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Can we please stop calling D&D Insider an MMORPG
- Thread starter Asmor
- Start date
king_ghidorah
First Post
JRRNeiklot said:
Of course, many of those roles are refinements of the original tanker (fighting man), DPS (wizard) and healer (cleric) that came from a Massively Multiplayer Offline RPG from 1974. I forget the name of it....
And the fighter in D&D was never the primary damage dealer except maybe from levels 1-3. The fighter's main attributes: heavy armor, high hit points, decent weapons that got outpaced by other infrequent big-ticket damage sources (wizard spells, a few cleric or druid spells, and even thief/rogue backstabbing/sneak attacks). Without magic items, the fighter became pretty useless in mid-to-high level play except as a tank to keep the bad guys off the real damage dealer (the wizard).
MMORPGs just stole and refined the roles from D&D.
Asmor
First Post
JRRNeiklot said:
Class roles in D&D 3e: Healer, crowd control, DPS
Class roles in D&D 2e (I imagine, honestly never played anything older than 3e): Healer, crowd control, DPS
Effective and common healing magic is a fairly D&D-centric phenomenon... It's not in very much fiction, especially classic fantasy fiction, because it tends to make things less interesting. "Oh no, Frodo just got stabbed right through the chest! Quick, hand me the wand of CLW!"
Therefore, the healer is demonstrably an invention of D&D. CRPGs, and MMORPGs by extension, are based on D&D.
Really, the only thing that MMORPGs really innovated was the concept of a literal tank. It's always been a fighter's job to make sure the squishies in the back lines don't get hurt; MMORPGs just took that to the logical extension by codifying aggro and creating abilities to literally prevent enemies from attacking other people even though it would be the logical thing to do.
Regarding the fighter not being a primary damage dealer... uhh... duh? Arcanists are the primary damage dealer, always have been. Fighters are more balanced, having good defenses and good offenses. Arcanists are glass-jawed nukers.
DonTadow
First Post
Ok, raise your hand if you're older than 30 here. Believe it or not, MMORPG's have not invented anything new. Tanks, healers, crowd control, striker... that's just new talk for what has always been a staple of d and d. Heck, 3.0 was designed around having a well rounded party which was a fighter (tank), healer (cleric), crowd control (thief/bard), striker (wizard). This has been arond for 40 years. You guys are giving the mmorpg people too much credit. Did anyone know that there's rpg in mmorpg? It's insulting that you are crediting this relatively new type of game with iinventing concepts that have been around for decdes.JRRNeiklot said:
All we're doing now is using the new terminology that all the kids are using. D and D IS a massive role playing game. Over the last few years we've been able to play it online. Heck nwn allows us the massive in a pen and paper type environment. Don't get freaked out. Some 13 year old is not going to knock your door down, crash your home game kill all your pcs and yell "you got "Pwn'd".
thulsadoomson
First Post
king_ghidorah said:
I think this is the best definition for an mmorpg and sums it up very nicely, as well as showing why the DI is not an mmorpg.
Corinth
First Post
The Insider will become as optional as car ownership in most of the United States (i.e. not), but it won't be by the intention of Mearls & company. No, their bosses will push it because the shareholders of WOTC and Hasbro will demand it because they want MMO-level profits to maximize the value of their shares. The Board of Directors for both companies will go along with this, and they in turn will direct the officers to make it so. It's a short stop from there to making the online gaming component--already accessable 24/7, with databases and play space and chat/VOIP features--into a very primitive MMO by putting a persistent--"Living"--world into place.
You can play when you like online now. You can choose your fellow players. You have access to the new hotness in D&D 24/7 now online, and a persistent world is one that the publisher controls- and it will be compelled to make it as player-friendly as it can be, which will greatly influence the entire hobby in the manner of a shockwave. This is a plan of incrementalism, and it is foolish to claim that it won't happen; WOTC is now in direct competition with Blizzard for hegemony, and WOTC is in the underdog position in this fight. It's a matter of adapt or die, and you can bet that the people that call the shots and sign the checks will opt to fight fire with fire instead of with ice and water.
