The current MMOG structure is: time online pounding keys = character advancement; he or she who spends the most time most efficiently pounding their keys "wins". Sitting around wasting time reading lore or listening to dialogue is entirely irrelevant to the explicit goal of the game structure; even if the developers made reading dialogue necessary to know the answer to some quest question, such answers would soon be availabe online and nobody would bother taking the time to read the story.
The only way to make a game where story and lore and dialogue are enjoyable in and of themselves, is to make the game not about efficiently maximizing your characters online time in terms of advancement. If developers moved to a 24/7 (online or off) character advancement system, they could develop all the lore and story they want and the players would be free to enjoy and pursue it to their heart's content.
As long as the game is about maximizing one's key-pounding online time towards efficient character advancement, much of the potential of MMOGs will not be developed - IMO, of course.
The current MMOG structure is: time online pounding keys = character advancement; he or she who spends the most time most efficiently pounding their keys "wins". Sitting around wasting time reading lore or listening to dialogue is entirely irrelevant to the explicit goal of the game structure; even if the developers made reading dialogue necessary to know the answer to some quest question, such answers would soon be availabe online and nobody would bother taking the time to read the story.
The only way to make a game where story and lore and dialogue are enjoyable in and of themselves, is to make the game not about efficiently maximizing your characters online time in terms of advancement. If developers moved to a 24/7 (online or off) character advancement system, they could develop all the lore and story they want and the players would be free to enjoy and pursue it to their heart's content.
As long as the game is about maximizing one's key-pounding online time towards efficient character advancement, much of the potential of MMOGs will not be developed - IMO, of course.
See what I don't understand is why instead of just going to a quest hub, if you will, and reading a ton of small little boxes with the quest info in them they can't have cut scenes and actual conversations. Why quest chains can't actually be well thought out and cleverly placed together to have an engaging story instead of being, "read this, go here, do this, and this is basically why you are supposed to be doing, in short... " and yeah I agree developers focus much ore on efficient leveling than engaging story.
Have to agree with the previous poster, they have made a game of mashing keys and that is how you advance in the game. It makes it boring after a while.
And about the cut scenes, I dont mind them but most people dont care, they dont want voice over's to be part of the game at all. I dont know what to tell you, I would love to see what you describe I just point out what I see for reasons why it is not there and why it will not be there in the future.
Plenty of MMOs have immersive stories. YOU are the one missing the immersive stories when you quickly click the 'accept quest' button then rush off to the marked location to do whatever you think needs done.
Guild Wars and LOTRO have two of the best immersive stories I have seen in MMOs.
Yes go play LotRO and READ the quests! Very nice storytelling indeed and will be even better when it goes free to play they are re-writing a lot of quest's storylines!
You should apply to the new BETA you will be impressed!
Then there is Final Fantasy XI and Fallen Earth both of those have decent stories to tell, FFXI being the better one. Guild Wars does it ok but I hate the mentality of that game and the annoying, power hungry little kids that seem to make up the community there.
I can think of a hundred reasons off the top of my head. Stories often have a conclusion, but MMO's are designed to run indefinitely. Stories take a great deal of time to write well - anything more complicated than background story or lore probably won't come along more often than once an expansion. Stories are best crafted by creative individuals with a singular vision but MMO's are designed and created by committees. Games are an interactive entertainment medium and stories are not. Stories are considerably more complex the more characters are involved, leaving designers with the option of excluding a majority of their player base or simply writing stories that players can only watch unfold.
And probably the most important:
It's hard to find good writers.
Besides, there are a myriad of ways to introduce story into a game and many have already been done before. Just because you don't like the story doesn't mean it's not there.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
It's marketing to the majority, the people looking for instant gratification or that just want to get to the action don't care for story. That's the same reason there's so few RP realms on WoW and so few RP MMOs at all. Also, imagine the work that goes into the few days worth of gaming you can have in an immersive story from the games you mentioned, now think of how difficult it would be to constantly reproduce this work so that players could have a constant quality storyline.
