RPG, definitely. I've never got any sort of "MMO" feeling from Skyrim. The story is aimed around you as the hero; you as the protagonist. You don't share the story's experiences with other people the way you do with an MMO, even if some of the MMO elements are there. Skyrim, in my opinion, isn't even a game that needs multi-player elements in the first place, to be honest. Those additions are fine but just the standard RPG format is all that is needed and anything more is just fluff that I won't bother with.
I don't think it feels like MMO to me since it's not an online game. And I'm sure that this game is an RPG.
An MMO can NEVER have as much depth as a single-player RPG can. Skyrim felt a lot like an actual RPG game, like it is supposed to feel. In most MMOs, quests are recycled and very pointless, but in Skyrim, completing a quest had some purpose. You do a quest to help you progress through the story, which leads you to completing the game, eventually.
Common, you cannot call Skyrim standard by far. It is a huge world where you can get lost in for hours at a time, and the only thing that even comes close to it, is The Witcher 3, in my opinion.
I think Skyrim feeling like a singleplayer MMO isn't Skyrim's fault, but the fault of major MMORPG's. A lot of MMORPGs can be played effectively solo, with solo focused main quests and an emphasis on your character being some kind of lone hero (which is ridiculous when you see hundreds of heroes just like yours running around). A lot of MMORPGs only have player interaction when the game forces you to team up. You can survive just fine crafting alone, buying things from NPCs, grinding NPCs for exp etc. I think Skyrim was a very good RPG game, but MMORPGs have a thing where they're designed to not need player interaction and you end up having a singleplayer experience dressed up as a multiplayer game.
I would say RPG. There's nothing really in Skyrim that make me think that it's more like a MMO than an RPG. The fundamental thing in a MMO is the multiplayer interaction that skyrim of course lacks.
It's an RPG. MMO would mean a multiplayer game, and Skyrim doesn't even have any multiplayer features.
I think people are missing the point of the question: it's not that Skyrim feels like a single player MMO, but playing it sometimes feels like you're playing an MMO without other people in it. You can roam around exploring, the world doesn't really react to you (really, a Thane being scoffed at by patrol guards ?), most of the quests are fetch quests. It's not a bad thing, just that a lot of RPG elements have been toned down from previous iterations. You can join any guilds without difficulties, hell you can be an Archmage without much knowledge of magic. It's a very nice open world, but still an open world. The depth is missing sometimes, and on those occasion, you do feel like you're playing solo in an MMO.
It just feels like a normal RPG to me. Ignoring the multiplayer part, a lot of MMOs feel very grindy, and I don't think Skyrim has too much grinding in it.
I can see how you may relate Skyrim to MMORPGs. Both have giant, open worlds for you to explore to your heart's content with a ton of content to play through. However, I don't think I'd say that Skyrim is necessarily an MMO styled single-player game. Skyrim's quests are much more fleshed out and detailed than ones you'll see in most MMORPGs. On top of that, Skyrim doesn't really have an endgame. In most MMORPGs you'll either have a PvP focused or a PvE raid focused endgame that you work towards while leveling. In sandbox RPG games like Skyrim, you sort of just do what you want until you get bored and that's it. I don't think that's a bad thing though. It gives you much more time to immerse yourself in the world and enjoy the game. Plus, mods are great for adding new content when you do finally get bored or finish everything there is to do; something you won't get from most MMORPGs.
There is no such things as a single player MMO. I thought I had read it wrong at first because the term "Single player MMO" is jus so ridiculous. Massively Multiplayer Online is what MMO is short for.
Since Skyrim is single player, it lacks many MMO elements (which require other players) such as instances and PVP, and therefore leans more towards being and RPG. That said, it does share many similarities with MMOs including a vast world that is fun to explore and various skills and combat abilities to level up.
It feels like an RPG because calling it MMO implies that there are a lot of other people playing the game at the same time and I'm able to interact with them through my game and play alongside them and against them and no, I do not have that feeling. Sure, there's a lot of questing to be done even after finishing the main story, but that doesn't give me an 'MMO' feel.
I think the open-endedness is similar to an MMORPG, and the idea that you can free roam and are not forced to do the main quest unless you want to do it makes it feel somewhat like an MMORPG.. but that is only because so few games are actually open-world like that.... it is very different than say a Bioware RPG where you are mostly railroaded. I understood the question, I guess differently than most people. I think the OP just hasn“t seen many open world single player games
Open world and MMO are clearly not mutually inclusive terms, but I suppose if the only exposure to open world games one has had is with an MMO I guess I could see the confusion.
Honestly I think what OP is referring to is the feel of a MMORPG, a large unexplored world. Sure, a lot of open world games have the same feel and I'd agree that Skyrim on some level feels more like an open world game. But some aspects of it feels derivative to MMORPG: fetch quests, events don't move forward until you decide to join in and the world doesn't feel very alive. A good example of "alive" open world game would be STALKER: people go on quests of their own, and you have to compete with them; or Warband where people react to your reputation.
It's a role playing game for me because there are a lot of character builds that you can be when playing. You can be the brave warrior with the two handed axe, the gallant knight with his sword and shield, the crafty assassin with his twin daggers, or just your all powerful mage who don't need any weapons. You can try lots of different combinations, as there are lots of variety you can do with the Warrior, Mage, and Thief skills. It's all left to your imagination!
Wow! Holy necroposting Batman! Reviving dead topics? Anyhow, It is a single player RPG. The OP was clearly confused by what the terms mean and was likely talking about Skyrim being an open world model like many of the MMORPGs are. The credits never roll in Skyrim, it doesn't really end.