You can play when you like online now. You can choose your fellow players. You have access to the new hotness in D&D 24/7 now online, and a persistent world is one that the publisher controls- and it will be compelled to make it as player-friendly as it can be, which will greatly influence the entire hobby in the manner of a shockwave. This is a plan of incrementalism, and it is foolish to claim that it won't happen; WOTC is now in direct competition with Blizzard for hegemony, and WOTC is in the underdog position in this fight. It's a matter of adapt or die, and you can bet that the people that call the shots and sign the checks will opt to fight fire with fire instead of with ice and water.
Asmor
First Post
Corinth said:
I don't know that I'd say WotC is in competition with WoW and other MMORPGs. Certainly, there is going to be relatively significant overlap between players of MMORPGs and potential players of RPGs (relatively significant compared to the population overall, I mean). Wizards definitely wants-- and needs-- to target this demographic and get them interested in P&P RPGs.
However, I'd kind of liken it to a Taco Bell (the undisputed king of fast food-- UNDISPUTED! DON'T DISPUTE IT! TACO BELL > ALL) being across the street from an Applebees. Both are, in theory, after the same demographic: hungry people. Taco Bell has the bonus of being easily accessible, quick and rather satisfying for what it is. Applebees, on the other hand, requires a much bigger commitment. You gotta put on pants and a shirt without stains on it; you gotta get out of the car; you gotta sit there and wait for your food and and then you gotta sit there and eat it. It also requires the physical presence of other people; what loser eats at a restaurant alone*? But man, the food there is better and so much more satisfying, and the actual experience of sitting there and eating and socializing with other people face to face adds a whole 'nother dimension to it! Ultimately, while they're targetting the same demographic, they serve different purposes, and sometimes you want taco bell... sometimes you want applebees.
The problem is, Wizards' Applebees isn't across the street from Taco Bell; you gotta go down the road a few hundred yards and then turn down a side street which doesn't see much traffic. It's not that the Applebees is far away or even difficult to get to, it's just that most people don't know about it, and even those who do know about it tend to forget about; meanwhile, there's Taco Bell, right on the same road you drive back and forth to work every day.
*I used to eat restaurants alone quite a lot. That's meant to be tongue in cheek. I apologize if you eat at restaurants alone and felt insulted. Loser.
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
DonTadow said:
The idea of a virtual table top is not in and of its self particularly innovative.
The idea of having info from various products show up automatically in documents if you have the right document key by pulling it from a database, that is reasonably innovative, I think. I am not familiar enough with the tools you mention, but I suppose it is possible that they have user maintained databases using material from the SRD. Even if that is the case, I am sure that Wizards has the resources on hand to do this better then the tools mentioned.
Also keep in mind that most press release stuff is just as much for investors as it is for customers. If nothing else, the business model is innovative.
END COMMUNICATION
Asmor
First Post
Lord Zardoz said:
Not remotely innovative. Just very unfeasible, due to legal issues. Realistically, it would only be worthwhile for one of the larger companies, preferably the largest company. It's a fairly obvious "innovation," and really the only thing special about it is that Wizards actually decided to do it.
For the record, Code Monkey was authorized to produce expansions for Master Tools based on Wizards' books. PCGen, a free character generator, actually did have a few authorized expansions for some third party publishers.
Greatwyrm
Been here a while...
Crap. I can't believe I read this thread. Anyhow...
Just a bit of editing there.
My question is, what prevents any of us from running a game face-to-face one night, online (by WotC's tools, OpenRPG, or whatever) the next night, and face-to-face the next night? I mean, time and distance from players excluded, there's no reason.
I haven't seen anything at all that says once you play a game online (with whatever method) you can't go tabletop or the other way around. If you're playing them online, you've probably got the books.
smootrk said:
Just a bit of editing there.
My question is, what prevents any of us from running a game face-to-face one night, online (by WotC's tools, OpenRPG, or whatever) the next night, and face-to-face the next night? I mean, time and distance from players excluded, there's no reason.
I haven't seen anything at all that says once you play a game online (with whatever method) you can't go tabletop or the other way around. If you're playing them online, you've probably got the books.