I think there's already MMO's with immersive stories. LOTRO and Age of Conan instantly spring to mind despite you disagreeing. WoW's storyline is great, but it's just not presented very well within the game. It also tends to be fragmented and non-linear. After playing WoW and learning a little bit about the lore I had to go and read the books -- after that the world sucked me in.
I prefer to be immersed in the world instead of the story, but that's just my preference. I like to be set loose and make my own story. I think Bioware would disagree that developers aren't creating MMO's with storyline playing a central role. Sounds like TOR will be right up your alley.
Again a plethora of narrow minded answers. :P Hahaha, just think. An MMO can always expand, release the story in parts, then release the final conclusion right before the release of the next expac. An ending to one story the beginning of another. The key to getting an MMO to work with a story line is add a plethora of various complex stories that the player can switch between so they are never bored.
I am just going to say this, voice acting and animations are important in immersion, if you have to read all you are doing is reading a script. It's not immersive in a gaming experience,it's like if you were watching a moving and instead of talking and acting in between the action scenes a screen with text just popped up; It ruins the entire experience.
Age of Conan and FFXI are awesome games (FFXI being my favorite MMO I've played, and AoC my second) but none the less I don't feel immersed in them like I do Red Dead Revolver, Assassins Creed, Star Wars: The Force Uncleased, ect. Because again the focus really isn't so much the story. AoCs story becomes immensely shallow after Tortage. It almost completely dissipates after level 50, and then never makes a comeback. FFXI's story line is too scattered that it's hard to follow, although it definitely is there.
Once again, how do any of your efforts in these game worlds affect anything? Nothing is changed by killing the Lich King or Thoth Amon. Everything resets and Lich King goes back to citing on his throne and Thoth Amon his.
Again a plethora of narrow minded answers. :P Hahaha, just think. An MMO can always expand, release the story in parts, then release the final conclusion right before the release of the next expac. An ending to one story the beginning of another. The key to getting an MMO to work with a story line is add a plethora of various complex stories that the player can switch between so they are never bored.
Did you ever play WoW before BC? Did you ever play CoH before they too changed? You used to go through many zones, following stories in both games. People complained that it took too long. Now you skip entire zones, leaving breaks in the story. Broken? Perhaps, but they did what they did because the vast majority of their players were not interested in the story or they were tired of repeating it. I've never read a book twice - cannot - already know what is going to happen. I have to wait months if not years to be able to watch even movies that I love again - because - already know what is going to happen.
I am just going to say this, voice acting and animations are important in immersion, if you have to read all you are doing is reading a script. It's not immersive in a gaming experience,it's like if you were watching a moving and instead of talking and acting in between the action scenes a screen with text just popped up; It ruins the entire experience.
If you have to listen to a script, all you are doing is listening to a script. It does not change the issue for many people that they prefer to do rather than not do. So instead of reading the book, you want to watch the movie? Generally speaking, books are better than the movies made from them.
Age of Conan and FFXI are awesome games (FFXI being my favorite MMO I've played, and AoC my second) but none the less I don't feel immersed in them like I do Red Dead Revolver, Assassins Creed, Star Wars: The Force Uncleased, ect. Because again the focus really isn't so much the story. AoCs story becomes immensely shallow after Tortage. It almost completely dissipates after level 50, and then never makes a comeback. FFXI's story line is too scattered that it's hard to follow, although it definitely is there.
They are different types of games. I would not expect Madden to play like Baldur's Gate did. I would not expect Soul Calibur to play like Grand Theft Auto. You address the actual issue in your next bullet point.
Once again, how do any of your efforts in these game worlds affect anything? Nothing is changed by killing the Lich King or Thoth Amon. Everything resets and Lich King goes back to citing on his throne and Thoth Amon his.
Replayability. It is no different in a single player game if you want to play it again. Yet people claim to play them through multiple times. Why? You already beat it.
Themepark games suffer from this. I mean, it is quite literally a themepark thing. Go to one, ride a rollercoaster - tada - it is still there after you have beat it, there were others that beat it with you - there were those that beat it before you - there will be those that beat it after you.
