Do u actually pay attention to a story in mmorpg's?

LILLIPPA328 · January 2005

Well,i was j/w....i always like a backround story/setting in MMORPG's,but i dont really depend whether i play a game or not on a story,and usually find myself forgeting it after a while...how about yall?

Darkmastersh · January 2005

I love FFXI because:

1.- Its community (i am in a great LS)
and 2.- Because of its storyline ::::28::

RobUey · January 2005

what puts me off single player games is that there is a set story which can't be changed, which u r forced to follow. MMOs give the freedom to make ur own story, but on the other hand, a story made up of quests and events (like what wish was going to do) distracts you from grinding

Adreal · January 2005

how about yall?

It usually takes me a while to get into a game's storyline. I find it's something to occupy my time when the rest of the game is no longer new (but not necessarily boring). It's just when I start looking for more content is when I run into the storyline and give it a shot. In some MMORPGs though, it's hard not to be aware of the story.

dsorrent · January 2005

Many MMORPG's have touted the "You can change the story line.." "Your actions matter!", however, I have yet to see a game come out that actually gives you that feeling... So until then, the story line really goes un-noticed for me..

Adreal · January 2005

Your actions matter!", however, I have yet to see a game come out that actually gives you that feeling

Yeah. I know some games have the frame of mind that their current universe will not be destroyed by <insert evil monsters here>, so whether or not the player does anything to help a "war effort" does not matter. It's always good guys win over bad guys (as far as I can recall). How often do you see all of the towns become destroyed because of lack of player involvement in a war? It's usually: first wave of monsters come, dies off; second wave of monsters come, dies off; third wave, etc. And one town might be destroyed, but it certainly didn't depend upon the players - just the ideas of the developers.

AngryHippie · January 2005

No, I don't care much for backround story. If they write 20 pages about The Rightous Gnomes epic struggle for freedom, I just read the highlights. I'm more concerned about the visual setting and overall theme of a game.

Xavon · January 2005

TBH, if I wanted a story, would go play Planescape Torment et al.

I play MMORPGs due to the community and the sheer joy of slaying a dragon with my best friends.

protoroc · January 2005

if i want to read ill grab a novel...

BigPeeler · January 2005

Not really. Like said above, if I wanted a big involving story or something, I would go read a book or watch a movie. I've never been a roleplayer of any kind either, so that probably effects it too. If the game has a nice story, sure I'll give it a once over, but if it doesnt, no skin off my ass. Because seriously though, in most games, how much does the background really effect the general gameplay? (unless of course you're a hardcore roleplayer)

There are alot of really shitty games out there with awesome background stories.

darkman · January 2005

Not really too particular to following a story, but I have been following the beta storyline in Guild Wars, so I guess that's a difference. That probably attributes to playing a lot of Korean MMORPGs, with hardly any storyline.

Vevi · January 2005

Lilla,

I am about the same. SWG had me reading up on the all the SW Stuff to come out since RoTJ was released. I would say i have a general knowlege of the background story for each game i have played for RP reasons. But as another poster said Their is little influence we actually have upon the Game world! One game that came close to changing that was Horizons, with their Mass projects. Only problem was Terrible lag when 10 or more people got together to fight the Bad guys.

Slothman · January 2005

MMOGs have so many stories going on its hard to pay attention to them all. I think City of Heroes did the best job of summarzing stories with the Momentos. Like if you did a story arc, you'd keep like a skulls bandana and beside it you'd see a summarization of the story. Because story arcs tend to be long players aren't going to remember the entire thing. Especially when they are doing more than 1 story arc at a time.

WoW, which I am playing now, has lots of stories, but there is no completed quest log so it is hard to keep up with it.

It is a tricky situation for a designer. When you have content that doesnt change to reflect what the player has accomplished, you have to come up with different ways to present advancement in the story and closure. It is still one of the many hurdles no one has yet adaquetly overcome, although I would be satisfied if everyone just took the CoH approach.

