Originally posted by immodium Why is it fine in a SP game? Unless you're the only one who bought the game, a lot of other gamers will be running the same hero story aswell.
Because I will never see your character in my game (and vice versa)
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
There are a few games that don't tell you you are THE hero.
The Secret World tells a story pretty well and simply makes you a part of a secret organisation.
Path of Exile does as well since you are just one of many people exiled to some weird island (of course they also make you run through the game 3 times on different difficulty levels, which kind of kills the lore ).
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
We are ruled by themeparks. Those don't work without a story since the story is all there is. The main problem is, the world lore takes 2nd seat to single hero storyline.
I cannot imagine a themepark without a central hero story. We are all waiting on world simulation MMORPS to get going again (that's why I get bored with any current MMO and keep returning to EVE ;-))
I find it slightly absurd on those occasions in an MMO when you are queuing with several other players at an NPC, having completed the same quest-line, to be told that you are THE hero.
Because you are not all the hero.
I realize this is hard for some players to understand but when you are on the main quest and you are referred to as "the hero" then "YOU" are the only one on the quest and the only hero. Role playing wise they are all asking the NPC something different. Directions to the Tomb, where's that shady guy who took my wallet, who is that cute elf over there, etc.
The only reason why you think you and 500 other players are on the same quest is because you are not willing to just let go and immerse yourself in the story being told.
I realise this is hard for you to understand, but when a player is told they are THE hero for completing a quest several thousand of players have completed before them it breaks all immersion and is slightly absurd.
again, you are the only one on the quest. You just can't let go and accept that (whether you think it's unfortunate, good, bad, etc) this is the "single player portion" of the game.
You are the one in the solo cut scene (or however the quest manifests itself) being addressed.
It's a solo portion of the game.
If there were 500 other players who have completed the quest before you then you and 499 of those players wouldn't have been sent on the quest.
Well, maybe you are just able to suspend disbelief a lot, lot further than me.
That very well might be the case but maybe I can offer something that might resonate with you more.
These are theme park games (I am assuming you are referring to theme park games) where the players line up, get on their ride and take their single player turn.
My bet is that you are thinking of the mmo as 'a world' where all the players occupy and affect the world as per their disposition. Some are farmers, some fighters, some conquer, some trade etc.
Therefore any activity that happens in the world can, on various levels, affect all players depending on the role they adopt.
that's "a world" mmo. Some guild takes a castle and you and other guilds make deals, try to attack them try to get others to attack them, try to take resources, underbid, etc.
Everyone is a part of one great "thing".
but themepark mmo's are rides. You sidle up to the ticket seller, buy your ticket and experience the ride that quest giver has offered. Nothing you do in conjunction with that quest giver will ever affect any other player.
They have the right to sidle up to the same quest giver and take that ride or forgo it and do something else.
It's all about context.
Theme park mmo's offer single player experiences peppered with a variety of social activities.
No, not really.
Take this as an example. You play a themepark MMO and role an archer. You are an archer in an army who plays a central role in whatever over-arching story carries through the MMO.
The protagonists play out their roles, and due to your remoteness from them you are not party to all discussions. This enables the writers to introduce some circumstances out of left field, some twists, some blind sides or some betrayals that otherwise you would have, in all reasonableness, seen coming.
It enables more freedom in the narrative structure.
You are also not left with the absurdity of being THE hero, knowing that every other player you have interacted with is also THE hero.
Get where I am coming form?
Well i do get where your coming from, and thats a part of what i loved when i played SWG. Even in the themeparked areas you would just be assisting the heroes or villains of the movies.
But what i also get, is that you might be thinking too much about what is going on, on other peoples screens. As long as i dont get their quest messages smotherd all over my screen, i dont see the problem. They are all just extras in my movie!
The good thing, is that there are still games for people who dont want the experience of beeing the hero.
Oh and hopefully to kill off the "going to the movies" analogy there has been in this thread. Nobody wants to see a movie with 100 average joes beeing douchebags. Nobody wants to see a movie with 100 Aragons running around beeing all herotic.
But if you can't watch a movie without thinking that all the extras are heroes too, well then maybe, just maybe, your overthinking it again.
I have never been the hero and never felt the need.
