Is Elden Ring an mmo?

[Waylander]

I've watched some game-play footage and my interest has been piqued. But is it all combat? Or will there be cities and crafting, trading, duelling and what not? How is PVP? Is it all open world or is there an arena/battlegrounds or any form of organised pvp?

It looks like it may be a more solo friendly game, but I can find little information past the Dark Souls connections and I have never actually played any of these.

[RyuKazé]

It's not going to be like WOW or A Realm Reborn. There will be (from what we've seen thus far) crafting of various weapons and potion skills to use in the world, the ingredients which are either taken from various animals, mobs or found across the land.

I take duelling to mean PVP? That's there. AKA invasions, either summon 1v1 via a (consumable I think) Taunter's Tongue or 2v2 in coop. All the rest remains to be seen.

I guess it could very, very, extremely loosely be called an mmo but it really is, as far as the offline content is concerned more solo friendly indeed and typically, mmo's don't have offline content.

If you've never played a From Software game before, just look at videos of Dark Souls 3 and imagine that in an open world setting. That'll give you a good idea what to expect, and check out a few megathreads around here if you have the time.

[Sabaithal]

From what I can tell, no, it won't be an MMO.

And thank christ for that, considering how horrible servers handled by bandai have a tendency to be.

[Waylander]

I see, so the details are a little vague then, I thought it may have just been my sources.

When I said 'cities and crafting, trading, duelling and what not?' I was talking mainly about a central hub where people meet and hang out. Kind of like Stormwind in wow. I can see it's not advertised as an mmo, so I'm not expecting thousands of players on a server, but I don't really know what to expect.

I follow mostly mmo youtube channels and there seems to be quite some hype for this game. I didn't realise it had offline content.

[RyuKazé]

No, there won't be a central hub. The amount of people that you'll have in your game is very limited and capped at 4, including yourself. You'll be able to see bloodstains and various other people represented as phantoms sometimes going about their business but you won't be able to interact with them much outside of touching their bloodstain (to see how they died) or read messages left by other players, sometimes helpful (boss ahead) sometimes not (try jumping {off a cliff to your death}).

It's by From Software, they've thus far had a pretty decent track record with their most recent games (Demon Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) with few hiccups and Souls games always generate a hype.

[Waylander]

Ah OK! So it's more a single player game with some multiplayer functions. Is Elden Ring a new project or is it a continuation of any of the above mentioned games?

and thanks for your time spent answering my questions, I think I have a better idea of what it is now.

[RyuKazé]

Originally posted by Waylander:

Ah OK! So it's more a single player game with some multiplayer functions. Is Elden Ring a new project or is it a continuation of any of the above mentioned games?

and thanks for your time spent answering my questions, I think I have a better idea of what it is now.

Elden Ring technically is a new project but with a lot of ideas being carried over from previous Souls games. It's not going to pick up where any of the others left off however. They did a collab with George R. R. Martin (author of A Game of Thrones) on some world building , lore and backstory, however, it very much is still a souls game, an oversimplication being "This (Elden Ring) is DS3 but open world and with a different coat of paint" but still quite an accurate depiction.

I would class it as a single player game with added multiplayer but others would see it more as multiplayer with singleplayer being an addition, at least that was what was said about previous Souls games. Now more than ever I'd think the former is truer than the latter.

No probs, I'm an MMORPG person myself but due to a rubbish connection I'm sometimes forced to do away with the MMO part and just proceed with RPG's 😆

[Dragonirian]

Originally posted by 𝓡𝔂𝓾𝓚𝓪𝔃𝓮:

It's not going to be like WOW or A Realm Reborn. There will be (from what we've seen thus far) crafting of various weapons and potion skills to use in the world, the ingredients which are either taken from various animals, mobs or found across the land.

I take duelling to mean PVP? That's there. AKA invasions, either summon 1v1 via a (consumable I think) Taunter's Tongue or 2v2 in coop. All the rest remains to be seen.

I guess it could very, very, extremely loosely be called an mmo but it really is, as far as the offline content is concerned more solo friendly indeed and typically, mmo's don't have offline content.

If you've never played a From Software game before, just look at videos of Dark Souls 3 and imagine that in an open world setting. That'll give you a good idea what to expect, and check out a few megathreads around here if you have the time.

Current invasions are always 2v1 and 3v1 in coop or 1v2 and 2v2 with taunter's tongue. No 1v1 invasions at all.

[RyuKazé]

Originally posted by Dragonirian:

Current invasions are always 2v1 and 3v1 in coop or 1v2 and 2v2 with taunter's tongue. No 1v1 invasions at all.

Yes, thanks for the correction.

[Komaru]

You should think that Elden Ring is closer to Monster Hunter kind of multiplayer, instead of World of Warcraft kind of multiplayer. However it should also be noted that Elden Ring multiplayer is a very special kind of multiplayer, since From Software literally invented "the summoning system mechanic" it uses, when they made an action rpg called Demon's Souls in 2009.

Maybe the best way to summarize the summoning system is mixing Jorney game, and Monster Hunter games together to create a perfect mix between meeting unknown strangers, while also being able to play with your friends, without turning the whole map into a giant mmo hub area ruining immersion.

In From Software games you only meet other players when you call for help (co-op), or when another player forcefully invades your game (pvp). With some rare pvp boss exceptions and battle arena locations, this is the core part of the multiplayer experience.

You can also see messages wrote by other players on the ground, and you can also see how other players have died. It's kinda like that feature from Nier Automata where you can see dead bodies of other players, but From Software is the studio that invented the idea that it is possible to be all alone, but not really at the same time.

Just imagine going to an ancient forgotten ruins of a historical building and your all alone, but suddenly you begin see ghosts of death people when they were still alive and lived in that ancient building. That is pretty much the feeling of Elden Ring, if you play it solo without help from other players.

Also I have to mention that co-op in these games has been pretty much a mixed bag, because in past From Software titles most bosses only had tracking for one player at time, so co-op was akin to "cheating" for many players.
However Elden Ring seems to be fixing that issue, because I have heard that Elden Ring bosses in a beta test had multiperson tracking and crazy aoe attacks hurting many players at the same time, so maybe we can finally play a From Software game in co-op without being called cheaters now.

Btw there's also trading, but it might be the worst trading ever, since in past From Software games you could get softbanned if you accidentally picked up an item that some other player hacked with a cheat engine. We can only hope that Elden Ring fixes that issue too.

[Mecharion]

In short: No
In long: Nooo

[nvno]

no, its a rpg, mmo is a massively multiplayer online game, and elden ring isnt massive