What's this so-called MMO influence????

[Dinkeldog]

New users are allowed to pose questions, even "challenging" ones to the community. Rather than just crying troll, someone could link back to prior arguments, or do the good work that a lot of people here have done to bring up the pros and cons, the similarities and differences (there will be similarities and differences to different MMOs, as there are to different PnP games also), and above all MAINTAIN CIVILITY, this topic can remain open. From time to time, revisiting an older topic can actually be refreshing.

Please remember the one first rule here--above all remain civil. Thanks!

Dinkeldog
Moderator

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Most of the people crying MMO influence have never actually played a MMO, not to mention never played 4e, and basically have no idea what they're talking about.

I believe you are the ignorant one here. Let me make a short list of Wowisms.

Strikers, tanks, defenders, crowd control, all terms stolen from WoW and while the roles may have existed in previous editions, the terms themselves didn't (aside from tank).

Elite monsters.

Per encounter abilities.

Level limits on magic items.

The rogue as the best melee damage dealer in the game.

 

[Jack99]

I believe you are the ignorant one here. Let me make a short list of Wowisms.

Strikers, tanks, defenders, crowd control, all terms stolen from WoW and while the roles may have existed in previous editions, the terms themselves didn't (aside from tank).

Elite monsters.

Per encounter abilities.

Level limits on magic items.

The rogue as the best melee damage dealer in the game.

Could you point me to where WoW uses the following terms:
Strikers
Defenders

As you mentioned, the term tank pre-dates WoW, but so does level limits on magic items (EQ is a great example where most items had level limits).

About "the rogue as the best damage dealer in the game", please point me to where 4e states that it will be so?

I am looking forward to your links.

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

Personally, I don't see why this is an issue. Supposing the designers are drawing ideas from MMO, the only concern ought to be whether or not those ideas are good and will enhance the game. The source of an idea is not nearly as important as its merit.

 

[Lackhand]

I believe you are the ignorant one here. Let me make a short list of Wowisms.

Strikers, tanks, defenders, crowd control, all terms stolen from WoW and while the roles may have existed in previous editions, the terms themselves didn't (aside from tank).

Elite monsters.

Per encounter abilities.

Level limits on magic items.

The rogue as the best melee damage dealer in the game.

Which is just as well, since of course tank and crowd control aren't role names (and would form fairly bad ones )

And Elite Monsters may have been an MMO a videogame term... but they're also one of the only terms you could use for that slot, and it's not like that kind of monster is new to D&D, it just didn't have a name before.

Per encounter abilities? Are you sure? I imagine you're thinking of WoW's cooldown, which is nothing like the 1/encounter or duration: 1 encounter abilities we're about to see, which bear a much closer kinship to White Wolf.

I do applaud your awareness of the MMO phenomenon -- I somehow managed to avoid the entire thing, because the rock under which I live is large and comfortable! -- but (perhaps because of that?) I think calling these specifically stolen from MMOs is off base.
YMM (and obviously does) V.

 

[Imban]

As you mentioned, the term tank pre-dates WoW, but so does level limits on magic items (EQ is a great example where most items had level limits).

Level limits on magic items is pretty much 100% "MMORPG Influence" because it's almost always done to prevent 'twinking' - that is, giving inappropriate high-level gear to low-level characters to make them exceptionally powerful and make the game exceptionally easy for them. (Stat-based limits are a combination of both: you need sufficient stats, which is like a level cap, but you also need *those* stats, which add character building decisions.)

And I mean, certainly World of Warcraft isn't the first MMORPG to implement level limits on magic items - heck, I was playing on an MMORPG with level-limited magic items in 1998, before even EverQuest came out - but almost none of the people who're going to be whining about "MMORPG Influence" are honestly going to be happier about EverQuest influence on their games than World of Warcraft influence. So, honestly, I don't understand why anyone would even raise that as a defense.

---

If I had to complain about something's influence on D&D, I'd whine about what I perceive to be the influence of M:tG's design team and its throwaway name choices on recent D&D's monster manuals. I guess I just don't love compound words as much as they do, don't care for "hit the thesaurus" names, and (Race name) (Pseudo-class name) do nothing for me - heck, in many cases, the last annoys me even more because it creates pseudo-classes with neat abilities PCs can never have, even when it'd make sense, since they're only present as an ability of that one monster. So MMV can keep its Frostwind Viragos and Scouring Stanchions, Desert of Desolation can keep its Yuan-ti Malisons, and 4e D&D can keep its Cambion Hellswords. Those are all terminally lame to me in ways not even the stupid stuff in the original Palace of the Silver Princess can match.

 

[Lackhand]

If I had to complain about something's influence on D&D, I'd whine about what I perceive to be the influence of M:tG's design team and its throwaway name choices on recent D&D's monster manuals. I guess I just don't love compound words as much as they do, don't care for "hit the thesaurus" names, and (Race name) (Pseudo-class name) do nothing for me - heck, in many cases, the last annoys me even more because it creates pseudo-classes with neat abilities PCs can never have, even when it'd make sense, since they're only present as an ability of that one monster. So MMV can keep its Frostwind Viragos and Scouring Stanchions, Desert of Desolation can keep its Yuan-ti Malisons, and 4e D&D can keep its Cambion Hellswords. Those are all terminally lame to me in ways not even the stupid stuff in the original Palace of the Silver Princess can match.

Everyone is different, no two people are the same not on fire:
I actually really like those names, because once the PCs know a little about the culture of their foe, I can drop that text in their description and everyone at the table knows that it means something.

When my players' knuckles go white, I know I've done a good thing

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Could you point me to where WoW uses the following terms:
Strikers
Defenders

As you mentioned, the term tank pre-dates WoW, but so does level limits on magic items (EQ is a great example where most items had level limits).

About "the rogue as the best damage dealer in the game", please point me to where 4e states that it will be so?

I am looking forward to your links.

Oh come on, strikers, dps, it's the same damn thing. Wow has DPS, tank, crowd control, healer. 4e has strikers, defenders, controllers, healer.

On the rogue: It's been stated that it will be even easier sneak attack in 4e. Having a rat run by is apparently too much trouble. Undead can be sneak attacked, and I assume slimes, etc, will be vulnerable as well. I wish they'd just drop the sneak part and rename the rogue ninja or something, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much. I just envision an ENTIRELY different character when I hear the term "rogue."

 

[Jack99]

Level limits on magic items is pretty much 100% "MMORPG Influence" because it's almost always done to prevent 'twinking' - that is, giving inappropriate high-level gear to low-level characters to make them exceptionally powerful and make the game exceptionally easy for them. (Stat-based limits are a combination of both: you need sufficient stats, which is like a level cap, but you also need *those* stats, which add character building decisions.)

And I mean, certainly World of Warcraft isn't the first MMORPG to implement level limits on magic items - heck, I was playing on an MMORPG with level-limited magic items in 1998, before even EverQuest came out - but almost none of the people who're going to be whining about "MMORPG Influence" are honestly going to be happier about EverQuest influence on their games than World of Warcraft influence. So, honestly, I don't understand why anyone would even raise that as a defense.

I wasn't trying to use it as a defense. The poster I was replying to listed a bunch of things which he calls WoWisms. I was merely pointing out that he is very wrong. Almost none of the things he calls WoWisms either 1) exist in wow 2) are unique to WoW or 3) were "invented" by WoW.

 

[Piratecat]

I believe you are the ignorant one here.

I'm pretty sure you can communicate your point without the associated insult.

Be nice to one another, folks. We're hanging out here because it's fun.