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A massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG 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. MMORPGs are a specific type of massive(ly) multiplayer online game (MMOG).
Overview
Players run a client to connect to an MMORPG and someone else, usually the game's publisher, hosts the game world. The virtual worlds they create are called "persistent worlds", meaning that the world continues regardless of who is logged in or not. When a player logs in, they are represented in the game world by an avatar — a graphical representation of the character they play.
Most MMORPGs run several identical copies of the virtual world, called "shards", "servers" or "realms", that the player can choose from. They strive to allow the player to shape their own experience by providing multiple (or customizable) avatars that the player can use. Once a player enters the world, they can engage in a variety of activities with other players who are accessing the game the same way from all over the world. MMORPG developers are in charge of supervising the virtual world and offering the users a constantly updated set of new activities and enhancements to guarantee the interest of players.
One MMORPG that differs from the "shard" concept is EVE Online (2001). Eve uses only one server for all players and, unlike most popular MMORPGs, it uses a sci-fi theme.
Daimonin is one of the efforts to create a free MMORPG. Most MMORPGs are commercial in that a user must pay money for the client software and/or a monthly fee, in order to continually access the virtual world. Still, some totally free-of-charge MMORPGs may be found on the Internet, although the quality of their production values is generally lower compared to commercial MMORPGs.
Some of the most popular commercial MMORPGs report over 200,000 subscribers, including Ultima Online (1997), EverQuest (1999), Dark Age of Camelot (2001), Final Fantasy XI (2002), Star Wars Galaxies (2003), and World of Warcraft (2004). South Korean MMORPGs claim the highest subscription numbers by far: Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, Lineage, and Ragnarok Online report millions of registered users. There are also several projects in development to create high-quality free MMORPGs, such as PlaneShift and Daimonin, and a free game engine for MMORPGs, such as Arianne. See list of MMORPGs for more.
History MMORPGs are computer games that can be traced back to the 1970s to non-graphical online MUD games, to text-based computer games such as Adventure and Zork, and to pen and paper role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Habitat, a graphical MUD from the mid 1980s, predated the modern notion of MMORPG by a decade.
The first modern MMORPG is now mostly credited as Meridian 59 (1996), but it was Ultima Online (1997) that popularized the genre. Both of these games featured a flat monthly subscription fee instead of the traditional per-hour plan. This new pricing model can be seen as the business motivation to shift from the hardcore gamer audience (who racked up massive fees) towards a broader, massive market. M59 and UO also arbitrarily set the benchmark at $10 USD a month, a figure that would later gradually increase across the genre. These were the first games that used and spread the term "massively multiplayer".
Meanwhile, commercial online games were becoming extraordinarily popular in South Korea. Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, designed by Jake Song, began commercial service in 1996 and eventually gained over one million subscribers. Song's next game, Lineage (1998), was an even bigger success. Lineage reached millions of subscribers in Korea and Taiwan, and gave developer NCsoft the strength to gain a foothold in the global MMORPG market in the next few years.
By the late 1990s the concept of massively multiplayer online games expanded into new video game genres. Many of these games, such as the "massively multiplayer online first-person shooter" PlanetSide brought some of the RPG heritage with them.
Academic attention MMORPGs have begun to attract significant academic attention, notably in the fields of economics and psychology. Edward Castronova specializes in the study of virtual worlds (MUDs, MMOGs, and similar concepts). Most of his writings, including "Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier" (2001), have examined relationships between real world economies and synthetic economies.
With the growing popularity of the genre, a growing number of psychologists and sociologists study the actions and interactions of the players in such games. One of the more famous of these researchers is Sherry Turkle. Nicholas Yee has surveyed thousands of MMORPG players over the past few years in studying the psychological and sociological aspects of these games.
Browser-based MMORPGs With the success of the MMORPG genre in recent years, several multiplayer games played in web browsers have also begun using the MMORPG moniker. This largely text-based sub-genre developed from old BBS games and predates the modern idea of MMORPGs. Browser-based MMORPGs are usually simpler games than their graphical counterparts, typically involving turn-based play and simple strategies of "build a large army, then attack other players for gold", though there are many interesting variations on the popular theme to be found. Many of these games are more like turn-based strategy games or wargames than role-playing games. In Kings of Chaos, for example, the player commands an army rather than a single player character.