If you have a passive story, no matter how immersive it may be - this will be the case. It will have no meaning.
If you have a player driven story in an immersive world...it just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Ok have to answer them as they go, you and I could do with the story but once the story is done we wait for the next patch to come out? What if we beat it week 1 which is what a lot of people do with the dungeons and raids no adays. That is my argument from before, people rush through the content and dont experience the world of the story that is there. That why I say the whole 'End Game' mentality kills all the story because people cant wait to get to End Game.
Have to agree with Virus the story for WoW before BC was a lot and people complained about it, remember how I
mentioned the Onixia chain, The Pally Epic Pony, and Lock Epic Pony story chain? I had same issue with reading a
book twice lol but now I can do it, I have actually read a few books that where so good that I can read twice, not right
of the bat but if I dont have another book then I can read it just fine until I get to a book store and buy more books.
Needless to say I read about 50 books a year.
It takes a lot to get animation done right and to get the voice acting right, next thing you know you get that and you will complain that they did it wrong lol, cant please everyone you know. And agani Virus puts up a good point, you as a player can not be part of the script you are a mere bystandard so it will not be a part of your story you will be outside looking in.
See what needs to happen is that you should put your story skills into play and write your own story with in the game, I am not saying to merely RP but to write the story from your perspective, like the following.
Day 12
I walked into town today and some guy walks up to me and his like "Hey you, you look like you could use some work, and I can use the help." So I ask the man how can I help, and he ask me to kill 10 rats. "Yeah I got this rodent problem could you help me out." It is unfortunate that I need the money and when I got into this whole adventuring gig I said I help people out with there issues, this is not what I meant but hey got to pay for food, a place to sleep and fixing the armor, so I agreed, it took me a whole 10 minutes to find the rodents but I took care of it. Went back to the guy and he was besides himself gave me some coines for my help and this old subligar that he did not need. The armor was in better condition than what I had on so I was like hey might not be top notch but I will use it.
Write your own story! Cause the game companies aint writting it for you. You can make the game more emersive for yourself and no one else is effected.
Who remembers the old Choose Your Own Adventure Books? Read a bit, then it asks you if you want to do A, B, C, or D - might only be A or B, etc - but you would choose where you go from there. You do not get that in MMORPG stories. You do in some SPRPG games. Instead you get - complete A so you can complete B so you can complete C so you can complete D. Or perhaps you get you did C, so you can no longer do A or B.
Imagine instead of simply being given: A wandering group of thieves has been stealing the apples from the orchard at Betty's farm. Can you go kill ten of the thieves and their leader to get them to stop?
That you are given: Betty is having an issue with a wandering group of thieves stealing the apples from behind the orchard at her farm.
So the typical player might ask, "Uh, so what do I do now?"
The answer is whatever you want to do. You could go kill the thieves if you want to go that route. You could try to warn the thieves off. You could try to steal as many of the apples back as possible and help Betty get them to the market. You could try to take over the band of thieves. You could go steal some of Betty's apples herself, since she appears not to be able to do anything about it.
Depending on how you handle the situation, "your" story could progress from there. Perhaps Betty tells somebody else how you helped them, so you learn of others in need of your assistance. Perhaps Betty spotted you stealing the apples and reports you to what passes for the local authorities.
Giving the players the option to play out their character's stories instead of playing along in a linear clickfest called a story...
...yes, there are times we want to be entertained. Then there are times we want more.
The issue that you will still have with this is simple though, this being a discussion on MMORPGs - well, there are likely to be a few other folks hanging around Betty's farm, no? There are simply too many heroes.
I'll be lazy for a moment and use WoW for the example. How many level 80s are there on a given server? How the Hell is there anything left to do? Talk about scorched earth, pretty much everything but the players should be dead on Azeroth...
CoH is another lazy example for me. With all the costume contests taking place in Atlas Park, how on Earth are there any criminals still running around? Pretty much everybody but the players should be gone already.
Look at almost any game - you'll run into the same issue. It is kind of funny, it is one of the reasons that I both liked and disliked AO. The world spawns suffer the same issue, but the missions - well, I could buy that there would still be folks there that either I or a party would have to take out.
