MSFS2020 is also an MMO, because it's Massive, it's Multiplayer, and it's Online. It also has forests, lakes, clouds, and atmosphere per the OP's request, so why are we all wasting time comparing ED to X4 and Star Citizen when instead we should be comparing it to MSFS?
Lower your Expectations for ED
- Thread starter Cosmo
- Start date
Time to lower your expectations for Frontier livestreams too.
Solo mode has always been a multiplayer game and cannot be otherwise.
This community is hilariously delusional.
To understand those differences.
This community is hilariously delusional.
If there is functionally no way for you to play in Solo mode without being subject to my changes to the game's setting, nor for me to be able to avoid yours, how are we not playing together?
The BGS long predates launch and the game was an MMO well before I started playing, which was several months before release.
def·i·ni·tion /ˌdefəˈniSHən/
noun
a statement of the exact meaning of a word.
In Solo, we're not playing together because we're not playing together.
One planet with more diversity than all the billions of planets in Elite combined.Only one planet tho...
But if numbers of planets is what makes a space game "win", then No Man's Sky wins because it has way more planets (and galaxies) than Elite does.
My exact meaning when I say MMO is: an online game (the 'O') where a number of players (the second 'M'), exceeding a certain threshold (the first 'M'), interact with each other, via any in-game means, in a manner where the sum of those interactions are simultaneously evident (to distinguish MMOs from smaller or non-persistent, serially multi-player titles). I've arbitarly set the threshold for player count at 256 to discriminate massive from non-massive, but beyond that, my definition is not exceptional.
You can have any exact meaning for your definition of the phrase/genre you like, but this is mine.
We are playing together, because Solo doesn't remove you from any non-direct interactions. Anything your CMDR does that has an impact on the BGS is reflected in my game, somewhere. That is our medium of interaction. It doesn't matter if our CMDRs are never instanced together, we still contribute to and share the same persistent game world. This game is not confined to a single instance.
Based on your definition, is Star Citizen an MMO?
Excellent. We can now get to the root of the problem.
There is an almost ubiquitous phenomenon within the world of video game players, which is a desperate insistence that their own definitions for categories of games are valid, because "to each their own". Now, attempt to apply this logic to pretty much anything else.
The definition of "fascism" is:
If everyone had their own definition for the word "fascism", the word "fascism" would lose its purpose for existing, because no two people would agree on its meaning. Furthermore, it renders any discussion about fascism impossible, because no one would be able to agree on exactly what was being discussed. This thread is a flawless example of this kind of dissonance, and it eventually reaches a point at which mockery becomes the only logical path forward.
According to you, that's exactly what Solo is - its own instance. And while we share a background simulation, it has no impact on my (or your) activities beyond numerical changes within the background simulation itself.
Um, actually everyone does have their own definition of "fascism" and "fascist", usually something like "Anybody who disagrees with me", and thus it has lost its meaning.
Though I'd argue that neither "fascism" nor "MMO" have any bearing on whether or not X4 can be compared to ED, the original statement that started this 20 page debate.
I don't know enough about it to make that judgement.
Does it have a setting that is persistent (periodic wipes/resets are fine) and shared? This would almost invariably imply MMO, provided the player base is large enough to reflect the contributions from enough players.
Otherwise it would need some pretty huge instances.
The root of the problem isn't a difference of opinion in the definition of MMO.
It's our difference in definition of 'game'. You don't seem to think the BGS is part of the game. I do.
Solo being it's own instance doesn't preclude one from being able to participate in the overarching setting, which crosses, covers, and unites, all instances.
This is what makes Solo distinct from the non-existent offline mode.
I think the BGS is part of the game... one that doesn't make Solo any less of a single player experience practically speaking.
No idea. All I know is that people tell me that I can't compare X4 to ED because X4 is not an MMO. Of course as soon as someone does try to compare another MMO to Elite, then the criteria changes to flight model or number of planets or graphics style or some other arbitrary gatekeeper that prevents anyone from comparing any game to Elite, except for some magical reason Star Citizen, which gets a free pass, probably because SC makes ED look good.