Editorial piece on why I think FFXIV is better suited as an MORPG, not an MMORPG. Sources linked below. Edited by YungFalcon edit: the 750 reduction is not a server cap, is simultaneous logins. MY BAD.
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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term “death” in the context of the show as either… 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn’t do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgwliOmjHHE
https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv/ffxiv-yoshi-p-interview-wow
https://dragonquest.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Quest_X#:~:text=Game%20features,-Highly%20customisable%20characters&text=Co%2Doperative%20play%20with%20up,found%20in%20Dragon%20Quest%20VIII.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130570/soapbox_why_virtual_worlds_are_.php
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/257659/Classic_Postmortem_Asherons_Call.php
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/7/26/21332950/yuji-naka-sega-phantasy-star-online-20th-anniversary = PSO isn’t an MMO
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars – GW = CORPG
https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv/ffxiv-yoshi-p-interview-wow = FFXIV not a “true sandbox mmo”
https://www.wolfsheadonline.com/why-they-hate-richard-bartle/
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130570/soapbox_why_virtual_worlds_are_.php
https://www.raphkoster.com/2016/07/11/ar-is-an-mmo/
https://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/1891-where-mmorpgs-come-from-richard-garriott-interview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DikuMUD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(1991_video_game)
https://www.wired.com/1997/06/gamers-claim-aol-is-playing-bait-and-switch/
https://www.engadget.com/square-enix-final-fantasy-xiv-servers-plan-193317600.html#:~:text=The%20publisher%20says%20the%20game’s,750%20players%20per%20world%20server.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/73680-Further-Details-on-Access-Restrictions
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Instance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=575nZk2jmno
source
Nice video! I like it. Definitely got me going "huh?!" at some points, but others have already clarified it.
I cannot agree with the labelling MORPG because the game does have quite a lot of content surrounding many players in one instance. However, I do agree that the term MMORPG is going through an evolution at this point. Developers should already note that fewer people in an instance make for a more balanced experience and more controllable. Players are the agents of chaos in an otherwise perfect environment, so it makes sense to have less of them in one place.
I do hope you'd be covering the newer MMO's too such as Ashes of Creation and Crowfall (I see you've already done New World), and hopefully you can categorize them as either MMO or MO or whatever label you come up with 😉
So… what modern games ARE MMO's in the first place? If the amount of players is the standard, then… Minecraft private servers should also be called an MMO, right? Or am I missing something here XD
But… It's SO WEEB it's off putting. Why do people like the lore and worldbuilding in FF? It's atrocious.
lol I bet you never been on a FATE or Hunt group. Try that on the first month after the expansion launch. Then try to say that those people are not massive. Since you can't see all the people who are fighting the same boss with you anymore. And you may start to see multiple instance of the same area that wouldn't be commonly used. The game actually goes for the limit of the possibility. It's just the wave of players move on to the other interesting things since the game never force you to do any specific things over and over. While you can if you enjoy it, Sure there are some reward for those grind, But it never be a requirement. So no one keep crowding on the content after they get all the reward. But massive of people will do it when it launch and the game could keep up with that when people do.
24:00 – Re:shards, when an expansion goes live, due to large player numbers- zones use shards for a temporary time and you have to select what channel to enter when passing through gates. It'd be interesting to see how they fully integrate it.
I have to agree 100% with you that the reason FFXIV is doing so well is Yoshi-P and the development team. They don't make excuses, they tell people what's going on and why it's happening, and the feel is that we're being treated like adults who have the capacity to understand and react in a mature way when we have the information.
That being said, I must respectfully disagree with the rest of the video. It feels like you're trying to redefine something that doesn't need redefinition. We already have terms – 'themepark' and 'sandbox' – that define an MMO with a focus on instanced content and an MMO with a focus on open world content respectively. I don't believe that any game where you can run through an area and pass hundreds of people on just one server doesn't count as 'massive'. The game make not force you to interact with them, but they're there, and you do interact, even if its just passively running past a Lalafel orchestra or reading the shout chat.
The term MORPG would excellent for games like Ark: Survival Evolved where you have a hard limit of 64 people on the entire server.
I’m not sure if in marketing the term MORPG will stick but you’re points make sense. For me MMO will be
1) bunch of people can be online at once. But that number will always be subjective
2) you can do content with other players (pvp, pve, social)
3) have to level up
I feel like operating under the belief servers only held 750 people led to a lot of the reasoning for this video's creation, aside from a semantics-based argument. Just updating the description isn't enough. This video should be redone entirely. I know I could not see something as an MMO easily if an entire server only held 750 people.
