Why must "MMO" always be followed by "RPG"?

[Nightshard]

Dungeon Fighter Online is a roughly arcade-fighting based MMO (and free to play at that!) but still had an awful amount of grinding, gated by 'fatigue'. The PVP is pretty entertaining though, albeit not every type of character (or particular build of type of character) is well-suited for it.
There was a brawler-style fighting MMO but I can't remember what it was called. It had a decent martial arts base, Korean or Chinese MMO if I recall correctly.
And as someone already said, FFXI violates 3 of the 5 guidelines you've posted, and can violate the other two in certain situations. 1, playing Dancer, Bard and Scholar were probably the most fun I've had in combat in a long time on any MMO. 2, with the advent of Level Sync to drop high levels down to a friend's level for party play, Moblin Maze Mongers giving highly worthwhile experience for a little work, and smart Abyssea parties practically eliminating most of the effort from the grind, its much less tedious than quest-grinding or pug parties.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because "MMOFPS" sounds oddly like "Spawncamp Hell".

Because "MMORTS" rhymes nicely with "Non-Strategic Clusterfuck".

"Because "MMOFightingGame" is as possible as slamming a revolving door.

Etc.

 

[Trolldor]

There are MMO RTS games out there, and I think there is one MMO FPS starting with "M"

 

[lukenhiumur]

Because APB was such a successful franchise.

EDIT:
Seriously though it takes a lot of money to make a decent MMO, and most companies don't want to spend huge amounts of capital on a something that hasn't been proven before.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Mostly because its a risk to try something new like that and if your going to sink the money necessary into making an MMO into something few people want tot take risks. Oh and if you do it small scale, like an indie thing, its no longer called an MMO because its not assigned the same cultural value.

More power to you if you want to make the game or have someone else make it though. If you don't like something, start the process to change it that's how entrepreneurs make their fortunes.

 

[EllEzDee]

They dont have to be MMORPGs. You can really do anything. Any multiplayer match online in an FPS is an MMOFPS. Its just that MMORPGs are the easiest to make, play, market, and make money on.

You're just making a lot of general assumptions about the "requirements".

Red Orchestra, with up to 50 people playing online (biggest i've played, though i don't do much FPS gaming) isn't an MMO. MMO means massively, ie larger than large. Just because it's online multiplayer, doesn't make it MMO.

 

[elvor0]

It's due to the innate stat building element that comes with RPGs, making you increase your stats an equipment by use of time sinks gives the game staying power, an MMOFPS would be great fun, but if there's no goal besides "shoot each other and continuinly take back bases from each other" it becomes stale, and there's less investment of time into your character, because in order to create balance in an FPS, everyone has to have an even footing, there can't be stats, or it falls apart, the only divide has to be skill based.

RPGs have the investment of constantly improving your character because of the stat based element of RPGs, wheras other genres multiplayer has a microcosm of the world played out in 10 minute matches, where everyone is even from the start and has access (mostly) to the same weapons, and even if they don't, they generally make little difference, and weapons become more preference than you must spec X way (ala wow). Overall it's just difficult to make an MMO of a different genre than RPG, because no other genre creates the ivestment that RPGs have.

Also, WoW has a good narritive structure, especially with Cataclysm, it's not single player level, but there has to be some limitations to make it all slot together.

Furthermore I don;t think you realise how much pressure it would put on the servers if the graphics were all top notch, the reason MMOs have sub par graphics is because by their very nature there are thousands of people running around at once, all the time, it's not because developers are lazy, it's because we physically don;t have the necessary technology.

Nexon seems to kinda understand the whole 'MMO doesn't have to be followed with RPG' thing. Kart Racer and DFO come to mind. Also, isn't Minecraft a pretty big MMOFPS? and what about StarCraft? kind of an MMORTS.

Minecraft isn't really an FPS, it's more of a creative suite. but neither of the games you mentioned are mmos in the slightest, while Minecraft has persistant servers and a big envirnoment, the player count isnt big enough to qualify as an MMO.

Starcraft, I'm not even sure how you got MMORTS from it, it multiplayer system is the same as every RTS ever.

 

[s0meNo0b]

Because the world's only MMODG (Audition) was KILLED because NO ONE PLAYED IT.