I do know exactly what you are talking about however, and agree it has become an issue of generation X.
Personally I feel the reason it has become so prevalent in recent years is the social move from a physical existence into a digital one.
Combine that with this whole communist doctrine that has taken over the United States, there are no winners you are all equal and special just for participating.
Suddenly we find ourselves in a firestorm of re-education and liberal socialists agenda vs our instinct as a species.
We as a species have the instinct to win, to exceed, to compete burned into the very core of our genetic fabric. Restrict that instinctual need and you get, angry, enraged, destructive natures. Sadly these socialists are so convinced their way is the only way that they have ignited a dna powder keg that will eventually blow and more than likely plunge our world into a war of nature vs technology, and considering Mother Nature has 4.5 billion years of getting her way and dealing with annoyances like humanity, we are gonna lose.
Basically what has happened is due to modern medicine and technology the weak and sickly that would have once died off and or not been chosen to continue in the gene pool are now not only contaminating and weakening the gene pool, but they are becoming a dominate factor in social and political decision making.
Now that mother nature's rejected failures have not only found a way to survive but to thrive the entire species is doomed. We as a species have evolved and survived against all odds because nature was allowed to purge the genetic flaws from the gene pool, now we breed one flaw upon another
The reason this is an issue for you and players like you is because you are aware it is a video game and you are aware that everyone around you, by design, is the hero just like you are intended to be.
You can't fix this problem in the current era of gaming. In your "archer" scenario, every archer in the game would just be "THE Archer" no different from "THE Hero".
Why?, because you are self aware that you are the archer in a nameless army, and you are also aware that every archer you see is doing the same passive world side arch of a story you are doing.
I hate to use this as an example only because of the fandom of it (even though I think they are great) but until some game company invents a virtual reality headset where you can go all 5 senses deep into a virtual world, much like .hack, sword art online, or log horizon, the reality is this will always be an issue.
If you can't just use imagination that you are the "ONLY Hero" then I don't know what to say to you, the only way around your issue is to pretend that every player you see is just an extra in your story, and forget that you know they are just like you.
OR
wait until about 2030 for facebook to invent the full dive system. Up to you....
Originally posted by waynejr2 So you want hand crafted stories for each character exists within the game?
Is there even a need of personal story in a MMO? Isn't it enough to be part of a bigger story?
Storytelling maybe should address the faction and not so much the individual.
Quest rewards should boost your faction too. Just a litte. So completing the quests ('kill 5 wolves' and stuff) has a meaning and reminds you of being just one of thousends of people who are working for the same goal.
Ah, remembrance of Anarchy Online. Arriving at the Station above Rubi-Ka, being told about Omni, Clans and Neuts and being shot down to swim to the beach. Nope, I was no hero, I did not need to be one. I was a mere settler on Rubi-Ka, chosing to be neutral. Interdependance because of buffs (I fondly remember running around two days to collect all buffs to squeeze that lvl200 SMG into my lvl 109 Fixer), We were all settler, writing our stories.
Starting as Froob I got my taste of Rubi-Ka, exploring, running, teaming and was a little bit estranged by the more questy Shadowlands. Back then it already took away to be one of many guys doing the spy-missions for one side, knowing there were many others. It took away from the world feeling from the community interaction.
I liked the random mission generator. This was a great way to work around that fault. No personal story, just missions. You went to a terminal and dragged the sliders to your preferences and then you got some missions to chose from. Of course those were "kill", "find", "fetch" and so on, but it was a single case (written a little text around) just for you in a randomly generated mission instance. I never felt less immersed in that scenario, because it was MY mission (or ours at team missions) and not ONE mission done by a few thousand people (Come on, at some time those bloody rats need to be extinct, if you have to fight against ten other guys to just kill one of the spawn).
So: I don't need to be the *beep* Hero of the world.
For me it's pretty clear: Everybody being the hero kills any possibility of heroism. Everybody heroes = No heroes at all.
The fundamental problem is that the introduction of a linear narrative in mmoRPGs kills any possibility of true social roleplaying, that is, developing player created stories and legacies, thus making unique characters and game experiences.
I think we need less hand-holding and self-centrism and much more degree of interaction and functionality among the players and the virtual world.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
What player made content is heroic...when players do not die...you really do not control....people can be logged out....lag....etc. ruins any heroic victory that anyone but you might care about.