Given evidence, not all servers are made equal. Over half a year ago when most servers weren't capped (Like they are entirely in all NA and EU servers currently), the most populated NA server had 27k players while the least populated had 15k. That said, you wouldn't see login queues in those less populated servers like you see in ALL servers now. EU servers meanwhile had around 11-14 thousand per server, with most not requiring logins then ever.
JP servers still have preferred worlds right now, but their averages were 10-15k.
If you don't want to want to consider a game as an MMO unless it has 10k people in one instance while also rendering all simultaneously, AND rendering a world dungeon scaled to 10k people, you will never have an MMO ever. I do agree character limits should increase drastically, but I think people are pretty happy to not be playing at 10 FPS for those on the lower end at least. When I get in a zone capped at 500 people per instance that's mostly filled or I enter instances with caps of 72 or 144 like the exploratory zones, I NEVER think that it's just not massive enough. Also, having instanced raids meant for a party of 8 rather than having them all be world bosses or 72-mans is only at the benefit to gameplay rather than a detriment. The term MMORPG is not anywhere near as limited as you like to keep it in your head right now.
So… you explain why a lot of these old monikers didn't work out: Not as catchy, low number of games actually going by it etc etc. But still want to bring them back cause it would prove your point even though you already explained why most companies don't bother to use a different moniker now a days……
It's like… trying to keep arguing the semantics of "We shouldn't call them VIDEO games anymore." Cause we've gone beyond the original limits of video back in the old days and the concept of regular games. We even Transend what it means "to play" from a more modern perspective. But hey guess what? We still call them video games and we are still going to be playing them. I get that it's an interesting perspective to approach a topic or subject matter, and the video is very well organized and does well at presenting it's point and showcasing the used information to shape it in support of the in tended perspective… But when you actually just take a few steps back, while we get the point you are making, you yourself made the point as to why your perspective isn't the norm. "This is why it's a MORPG and this is also why NO one uses the term MORPG." Presented as kind of a moot point but yet loooooong decided on some time ago. Honestly, who knew that this dead horse was even here? Nice job.
I agree simply cuz no pvp servers
I'd love to see you do a series on death of an expansion for WoW.
Take off the "G" at the end and the title will make more sense. The gameplay elements are quite scant and often times take away from the wonderful movie experience that XIV is.
The more you defined MORPG the more I thought Destiny fits it to a T!
I am sorry but you are so off with this and you have too much of a huge ego (being a youtuber and all) to admit that you might not be in the right here.
The game is more MMO than most MMOs because MMO is really about massive communities. The fact that they are spread by shards or are limited on a server is irrelevant. All that matters is if the systems implemented feed the ideals of a massive community. And that means much more than just having open world and 3000 players in one area.
This entire video is cringe gaming pseudo-intellectualism.
going with Lineage 1 & AA? vs Lineage 1 and Ragnarok Online? my only big confusion here. Can understand and relate to most of what your saying. I don't play ffxiv but i watch someone and he plays for the story. Does stuff with his guild but watching it and his take is always around the story. Far better then what i see from new players in GW2 learning to play never mind trying to stick with the story. There is also the matter of cosmetic rewards, FFxiv = do stuff, GW2 = flashy stuff is pretty much gemstore only. WoW streamer "Staysafe" reaction to mount skins really hit this home.
Oh gezzz, ESO hint… i can see the GW2 video already.
I just wanted to add 2 cents. The Genre is called MMORPG. it is a combination of the term Massively multiplayer Online. and Role Playing Game. MMO is a category you can add to any video game really that sports a wide audience, that all play with each other on the internet.. While RPG is a genre of game that is you know a RPG, exploring, fighting, story, loot, ect. FF14 fits both criteria. I know a lot of people don't expect MMORPGs to focus on story. There is however nothing wrong with a story focused MMORPG. And personally I don't think a entirely new Genre title needs to be invented. Cause it would kinda just spit on the face of what MMORPG even means.
Massively multiplayer online role playing game.
Can be argued that since most of 14s content is done in Instance based gameplay that its not massively multiplayer online. But I argue that MMO fits 14 a lot. You have countless of people thousands millions of people who play this game. You'll always be bound to meet new people. Even Bungie has used the term MMO to describe Destiny 2. And that game is instance based content. But ya I just personally feel we don't need a new terminology or Genre term. Instead I personally feel people should be open to view Genre terms more loosely. Like MMO, or MMORPG.
