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[Netherscourge]

I swear Destiny is a more-refined Hellgate: London.

Except HGL also had melee combat with Swords/Shields and the like...as opposed to just a melee button.

Same ideas though - FPS, customizable gear, random loot drops, co-op, Hard Modes, Elite monsters vs Normal Monsters, etc... etc...

HGL was more of a corridor-style game with smaller scale "outdoor" zones.

Still, it's funny how similar they are - and HGL didn't even last a whole year.

 

[Turin Turambar]

It's a Shared World Shooter.

It's Borderlands or Battlefield also a "shared world shooter"?

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

Destiny isn't Halo, but it has elements of Halo.

Destiny isn't Borderlands, but it has elements of Borderlands.

And Destiny isn't an MMO, but it has elements of traditional MMOs.

 

[Pimpwerx]

It's an online game but not MMO.
In short, it's a MOFPS.

Which is redundant since most fpses since Doom have multiplayer modes. PEACE.

 

[SniperHunter]

Planetside 2 is a mmo

 

[JohnGrimm]

It's Massive. It's Multiplayer. It's Online.

Sounds like a MMO to me.

 

[Monad]

Action role-playing first-person shooter with some MMO component.

For me, at least.

 

[Icyflamez96]

It's Massive. It's Multiplayer. It's Online.

Sounds like a MMO to me.

Massive refers to the number of players.

 

[Forsaken82]

Action role-playing first-person shooter with some MMO component.

For me, at least.

That "MMO" component is an exaggerated social aspect, akin to something like EA's EasyDrive (or whatever they call it in SSX) system. Do you consider those games MMOs?

 

[clifftrapremover]

But the world isn't shared. It's instanced extensively.

Exactly, the world isn't shared enough to be a MMO. I have to be in a party to really experience the game with friends, the living world is very restricted in that aspect.

 

[viveks86]

Hmmm... The primary definition of an MMO is for it to be massively multiplayer and online. Everything else is commonly seen in MMOs but not necessary for it to be an MMO. Which is why games like Diablo and Borderlands are not MMOs.

So at best, Destiny is an online FPS with elements common in MMO games. But for it to be an MMO it needs to be massively multiplayer, which it is not.

 

[Philippo]

Well it sure isn't Massively, as in you don't meet a lot of other players, so maybe its just a MOFPSRPG?

 

[Camp Lo]

It's Borderlands or Battlefield also a "shared world shooter"?

How is this even a legitimate question? It's like we are trying to redefine every genre in this thread.

 

[ShinMaruku]

They used to just be called Online RPGs. That's what Diablo and PSO were in contrast to the Ultima Onlines and Everquests of the world.

I think we have people trying to put games in blocks to 'belong' and then we have marketing creating the confusion we have no.w I applaud Bungie for trying to head it off with them not saying it's an MMO which is a start. But yeah those games are Online action RPGS. We need these terms brought back again. Now is a great time to start.

 

[Novel Mike]

Destiny is a mix of many different genres, from MMO to RPG to Shooter to general Online Multiplayer.

I think classifying it as one genre or another seems rather futile unless we give it its own genre of itself (giant mix genre?).

 

[benny_a]

It's Massive. It's Multiplayer. It's Online.

Sounds like a MMO to me.

Is Journey a MMO?

It's a massive desert. It's multiplayer. It's online.

 

[MetatronM]

It's Massive. It's Multiplayer. It's Online.

Sounds like a MMO to me.

The first M is "Massively." It's a modifier of the word "multiplayer." Massively multiplayer. As in, many many many players.

Destiny is an online multiplayer game but not an MMO. All MMOs are online multiplayer games. Not all online multiplayer games are MMOs. Is this really a difficult concept? I'm surprised there's so much confusion on this.

 

[Icyflamez96]

Exactly, the world isn't shared enough to be a MMO. I have to be in a party to really experience the game with friends, the living world is very restricted in that aspect.

so what does that make tetris

a haired world looter.....?

 

[Abinash117]

Exactly, the world isn't shared enough to be a MMO. I have to be in a party to really experience the game with friends, the living world is very restricted in that aspect.

I think when they meant by shared is by the automatic and dynamic matchmaking system which very little games have. The only one that is close is Journey. You share the worlds with another players when you are doing missions which is done automatically while you are playing and it keeps happening all the time. Additionally it is online only unlike Journey .

 

[Stimpack]

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

Exactly correct. They're just trying to avoid the stigma of what's commonly associated with an MMO. I also don't think they're going to have enough content for what people would expect, but that's something we'll have to wait and see about.

 

[Deku Tree]

Destiny is an open world shooter IMO. Not an MMO.

 

[mr2xxx]

90% of the game consists of 3 player co-op and PVP that plays like a typical FPS where it is small scale and skill based compared to large groups and lvl/loot based like most MMO's, so no. You wouldn't hand someone a prototypical MMO like WoW then have them play Destiny and expect them to think they are similar.

 

[Lord of Castamere]

It's a Single player MMO. That's how I've always viewed these types of games, and I'll never stop revering to them as such no matter how much it annoys anyone.

 

[Moon_frogger]

First successful console mmo? Ffxiv, dcuo and ffxi have all been quite successful.

 

[Jackbooted]

Not even the mighty Wikipedia can save us!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg#Common_features

Some interesting information in there though regardless.

 

[viveks86]

It's an FPS. Plain and simple. Everything else is supplementary information that makes the game a unique FPS. A concise sub-category is required when a pattern emerges over time across several games and it becomes an accurate and convenient way to describe a new sub-genre. Until then, I don't see why we should force fit destiny into established categories that the game doesn't entirely conform to.

