Right, I know what the acronym stands for.

A better question would be how massively multiplayer does it need to be exactly before it's counted?

What other elements need to be in place for it to be counted?

Etc...

 

[Cheech]

It's not an MMO any more than something like Dark Souls or Watch Dogs is. It seamlessly brings people into your game, but the cap is so small there is nothing "massive" about it.

 

[Hellsing321]

No it's not an MMO. The most MMO like thing, the social hub, is limited to only 16 players in an instance.

 

[Camp Lo]

"Dozens"? So something being an MMO or not is defined merely by numbers? Where do we draw that line?

Would MAG or Battlefield be considered MMOs, by your definition?

Would I define those as such? No. Could they? The multiplayer side could for BF; never played MAG.

Again, whatever PSO is that's what Destiny is. The numbers is just one aspect that can go into defining.

 

[nubbe]

It has online features, sometime you see other people

 

[Kade]

It's not an MMO because it is structurally closed, controlled and guided. Areas are separated by their design function (social, combat/exploration, etc.) and there seems to be heavy instancing so outside of the Tower you're only seeing less than 12 people in the world (from what I've noticed in the alpha and beta at least). If anything, it's an Action RPG with MMO-like features. Similar to how modern shooters have RPG-like progression but there isn't enough present for them to be classified as RPGs.

The combination of how controlled, separated and instanced the game separates it from what an MMO is.

 

[Art Vandilay]

Not at all. There are other people in the tower but out in the world there are like 3 people at most.

It's first and foremost an FPS with an option for co-op.

I saw at least 5 other people in Old Russia during the beta. And I only played on my brother's PS4 for like two hours. So this is false.

 

[Gojeran]

Nope. Mostly because as far as I can tell thus far there is no player driven economy. It's more like BL without an offline mode than it is like an actual MMO. So that article to be about being the first successful console MMO seems pretty disingenuous.

 

[Ape]

Does it have a single player campaign?

 

[Jarmel]

This is why arguing about genre terms is stupid (and yet here I am) as there are no hard definitions for any of this shit. It's all subjective as fuck. Massive can mean any number of people.

Nope. Mostly because as far as I can tell thus far there is no player driven economy. It's more like BL without an offline mode than it is like an actual MMO. So that article to be about being the first successful console MMO seems pretty disingenuous.

We don't necessarily know that.

 

[Bsigg12]

Does it have a single player campaign?

You can play through the campaign solo but you have to be online regardless.

 

[Ape]

You can play through the campaign solo but you have to be online regardless.

What? Why?

 

[EightBitNate]

I'll call it Co-MO

 

[Karl Hawk]

Does it have a single player campaign?

You can play story missions on your own. From what I've played so far, there are instances in which re-spawning is restricted which prevents other players to barge in while playing story missions.

But you have to be online no matter what.

 

[BigTnaples]

No. Because aside from a handful of similar features/concepts, it's really nothing like an MMO.


It's a coop campaign shooter with some open world RPG elements.

 

[Bsigg12]

What? Why?

It's online only.

 

[StuBurns]

No, it's a multiplayer online game, but not 'massively' so.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

No.

The mmo elements of phase in, hubs, and instances are awesome, but it's not "massive".

More and more games should do this. Calling them all massive multiplayer online games would be silly and is misleading compared to tradition mmo's.

 

[Duxxy3]

To me, yes.

It reminds me a lot more of World of Warcraft than it does of Call of Duty, or any other shooter.

 

[Skele7on]

"Destiny is a First Person Shooter with MMO elements."

Gameplay[edit]
Bungie has emphasized that the universe of Destiny will be "alive". Events may happen in-game that are not necessarily controlled or planned by the developer, which will help to create a dynamic developing experience for Bungie and a dynamic playing experience for gamers. The game's style has been described as a first-person shooter that will incorporate massively multiplayer online game (MMO) elements, but Bungie has avoided defining Destiny as a traditional MMO game.[12] Instead, the game has been referred to as a "shared-world shooter,"[13] as it lacks many of the characteristics of a traditional MMO game. For instance, rather than players being able to see and interact with all other players in the game or on a particular server—as is the case in many conventional MMO games—Destiny will include on-the-fly matchmaking that will allow players to see and interact only with other players with whom they are "matched" by the game.[12]

Quoted from Wikipedia page /thread

 

[Nestled_Grizzly]

Destiny is as much as a mmo as Phantasy Star Online.