As much as I like many facets of EVE Online, the missions are a joke. Sure, you might read them the first couple of times you do them - but then it becomes where do I go, who do I kill, what do I get, where do I take it back - profit. Little different than what is done in WoW, CoH or most games. Even AO's mission thing, was still pretty much the same - the only joy I found in that was the random maps and random mobs you would face.
I do not want MMO developers to write a story that I have to follow. I want them to write a living story that evolves based on what the players are doing in the game...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Well I hear Bioware is trying to make that happen with a popular IP named Star Wars. From the looks though, it seems gameplay might suffer a bit, but if you want story, you should keep looking forward to that game.
Yes gameplay is very important, it is a game afterall. A game with a horrible story can ruin any experience (at least IMO). Just like bad gameplay can ruin any experience, if it's bad it's bad.
Story is what sets RPG's apart from other genre's (both in the videogame and the table top realm). Which makes it a mystery that MMO's really haven't been putting more emphasis on story, at least before recently announced titles. A character without a story is nothing at all. Story behind a character is what gives them character.
Why is Boba Fett such a badass? Is it because he looks like one, which he does. However, no, it's the story behind his persona that makes him such.
Just like as cool as Luke looked wearing the black robe, we mostly still thought of him as the whining wuss we had been told (through story) that he was. Which was rectified in the EU IMO (that's as far as I'll go with that level of geekdom)
If I didn't want story in a game I'd play chess, or some other strategy oriented game such as risk, as there's no better gaming than that.
Video games have always been about telling some kind of story, at least those made after pong. The few exceptions that aren't are mostly sports related, again aimed at sparking the imagination, in the form of controlling your favorite group of jocks.
I agree with you OP, we need more story in our MMO's. There's no reason that should mean crappier gameplay.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I do not want MMO developers to write a story that I have to follow. I want them to write a living story that evolves based on what the players are doing in the game...
When I say I want more story, this is exactly what I'm referring to. When I find some random loot I want there to be a story behind it, when I kill some random mob I want there to be some sort of story behind it and reasoning (outside of experience points). If I kill a deer I want it to be because I need food and leather to survive. I want there to be consequence for neglect (when playing) must eat, sleep <--(logoff in your pc's home or you suffer perma death, which would also kill botting would it not?) etc...
I want a world full of purpose and intent, if there's PVP there should be a reason to be at conflict with one another (true territory control/ownership). I also want voiced NPC's, phased but seamless cutscenes during events. Stealing, theft and murder are welcome as well. All with beautiful graphics, writing and the spit and shine that create a polished GOTY title. Is that to much to ask?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well personaly it seems like what you're looking for is nearly impossible to put in an online game. Naturally online games sort of have to loose those fancy cut-scenes and scenarios that explain a more immersive story because it's nearly impossible to implement and script all of that information into an online world. Unless of course everything was instanced but then it looses that online feel.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
Well personaly it seems like what you're looking for is nearly impossible to put in an online game. Naturally online games sort of have to loose those fancy cut-scenes and scenarios that explain a more immersive story because it's nearly impossible to implement and script all of that information into an online world. Unless of course everything was instanced but then it looses that online feel.
We'll be there someday, in the meantime an interesting story with fun gameplay will suffice.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
For me, if there is a priority in resources, Gameplay > Story. ALWAYS in an MMORPG. Simply because a story arc will run out on you in an MMORPG because you sink far, far more time in it than you would in a SPRPG. Most especially so in MMOs where you eventually hit the level cap, a.k.a. "End Game" portion."
An open, interactive game world with a wide variety of things to do with deep gameplay. That will carry me further than a "Theme Park" MMORPG that has an extremely tight story that force-funnels me through a straight, narrow path.
Edit to add: IMO, making comparisons between SPRPGs and MMORPGs as far as gameplay and story goes isn't proper. SPRPGs are designed for a very finite type of gameplay invested, and their devs seek to make it a short, worthwhile trip for the player. MMORPGs are designed for a much, much longer time investment by the consumer.
