This is a pet peeve of mine. You might consider me obsessive and pedantic, but it annoys me to no end. And what is "it"? The abbreviation "MMO" when used to refer to massively multiplayer online games.

The acronym MMORPG was probably first. However, shortly after the genre became popular, people started shortening the acronym itself to just 3 letters: MMO. Since then, in every online conversation about massively multiplayer online games, somebody is bound to use it. MMOs this, MMOs that.

If you take a closer look, though, that acronym makes about as much sense as saying "PIN Number." Except, in case of MMO, the acronym isn't redundant, but quite the opposite - it's missing one of the words. The most logical expansion to MMO would be "Massively Multiplayer Online." So, when somebody says "I like MMOs" they are saying "I like Massively Multiplayer Onlines." Right. That sounds weird.

Because of that, I prefer the acronym MMOG - Massively Multiplayer Online Game. I saw this acronym used extensively, back when the genre was just becoming popular. Since then, though, it has fallen into disuse, in favor of the one letter shorter MMO. MMOG means pretty much what people mean when they type "MMO" - a massively multiplayer online game, not of any specific sub-genre, such as MMORPG.

I find it surprising that more people aren't irked by this frequent misuse of the acronym MMO. Redundant acronyms get more attention from people, who try to correct others, and try to prevent themselves from typing "ATM Machine" or "PIN Number." However, I've never seen anyone pay too much attention in, or care much about the broken acronym "MMO."

So, it seems I am all alone here, asking people to use MMOG instead of MMO. And yes, I probably care more than I should, but that doesn't mean the issue is non-existent.

So, I was messing around with the Oblivion Construction Set, and a mod came out of it. It's a simple player house mod, that adds a houseboat based on the Bloated Float (from the Imperial City Waterfront) to the northern part of the Niben Bay.

Some screenies:


You can get it from tessource (I hate Fileplanet)


Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a fun game. I've been playing it for a while now, and that's longer than most other singleplayer games out there. Perhaps because good singleplayer RPGs out there are rare, and these are usually the games that capture attention for longer times. Either way, Oblivion is a good singleplayer RPG - it's not perfect, and in some areas it can be somewhat lacking. You can feel that the game was made for a console as well as the PC... Unlike some games out there, it does not look like a half-assed port, but still, the fact that it's a port can be more so annoying since this is a RPG that should inherently be complex - and complexity is not something that console games are known for. Having said all that, it's still a great game. A lot of Morrowind fans out there make it out to be a total and absolute failure, but the game certainly does not suck. Sure - it could be better, and then it'd be the best RPG out there - but it's good anyway. Certainly, this is one of the best games of the year so far, and the best RPG is a while.

I could post this in the PC forum, and I actually considered that. But then, I'd think it'd be too much for the crowd there. So, I decided to use the whole blogging system (even though I dislike being one of those "bloggers"). Either way, this is not my main point.

My main point being how often the player-controlled characters in FPS are characterless. Look at all the recent FPS games, such as FEAR or Q4. Hell, look at HL2. None of the characters in these games SPEAK. Yes, I am aware of the reason that dev studios give for that: If the character doesn't speak it is easier for player to identify with them...

But sorry, it just doesn't work for me. Many people say that HL2 had a good story. But, in my opinion, the whole story angle to the game was severely crippled by the fact that Gordon Freeman never speaks. I mean, there's a lot of unsolved mysteries in HL2. And why is a whole bunch of them unsolved? Because Gordon Freeman can never ask anyone about them.

Now, Gordon Freeman never spoke... But then, something like FEAR and Q4 - now that's just annoying. Seriously, why can't the guy who I'm playing speak? If somebody is about to get decapitated by an angry looking Strogg, then I would find it more natural to yell "BEHIND YOU!," rather than just stand there and look at it. It actually makes the game LESS immersive - it makes you feel detached from the game and not fully involved in it.

Another this is that the stories of games are written in such a way to work around the limitations imposed by the muteness of the player-controlled character. For example, an NPC might say "By the nature of your wounds, I can only assume that you just came out of a fight with about 40 angry guys equipped with knives, who wanted to kill you to prevent you from achieving the objective that, I assume, you actually achieved," instead of simply saying "what the hell just happened to you?" I find that annoying. Often it's plainly obvious that the dialogue is written in such a way to avoid forcing the player-controlled character to speak. It makes the game feel even less immersive, and more artificial.

So, my plea to whoever makes up the story/dialogues/all that stuff for games: quit going with the player controlled characters don't speak thing. Seriously. It doesn't improve the game. It actually makes it worse.