One of the earliest examples of a browser-based MMORPG is Archmage, which dates back to early 1999. A currently extremely popular browser-based MMORPG, with players numbering in the hundreds of thousands, is Kings of Chaos. Kings of Chaos' popularity is primarily fueled by a reciprocal link clicking system where users give each other more soldiers by clicking on their friends' unique links, taking advantage of the small world phenomenon to spread word of the game across the world. A good example for a click based MMORPG is Legend of the Green Dragon, whose code is open source, allowing anyone to create their own game server. There also exists a browser-based MMORPG which is largely a parody of others, Kingdom of Loathing. Some of the more popular of these have become profitable using user subscriptions.
Not all browser-based MMORPGs are turn-based text games. More recently, faster computers and Java have allowed the introduction of graphical browser-based MMORPGs such as RuneScape which are more similar to standalone MMORPGs.
Genre challenges Most MMORPGs require significant development resources to overcome the logistical hurdles associated with such a large production. These games demand virtual worlds, significant hardware requirements from the developer (e.g., servers and bandwidth), and dedicated support staff. Despite the efforts of developers cognizant of these issues, reviewers often cite non-optimal populations (such as overcrowding or under-populated worlds), lag, and poor support as problems of games in this genre. These problems, especially lag, are a bigger problem for free MMORPGs. Peer-to-peer MMORPGs would scale better because peers share the resource load, but they can also be more vulnerable to other problems, such as cheating. Free MMORPGs usually rely on the spare-time efforts of a small team of programmers, artists, and game designers.
Several MMORPGs have suffered through technical difficulties through the first few days or weeks after launch. Early successes such as Ultima Online and EverQuest managed to pass through this stage with little permanent damage. Later games such as Anarchy Online and World War II Online struggled to regain good press after their first month. Nevertheless, Dark Age of Camelot and City of Heroes hardly showed any signs of such difficulties.
In addition to the challenges faced in making an MMORPG, designers also must face problems largely unique to the genre:
World state It is impossible for each player to significantly affect the overall state of the world. In a normal RPG, the player or party is the hero and single-handedly saves the world. In an MMORPG, every player can't save the world. In A Tale In The Desert, however, the game world does end when certain criteria are met by the players, as well as technology advancing. This seems to be an exception to the rule.
Inflation In many MMORPGs, the economy becomes unbalanced over time due to inflation and can reduce meaningful interaction between players of varying level (i.e., newbies versus more powerful players). This is primarily due to the gradual accumulation of wealth and power within the game. Some MMORPGs have addressed this with varying degrees of success. Asheron's Call for example uses a guild system where lower level characters swear allegiance to higher level players, and generate additional experience points for them. The theory being that it is in the interest of higher level players to assist the lower players and thus increase the reward they receive. Ultima Online has items wear out gradually, so that there is a constant demand for crafting resources, which new characters can acquire and sell to the higher level characters. Diablo II, while not an MMORPG, has similar problems in Softcore but not in Hardcore play where death is permanent. This is due to the constant recycling of players, creating an active market for all levels of equipment.
Bots In many MMORPGs, a user can set up scripts (also known as bots or macros) to play the game, performing a simple task over and over again, and reap huge rewards. This lets users build up a powerful character just by letting their computer run unattended. This flaw is built into almost the very essence of a RPG "leveling", that your character becomes more powerful primarily by repeatedly performing actions.
These macros are forbidden in many of these games, and developers are now fighting back by working on automation detection systems. One tactic is to 'nerf' the game aspects related to the botting. These are easier to implement than actual anti-automation code and are thus favored by developers. Their effectiveness is dubious, however, in that they affect legitimate players and botters alike.
Griefers As with all online multiplayer games, there is a problem of intentionally rude players (termed "griefers"). Problems mostly specific to MMORPGs include kill stealing (killing a monster someone else is fighting for the reward with little risk), and ninja looting (improperly taking the loot from a defeated monster). The term also applies for the situation where higher level players pick on lower level players, and thus make the questing and adventuring impossible for those players. Players can do this by killing the NPC where the lower level characters have to turn in their quest or by killing lower level players themselves (in a PVP environment) over and over again (also known as corpse-camping).
Some MMORPGs discipline griefers by ensuring that responsible administrators or support personnel are online at all times. Aware of the annoyance these actions bring forth, developers have taken further steps to prevent these things from happening. For example, EverQuest II locks encounters so that other players cannot join a fight without the original combatant's consent. World of Warcraft 'marks' the reward (be it experience or loot) for the player or group that initiated the fight.
Player killing Most players desire fun player versus player (PvP) combat, but unrestricted PvP can be very discouraging to new players, who can be easily slaughtered by more advanced characters played by experienced players. Many MMORPGs handle this dilemma by making PvP optional or consensual. Some, such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft, offer players the choice of playing on a PvP server or on a PvE (player versus environment) server, where PvP combat is limited to special circumstances.