In a SPRPG, you have a game that focuses on a central storyline and the game forces you down a strict path. It may have a few things for you to do outside that path, but those dwindle away. Once you beat the Big Badguy, then that's it. The game is done. It's very rare for a SPRPG to let you keep playing past it. Bethesda's Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are some of the very rare exceptions in gaming. Even then, those big SPRPG worlds aren't big like MMORPGs and don't have the wider array of things to do.
In a MMORPG, you may have a central storyline (Theme Park) or not (Sandboxes typically have none at all). But the game worlds MUST be large or numerous. And lots of things have to be left for the player to do. Again, simply because players do longer stretches of play over a much, much longer period of time on an MMORPG than they do on a SPRPG.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
It appears in reading through some of this, there is a major communication issue going on between what folks are saying.
Some people are referring to "story" as what takes place as you play.
Some people are referring to "story" as backstory - lore.
It is not just that though. Some see story as the strict path you're put on, some as a path with a vast amount of choices that help you create your story, which may or not be seen as lore, lol.
When I hear someone say story, I see the first one. Others said they see it as the open ended make your own story type thing, which I always view as deriving from a deep lore. In my experience, when I hear an MMO talk about story, it is usually referring to the first one, which is why I cringe when a game totes, great story!
Warmaker said it best I think "An open, interactive game world with a wide variety of things to do with deep gameplay. That will carry me further than a "Theme Park" MMORPG that has an extremely tight story that force-funnels me through a straight, narrow path."
Give me a lot of choices, a lot of variety, an interesting world, and I am extremely happy. That is why I played Dark Age of Camelot for so long. The things that ended up hurting that for me was stupidity of the devs (toa), and eventually resulting from that, low population.
Comments
The current MMOG structure is: time online pounding keys = character advancement; he or she who spends the most time most efficiently pounding their keys "wins". Sitting around wasting time reading lore or listening to dialogue is entirely irrelevant to the explicit goal of the game structure; even if the developers made reading dialogue necessary to know the answer to some quest question, such answers would soon be availabe online and nobody would bother taking the time to read the story.
The only way to make a game where story and lore and dialogue are enjoyable in and of themselves, is to make the game not about efficiently maximizing your characters online time in terms of advancement. If developers moved to a 24/7 (online or off) character advancement system, they could develop all the lore and story they want and the players would be free to enjoy and pursue it to their heart's content.
As long as the game is about maximizing one's key-pounding online time towards efficient character advancement, much of the potential of MMOGs will not be developed - IMO, of course.
See what I don't understand is why instead of just going to a quest hub, if you will, and reading a ton of small little boxes with the quest info in them they can't have cut scenes and actual conversations. Why quest chains can't actually be well thought out and cleverly placed together to have an engaging story instead of being, "read this, go here, do this, and this is basically why you are supposed to be doing, in short... " and yeah I agree developers focus much ore on efficient leveling than engaging story.
Why was this moved to General gaming? This is about MMOs.
Have to agree with the previous poster, they have made a game of mashing keys and that is how you advance in the game. It makes it boring after a while.
And about the cut scenes, I dont mind them but most people dont care, they dont want voice over's to be part of the game at all. I dont know what to tell you, I would love to see what you describe I just point out what I see for reasons why it is not there and why it will not be there in the future.
I agree with what you're saying 100%. Here's a game coming out at some point which hopes to address this: http://www.citadelofsorcery.com/index.php.
I hope it accomplishes what they claim. I'm axious to find out.
Yes go play LotRO and READ the quests! Very nice storytelling indeed and will be even better when it goes free to play they are re-writing a lot of quest's storylines!
You should apply to the new BETA you will be impressed!
Then there is Final Fantasy XI and Fallen Earth both of those have decent stories to tell, FFXI being the better one. Guild Wars does it ok but I hate the mentality of that game and the annoying, power hungry little kids that seem to make up the community there.
