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Why do people hate story?
Dauntis
Member UncommonPosts: 600
Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
Every other medium has quests: books, movies. Think about the plot of a movie is generally a character(s) going on a series of quests/missions. How boring would a story be if it was just about heroes roaming around randomly occasionally whacking a random enemies.
I just don't get the hatred of quests or even quest hubs... they make sense.... they just friggin' make sense. Also, I don't know of any MMORPG where you can't ignore the quests, so just ignore them.
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Comments
Presentation, quality, and quantity has a lot to do with it for me.
If I want to make an alt and I've already done the quests before, it is very tedious to do them again. No voice over should also be a thing of the past.
Quests should never be the only viable path to level.
I will agree with this. Especially with alts.
I will also add that quests should not have you reading pages of info or having to listen to a lecture in order to get started. If you can't say it in a few sentences then it is to long.
Godz of War I call Thee
For me it's because these games are supposed to be RPG's. In a single player game you expect quests, they push the story forward until its conclusion. In an MMO, there is supposed to be no conclusion because it's an ongoing game, it's supposed to give you the freedom to make your own path, and stories just don't do that.
Imagine gathering with your friends for a game of D&D and instead of the GM giving you the freedom of choice, he tells you that you have to go out into the wilds to gather some pelts for a local store keeper. You say, "Oh no, my character wouldn't do that..", or, "The pay isn't good so I'll look around for some other jobs.", but the GM says, "No. You can't advance until you complete this quest for the store keeper. We're not doing anything else until it's done.".
That's not roleplaying, that's railroading. It works fine for a single player game as it's one player and one 'GM' with a single story to tell. In an MMO there are thousands of players who all have different personalities and goals, yet they all have to be forced into following tasks that they might not want to do or might not fit in with their characters goals.
Show me what I can do, don't tell me.
Every other medium isn't interactive. Games are.
Having 'pre-determined story' mesh with 'interactive' is a tricky business, so many people just go "I'd rather have solid gameplay in games, and read a book if I want a story". Even in games that flaunt a choice-based story, you're only dealing with a slightly more complex version of pre-determined storytelling.
It's probably a taste thing as well as some people's inability to easily engage in suspension of disbelief unless certain criteria are fulfilled (criteria which vary from person to person). Taste is subjective after all, so there's not much you can do to convince someone to like a story they just don't like.
I read tons of books (sci-fi and fantasy/dark fantasy) and can lose myself in the story if it's written well and clicks with my taste, but when a game tries to spoon-feed a lame "be a hero, kill the dragon"-story when I just want to mess stuff up or do my own thing it just doesn't grab me no matter how hard I try.
I play MMOs/RPGs to experience a different world, not to plop down in a roller coaster and be led along a pre-determined track.
For me too many simple quests makes the game feel tedious not want to play it for a long period of time. I like the kind of quests where I have to solve a riddle or find an item that is hidden somewhere in the world or face some kind of challenge. The kind of quests that actually feel like an adventure. I do like story though and I am the type that reads all quest dialog. But do I remember the story of the 3000 quests I did in wow a few years ago. No, I don't (well maybe a few of them i.e. Mankrik lol). So maybe people are just tired of too many simple quests.
As for games with a main story quests, if the story is not interesting to you then it feels like a chore to go through it. And you don't have a choice or else you can't progress your character like in ESO and FF14 (I like both games btw, but I like FF14 a lot more).
I don't necessarily hate story in MMO's. I hate how they are presented. They present the story through quests, usually long and boring lengthy reads for each quest. Trying to squish every inch of story into every possible quest. Oh you have to go skin 20 of these cats for us, but here's 4 paragraphs on why you have to do it, and if you miss the text for this quest, every other quest will make no sense.
It feels like Anime's to me. You can watch a short anime (1 to 2 seasons) and have it tell an amazing story. Or you can try to watch an Anime that has absolutely no story left to tell because of how long it is like Naruto or One Piece both being 600+ episodes.
How boring would that book or movie be if the plot was kill ten rats, carry this pie to my aunt 30 feet down the road because I'm killer busy, kill ten wolves, take this letter to the mayor 40 feet down the road, ad infinitum?
The presentation kills it. Change the mob or item and cut and paste. Very few variations. Very few challenges. Tedium. This is your heroic story. You gain martial ability by delivering things down the road.
Sure, you can ignore the quests, but if you do you are ignoring what is almost always the primary source of experience, money, and gear. I believe the quest thing started with the massive influx of people into the MMORPG scene. With them came gold farmers and sellers. To counter camp and mob farming, the current system became prevalent. I don't really care for it, but I'm not sure what to do to "fix" it aside from presentation and quality.
Quests also tend to remove a social aspect from the genre as the majority are solo oriented. I'm more of a solo/small group player personally, but some of the best pick up groups and, ultimately, friends I've made in MMOs were from simple grinding and exploring
My problem with the "story" from the current MMOs is that they mean exactly nothing. If you're playing a hero to save the world from evil then make sure I feel so playing. The current story quests are made failproof. Story quests are something you can't fail in the game with no effort put in. And can we get away with the destined world-saving hero #32456789 in MMOs?