Time commitment A character's power usually represents how much time is invested in playing, rather than skill. Casual players are interested in playing a few hours a week, but many hardcore gamers play more than 20 hours a week. Some games require so much commitment that players have resorted to buying powerful virtual characters and items on eBay rather than obtaining them through playing the game.
Health risks A controversial study was comissioned by the NIH in 2003 to assess the long term health risks associated with extended play of MMORPG's. While the study is not yet accepted by the general medical community (pending further results), it showed that participants who play more than 20 hours per week of MMORPG's suffer from increased obesity and nutritional imbalance as well as an increased propensity for bone loss, muscle atrophy and impotence. It has been suggested that this is due to the sessile nature of game play, and the replacement by MMORPG's of more traditional games involving exercise. It has not yet been conclusively determined if people with these problems are simply more likely to play MMORPG's, or if these conditions evolve from play.
Pay to play, pay even more to win Due to the problems just mentioned, one can receive a great advantage in game by buying another persons' already powerful character. It is also possible to buy memberships or special items such as those offered by games such as Runescape and Elysaria. Some games such as Roma Victor and Project Entropia take this incentive a step further, allowing players to convert real-world currency to in-game currency such as "Sesterces" or "Project Entropia Dollars", which can then be spent on better equipment, and even houses, for their character. Houses in Project Entropia have been auctioned for hundreds of dollars, and recently one Australian gamer bought a virtual island for USD$26,500 (€20,000) in real-world currency. [1] (https://www.project-entropia.com/Content.ajp?id=1346)
Other game companies frown on this practice. In April 2000, Sony Online Entertainment became the first prominent MMORPG company to change an End User License Agreement (EULA) to forbid players from buying or selling in-game "characters, items, coin" (in EverQuest). [2] (http://news.com.com/2100-1017-239052.html?legacy=cnet) This was followed up in January 2001 by the removal of EverQuest virtual item sales on the popular online auction site eBay. [3] (http://news.com.com/eBay%2C+Yahoo+crack+down+on+fantasy+sales/2100-1017_3-251654.html?tag=st.rn)
In-game scamming Scamming can also be a problem in many of these games, as players try to break the rules to further enhance their characters. Typically this occurs by manipulating bugs in the game code or by taking advantage of new players' lack of familiarity with the details of game mechanics. Scammers might lie about the value or use of an item to sell it at a higher price to new players.
Scammers might also simply ask for a password (or whatever they want), claiming to be a representative of the game's developer or someone who can attain massive wealth, but requires the player's password. Some companies that run MMORPGs have a policy that they will never ask a player for their password. Others also apply a special in-game appearance to staff members, such as making their character look different or changing the color of their name in the chat box.
Uber guilds and zerg guilds Sometimes, the most powerful characters on a server form a single, influential association popularly called an uber guild (first appearing in Ultima Online). In addition, some guilds mass recruit players to be large enough to have an advantage, nicknamed zerg guild after the Zerg race in the popular real-time strategy game Starcraft that was only effective in large numbers. These groups can use their influence to affect gameplay by, for example, "owning" areas of the world, controlling the economy, or using tactics like zerging. Such forces discourage casual players.
Related topics
References
External links MMORPG network sites provide news, forums, and information about games with a special emphasis on popular MMORPGs. Some of the more famous networks are the MMORPG Network (http://www.mmorpg.net/), the Online Gaming "OGaming" Network (http://www.ogaming.com/), and Stratics (http://www.stratics.com/). - MMORPG.com (http://www.mmorpg.com/index.cfm?fp=1280,1024,2078911079/) - All the latest news and info on all the known MMORPGs.
- Terra Nova (http://terranova.blogs.com/) - A collaborative blog about "virtual worlds" like MMORPGs.
- MMOGChart.com (http://www.mmogchart.com/) - Bruce Woodcock's analysis of MMOG subscription counts based on figures reported by the games' developers.
- The HUB (http://www.nickyee.com/hub/home.html) - Nicholas Yee's collection of studies and essays on the psychology of MMORPGs.
- Open Directory Project: Roleplaying/Massive Multiplayer Online (http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Roleplaying/Massive_Multiplayer_Online/) - A directory of more than 2,000 weblinks relating to MMORPGs.
- GuildUniverse.com (http://www.guilduniverse.com/) - Community of MMORPG players' sites and open forums.
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