Can we please stop calling D&D Insider an MMORPG

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

The Dragon and Dungeon parts obviously aren't MMORPGs. They're e-magazines.

The parts of the Digital Initiative that allow you to play RPGs online, completing quests and interacting with other gamers in a shared virtual environment, just as obviously are. I have trouble imagining the semantic hair-splitting necessary to make the case that they aren't. It's not exactly like World of Warcraft, but it's clearly the same medium.

What about all the Online Tabletop programs that have existed already?

Are they MMOs now?

Because, from what we've seen, ALL it is is a virtual tabletop.

 

[jdrakeh]

The parts of the Digital Initiative that allow you to play RPGs online, completing quests and interacting with other gamers in a shared virtual environment, just as obviously are. I have trouble imagining the semantic hair-splitting necessary to make the case that they aren't.

What semantic hair-splitting? WoW is a full-on, realtime, graphical GUI with action outcome resolved only by pre-programmed code. This isn't even remotely similar to a virtual tabletop game. If simply being playable online makes a tabletop RPG a MMORPG, then I've got news for you -- all tabletop RPGs are MMORPGS. Programs like IRC, GRIP, OpenRPG, and WebRPG have been facilitating online play for all RPGs since the late 1990s. GRIP even has a Traveller-specific release. People should either drop the double-standard or take a few steps back toward reality.

 

[Maggan]

I have trouble imagining the semantic hair-splitting necessary to make the case that they aren't.

It's fairly simple actually.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. This is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet.

Remove the "Massively", since D&D is about small groups doing their own thing. Hence D&D isn't an MMORPG.

No semantic hairsplitting at all. Just clear logic.

/M

 

[Ripzerai]

What about all the Online Tabletop programs that have existed already?

Are they MMOs now?

I have no idea what you're talking about, but if they enable multiple people to play RPGs together in a virtual environment, yes, of course they are. That's the definition of an MMO.

 

[frankthedm]

A yearly sub to Dragon wasn't $120, and you got paper that didn't go away if you cancelled.

Damn straight.

It remains to be seen exactly what the DI turns out to be. But they are positioning it as being "a way to play online", since that would be a reason to pay so much more than the mags.

WOTC realized there are plenty of friendless 1d6x100lb. shut-ins they can sell D&D books to if they just provided a way for them to play.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I have no idea what you're talking about, but if they enable multiple people to play RPGs together in a virtual environment, yes, of course they are. That's the definition of an MMO.

No. Its not.

The definition is Massively Multiple Online.

4 people is not massive.

And also, getting beyond the strict defintion of the word, there's the actual details that all MMOs share. The main one being a huge, persistent world that is...well, massive. Thousands of people interacting at once with no DM to push things along. Its completely different.

And also, does this mean that Play by Post and Play by E-mail games are MMOs now because they're in a virtual environment?

 

[Ripzerai]

If simply being playable online makes a tabletop RPG a MMORPG, then I've got news for you -- all tabletop RPGs are MMORPGS.

They are if you play them online, in a graphical environment. If you're playing them on your own, actual table, they aren't.

That's not news; it's just obvious. The only "double-standard" is in claiming that one kind of multi-player modem-based RPG experience is an MMORPG and the others mysteriously aren't. I'm not convinced by the hair-splitting involved in the word "massively" unless someone provides a clear cut-off point where the game ceases to be "massive." If World of Warcraft's player base dwindled to a few hundred, would it suddenly become a different medium? A few dozen? I fail to see the essential difference, in any case, between a group of five people undertaking a WoW quest and a group of five people playing D&D over the Digital Initiative. In neither case are there thousands of people interacting with one another at the same time. Many will be on different servers. If there are thousands of people using WotC's servers at once, that sounds just as "massive" as any other MMO.

Nobody's claiming that 4e will itself be an MMORPG, only the Digital Initiative interface. This has nothing to do with its rules, only the medium on which it is played.

The hair-splitting involved in claiming otherwise is getting silly.

 

[Ripzerai]

And also, does this mean that Play by Post and Play by E-mail games are MMOs now because they're in a virtual environment?

Those are text-based, not graphical, so that's a real difference. I feel, therefore, safe in answering "no."

Your other distinctions are less well-defined. WoW has people defining plotlines and encounters, creating the landscape and the world -even if they don't call them DMs, that's essentially what they are. Without a real definition of "massively," that criterion is meaningless.

With a rotating set of DMs, it's perfectly possible to maintain a "consistent world" using the Digital Initiative. With that in mind, it seems awfully arbitrary to claim that it becomes an entirely different kind of game during those periods when the "world" goes away.

It's the same basic medium. The word MMORPG is a common enough part of our vocabulary now that it makes sense to use it, rather than to invent an entirely new phrase for something whose distinction is so hazy. "Non-persistent MMORPG?" "Non-persistent MORPG?" Please.

 

[Asmor]

They are if you play them online, in a graphical environment. If you're playing them on your own, actual table, they aren't.

That's not news; it's just obvious. The only "double-standard" is in claiming that one kind of multi-player modem-based RPG experience is an MMORPG and the others mysteriously aren't. I'm not convinced by the hair-splitting involved in the word "massively" unless someone provides a clear cut-off point where the game ceases to be "massive." If World of Warcraft's player base dwindled to a few hundred, would it suddenly become a different medium? A few dozen? I fail to see the essential difference, in any case, between a group of five people undertaking a WoW quest and a group of five people playing D&D over the Digital Initiative. In neither case are there thousands of people interacting with one another at the same time. Many will be on different servers. If there are thousands of people using WotC's servers at once, that sounds just as "massive" as any other MMO.

Nobody's claiming that 4e will itself be an MMORPG, only the Digital Initiative interface. This has nothing to do with its rules, only the medium on which it is played.

The hair-splitting involved in claiming otherwise is getting silly.

Umm... No. Just no.

You really don't see a difference between a persistent, computerized world with thousands of people interacting and existing simultaneously and half a dozen people interating solely with each other over what amounts to a glorified chat room?

Does that mean that ENWorld, IRC, AOL, Yahoo, AIM, OpenRPG, email, and every other medium anyone's ever used to play an RPG through are MMORPGs?

Heck, for that matter, are you claiming that the US Postal Service is a MMRPG (MMORPG minus online)? Because I'm sure some people have roleplayed through it at some point.

Are Verizon, AT&T Wireless, Sprint, et. al. and every landline provider on earth a giant multi-corporate MMPRPG (Massively Multiplayer Phone RPG)?

 

[Ripzerai]

You really don't see a difference between a persistent, computerized world with thousands of people interacting and existing simultaneously and half a dozen people interating solely with each other over what amounts to a glorified chat room?

The distinction is a matter of degree, not of kind. There's no real difference.

Does that mean that ENWorld, IRC, AOL, Yahoo, AIM, OpenRPG, email, and every other medium anyone's ever used to play an RPG through are MMORPGs?

No, because they're purely text-based.