Are MMORPGs Really RPGs?

I was not the one who grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, but when I was a young teenager, I started playing Palladium Fantasy. I did not start playing Massively Multiplayer Online games until a few years later. So I have a history of pen and paper role playing games, but I had a history of MMOs. When a game is called an MMORPG, to me it is as far from an RPG as you could get. The very basis of an RPG is that you are playing a role, or a character in a game. In an MMO, you control the movements of a character in a game. Every other aspect of an RPG is tossed out from free thinking, restrictions on actions based on moral values, and variations on a character's attributes.

For the case of this analysis, we will focus on Final Fantasy 11 (FFXI) and compared it to Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game (PFRPG). From the very beginning, you are limited as to what your character is among all the others. I'm not a statistician, but with humans, the possibility of having a different attribute number for eight attributes between 3-30 is huge. Compound that with the various kinds of races you can play, and you will unlikely ever roll two characters exactly the same. One can be super smart, while the other is strong, or beautiful, or just a fast runner. With FFXI, there are differences in attributes, but it is only between races. One race might be better at magic, while the other is better at taking lots of damage. Apart from the facial and hair features, there is no difference between my Elvaan and someone else's Elvaan.

One of the major points of playing an RPG is playing your character. How would your character react to a situation. Now, there are more recent games (which are not MMOs) like Mass Effect, or Tell Tale's The Walking Dead, which gives the player the option of choosing a certain response either in dialogue or reacting to a situation. This is a big step up from FFXI, where Cutscenes involve your character listening to a conversation, and having little to no response. There can be options for how you respond, but all roads lead to the same end result.

Compare this to PFRPG using the example of an annoying NPC. You come across an NPC who is obnoxious, irritating, and you would sooner strangle them then help them with whatever request they have. Depending on your disposition, and your moral alignment, you would have a pretty endless choice of action when it comes to this NPC. If you were on the evil side, you could kill the NPC. Games like The Elder Scrolls series are a bit more open ended on what you can do, including killing the NPC, but unlike Mass Effect and more like FFXI, all choices pretty much lead to the same result. The only thing that changes is the NPC's response to you.

In fact, most of the time in FFXI when it comes to missions and quests you are eaves dropping on someone else's conversation. If you are not eaves dropping, you are a wall flower. Anything done in game does not have any effect on the game as a whole. You may say "Well, that would ruin everything for everyone else." Given that another game tried this, and the game has since failed, you can take the example however you wish. The Matrix Online game was changeable by the players. Events would allow you to change how the game was. I never played the game, but I read about it, so I cannot say how this effected gameplay. A major character in the first expansion pack of FFXI dies in the second expansion pack. It had been so long since I finished those storylines that when I went back to finish the first expansion pack, the person was still alive. It is just a game, but on a subconscious level, there is a paradox of sorts.

So in a game that you have no real effect over, your ability to choose is almost non existent, and your character, apart from facial features and its name, is nothing special. Compared to an actual pen and paper RPG, these MMOs are nothing close to an RPG. Why call an MMORPG an RPG at all? Probably to get people to buy their product. The Elder Scrolls from the very beginning tried to make a game as close to an RPG as they could get. Since then with Skyrim, they have distanced themselves from that, making the game extremely easy to play. But there is one thing that has yet to be adapted to a video game, and that is the unpredictability of a human being. Perhaps Neverwinter Nights came close with its ability to build scenarios, but on almost every metric, MMORPGs, and even games like Mass Effect are not role playing games. If I ran a game of PFRPG, and made it to your experience playing an MMORPG like FFXI, it would be just terrible. This is not meant to bash FFXI as a game because it can be very enjoyable to play. But as far as an RPG, it is a terrible game, and FFXI and any other game claiming to be an MMORPG or just an RPG should not be called. MMOs can simply be called that: MMO. RPG games are becoming more like "First Person Adventure" games, even if it allows a third person view. Because really you are just having an adventure in the game, and you play no unique role.

Rifter #55

Six months ago I submitted some articles for publication in Palladium Book's Rifter magazine. Long story short, there was a huge mix up, and I was never notified that I was published, never received payment, and never received my four free copies of Rifter #55. I waited to give them the benefit of the doubt, and sent some communications to them, asking what was going on. Finally I got a response back, and it has all been settled.

Finished Project

Feels good to finish a project, but where one project finishes, another starts. I had originally planned to write a sourcebook for Palladium Books' Heroes Unlimited line. As all plans of mice and men, it did not work out. Not that is was particularly hard (in fact most of the work was just in the stat blocks and rolling up NPCs), I just ran out of ideas to fill an entire book. I did manage to get almost 25 pages written. All I need to do now is submit "Cruiser City" for publishing, and hopefully it gets accepted. Much like another sourcebook I tried to do a long time ago, but gave up on was Old Kingdom.