PS: yes you totally can ignore the quest hub but by doing so you ignore the bulk of the so called content and often some extra feautures like mounts, tradeskills, access to dungeons etc. So yeah, why pay the full price to get little from MMOs, just play other games that serve you better. Dota and Dark Souls FTW.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Personally I like quests but what I don't like are meaningless tasks for experience points, and that's what the majority of quest hubs are far as I can tell. A little more creativity wouldn't hurt like using them to unlock abilities or spells that could correlate with the quest's actual storyline or something instead of lame items and experience points. Above all quality over quantity.
Edit: I pretty much agree with everything that was said on page one
Unlike every other medium: books, movies, I'm the protagonist in the MMO, it's my story and I've found the most memorable stories occur when developers leave room for my own story to unfold organically through the course of game play.
The best adventures and most memorable MMO stories I've had and quests I've been on have, without exception in over 15 years, come from unplanned experiences my friends and I have stumbled into when we've been given enough room, mechanics & tools to go 'off the rails' in games like UO, AC, EQ, AA & SWG (just to name a few).
Some stories we still retell over a decade later - I guarantee you're not doing that with the story of clicking 10 barrels.
Those experiences were our personal adventures, and allowed for more powerful, personal and exciting stories than I've ever had in some pre-canned universal chore dispensing linear 'quest' driven game.
If you want to play through the same pre-planned experience everyone else is having and can convince yourself you're an integral part of that story, that's your call, but I'm telling you from personal experience, we got the better deal.
I've had more fun as an integral part of the story than I've ever had as 'player 2' (or technically, player 9,726,992) .
The early games got it right.
If your expected to play with others online ( mmo ) you would have to keep long stories out of it. Same with voice acting.
Chain quest are another downfall. A good example is FF14 personal story with its 256 part chain quest, that is made to be done solo.....This does not belong in an mmo.
Well imagine you're watching a movie and the main protagonist gets a task to kill 10 rats. then you see the protagonist walking 5 min to reach the destination, he kills one, he kills another one. Waits 1 min for them to respawn and kill them again. After 15 min the protagonist goes back and gets another task to send this bag of rat tails to a guy in another village. Then you watch him for 5 min as he walks there.
30 min have passed and what part of this would you have considered fun in the movie?
For me it's quite simple if I don't want story I'll play a Sandbox MMORPG, if I want to story I'll play a Themepark MMORPG.
Unfortunaly there not that many sandbox MMORPG that suites me well. But I do enjoy some of the Themepark MMORPG's
What's a protagonist ?......This is a good example but I just don't know what a protagonist is.
Protagonist: The hero or "good guy" or main character in the story; Opposite of antagonist
Geralt is the Protagonist in The Witcher game series.
Thanks,
I agree. While FFXIV has a good story (I like the story) I strongly dislike the story quests. I liked FFXI better where you had story quests but not multiple quests per level all the way to level cap and beyond.
It's not like I dislike quests in general, but the typical quest grind with all the boring, exchangable story lines of todays games feels utterly boring.
I don't hate story at all. I love a good story.
However, I think stories belong in single-player games. They're a solo experience, designed specifically for the player, where the player is The Hero.
In a MMORPG, the Player should not be the "Hero". A world with thousands of heroes, all saving the world over and over again? It's ridiculous.
A MMORPG needs a strong setting. The setting may advance and move forward. Things may change and environments or poltics or relationships between NPC factions may change, etc. New evils may be introduced. But that should all be backdrop. It should set the stage for the players, not guide them through in a linear, pre-written/scripted fashion.
There can be smaller stories within the game, but they should be many and varied. And I don't mean "Wolves are attacking my livestock! Go kill 10 wolves and help me put an end to them!" Those aren't quests. Tasks, or "odd-jobs". They should be treated as nothing more than a way to get a little extra XP, some money and perhaps increased fame/reputation with the local town/village.
Those tasks must be optional and, for the most part, they must not be repeatable. How pointless would it be to go and help a rancher get rid of a wolf problem, only to come back a day later and find he still has it? And the next? And the next?
The best thing a MMO developer can do is set the stage, provide an interesting setting with plenty of ways the players can get involved... and get out of the way. Some examples can be territory control, stemming the tide of an invading force that takes over areas if un-checked, and on and on. There can be stories within that setting, such as situations that arise based on the status of a given situation affecting the world - the players have to help put it right, etc.
In a MMORPG, Players create better and more memorable stories through their own experiences than a writer, however talented or highly paid, ever could.Story, as it exists in current MMO's, tends to separate the playerbase as everyone is doing their own thing. On another part of the chain. In another phase. In an instance.
Story, as it used to exist, brought everyone together because you couldn't just solo your way through the content. I remember doing the main story quests in FFXI which was a decade ago now. We brought along an entire alliance of 18+ to some of those quests because getting through the required zones was a challenge. I miss doing story content like that out in the open uninstanced world.
Godz of War I call Thee
If I wanted a story I'd read a book or wactch a TV show or movie
In an mmo I want to focus to be on player interaction and community, either working together or killing each other
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