I can think of a hundred reasons off the top of my head. Stories often have a conclusion, but MMO's are designed to run indefinitely. Stories take a great deal of time to write well - anything more complicated than background story or lore probably won't come along more often than once an expansion. Stories are best crafted by creative individuals with a singular vision but MMO's are designed and created by committees. Games are an interactive entertainment medium and stories are not. Stories are considerably more complex the more characters are involved, leaving designers with the option of excluding a majority of their player base or simply writing stories that players can only watch unfold.
And probably the most important:
It's hard to find good writers.
Besides, there are a myriad of ways to introduce story into a game and many have already been done before. Just because you don't like the story doesn't mean it's not there.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
It's marketing to the majority, the people looking for instant gratification or that just want to get to the action don't care for story. That's the same reason there's so few RP realms on WoW and so few RP MMOs at all. Also, imagine the work that goes into the few days worth of gaming you can have in an immersive story from the games you mentioned, now think of how difficult it would be to constantly reproduce this work so that players could have a constant quality storyline.
One man's guts are another man's glory.
I actually didn't expect to be Black...
I think there's already MMO's with immersive stories. LOTRO and Age of Conan instantly spring to mind despite you disagreeing. WoW's storyline is great, but it's just not presented very well within the game. It also tends to be fragmented and non-linear. After playing WoW and learning a little bit about the lore I had to go and read the books -- after that the world sucked me in.
I prefer to be immersed in the world instead of the story, but that's just my preference. I like to be set loose and make my own story. I think Bioware would disagree that developers aren't creating MMO's with storyline playing a central role. Sounds like TOR will be right up your alley.
Again a plethora of narrow minded answers. :P Hahaha, just think. An MMO can always expand, release the story in parts, then release the final conclusion right before the release of the next expac. An ending to one story the beginning of another. The key to getting an MMO to work with a story line is add a plethora of various complex stories that the player can switch between so they are never bored.
I am just going to say this, voice acting and animations are important in immersion, if you have to read all you are doing is reading a script. It's not immersive in a gaming experience,it's like if you were watching a moving and instead of talking and acting in between the action scenes a screen with text just popped up; It ruins the entire experience.
Age of Conan and FFXI are awesome games (FFXI being my favorite MMO I've played, and AoC my second) but none the less I don't feel immersed in them like I do Red Dead Revolver, Assassins Creed, Star Wars: The Force Uncleased, ect. Because again the focus really isn't so much the story. AoCs story becomes immensely shallow after Tortage. It almost completely dissipates after level 50, and then never makes a comeback. FFXI's story line is too scattered that it's hard to follow, although it definitely is there.
Once again, how do any of your efforts in these game worlds affect anything? Nothing is changed by killing the Lich King or Thoth Amon. Everything resets and Lich King goes back to citing on his throne and Thoth Amon his.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Ok have to answer them as they go, you and I could do with the story but once the story is done we wait for the next patch to come out? What if we beat it week 1 which is what a lot of people do with the dungeons and raids no adays. That is my argument from before, people rush through the content and dont experience the world of the story that is there. That why I say the whole 'End Game' mentality kills all the story because people cant wait to get to End Game.
Have to agree with Virus the story for WoW before BC was a lot and people complained about it, remember how I
mentioned the Onixia chain, The Pally Epic Pony, and Lock Epic Pony story chain? I had same issue with reading a
book twice lol but now I can do it, I have actually read a few books that where so good that I can read twice, not right
of the bat but if I dont have another book then I can read it just fine until I get to a book store and buy more books.
Needless to say I read about 50 books a year.
It takes a lot to get animation done right and to get the voice acting right, next thing you know you get that and you will complain that they did it wrong lol, cant please everyone you know. And agani Virus puts up a good point, you as a player can not be part of the script you are a mere bystandard so it will not be a part of your story you will be outside looking in.
See what needs to happen is that you should put your story skills into play and write your own story with in the game, I am not saying to merely RP but to write the story from your perspective, like the following.
