What an MMO means to me.

[ironhands]

Soooooo I've been over to the destinys site the game set up is much like defiance and guess what there not stupid enough to mention the word MMO with there game. It's a shared world shooter which is how this game should have been sold

not entirely, the "shared world" only has a handful of people. it has a seamless matchmaking system, rather than allowing everyone to go wherever they want. you can't encounter more than a small number of people at a given point, other than the common area.

That is the difference - no massive events, it's more like Hellgate: London.

That, and yes, they want to steer clear of people who can't figure out the difference between an MMO and an MMORPG. Once we actually see footage of the game, it will be easier to classify it, but it still may fit the definition of an MMO.

Most likely though, it's to avoid people flipping out over the whole "it's not a mmo cuz theirs no endgame" BS, and not because it isn't an MMO.

[teccho]

A way to escape to a different world.

[alred]

My first MMO that I played was the one that coined the phrase: MMORPG, that game being Ultima Online.
It's the grand daddy of MMOs and is still around today.

Anyhow, UO had no hand holding when you first started playing [no quests/missions]. They left it up to the player to decide what they player was going to do/be. The current UO does hold hands with starter quests, but that is a shorted lived thing.

Defiance has a quest chain, all the way from the start to killing Nim, plus loads of side missions. I'm EGO 1,100 and still have about 10 side missions left.

This game, is the closest thing to UO, that I have find. By that meaning, it leaves it up to the player to find ways to occupy their time. Aekfalls, co-op maps, PVP maps. emergencies, are all there.
World of Warcraft has encounters, if you are willing to ride around upon the ground. Granted the encounters aren't arkfalls or emergencies.
UO never had any "end game", and I dislike the idea of "end game" in a MMO. That is something I think the WOW kids like and cling to.

So I consider Defiance a "sorta" sandbox game. By that I mean it's up to the player how they decide to pass their time.
It's not a true sandbox like UO/minecraft are.
But I like the lack of a true skill system, which is something "true wowheads" will have to get over.
I played Rift and other MMOs that had skill trees. I don't like them. Because they creater "Elitism". Meaning if you don't follow the template of a Hunter exactly, you aren't allowed to go on raids or crawls with the elites. The elites want clones, not players. EQ, WOW, Rift, all have clones. Why? because certain skill sets have been shwn to deliver the best DPS, to bring down bosses in dungeons. So if every warrior has the same skills, then they might as well be named 1 of 1,000,000 instead of GRogg the great.
At least in Defiance, you have little need for clones.