Simple Answer: Most younger and growing minds feed off ego boost.. It's a simple selling tool to feed peoples ego, and desires to sell whatever it may be.. Sorta like Maslow's hierarchy of needs.. When a mature mind accepts who they are and what they are, they no longer need pats on the back.. It is surprising how much psych 101 are programmed into games.. Pavlov is watching and laughing as well.. lol
Most people don't want to be the hero. They want to be the uber pwnz0r Rogue with the tortured past that all the men fear and for whom all the ladies slide out of their pants.
And then he's bitten by a vampire and becomes immortal and spends eternity brooding on the unfairness of life that he can never love or be loved, all the while pwning the noobers and wannabees who wish they could be just like him.
No one wants to be the hero. They want to be the unjustly persecuted anti-hero.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
For me it's pretty clear: Everybody being the hero kills any possibility of heroism. Everybody heroes = No heroes at all.
The fundamental problem is that the introduction of a linear narrative in mmoRPGs kills any possibility of true social roleplaying, that is, developing player created stories and legacies, thus making unique characters and game experiences.
I think we need less hand-holding and self-centrism and much more degree of interaction and functionality among the players and the virtual world.
This is what made Everquest the best MMO of all time.
Dedicated hard working players that invested tons of time, research, and corpse runs could earn that hero status.
Pretty much every game now wants to reinforce this " nobody is special, everyone is special, here is your trophy for just showing up ".
Most people don't want to be the hero. They want to be the uber pwnz0r Rogue with the tortured past that all the men fear and for whom all the ladies slide out of their pants.
And then he's bitten by a vampire and becomes immortal and spends eternity brooding on the unfairness of life that he can never love or be loved, all the while pwning the noobers and wannabees who wish they could be just like him.
No one wants to be the hero. They want to be the unjustly persecuted anti-hero.
Strange in my experience all the guys wanna be the female rogue sliding out of her own, his own, its own pants.
The player is some sort of adventurer. Thus they are always heroic. At least once they get to highlevel.
My personal playstyle is "powergamer". So I want the best gear and the best strategy. So I guess I always default to something hero-like. Its not really much of a question on my mind, though.
No but seriously way back in Ultima onines popular days, I remember people who did nothing but craft. They had no offensive capabilities at all and would die to a little rat if they didn't run away. Hell I even had a shepherd, my shepherd had low lvl Archery (to scare off wolves). People played beggars and thieves that had little to no way to fight but they could stealth and run away.
Unfortunately in a theampark mmmo it is a lot hard to find a non hero roll to become. They still exist though.
We all can only be who we are Nothing more nothing less.
I find it slightly absurd on those occasions in an MMO when you are queuing with several other players at an NPC, having completed the same quest-line, to be told that you are THE hero.
I would prefer to be a member of an army, who may perform a few heroic actions, but is in no way the sole saviour of the mmo world. There are several reasons for this: -
Everyone cannot be THE hero in an MMO. It is patently absurd.
One person cannot be THE hero in an MMO. It will alienate other players and create a situation where a single story arc cannot be shared by many players.
From a narrative point of view, viewing events from a slightly more remote position enables more freedom in creating an interesting and immersive story with twists that blind-side the player; largely due to their remoteness from the central characters.
So I have created a poll. Please share your thoughts.
The situation you describe is the breakdown of the system. The only real solution to your complaint is NO story. IE pure sandbox, and well the "consumer" has soundly voted that they want none of that.
Originally posted by kjempff Dear devs, free your mmorpg from narrative; embrace your inner gamer and make games, not interactive stories. Do this and you shall be rewarded...by attracting a small niche group of players who won't contribute enough revenue to keep your game operational.
I am a hero IRL, in my games I want to quietly do various things and take part in adventures with others. I cant do that as THE hero, and I don't want to feel like I am carrying a group but working within it. Single player mode and being the hero - bleh how stupid do you get to buy into that crap, these days.
In AO I was a buraucrat controlling mobs for my group or a soldier tanking. In AoC I was Shaman healing my group, buffing and doing damage. In Eve Online I was a first a trader, then a scientist, then an industrialist, small scale PVP-er, in Vanguard I was the psychic crowd control guy, cant remember. I can't remember the story or being THE hero from any of those or many other games as it really didn't matter. I maybe wanted to be a hero for my group, my guild and that is the only hero you can be in these games.