If ffxiv is MORPG then I guess so as retail wow or SWTOR. The true question is what game's MMORPG then? Eve? Albion? That sounds like only the sandbox game could call MMORPG.
I applaud Yoshi-P and the game designers for creating a game that provides platform for contents. What do I mean by that? Unlike most games, FFXIV has 1 core (the MSQ) and several satellites around it (Side quests, Jobs quests, Golden Saucer, Seasonal, Hybrid Raiding, Weapon, Housing, PvP. etc.). Each of this satellites is capable of supporting even more contents. For example Side Quest will have Hildibrand questline etc., Jobs quests will have gathering questline etc., Golden Saucer has mini games including Chocobo breeding for racing., Seasonal will have events questline such as Moonfire Faire, Hybrid Raiding will have Nier Questline etc., Weapon will have Zodiac weapon questline etc., PVP will have ranking system.
Each of these satellites can be independent from the main core (as they are not part of main story line and not compulsory to do so). Each of them are also act as platform that capable of supporting multiple contents within its ecosystems. And yet when it comes together as a whole game, they are not out of place either. This is such a mind-blowing game design that is so far ahead from WOW or other competitors.
I'm just gonna take this chance to ask this question that has been bothering me about FF14. I've seen the skill bars and they look absolutely massive with all those skills, so do I actually have to use all those skills to play well? It seems insane to me when I look at the amount of skills, but are many of them just situational or something? I just can't imagine juggling all those skills in a boss fight or something.
the ff14 hype is FAKE because of asmongold.ff 14 was the same thing before asmongold its still the same thing with asmongold and it will be the same thing after asmongold ditches it for new world and ashes of creation.
wow is just a diaster of a game they are running from while waiting for the other mmos.asmongold will ditch ff14 asap.
Yeah, finally someone says publicly that 1.0 was good and fun and better in the MMO part over 2.0. Everyone wants to kill me when I say I prefer 1.0 over 2.0. 1.0 is a better MMO, 2.0 is a better game.
I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE PSO DEATH OF A GAAAAAME! I absolutely love that game and I still play it on my modded Wii to this day. It's just an experience in itself.
How do you do Detective 🤔
It's a subjective take while discussing the meaning of massive. I'd argue however, that mmorpg has far strayed beyond it's literal meaning from 20 years ago. The term morpg while it may be used to define WoW or FFXIV or any other game by having a subjective take on the massiveness, is pretty much dead on arrival as it's just as bad to associate with any title as orpg or virtual world.
I don't completely agree with the no MM part. When you do activities like eureka or Battlefield it caps players at 120 players per instance and each hold a 60+ person raid activity and progression in those activities are solely through asking others for help. So FFXIV has the MMO part but it's not the main focus.
When a new expansion launches, the new zones are often divided into multiple instances, much like channels, where players can switch between them assuming there's room. This allows the team to handle the influx of expansion players while keeping the performance players expect.
I've been thinking about this mmo genre meaning since other players kept telling me many times that repetitive -daly grind, what I hate a lot, is what it makes the mmo an mmo and I always argued that, hoping for the more sicoal aspect of it instead of focusing on competitiveness, driven by audience who wants to beat games more than just playing them.
And I used the term of mmo instead of mmorpg for reeason, but it is simply from my own point of view. I am simply missing rpg elements such as "choice matters" things, which doesn't really exist in linear stories. I mean for example in Final Fantasy 14 you will get one story – a very good one though – but with no ending alternatives, so how is it different from a visual novel then?
I know I represent a very little minority in mmo-s, Actually yet to meet anyone with the same stance towards a certain element: dungeons. I cannot be asked to enter a dungeon, and that makes me unable to continue, let alone finishing, the FF14 msq "visual novel". People told me in chat that these are easy in the msq etc, but that's not the point. I simply refuse to be forced to do things during my free time at the computer, out of real life, outside of work, against my own will, and the compulsory dungeons for story progression are just like that, and unnecessary to force it upon anyone, since the vast majority would do it anyway – most players seem to want to do the dungeons above anything else. I would pay for a "skip dungeons during quests" if such a thing existed, I don't care about skins, different looking mounts and other similar kind of items used just for a big show.
I just wanted to play the game, enjoy the story. Being forced to do something which comes with a restriction of movements until it is done – and I do have to stand up in every 20-30 mins due to health reasons – is not what I would expect form something called: game. Without even thinking which genre it actually fits into.
So wtf is Warframe?