Adreal · January 2005

if I wanted a big involving story or something, I would go read a book or watch a movie.

what about an mmorpg based on a book or movie (such as the Matrix)?

Nahallac · January 2005

The REAL mmorpg community's downfall has been that so many people have joined it over the last 4 years or so ...who do not roleplay ...some of whom even ridicule those who do. HELLO?!?!?! Its an mmoRPG. RPG = Role Playing Game. Thats how the Genre started - stories, fiction, backround.

Sometimes I wonder how many play and talk about mmorpgs who don't even take the time to think about that the fact that its an RPG, or think about what that means. The roleplaying aspect of most mmorpgs is all but dead. Way to go, "leet teens" ..good job. One generation has single -handedly wrecked a once great community.

LuRavi · January 2005

The failure ultimately lies with the developers.

Yes, I want a story in my game. However if there is no story what happens i stay for the community and thats where the developers get lazy and think they can get off easy.

Look at Anarchy Online there was supose to be a four year story arch and some resolution between Omni-Tek and Clans, they released a few chapters of story but nothing really changed because everyone sorta realized well if you conclude the story what happens to the MMOG? Do you simply have the next chapter well that sorta messed up their advertising when it first came out maybe they simply advertised it wrongly. I don't know.

Look at Ultima Online they had/have storyline arcs but its what others have already said they don't impact the gaming landscape well enough to really matter of affect your day to day playing time. They currently in their latest publish 29, have an invasion of the only town that matters, yet they have made it so easy of an invasion they automatically redirect your recall runes to a safe area if you didn't change them yourself and the invasion only impacted the northern part of town which is not where people hang out already and the invasion mobs won't be lead completely into the south part of town so WHO THE FLYING F*** Cares! Stupid idiot UO Developers once again.

Or back two years ago when they totally reshaped the land of Yew Town in Ultima Online. They had story info of what going on but it was on a website not able to be read in game, and they damn story arc well it happened the same on every single shard in game so it really wasn't player impacted.

Now the storyline before that on Ultima ONline the savage/orc war 3-4 years ago(fuzzy memory of mine), it ended fairly quick and easily upon the populated shards, we heard rumors that it lasted a longlong time on AOL Legends shard that only AOL users could use because it wasn't that populated a server but thats only rumors. Again it was hard for me at the time to be clear on what the storyline was because I don't remember them offering story content on some webpage nor did we ever find it in game.

So I strictly blame the developers for about 70% of the problems and the players....for the 30%. The players still log on even if they can't learn about the story line and still play the game, the developers see this so they slack/cop out or just try to slide by yet we still play the f'ing game with no storyline.

kiniar · January 2005

Story arc and background can make a huge difference to my gaming experience. The problem I see is with it is how do we a characters actually have an effect on the gaming world. Would developers be willing to allow different shards to have total different experiences based upon the decisions of the player community?

If the developers set off an attach on a city and the player population failed to respond it would be nice to see the city destroyed and the players have to rebuild it and protect it in the future. If the evil factions in a game (either player run or GM controlled) take over territory it should be reflected in the story arc.

Story should be an extension of the community not a hindrence or even a neglection of the communtity and their actions.

LuRavi · January 2005

[quote]Would developers be willing to allow different shards to have total different experiences based upon the decisions of the player community?[/quote]

I'd say watching all MMOGs for the past 4-5 fives, the obvious answer is NO, Developers are too lazy to allow such differences between shards. To allow landmasses on difference shards to develop their own character and impact based upon player invovlement.

To make a simpler example, Developers of said games like EQ II aren't even willing to put PvP shards, or RPG Shards from the outset of the creation of the game, That has got to be the greatest example of how unwilling the Developers are willing to cater to players even if they are a small group of players.

But back to the quote, a simple reason excuse that developers will use is if a particular shard develops some kind of experience or something peculiar to it players might/flock to another shard that is more interesting or perceived to be less challenging or harsh. So Developers aren't very progressive in developing the Genre by showing any form of diversity.