What's the connection, do you figure?

@theht: I think the MMO experience translates well to the Souls games, you just exchange dying for grinding; it appeals to both low and high level players for different reasons and there's min maxxing involved as well as a substantial social element. Also it just (as in 5 seconds ago)occurred to me the reason I played Demon's Souls is because a Warhammer Online guild member told me it was worthwhile; and recommended no other PS3 games whatsoever.

I've never played an MMO, and the PvP was probably what I disliked the most about Dark Souls.

Runescape, Eve Online, and Guild Wars 2.

Was never into MMORPGs at all and love Souls games. I don't see a lineage or connection between them at all.

Wasn't really into any MMOs either. It wasn't the grinding that kept me out of them. I just didn't like how any of them controlled/played. The Souls games just feel more satisfying in that regard.

MMOs are one of my favorite genres, but I don't really see the connection, other than enjoying/not being annoyed by repeating stuff you've already seen and trying to do it better/more efficiently each time. I would definitely guess that a majority of people who play Souls games don't willingly engage with the multiplayer/social stuff, whereas most people who play MMOs probably do, because those who don't like multiplayer/social stuff probably avoid MMOs in general.

@ajamafalous: By social aspect I mean everything, the messages in game, the discussions about the lore and the storyline, strategies that people develop for each individual boss, discussions on what is the best weapon and so forth; not merely co-op and pvp; though you'd be surprised how big of an aspect co-op is in general.

I don't feel like MMOs played a part in why or how I play Souls games to be honest.

I played many MMOs at raid-level but only like 20 minutes of Demon's Souls and no other souls.

God no. MMOs all look cheap and terrible.

I'm more into the single player aspects of the Souls series.

I've been playing mmos in some form since Ultima Online. Played wow since beta though I don't really play MMOs anymore.

Not to be a wet blanket, but wouldn't the social aspect you assign to MMOs in your theory actually be inherent to gaming itself? Min-maxxing in pen and paper RPGs, talking on the school yard about secret codes and best strategies, and so on.

I generally disliked the era of MMO's that preceded Demon's Souls. I've spent more time with more modern ones, like FFXIV, but there's very little in common between the genre's that are resonsible for my enjoyment.

Yea, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Guildwars and Wow, all before Demons Souls.

Nope, no MMO experience whatsoever, I was always a bit scared of the time commitments and did not feel like scheduling play time with other people for raids and the like.

I picked up Demons because I saw the bit of the trailer where the player goes through stonefang tunnel and gets attacked by one of the pickaxe guys. I thought it looked like asword and shield survival horror game and that kind of sparked my interest.

I don't see the connection you're trying to make at all.

I played FFXI and a little bit of WoW but I don't think that had anything to with getting into the souls games. The significant social aspect of souls games pales in comparison to MMOs where you're almost always in direct contact with your mates and depending on the game do all the major content in co-op.

MMOs and Souls games can certainly be addictive, but I think the parallel you might be trying to draw is something that can happen in any well made game. It's easy to get addicted to something if you have a void in your life that needs to be filled. For example, I only feel drawn to play MMOs when I've isolated myself from my friends and family and am depressed as a result. When I played the Souls games, I was also depressed and lonely most of the time. Does that mean the Souls games are designed to be addictive and time consuming like MMOs? Not necessarily. People can get addicted to any game or any thing if they are trying to avoid dealing with problems in their life. Easier to ignore the elephant in the room than confront it and figure out how the elephant got there in the first place.

If anything I like the Souls games because of their differences to MMO's. I play MMO's to relax and casually grind. I play Souls games to challenge my motor skills and patience.

The connection is really tenuous to me.

I played pretty much nothing but WoW from the beginning of The Burning Crusade to just after the beginning of Cataclysm. I started playing and enjoying all of the Soulsborne games shortly after Dark Souls launched on consoles. I learned about and got interested in them through Giant Bomb, though, not anyone from WoW.

I can sort of see what the OP is getting at but it's a bit of a stretch to compare the game play of MMOs and Souls games. It depends on how you played MMOs. If you where doing high end raiding then you could compare the bosses of MMOs to those in the Souls games. They're both (at time of release at least) incredibly tough fights that require some degree of preparation and execution and while you're learning the fight you're likely going to die over and over until you finally get it.

Killing a raid boss in WoW often gave a similar level of satisfaction as killing a boss in a Souls game.

But if you played MMOs to just relax and casually level a character, then of course the two are nothing alike.

@jesus_phish:The Soul's games are great but the things they have in common with MMO's they also have in common with a lot of other games / genres. They're far more comparable to fighters than MMO's but I'd also scratch my head at that comparison too.

Like I said, it's a bit of a stretch but I can relate raid bosses of MMOs to bosses in Souls games.

I love the souls games but have an inherent hatred for the classic mmorpg, most of them are designed to keep the players on a never ending worthless and meaningless loop, plus they pretty much all have boring garbage combat (if you can call that crap in wow combat at all), just click and forget while occasionally picking a skill.

Honestly I don't think there's much connection, I would correlate the grindy aspect more with arpg loot games ala Diablo.

I think I played FFXI and maybe a handful of MMO's before dark souls but I don't see much of a connection between then. The social experience and collectively figuring out strategy for MMO's I think is much more important there, it's required in older MMO's to progress, and most of it takes place in-game. There is a social experience for souls games too, but for me and a lot of other people, we go into those games totally blind and maybe, MAYBE after finishing it once go online to talk about/learn strategies, or how to get items.