Day 12
I walked into town today and some guy walks up to me and his like "Hey you, you look like you could use some work, and I can use the help." So I ask the man how can I help, and he ask me to kill 10 rats. "Yeah I got this rodent problem could you help me out." It is unfortunate that I need the money and when I got into this whole adventuring gig I said I help people out with there issues, this is not what I meant but hey got to pay for food, a place to sleep and fixing the armor, so I agreed, it took me a whole 10 minutes to find the rodents but I took care of it. Went back to the guy and he was besides himself gave me some coines for my help and this old subligar that he did not need. The armor was in better condition than what I had on so I was like hey might not be top notch but I will use it.
Write your own story! Cause the game companies aint writting it for you. You can make the game more emersive for yourself and no one else is effected.
Who remembers the old Choose Your Own Adventure Books? Read a bit, then it asks you if you want to do A, B, C, or D - might only be A or B, etc - but you would choose where you go from there. You do not get that in MMORPG stories. You do in some SPRPG games. Instead you get - complete A so you can complete B so you can complete C so you can complete D. Or perhaps you get you did C, so you can no longer do A or B.
Imagine instead of simply being given: A wandering group of thieves has been stealing the apples from the orchard at Betty's farm. Can you go kill ten of the thieves and their leader to get them to stop?
That you are given: Betty is having an issue with a wandering group of thieves stealing the apples from behind the orchard at her farm.
So the typical player might ask, "Uh, so what do I do now?"
The answer is whatever you want to do. You could go kill the thieves if you want to go that route. You could try to warn the thieves off. You could try to steal as many of the apples back as possible and help Betty get them to the market. You could try to take over the band of thieves. You could go steal some of Betty's apples herself, since she appears not to be able to do anything about it.
Depending on how you handle the situation, "your" story could progress from there. Perhaps Betty tells somebody else how you helped them, so you learn of others in need of your assistance. Perhaps Betty spotted you stealing the apples and reports you to what passes for the local authorities.
Giving the players the option to play out their character's stories instead of playing along in a linear clickfest called a story...
...yes, there are times we want to be entertained. Then there are times we want more.
The issue that you will still have with this is simple though, this being a discussion on MMORPGs - well, there are likely to be a few other folks hanging around Betty's farm, no? There are simply too many heroes.
I'll be lazy for a moment and use WoW for the example. How many level 80s are there on a given server? How the Hell is there anything left to do? Talk about scorched earth, pretty much everything but the players should be dead on Azeroth...
CoH is another lazy example for me. With all the costume contests taking place in Atlas Park, how on Earth are there any criminals still running around? Pretty much everybody but the players should be gone already.
Look at almost any game - you'll run into the same issue. It is kind of funny, it is one of the reasons that I both liked and disliked AO. The world spawns suffer the same issue, but the missions - well, I could buy that there would still be folks there that either I or a party would have to take out.
As much as I like many facets of EVE Online, the missions are a joke. Sure, you might read them the first couple of times you do them - but then it becomes where do I go, who do I kill, what do I get, where do I take it back - profit. Little different than what is done in WoW, CoH or most games. Even AO's mission thing, was still pretty much the same - the only joy I found in that was the random maps and random mobs you would face.
I do not want MMO developers to write a story that I have to follow. I want them to write a living story that evolves based on what the players are doing in the game...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Well I hear Bioware is trying to make that happen with a popular IP named Star Wars. From the looks though, it seems gameplay might suffer a bit, but if you want story, you should keep looking forward to that game.
Exactly...
Yes gameplay is very important, it is a game afterall. A game with a horrible story can ruin any experience (at least IMO). Just like bad gameplay can ruin any experience, if it's bad it's bad.
Story is what sets RPG's apart from other genre's (both in the videogame and the table top realm). Which makes it a mystery that MMO's really haven't been putting more emphasis on story, at least before recently announced titles. A character without a story is nothing at all. Story behind a character is what gives them character.
Why is Boba Fett such a badass? Is it because he looks like one, which he does. However, no, it's the story behind his persona that makes him such.
Just like as cool as Luke looked wearing the black robe, we mostly still thought of him as the whining wuss we had been told (through story) that he was. Which was rectified in the EU IMO (that's as far as I'll go with that level of geekdom)
If I didn't want story in a game I'd play chess, or some other strategy oriented game such as risk, as there's no better gaming than that.