I guess you can make yourself believe that you saved the world but that is pretty stupid. If I want stories I read books, I play MMOs to interact.
Comments
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
There are a few games that don't tell you you are THE hero.
The Secret World tells a story pretty well and simply makes you a part of a secret organisation.
Path of Exile does as well since you are just one of many people exiled to some weird island (of course they also make you run through the game 3 times on different difficulty levels, which kind of kills the lore ).
Yes, there can be many heroes, I am talking about the mmo stories where you are THE hero.
So you want hand crafted stories for each character exists within the game?Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
We are ruled by themeparks. Those don't work without a story since the story is all there is. The main problem is, the world lore takes 2nd seat to single hero storyline.
I cannot imagine a themepark without a central hero story. We are all waiting on world simulation MMORPS to get going again (that's why I get bored with any current MMO and keep returning to EVE ;-))
Well i do get where your coming from, and thats a part of what i loved when i played SWG. Even in the themeparked areas you would just be assisting the heroes or villains of the movies.
But what i also get, is that you might be thinking too much about what is going on, on other peoples screens. As long as i dont get their quest messages smotherd all over my screen, i dont see the problem. They are all just extras in my movie!
The good thing, is that there are still games for people who dont want the experience of beeing the hero.
Oh and hopefully to kill off the "going to the movies" analogy there has been in this thread. Nobody wants to see a movie with 100 average joes beeing douchebags. Nobody wants to see a movie with 100 Aragons running around beeing all herotic.
But if you can't watch a movie without thinking that all the extras are heroes too, well then maybe, just maybe, your overthinking it again.
I have never been the hero and never felt the need.
I do know exactly what you are talking about however, and agree it has become an issue of generation X.
Personally I feel the reason it has become so prevalent in recent years is the social move from a physical existence into a digital one.
Combine that with this whole communist doctrine that has taken over the United States, there are no winners you are all equal and special just for participating.
Suddenly we find ourselves in a firestorm of re-education and liberal socialists agenda vs our instinct as a species.
We as a species have the instinct to win, to exceed, to compete burned into the very core of our genetic fabric. Restrict that instinctual need and you get, angry, enraged, destructive natures. Sadly these socialists are so convinced their way is the only way that they have ignited a dna powder keg that will eventually blow and more than likely plunge our world into a war of nature vs technology, and considering Mother Nature has 4.5 billion years of getting her way and dealing with annoyances like humanity, we are gonna lose.
Basically what has happened is due to modern medicine and technology the weak and sickly that would have once died off and or not been chosen to continue in the gene pool are now not only contaminating and weakening the gene pool, but they are becoming a dominate factor in social and political decision making.
Now that mother nature's rejected failures have not only found a way to survive but to thrive the entire species is doomed. We as a species have evolved and survived against all odds because nature was allowed to purge the genetic flaws from the gene pool, now we breed one flaw upon another
This is your problem.
"You are self aware."
The reason this is an issue for you and players like you is because you are aware it is a video game and you are aware that everyone around you, by design, is the hero just like you are intended to be.
You can't fix this problem in the current era of gaming. In your "archer" scenario, every archer in the game would just be "THE Archer" no different from "THE Hero".
Why?, because you are self aware that you are the archer in a nameless army, and you are also aware that every archer you see is doing the same passive world side arch of a story you are doing.
I hate to use this as an example only because of the fandom of it (even though I think they are great) but until some game company invents a virtual reality headset where you can go all 5 senses deep into a virtual world, much like .hack, sword art online, or log horizon, the reality is this will always be an issue.
If you can't just use imagination that you are the "ONLY Hero" then I don't know what to say to you, the only way around your issue is to pretend that every player you see is just an extra in your story, and forget that you know they are just like you.
OR
wait until about 2030 for facebook to invent the full dive system. Up to you....
Is there even a need of personal story in a MMO? Isn't it enough to be part of a bigger story?
Storytelling maybe should address the faction and not so much the individual.
Quest rewards should boost your faction too. Just a litte. So completing the quests ('kill 5 wolves' and stuff) has a meaning and reminds you of being just one of thousends of people who are working for the same goal.
