Steam lists PoE as an MMO?

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

Two things that a typical MMO has that Path of Exile does not:

1) Extensive character customisation at creation, even if that just means changing a hairstyle, pick a face type, a hair colour. Anything. If you can do those things, I'm inclined to feel like I'm playing an MMO, where it is so much more important to feel some sort of 'connection' to your character from the start. As opposed to this,

Path of Exile has an ARPG character creation system: you pick one of a very limited number of archetypes, customise NOTHING beyond the name and then, much more intensively than many MMOs, customise your character as you go, with a combination of loot, skills and passive abilities.

In short, an MMO invites you to 'create' a unique character from the start and then slowly crawl towards the homogenisation of end-game gear. An ARPG only gives you a standard class *as character* and then promises deviation from that point forth.

2) An MMO player is obsessed with upgrading gear every level, because even 4-5 dps is a huge difference in your average MMO. If you haven't upgraded your gear at all in 5 levels, you're probably underperforming significantly. It is essential to keep your gear on the level in an MMO. This is because every level in an MMO is a significant jump -- it's often a new skill, access to new gear, gear you may have been hoarding for days just to use. One or two levels in gear can mean the difference between dying repeatedly in a zone and pretty much owning it.

In an ARPG, you can get away with not upgrading your gear for quite a few levels. Some uniques can last you upwards of 20 levels comfortably. Although an ARPG is absolutely a loot-finding experience, the method of 'farming' in an ARPG is entirely more random and short-burst than an MMO. In an MMO, you know which mobs will drop what items, by and large, and you farm those mobs until you get lucky enough for that item to drop. Although some ARPGs, like Titan Quest, have experimented with this concept, typically your grand drops are going to come from a monster that isn't guaranteed to drop it. Which is fine -- you don't have to treadmill your way from one level to the next through gear. That is MMO territory, not ARPG territory.

I have yet to encounter a game that bears the appellation 'MMO' that does not, in some way, accord to the above two conditions. Even EvE online gives you an extensive portrait customisation process.

The moment you remove that 'personal' character creation experience and the significance of single-level gaps, you're out of MMO territory.