Talk:Massively multiplayer online role-playing game

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 22 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to not move. (non-admin closure) — YoungForever^(talk) 20:32, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

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Massively multiplayer online role-playing game → MMORPGMMORPG – It is much easier to link to MMORPG. 14bauhr (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Most reliable sources tend to spell out the term—at least the first time—and searches for "massively multiplayer online role-playing game" tend to give more scholarly sources than "MMORPG". Besides, if the issue is linkability, you can always link to MMORPG and it will redirect to this article. Woodroar (talk) 18:49, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as the Massively multiplayer online role-playing game name is more appropriate and understandable for any reader ~Amkgp ✉ 19:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose "Ease of linking" is not a valid reason to move a topic, especially since you can already link that way as a redirect. -- ferret (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. "It is much easier to link to" in the nomination gives the game away. Links are not here for editors' convenience. No evidence has been provided that "|MMORPG" is the common name. 94.21.219.127 (talk) 22:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. This is a good point. MMORPG is arguably the most common moniker. I wouldn't mind a move. Still, I slightly prefer the longer, more descriptive title. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 12:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge - April 2023

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Electing to close this discussion as Not merged, as aside from the nominator, the result has been unanimous and the discussion has been open for two months now. At the very least, the result changing would require a significant sharp turn in the consensus to even reach a no consensus result. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

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The fork looks like the result of some languages lacking a proper translation for the term. Every native translation of it should involve creating an acronym in the target language, since that expresses a fundamental aspect of internet culture plus the media genres which MMORPG'es actually base themselves on. Nira gliro (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. MMORPGs are a type of MMO. There are also Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter games, Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games, and any kind of game where the server allows for hundreds or thousands of players. Reliable sources regularly cover those other genres, too. Woodroar (talk) 06:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Neither article mentions any notable much less real-time strategy games. Nira gliro (talk) 18:16, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter game includes a link to List of massively multiplayer online first-person shooter games, and List of massively multiplayer online first-person shooter games includes a link to List of massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games. Woodroar (talk) 18:33, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Woodroar already covered it. I get the sense that there some sort of right-great-wrongs at work here. This is English Wikipedia, so the articles reflect the English names for these genres and sub-genres. -- ferret (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose There are MMOs that are not MMORPGs (MMOFPS, MMORTS, etc.). ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone find one example where the term is mutually exclusive? Global Agenda for example is an MMORPG as well as MMOFPS, since the game takes a story-driven role-playing approach. Nira gliro (talk) 20:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

MMORPG.com is NOT a reliable website. Also, I think you can't call World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 or Final Fantasy XIV as MMOFPS/MMORTS. Za9941 (talk) 12:31, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Even if an MMOG might have RPG elements, they're not necessarily MMORPGs. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 02:56, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Theres enough here to keep them separate.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:46, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal: Mobile MMORPGs, combat power, and progression design

Many mobile MMORPGs appear structurally different from older or PC-oriented MMORPGs. These mobile titles often look less like games centered on persistent-world exploration, player interaction, and shared social or economic activity, and more like games about repeatedly increasing a visible aggregate power value such as combat power, CP, battle power, or combat rating. The MMORPG-like world, multiplayer setting, quests, events, cooperation, and conflict remain, but the practical value of play often appears concentrated in increasing and competing over that number.

In older or PC-oriented MMORPGs, value can be distributed across exploration, incidental encounters with other players, community formation, party roles, cooperation and conflict, crafting, gathering, trading, and other forms of in-game economic activity. In the mobile free-to-play pattern I have in mind, those forms of value are often gathered around a unified combat-power value. Activities that appear as exploration, cooperation, competition, or events can become the presentation through which that value is increased, displayed, and competed over.

Several groups of sources seem relevant to this topic:

• Industry/report material: Google Play's 2022 MMORPG Genre Report lists mobile MMORPG elements such as autoplay, AFK farming, character progression, pay for progression, pay for convenience/time, pay for power, and gacha.

• Mobile-game research: Studies on mobile-game monetization discuss wait timers, progression gates, and payment to skip or accelerate progression. A study of popular Korean mobile games, including MMORPGs, discusses monetization and retention strategies such as time-gated progression, conflict-driven design, and social-interaction-based strategies.