 

[Ridley327]

I swear Destiny is a more-refined Hellgate: London.

Except HGL also had melee combat with Swords/Shields and the like...as opposed to just a melee button.

Same ideas though - FPS, customizable gear, random loot drops, co-op, Hard Modes, Elite monsters vs Normal Monsters, etc... etc...

HGL was more of a corridor-style game with smaller scale "outdoor" zones.

Still, it's funny how similar they are - and HGL didn't even last a whole year.

I imagine the overwhelmingly toxic reception that Hellgate: London had since the beta was a big obstacle. Destiny, while not without some flaws, is being received substantially better.

 

[Oni Link 666]

It's technically not an MMO, since there's nothing Massively Multiplayer about it. I think the max amount of people in one map so far is 12 and I think that's in PVP. Not counting the Tower that is. The game does feel a lot like Halo WoW to me, though. The way the Explore mode works with the events and quests is a lot like the Timeless Isle in WoW. The way the faction vendors sell things for specific currency and require reputation levels is a lot like in WoW. The way everything has auto matchmaking is a lot like WoW. The way loot drops from regular enemies is a lot like WoW. They don't drop Rares and Legendaries all the time like in Diablo. Some regular enemies might drop a Blue, but you're going to get the Legendaries from raid bosses and the vendors in the Tower. There's herb gathering. There's mounts! It has a lot of things that WoW does.

 

[Oppo]

seriously,

why can't we just accept Bungie's self-assigned "shared world shooter"?

it's perfectly descriptive

 

[pixlexic]

Do we know the total count for an instance?

 

[CrackaF3tt]

I would call it a MMO Lite. It has some of the features but doesn't go full throttle with them.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

seriously,

why can't we just accept Bungie's self-assigned "shared world shooter"?

it's perfectly descriptive

How, it's incredibly vague if anything =/

 

[Nose Master]

Nah, it's too instanced. The only time you're seeing more than 12 people on a map is the lobby town. It's more like PSO.

 

[Schweinehund]

No, world isn't interconnected and persistent. There's a zone cap that's small.

You would need something closer to planetside (1) before I would say its an mmo. Its closer to Guild Wars 1.

 

[drotahorror]

FPS with MMO elements. Takes some of the good parts and the bad parts sadly of MMO's.

 

[RMI]

Hmmm... The primary definition of an MMO is for it to be massively multiplayer and online. Everything else is commonly seen in MMOs but not necessary for it to be an MMO. Which is why games like Diablo and Borderlands are not MMOs.

So at best, Destiny is an online FPS with elements common in MMO games. But for it to be an MMO it needs to be massively multiplayer, which it is not.

Agreed.

I'm not even sure why we're debating this. the definition is in the name!

 

[Izayoi]

Play more WvW. Now that's real MMO gameplay.

Hahaha, if only it wasn't an unplayable clusterfuck (as pretty much all WvW/RvR PvP ends up being). Almost all games fall apart when you put that many people in one place. There's simply no good way, from a technical standpoint, to do that kind of gameplay properly right now.

 

[ShinMaruku]

How, it's incredibly vague if anything =/

The descriptors people give the MMOs is vague too. Thye call PSO2 Vincdictus, this game dfo MMOS when they are nothing of the sort.

 

[Kalnos]

Path of Exile is my best example. All of the combat takes place in instanced zones and the only areas shared with all players is the town hubs. It's possible to find other random players in combat if the instance you jumped into was started by someone else.

Nothing really MMO about it other than the "lobby" of town is shared by everyone.

MMO's are defined by PERSISTENCE of the world, like the world is an actual place that all the players interact with. The fact that there is an area that everyone playing the game could meet at (or thousands of people playing on "that same server"). The amount of persistence to the world is important as it's hard to call something an MMO if "town" is the only place where everyone could meet. And I don't even think it's possible to meet all gamers in town....meaning I think town might even be instanced.

There's way too much that is instanced down to smaller slices in Destiny. Almost nothing about it is persistent as a game world. It is "massive" in its sliced instances. It is "multiplayer" in the sense that everyone can join together online on their platform to play. It is "online" in the sense that everything is based on central servers and must be connected to in order to play. But none of it comes together in a cohesive, persistent world where a massive number of players interact. It's sliced down to tiny dimensions of the same world where only a few people can interact with each other in their own dimension.

This is how I feel.

 

[Durante]

Hahaha, if only it wasn't an unplayable clusterfuck (as pretty much all WvW/RvR PvP ends up being).

You should have told me it's unplayable before I spent hundreds of hours playing it!

There's simply no good way, from a technical standpoint, to do that kind of gameplay properly right now.

It's perfectly possible to do now, and it was perfectly possible 10 years ago in DAoC.

To get back on topic, those are MMOs. To be an MMO, at the very least you need persistent, shared levels with more than, say, 40 players interacting at a time.

 

[Jabba]

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?

As much as I enjoyed both Pso dreamcast to xbox and Star Wars Galaxies on PC. Pso is not an mmo, in the sense of, anyone, anytime, anywhere with no instances. I would call Pso an MPORPG. Multiplayer online RPG. Wow and City of Heroes are MMO until the minute you enter an instance. Like 24 man raids and such. Everquest is an mmo.

@ Durante

Totally agree. It's quite possible to have the same amount of players DAoC, Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies today. Not to mention connection are much faster than they were back then. I remember at least a 75 vs 75 pvp fight in a rebel player city on Flurry server on a dsl connection. I had no lag during that fight. Had a top notch pc then though.