The Daily Grind: What's the threshold for an MMO?

Reader Comments (3)

I really don't feel that Borderlands qualifies as an MMO. In it, your character is simply a save file in your PC, since there are no servers. The games are hosted by users, and as such, you can't meet other people around the game world. Even a game like Guild Wars allows you to meet up with people and form a group in the many city hubs they have. Borderlands also doesn't really have an economy, as the only way to trade items with other players is if you are in the same game as them. To me, it's simply a co-op RPG in the same way as Diablo, Sacred and Titan Quest.

I really enjoy those types of games, it's a shame there aren't more of them. The recently released Torchlight is awesome, but sadly doesn't feature online play.

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This is not true. You need a service like Xbox Live to connect to other players. And those players are around the world. You meet them in lobby, rather than in a 3d city. No real difference other than aesthetics.

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@Harry: Still, every game room can only hold up to 4 players. And each room is absolutely separate from all the other rooms. If we consider each room to be a "server", then it hardly fits the "massive" criteria. In an MMO, I expect to have hundreds, if not thousands of players in one server, and their actions affecting everyone one else playing on the same server.

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