The popularity and appeal of MMOs is a mystery to me. I don't see anything of them in the Souls games, at least nothing that couldn't be said of basically every other game.

There's a big difference between just hitting the number 1 to 9 over and over again and the way the Souls game play though. Even the way you level is different.

Not sure how these two really tie together but.. Sure?

@onarum: you clearly haven't done pvp in wow or played the game in any significant way whatsoever. But there's no point in being reductive because some aspects of the game doesn't appeal to you.

I don't like MMOs in general and I did enjoy the souls game quite a lot.

There is nothing that I find appealing about mmo's from the combat to quest design to the game structure etc. They are the only genre of game that I have only played one of (I think). But I think the Souls games are great!

@gaff: No, at least not for most games. You don't need to min max Assassin's Creed; and even a difficult game like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry rarely has any particularly elaborate discussions on how to kill a particular boss.

At any rate the poll is what interests me personally. Whether it rubs you the right way or not doesn't bother me one bit.

The question is what happened to the huge MMO playerbase, my theory is a decent portion went to MOBAs (which we can infer also ate the RTS playerbase), a decent portion stopped playing games entirely, and the remaining players went to Souls, Skyrim/Bethesdaland, or both. Note if you play both MOBAs and Souls/Skyrim that doesn't necessarily matter, but if you played neither (as a former MMO player) that would be really interesting. I'm curious what that group is interested in, given there's few or no JRPGs and most people that play something like Divinity or the Witcher will also have played Skyrim or a Souls game.

Surprising number of people saying something to the effect of "I don't see any link between these at all".

I mean there's the obvious link that both are RPGs and both saves progress pretty much in real time.

Also the poll suggests that 72% did indeed play mmos before souls, but even I realize that that could be misleading because of a number of different things such as a bias in having an interest in this thread or just the odds of a lot of people having played mmos in their lives.

@elixirbronze: I'm sure 72% isn't accurate, in fact I'd wager it's something like 30-40% of Souls players on the whole (well maybe not counting the cheap steam sale crowd); but still a significant chunk; enough so that you can assume the target audience is similar.

I played WoW for about a week, and hate MMO design principles. Also Souls is tied for my favourite game ever.

So whatever that does for your data, there you go.

Same here. MMOs don't appeal to me in the least, but I've played every souls game a whole lot and I hated the PvP. I really like the idea of the PvP, but in practice the skill ceiling is pretty low. Anyone can look up a winning build online, then it's more often than not whoever gets the luckier lagstabs that wins.

@fredchuckdave: Looking at these responses, I don't think your theory is holding up.

@hassun: and then again, we can't rule out there's no bias here. Who do you think has more to say in this discussion? People who like both generes and are fine with drawing the connection, or people who dislike mmos but like souls games and would like to make clear how much they dislike mmos?

@elixirbronze: I don't think people who think they are connected have nothing to say in this scenario. Unless you believe that people would just post here to hate on MMOs.

The poll itself is also not that indicative of a connection. People might have played WoW or something (as millions did) and then later played Souls games for reasons completely unrelated to playing MMOs. The hypothesis here is that people who played MMORPGs in the past then transferred over to Souls games because they are somehow related or attract the same kind of audience. My opinion on it is that I don't think there is a meaningful connection between the two.

@hassun: I'm just saying there's more of an incentive to distance yourself from something you don't like as opposed to confirming to like something you like.

And I agree that the poll isn't reliable, but I don't agree with there not being any link whatsoever.

I played Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, City of Heroes/Villains, and WoW (from beta until first expansion). Enjoyed Dark Souls 1 & 2, but didn't really get into PvP at all. If I want PvP, I will play a PvP focused game.

The main reason I stopped playing WOW (and haven't go back to another MMO) is that I can't get back into the slow paced keyboard and mouse gameplay. If they came out with a Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls combat like MMO I'd be all over it.

Ive played lots of MMOs and never played a single souls game.

I mean I played tons of Guild Wars and WoW before the Souls games, but I don't see the connection anymore than I see a connection to any other RPG sub-genre.

I don't have the patience for the souls games and this comes from someone who used to sit for hours looking for group in FFXI and Dark Age of Camelot. I just feel like as I've gotten older and my time is more valuable I don't find that kind of grind fun anymore. It's not a time commitment thing either as learning enemy patterns and placement isn't an issue. It's the shear rage I feel when I've been "cheated" by the game. I'm too old as a grown ass man to be screaming obscenities at the TV and I'm just not going to play those games because of it.

I tested, but never intensely played, WoW before I did the same with Demon's Souls. None of these games are favorites of mine so I'm not sure how useful my opinion is here. That said, it's a really interesting theory and on the highly abstract level you propose I do think it makes a lot of sense even if DS and WoW have very few things in common superficially.

It might be a rough idea but I think there's potential here. I certainly dislike both WoW and Dark Souls for very similar reasons. Most notably, the games feeling like pointless grind to me due to the very fragmented lore with no unifying story being told.

I'm 30, so not sure where to vote in your poll. I know it's unusual but don't think I've ever played an MMO in my entire life. I was big into RTS and when Blizzard moved on from WC3 and toward WoW, it completely broke my heart. I ended up taking my college years (when WoW was huge) off from PC gaming, and had more of a casual relationship with console gaming (basically playing Madden, GTA). Then I got back into gaming after I graduated from law school and picked up DS.

I don't like grinding at all, but I love the Souls games. I just don't grind when I play them and I'm usually very conscious about not being overleveled.

Being 25 I don't know which option to pick...