What tag should be used for MMO questions?

Question

What tag should be used for Massively Multiplayer Online Games?

Options that come to mind:

mmo

Most common? Combined with rpg for games that are both.

mmorpg

Also common. In contrast to tagging both mmo and rpg.

massively-multiplayer

More verbose suggestion. It has been pointed out that although recognisable and in the spirit of minimising abbreviations, it is technically incorrect - as one could have a massively-multiplayer game that was not online.

mmog

More correct. [Removed as the g is basically implied.]

Answer 1

To me, having the tag be [massively-multiplayer] makes it too unwieldy. As such, I was thinking something similar to Arda Xi's comment:

• MMO for any massively multiplayer game
• Second Genre-Specific Tag based on the genre of the game

So it would look something like this:

• Planetside would have two tags: MMO and FPS
• WoW would have two tags: MMO and RPG

This would allow people to find games in each of the sub-genres of MMO by searching for that genre's tag (i.e. Planetside is findable under FPS and WoW is findable under RPG). The search is easily configurable enough to allow someone to easily find MMORPGS by including [mmo] [rpg] in their search. To me, the benefits overwhelm the costs.

Answer 2

I would suggest using [mmorpg] for those games instead of the combination of [mmo] and [rpg] for several reasons:

• The genre is largest subgenre in both rpg and mmo, being even bigger than the rest of the genre in the latter case. (There are more active mmorpg players than non-rpg mmo players)
• Giving a dedicated tag for mmorpg ensures both the [mmo] (non-rpg) tag, as well as the [rpg] (non-mmo) tag doesn't get flooded by mmorpg questions.
• Remember, MMORPGs are an over $1 billion dollar industry! 1
• Are we going to tag action-adventures with both [action] and [adventure]
• It saves us a tag on those posts (we have a tag limit of 5)
• we don't have an easy way to filter the non-mmo questions from the rpg questions (for newbies), while the [mmorpg] tag is easily found
• MMORPGs have unique elements, not seen in other mmo or rpg games. (guilds doing quests)
• searching for [mmo] [rpg] instead of [mmorpg] is counterintuitive for new users.
• Actually, searching for mmo (non-tag) will find posts tagged [mmorpg], while searching for mmorpg (non-tag) will not find posts tagged [mmo] [rpg]

BTW: didn't we agree to reserve the genre tags for the specific genres and not use them for the games, only for the genre questions.? (can't find meta-post now.)

(and for those saying MMORPG is not a proper name, wikipedia seems to disagree)

Answer 3

Since not all massively-multiplayer games are RPGs, then I'd say:

• MMORPG for massively-multiplayer RPGs
• I suggest massively-multiplayer for massively-multiplayer games that aren't RPGs, though MMO is also nice.

MMOG is a bit redundant since this is a gaming site :) and anyway I think MMO is more common.

Now, it's true that there are some terms such as MMORTS and MMOFPS lying around, and they may even be pretty accurate for describing some games, but I'm not sure they are well-known enough to warrant their own tag.

Answer 4

While I usually prefer things written out to abbreviations, I strongly recommend MMO to the alternatives. In fact, I'd go so far as to say MMORPG is wrong.

While we often refer to games as being MMORPGs, they are in fact both an MMO and a RPG. These are two different genre which should both be tagged. If I want to look for RPGs I should see games which are both MMO and not.

Answer 5

I think both tags have their relevance. I posted a question asking for a game and tagged it MMO because I didn't care if it was an RPG. So the tag MMORPG would not have accurately described my question but would definitely be more appropriate for something like: "Games similar to WoW?"

I personally like the idea of splitting the MMO away from RPG, FPS and so on for the reasons Michael Herold and tzenes mentioned. But I think things would work just as well without that split up.

Edit: The tag "massively-multiplayer" is too verbose IMO. Nobody calls it that unless they have to explain their hobby to some outsider.

Answer 6

I went through and tagged all the [world-of-warcraft] questions to follow the tagging scheme Michael Herold suggested ([mmo] and [rpg]), but alexanderpas has changed them to [mmorpg]. There doesn't seem to be a way to message users to talk to them, so posting here I guess.