• English-language reviews of mobile MMORPGs: reviews of titles such as Lineage 2: Revolution, MU Origin, Dragon Oath 3D, and Black Desert Mobile discuss combat power/combat rating, automation, power-growth loops, and the relationship between mobile MMORPG progression and older PC-oriented MMORPG forms.

• Chinese-language industry/game-media usage: Tencent Game Academy / GameRes materials discuss MMORPG development, commercialization, social systems, economic systems, and the practice of 卖数值 (“selling numerical power” or “selling stats”). Chinese game media also discuss “not selling numerical power” as a selling point or trend in recent MMO mobile games.

I would be interested in other editors' views on whether this pattern should be covered, and how it could be framed. チーズハムサンド (talk) 08:45, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi チーズハムサンド! A couple comments on this thread:

1. Unfortunately, none of the sources here are usable. Google Play (source 1) and Tencent Game Academy (8) are primary sources from game publishers/sellers, which generally indicates an inherent bias. The arXiv sources (2 and 3) are preprints that have not been through peer review or publication. The remaining sources are on our Video Game WikiProject's list of unreliable sources for a variety of reasons. The sources we're looking for are reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, like articles in peer-reviewed journals, trustworthy games journalism, newspapers, and so on. You can read more about game-specific sources at WP:GAMESOURCES.
2. Remember that AI/LLM-generated comments are not allowed on Wikipedia. See WP:AITALK. LLMs are prone to mistakes, like hallucinating and choosing poor-quality sources. We want to hear what you have to say, not an LLM. You mentioned on your Talk page that English isn't your first language. That's fine, as long as you're able to read English well enough to understand, and write English well enough to be understood.

Woodroar (talk) 01:38, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

The key point of my proposal is the perspective, not the sources or the writing style. If authoritative sources haven't yet addressed that perspective, then it probably doesn't ready for article text at this point. チーズハムサンド (talk) 15:24, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

References

I would like to add an image to the article to show what an MMORPG looks like

Specifically this a screenshot of the game Ryzom, I specifically chose this game because it is one of the few games in this genre to have its assets under Creative Commons (Wikipedia is allowed to use screenshots of it), and specifically this screenshot as it shows GUI.

Screenshot of the MMORPG Ryzom

I tried adding this image to the page but it got reverted, I was told I cannot add this image without discussing it on the talk page first.

I just want an image on this article that accurately shows what an MMORPG looks like, the 3 images used on this article are used under Fair Use (meaning we have to use low quality images) and 2 of them are just text.

But if you think there is a better image that would be better for this article, please use that instead. OxyLight (talk) 07:10, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi OxyLight, thank you for starting the discussion! Also, thanks for mentioning that it's Creative Commons licensed, which does give us more flexibility if we decide to use it. However, I still have concerns about this image/game, and about an image in general. First, I have to wonder, why this game? Besides it being CC licensed, that is. Is it particularly representative of the genre? You mention the GUI, but that part is rather tiny and difficult to see. We don't mention Ryzom even once in the article, which often means that there's not much coverage of it in reliable, secondary sources. (Even looking at our article, most of the sources are primary or unreliable.) I just don't think this is a good example of a game to represent all MMORPGs on Wikipedia.

And that's kind of the issue. What game does represent all or most MMORPGs? It's like asking which book represents a genre of literature, or which artist/band represents a genre of music. I don't think there's a strong answer for most of them, and personally, I think that's why most genre articles don't have images at the top. That's just my opinion, of course. Woodroar (talk) 15:46, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

"I have to wonder, why this game? Besides it being CC licensed"

At the time I didn't think there were other MMORPGs Wikimedia had screenshots of (until I found one of Daimonin)

"Is it particularly representative of the genre? ... [P]ersonally, I think that's why most genre articles don't have images at the top"

Many Wikipedia articles of video game genres have pictures (shooter game, sandbox game). The games they use are obscure and don't really represent their genre, but the screenshots themselves do (Blood Frontier screenshot contains gunfire, Luanti screenshot contains player constructing a build)

Ultimately I think that this article would benefit from having pictures in it, I have no reason to believe that you are the ultimate authority on this so I will add pictures anyways, fell free to replace them with something that better represents the genre though. OxyLight (talk) 10:07, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Hell, Wikimedia commons thinks that screenshot of Daimonin is good enough to respresent MMORPGs. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games OxyLight (talk) 10:13, 20 July 2026 (UTC)