What makes a MMO an MMO and how does SW:TOR stack up in this regard?

Above quoted text is a excellent reply regarding community

Excellent read. I noticed the WoW downfall as soon as Activision came into the picture but that's when I noticed, not sure if it was happening prior. I believe that was the wrath era if I'm not mistaken?

1) Chat. I know its bat **** crazy but chat bubbles mean I know who is talking and saying what and make me feel like I am listening to someone
2) Dialog. If the entire game has voiceovers but when other players say things out side an instance I dont get them speak and have to read I lose interest,
3) Sand Box, I like the idea of theam park games but I need a house, gun racks, decorations, harvesters, player cities, capital ships etc etc not just running the same instance where I have stopped Darth Malgus 30 times but still we keep letting the same guy take over Ilum. I would prefer if the repeatable quests made sence, but of 20 guys at Corellian 500 are spys and we still dont remove them
4) Character creation and species choice. I want to make my hero my way and then play as him. Not play as some standard "hawk" style hero.

All in all TOR is a poor MMO, its a good single player game, Could have been better when I defeat an evil Moff, I dont expect to leave his fortress and find all the the guys I kiled respawned. I expect to return to areas and see the good I have done rather than nothing has changed. But I enjoyed the story and the world.

you can play diablo 3 with 4 people

Is it an MMO in the straight forward definition of MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online)? Yes it is. Is it an MMO in the sense of what MMO's where originally intended to be (UO, EQ)? Nope. Not in the slightests. The lack of community and the game design to be against it (everything being instanced, soloable and a linear solo story path while leveling), doesn't make it an MMO in the traditional sense in my opinion.

Yup, and that's the extent of it. GG, thanks for coming out. Here is a pink ribbon for participating

Interactive gameplay in a social environment is what makes an mmo

Gear progression, raids, warzones: all that junk is only secondary to a great community. If all we do is log in to do flashpoints with people we have never met or just log in and do warzones then we might as well be playing xbox live. Because the only thing really making these things different is the was running in a circle around fleet.

sounds like a flashpoint

And what big game does Activision make?

Hint: That same company is what turned WoW into what it is.

Why make an MMO and then make the single-player elements 90% of the focus? The SPRPG part of the game marginalizes the whole point of making it an MMO, and the MMO parts of the game will limit how good of a SPRPG the developer can make. Does anyone really think the SP parts of this game wouldn't be way better if BW wasn't making a bastardized MMO-SP hybrid?

When developers started making MMO's it was because they saw the specific advantages that being able to play a game online, with hundreds and thousands of other players, brought to the game. The online part of the game is the whole point of an MMO. Otherwise you might as well just create a SPRPG and attach some type of co-op to it.

It would be like creating a single-player first-person shooter, but putting in MMO-style combat controls. I'm certain there would be some players who just don't get it saying that it's fine. What would elude them would be that the point of a FPS game is that the games feature high twitch. Creating a gimped FPS shooter by attaching an MMO-style combat system to it would be stupid. Creating a gimped MMO by attaching SPRPG-style linearity and storytelling to it is also stupid. You might as well JUST MAKE A SPRPG.

It's like drinking beer with your chocolate cake. You might love the two things seperately, but when you try to mix them they just don't go together. You wouldn't say, "but beer is good. And chocolate cake is good! So let's create a business plan around serving beer with chocolate cake!!"