YOU MURDERED IT, YOU BASTARDS!

Audition? There's the Redbana version of it after nexon gave it to them.

OT: I haven't really played a big mmorpg that much in a while. I've mostly been playing other kinds of mmos over the past 3/4 months. A vast majority of them are mmorpgs since they're easier to make and make money out of, and there is a reason for that.I like to play something other than just an mmorpg, you know, add some variety in there.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Actually...all those examples you have do exist. MMORPGs are the most prominent, but there's thousands of MMOs out there. There's more variety than you'll get by glancing in at the most popular ones. There's shooters, story-driven RPGs, RTSs, FPSs, Racing Games, Stealth Games, Fighting Games, Sports Games, Simulations etc.

The reason you don't hear about them is that they're not as high budgeted, and are often free-to-play. Clunkier, perhaps, but it's like saying all games are just FPSs because that's what the biggest games in the mainstream market are. There's a massive variety of creative products if you dig deeper.

 

[Chris646]

Nexon seems to kinda understand the whole 'MMO doesn't have to be followed with RPG' thing. Kart Racer and DFO come to mind. Also, isn't Minecraft a pretty big MMOFPS? and what about StarCraft? kind of an MMORTS.

 

[gostlyfantom]

this thread reminds me of APB...

 

[BrownGaijin]

Isn't Pangya an MMO about golf?

 

[Smooth Operator]

I like the idea of a RTS MMO though the game itself would probably be buggy and is probably better in theory then practice.

Well there is BattleForge, a free to play RTS MMO, gameplay wise it's very solid, but as with all MMO it only goes sofar before you get bored of the repeating content.
Which is fine by me because you play it for a while, then you get bored and move on, it doesn't mutate into a horrid WoW addiction.

There were also a couple of FPS MMO's I played, but they usually forget that gameplay hasto comes first with those, so it really doens't go far before you're fed up.
Then there were a few 3rd person shooter MMO's, bad gameplay, repetitive,...
And racing MMO's, but I ever did try any of those.

So if you want to branch out there really is no shortage of variety, but MMO is like a handicap tag, they may all be great athletes but they are missing a leg.

 

[lacktheknack]

Because the world's only MMODG (Audition) was KILLED because NO ONE PLAYED IT.

YOU MURDERED IT, YOU BASTARDS!

Audition? There's the Redbana version of it after nexon gave it to them.

What? I left for a couple weeks vacation and it had disappeared when I returned.

WHAT IS THIS NEW VERSION!? WHERE IS IT?! IS IT ENGLISH!? GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEE!!!

 

[Kagim]

-snip-

Because there not.

There are tons of MMO's that aren't all RPG.

Here.

http://mmohut.com/

What seems to be the case isn't that there are some unspoken rules developers follow but rather you follow some unspoken rules that disqualify MMO's from being MMO's

I'm not being a dick... though i get i probably sound like one. Just something to think about. Browse away.

 

[Ca3zar416]

While there is some variation the problem is that people are attempting compete with the World of Warcraft market because it has been so successful. The RPG's are just the most well known also. I would like to see others though. Like an MMO tower defense or something really odd. Could be interesting but we'll see.

 

[octafish]

Would I get in trouble for low content if I only typed two words?

EVE Online.

 

[RThaiRThai]

I guess what you say is true when limited to the games people have actually heard of. I'll list some of the exceptions I've heard of.

There's a Rock Band (this came first) style MMO called O2Jam. I don't play it anymore and I'm a little confused about where to find it, but supposedly it's still out there.

Extra Credits mentioned Echo Bazaar, which I am enjoying very much. It still has grinding, but none of the rest. Like you said, no exceptions ever. The grind is fast though, only waiting the time it takes for the server to respond, and so far I've seen new content every day.
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com

I would also like to note that *all the big triple A games are combat based*. That's why I'm not playing them anymore. So I wouldn't say MMOs are unique in that aspect.

There's also Tetris Friends.
www.tetrisfriends.com

 

[Tsaba]

honestly why isn't everything followed by RPG? They take bit's a pieces from it in some way or form, but, yea, I could totally go for a Gundam MMO, that would be awesome.

 

[Gustavo S. Buschle]

What about minecraft, it's basically everything you described and just like WoW the developers can now snort diamonds.