Dana Massey, PR Manager at MMORPG.Com, has written an article asking the question "Why Not?": Throw Out The Rulebook. In it he challenges the adherence to accepted MMO design standards and puts forward the notion that a developer who ignores these conventions is likely to be the one that overtakes World of Warcraft.
Source: MMORPG.Com [ more info ]

When I think about what makes an MMO and MMO, and then start stripping away key elements of common MMO game design, I keep finding myself looking at a completely different game genre. Now, I admit this is a result of my own acceptance of the MMO norm. It's a well written, thought provoking article and a great source of discussion.

I'm curious to hear what you guys think about what makes and MMO and MMO and what the genre could do without. What kind of gameplay and/or what kind of innovations would draw you in like a moth to a flame?

Sorry for yet another late comic, I was busy dealing with Smackywhack accusing me of libel.

So the other question is ; is a MMO defined by it's design standards or do the design standards make it defined as a MMO.

If you rid yourself of the designs of a MMO it isn't a MMO any more. Dali said he was surealism but he still used canvas and paint like any other painter and was called a painter.

Guess im trying to say to make a MMO you still need the basic elements of a MMO.....

I love it when companies have the chutzpah to try something new. Innovation drives desire!

That was a very interesting article.

A huge percentage of people who truly love WoW, I’ve always believed, do not know or particularly care about this whole world of MMOs out there. They’re WoW players and that’s it.

Sadly, that is quite true for myself at least. I only started playing WoW to play with my husband and I have yet to branch out to other MMO's. But then, I was very biased against them for quite a long time because of an EQ addiction that a previous ex had.

I would almost think it would indeed take someone who's never played an MMO before to create one without those preconceptions of what an MMO is. And indeed the question would become, is it still an MMO? It would largely depend on how it’s done I suppose. It would be interesting to see.

Didn't the Endless Forest try to do this and still stay inside of the MMORPG realm? I wouldn't exactly call that successful.

Also, are you serious about the little text at the bottom of your post Woody? He's crazy enough for me to not know if that is a joke.

I was recently pondering this same thing yesterday after reading about Star Trek Online and The Secret World, two MMOs that are moving far from the norm of "camp in front of city, kill 200 rats and 500 snakes". Star Trek Online looks to be a fanboy's wetdream and The Secret World sounds like a massive multiplayer survival horror game that will be very story-driven. These two games are still deep in development so I'm taking a wait and see approach, but they do give me hope for the future.

Can one truly claim libel based on a satire?

ok just read the article and I'd like to bring 2 games that come to my mind straight away

EVE Online
Planetside

Both of these are MMOG's (Massively Multi-player Online Games) both have pretty much done exactly what the article said thrown out the rule book.

Now while admittedly Planetside isn't doing so well these days EVE is going from strength to strength and I wish more developers would follow the example of CCP (Developers of EVE Online) and come up with something "out of the box".

Originally Posted by Talquin:

Guess im trying to say to make a MMO you still need the basic elements of a MMO.....

The term MMO leaves a great deal of design open to a developer creating a game. All you need to make something MMO is for it to require an internet connection which is necessary for a great number of players to interact with both the game and each other.

Now, If we're talking about MMORPGs then we've got the debate about what makes an RPG what it is.

Me? I'd like to see more character development. In my opinion, a game like World of Warcraft doesn't have much in terms of Roleplay, even on servers with the RP prefix. I think that's due to the speed and community of the game.

To me there are 3 things that make an MMO:
It has to be online
There has to be multiple people playing at once
And you have to be able to develop your character in an immersive world

If it has those things I'm willing to give it a try (providing I can afford to )

EVE Online is a good example. No, you can't throw out all the 'rules' of making an MMORPG or, as you say, it ceases to be an MMORPG...

However, I prefer to see game genre's more like The Matrix - some rules can be bent, others can be broken.

What Designers need to focus on is that all MMORPG's do not need to be clones of each other with only minor tweaks and lore/graphics changes - there is plenty of room for innovation and exciting variations on gameplay that don't cause the game to depart from the genre.

But then comes the question - must every game be pigeonholed into a genre?