I hate WoW and what it has done to the MMO genre.
Ah, remembrance of Anarchy Online. Arriving at the Station above Rubi-Ka, being told about Omni, Clans and Neuts and being shot down to swim to the beach. Nope, I was no hero, I did not need to be one. I was a mere settler on Rubi-Ka, chosing to be neutral. Interdependance because of buffs (I fondly remember running around two days to collect all buffs to squeeze that lvl200 SMG into my lvl 109 Fixer), We were all settler, writing our stories.
Starting as Froob I got my taste of Rubi-Ka, exploring, running, teaming and was a little bit estranged by the more questy Shadowlands. Back then it already took away to be one of many guys doing the spy-missions for one side, knowing there were many others. It took away from the world feeling from the community interaction.
I liked the random mission generator. This was a great way to work around that fault. No personal story, just missions. You went to a terminal and dragged the sliders to your preferences and then you got some missions to chose from. Of course those were "kill", "find", "fetch" and so on, but it was a single case (written a little text around) just for you in a randomly generated mission instance. I never felt less immersed in that scenario, because it was MY mission (or ours at team missions) and not ONE mission done by a few thousand people (Come on, at some time those bloody rats need to be extinct, if you have to fight against ten other guys to just kill one of the spawn).
So: I don't need to be the *beep* Hero of the world.
For me it's pretty clear: Everybody being the hero kills any possibility of heroism. Everybody heroes = No heroes at all.
The fundamental problem is that the introduction of a linear narrative in mmoRPGs kills any possibility of true social roleplaying, that is, developing player created stories and legacies, thus making unique characters and game experiences.
I think we need less hand-holding and self-centrism and much more degree of interaction and functionality among the players and the virtual world.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Most people don't want to be the hero. They want to be the uber pwnz0r Rogue with the tortured past that all the men fear and for whom all the ladies slide out of their pants.
And then he's bitten by a vampire and becomes immortal and spends eternity brooding on the unfairness of life that he can never love or be loved, all the while pwning the noobers and wannabees who wish they could be just like him.
No one wants to be the hero. They want to be the unjustly persecuted anti-hero.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
This is what made Everquest the best MMO of all time.
Dedicated hard working players that invested tons of time, research, and corpse runs could earn that hero status.
Pretty much every game now wants to reinforce this " nobody is special, everyone is special, here is your trophy for just showing up ".
Strange in my experience all the guys wanna be the female rogue sliding out of her own, his own, its own pants.
The player is some sort of adventurer. Thus they are always heroic. At least once they get to highlevel.
My personal playstyle is "powergamer". So I want the best gear and the best strategy. So I guess I always default to something hero-like. Its not really much of a question on my mind, though.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
I remember when....
No but seriously way back in Ultima onines popular days, I remember people who did nothing but craft. They had no offensive capabilities at all and would die to a little rat if they didn't run away. Hell I even had a shepherd, my shepherd had low lvl Archery (to scare off wolves). People played beggars and thieves that had little to no way to fight but they could stealth and run away.
Unfortunately in a theampark mmmo it is a lot hard to find a non hero roll to become. They still exist though.
We all can only be who we are Nothing more nothing less.
The situation you describe is the breakdown of the system. The only real solution to your complaint is NO story. IE pure sandbox, and well the "consumer" has soundly voted that they want none of that.
Fixed that for you.
I am a hero IRL, in my games I want to quietly do various things and take part in adventures with others. I cant do that as THE hero, and I don't want to feel like I am carrying a group but working within it. Single player mode and being the hero - bleh how stupid do you get to buy into that crap, these days.
In AO I was a buraucrat controlling mobs for my group or a soldier tanking. In AoC I was Shaman healing my group, buffing and doing damage. In Eve Online I was a first a trader, then a scientist, then an industrialist, small scale PVP-er, in Vanguard I was the psychic crowd control guy, cant remember. I can't remember the story or being THE hero from any of those or many other games as it really didn't matter. I maybe wanted to be a hero for my group, my guild and that is the only hero you can be in these games.
I guess you can make yourself believe that you saved the world but that is pretty stupid. If I want stories I read books, I play MMOs to interact.