Video games have always been about telling some kind of story, at least those made after pong. The few exceptions that aren't are mostly sports related, again aimed at sparking the imagination, in the form of controlling your favorite group of jocks.
I agree with you OP, we need more story in our MMO's. There's no reason that should mean crappier gameplay.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
When I say I want more story, this is exactly what I'm referring to. When I find some random loot I want there to be a story behind it, when I kill some random mob I want there to be some sort of story behind it and reasoning (outside of experience points). If I kill a deer I want it to be because I need food and leather to survive. I want there to be consequence for neglect (when playing) must eat, sleep <--(logoff in your pc's home or you suffer perma death, which would also kill botting would it not?) etc...
I want a world full of purpose and intent, if there's PVP there should be a reason to be at conflict with one another (true territory control/ownership). I also want voiced NPC's, phased but seamless cutscenes during events. Stealing, theft and murder are welcome as well. All with beautiful graphics, writing and the spit and shine that create a polished GOTY title. Is that to much to ask?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well personaly it seems like what you're looking for is nearly impossible to put in an online game. Naturally online games sort of have to loose those fancy cut-scenes and scenarios that explain a more immersive story because it's nearly impossible to implement and script all of that information into an online world. Unless of course everything was instanced but then it looses that online feel.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
We'll be there someday, in the meantime an interesting story with fun gameplay will suffice.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
For me, if there is a priority in resources, Gameplay > Story. ALWAYS in an MMORPG. Simply because a story arc will run out on you in an MMORPG because you sink far, far more time in it than you would in a SPRPG. Most especially so in MMOs where you eventually hit the level cap, a.k.a. "End Game" portion."
An open, interactive game world with a wide variety of things to do with deep gameplay. That will carry me further than a "Theme Park" MMORPG that has an extremely tight story that force-funnels me through a straight, narrow path.
Edit to add: IMO, making comparisons between SPRPGs and MMORPGs as far as gameplay and story goes isn't proper. SPRPGs are designed for a very finite type of gameplay invested, and their devs seek to make it a short, worthwhile trip for the player. MMORPGs are designed for a much, much longer time investment by the consumer.
In a SPRPG, you have a game that focuses on a central storyline and the game forces you down a strict path. It may have a few things for you to do outside that path, but those dwindle away. Once you beat the Big Badguy, then that's it. The game is done. It's very rare for a SPRPG to let you keep playing past it. Bethesda's Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are some of the very rare exceptions in gaming. Even then, those big SPRPG worlds aren't big like MMORPGs and don't have the wider array of things to do.
In a MMORPG, you may have a central storyline (Theme Park) or not (Sandboxes typically have none at all). But the game worlds MUST be large or numerous. And lots of things have to be left for the player to do. Again, simply because players do longer stretches of play over a much, much longer period of time on an MMORPG than they do on a SPRPG.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
It appears in reading through some of this, there is a major communication issue going on between what folks are saying.
Some people are referring to "story" as what takes place as you play.
Some people are referring to "story" as backstory - lore.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Simply put, stories end. MMO's need constant new batches of content. Easy to achieve in offline games, not so much in MMO's.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
It is not just that though. Some see story as the strict path you're put on, some as a path with a vast amount of choices that help you create your story, which may or not be seen as lore, lol.
When I hear someone say story, I see the first one. Others said they see it as the open ended make your own story type thing, which I always view as deriving from a deep lore. In my experience, when I hear an MMO talk about story, it is usually referring to the first one, which is why I cringe when a game totes, great story!
Warmaker said it best I think "An open, interactive game world with a wide variety of things to do with deep gameplay. That will carry me further than a "Theme Park" MMORPG that has an extremely tight story that force-funnels me through a straight, narrow path."
Give me a lot of choices, a lot of variety, an interesting world, and I am extremely happy. That is why I played Dark Age of Camelot for so long. The things that ended up hurting that for me was stupidity of the devs (toa), and eventually resulting from that, low population.