Moving away from the term MMO

[Grummz]

As we begin our next funding round for Milestone II - Building THMPR, we're going to be moving away from the term MMO in describing Ember.

First of all, its a liability. Whenever the term MMO is mentioned, gamers shut down and stop listening. They assume the WoW-grind and all the stale gameplay they've seen hashed out over and over. It's hard to get them to read anything further once those three letters are uttered, esp in crowdfunding.

Second, Ember really IS different. It's a simulated, dynamic world played as a shooter in a massive wargame against an AI entity.

Third, many games, esp. genres like survival games (ARK), feature hundreds of players online and do not bill themselves as MMOs. They do very well, and they did not need to bill themselves as "massively muliplayer"

So, expect that we will be changing the word MMO in our previous blog posts and future ones as we pivot to avoid the "MMO pitfall" and focus on creating a online multiplayer wargame. Please forgive us for the retroactive editing of former posts and marketing as we focus our message.

 

[Pandagnome]

This is good if it helps then yess!!!

 

[Fryepod]

Dat marketing though

.. What's an MMO

 

[Maven]

Hah!
Can almost read the next posts on Firefall Reddit: 'Mark Kern at it again!!11!1 He now claims Ember is not an MMO!!1 He's breaking promises and doing a volte-face again11 Lies, Slander, WarbleGarble' Followed by nodding heads and raised pitchforks.

Perhaps, it is only right that this change should start here. If/When Ember comes to fruition, incorporating, and successfully implementing, the vision that you have, it should mark (forgive the pun) a change in the whole system that's been rotting away at the core. Prove that there is a way to do things differently, that innovation, or an attempt at it, does not automatically translate to billions in cash and a thousand broken promises. While it may not result in a renaissance right away, maybe it will do just enough to show that it can be done.

Maybe we could have another contest to name this new genre of Online Gaming?

 

[Torgue_Joey]

There is a difference between mmorpg and mmo shooter and mmo-whatever.
The term mmo got abused
Just like skinheads, originally had nothing to do with neo-nazi. Skinheads were nothing but punks, till it got generalised be society as neo-nazi.

I'd call ember a non-solo (multiplayer) online game (so a NOG?)

When I read MMO, i imagine something where shit loads of people join, if it's an rpg, shooter, hack and slag, doesn't matter. Just something where I join 100 peoples.

 

[Deso]

If Ember might be in gameplay familiar to Borderlands 2. I would be happy for that!

 

[EvilKitten]

Multiplayer Wargame Scenario, or MWS. Seems fitting to me. It may be five syllables to say it out loud instead of MMO's three but seems to fit the bill.

EDIt: These days Multiplayer should already imply Online so that is redundant, Wargame should imply that it is a FPS or 3PS style shooter and Scenario indicates that it is story driven as opposed to say a game like Overwatch where I would use the term Arena instead of Scenario.

 

[Fooni]

Take notes everyone! Be sure to always say its an online game only.

 

[Despair]

I like that

 

[Aphaz]

OMS ( Online Multiplayer Shooter )
i know some1 said online and mulitplayer are, sort of, one and the same but...NMS is also an online game that can be played by multiple ppl but is kinda a single player game, so...

 

[Terib.Shadow]

Multiplayer Wargame Scenario, or MWS. Seems fitting to me. It may be five syllables to say it out loud instead of MMO's three but seems to fit the bill.

EDIt: These days Multiplayer should already imply Online so that is redundant, Wargame should imply that it is a FPS or 3PS style shooter and Scenario indicates that it is story driven as opposed to say a game like Overwatch where I would use the term Arena instead of Scenario.

This looks perfect, i vote for using MWS then.

 

[MattHunX]

Good idea!

That's already one example of breaking from the norm/standard, as you guys should.

 

[Aphaz]

fair enough
shall we be callin it MWS then...?
mark, ur thoughts?

 

[NanoTechnician]

I'd agree, Bungie had the same thing about Destiny.

It shouldn't preclude the use of this helmet tho ​

 

[SSH83]

Good call! I have to admit i did cringe a little bit when i saw the "Battlefield MMO" because it really limits the imagination of the readers. Good games are often unique enough that we cannot do it justice with our tendency to explain a new game by comparing it to old games.

Best way to pitch warframe to a friend is just "i can't explain it. it's so different and fun. You just HAVE to try it or you're missing out" Say anything else (F2P, Grind/Farm, Shooter, etc) and immediately you sell the game short by drawing analogy to lesser games and they don't want to touch it. Pretty much same here.

 

[AgentSmith5150]

I remember this exact same discussion in the beginning of the Firefall forums before there was a game to play (yes, I've been around that long). R5 wanted to avoid the "MMO" tag like the plague but later embraced it.

 

[Krhys]

Indeed, the term MMO is a blight upon our world and should be purged forever in the Fires of Hades...

In addition, the term XP needs to follow it into the pit, never to return.

 

[SeductivePancake]

I completely understand where this is coming from. There are many good *MMO's* out there but since there are many more fake and horribly marketed ones, they give the good games a bad reputation for mentioning it's an MMO. I have never overlooked a game because they marketed it that way though, I personally believe that if a game looks interesting to me, even with 999,999 down votes saying that it's the worst game in the world, I will still play it and analyze it and make a constructive comment saying what's good what's bad what needs to be improved, how it could be improved and why somethings should be removed or added. I really wish many other people did this, but so far I've only seen a few handfuls of people who actively try to inform the creators of what they have to do, to better their community. So far from what I have learned this game looks amazing, and seeing that your guys' motivation was to make it better than firefall, gets me on the hook. The art looks good, the 3D models are coming along nicely and seem like they will be a nice edition to this very unique game. The alien race as far as I have looked there is only one thought up right now, which is fine because there's not really a game to play yet. I do like how you guys are including the community on naming the aliens. This for me, makes the game more dynamic and realavent, because not everyday can you say in a game, "I inspired this to be here." or "I named that." or "I designed the looks of that gun." Being able to say you even remotely helped out with the development of a game is a fantastic deal of enjoyment, especially if the game becomes big and a lot of people start to play it. Because firefall was one of my favorite MMO's before it went downhill, I fully support the idea of making a game similar but wayyyy better. keep up the good work!

 

[AODSpagex]

inb4 firefall forums going nuts

 

[Krhys]

Spotted this on the emberthegame.com page, not sure if it needs to be amended: