I'm all for MMOs making the levelling process more engaging but when it comes to personal stories I can't really see what being online and multiplayer brings to the table. It seems to me not very much.
I enjoy story-based RPGs but I think they work better as single-player games because there is a lot more freedom to specialize on that aspect of the game. With an MMO i'd prefer they focussed on stuff that only MMOs can do.
38 studios is taking the approach of making your own story and bleeding it into the world. I believe GH2 is also attempting the same thing. Story is essentially the background lore in an mmo.
Sounds like a bad approach to me. No matter how well they do it, a personal storyline still smacks of contrivement. "Story" (personal storylines) is not at all essential, and you can definitely have world lore without handing every player a script they are forced to follow.
What people don't realize is that when you play an mmorpg, you're playing someone elses vision, their IP. Not yours. It's like a movie. Your following someone elses script and you're just playing a role in it. I think the best way to implement a story is to have a mainplot in which has a beginning, middle and end.
That is the most horrible way to implement an MMO. Not only does it limit the players in artificial and unsatisfying ways, but it limits the world to being no more than a collection of stage sets or backdrops to scenes.
And let the players as a server freely influence the world and choose the different paths to the story. Sort of like a huge choose your own story adventure book deal. I think this could only be successful if the mmo was hosted on a single shard server.
How about make a world and let the players map out their own destinies. Toss the script into the trash can.
I think you completely misunderstood what I meant here. Let me clarify. (Seems like I have to go into great detail so many can understand on here)
You assume there was a back drop and like a stage and sorts. I full heartily agree that you should play a world not a game. So you're suggesting to have no background lore at all? Nothing?
Think about what you said there. "toss the script into the trash can". That is not really a good idea. There has to be some kind of back ground lore for the player can comprehend the setting. I'll let you take a peak at my design for my world and lets see if what your thinking compliments my design.
I plan on having a massive world that is hosted on a single shard server. That means, everyone plays on one master server. I have a main plot line that directly influences the world. As a server, players will burn their own history into the world by what they do, who they have alignments with what factions, how they interact with the world when world events arise. World events arise at certain times and players can trigger world events by their own actions as well. These events will influence a branch into the main plot. There has to be checkpoints in a story line to progress it. I do have an end to the story with a great twist.
Player stories and their adventures in the world are separate then the world event plot line. Again, what the player does in certian circumstances will influence the world around him by a story aspect. I have decided that players can directly influence the world by their actions so they can be FULLY IMMERSED into the living, breathing world in which they play in. No current existing mmo has this type of design yet. See my world map and you will see how colossal it will be and the endless adventures and stories you could create as a player.
I'll give an anology. It's like your a player while playing DnD. Your on the Dm's world and your fulfilling his story line by your actions. There is usually a beginning and an end result. Possible multiple ending results. DnD echos what I am trying to do with my design. I want players to log in and feel, its an adventure not a grind; and their personal and world story will compliment that and possibly be woven into each other.
Before you start typing read all what I have posted. If you're unsure of what it is don't put your personal opinion into it and fill it with assumptions. Ask questions and I'll be more than happy to answer then for you. Again, its a little bit of both, there is a script but yet the players are 100% free to change that to their liking. Without progression and direction there is no point in playing an RPG or MMORPG for that matter.
Adding a personal storyline to an MMO is like dumping a half cup of garlic into a birthday cake recipe; sucks. MMO's were meant to be a step beyond single player games, by providing players with "worlds" so that communities can emerge and total player freedom (freedom within physical limitation) abounds.
Singe-player aspects are "perceived" to help lure the non-gaming masses in, because presumably the latter may have missed that "single player" step between offline gaming and MMO's. But otherwise, single-player storyline gaming has been the death to many a WOW-clone, and from what I have seen, not too good for the big one itself as of late.
No canned storyline can ever compete with a thriving community in a "world".
Great analogy! But I don't buy it.
The problem is the concept of MMO World you state is utopian ie perfect world. Technical limitations are the bottom-line (as dictated by cost, engine & network). Different methods are used to solve the problem of creating the illusion of "persistent & seemless" world: Too numerous and technical to go into!
ArenaNet lend a helping hand (once again) distinguishing between PERMANENT change and PERSISTENT change.
GW allowed a sense of permanent change to a players instance of a story as it was an instance mmo. If you read a lot of discussion by these players in forums a lot of them enjoyed (albeit cheesy or annoying npcs etc) this closeness to a personal story within a larger SETTING/Background of events ie just like the illusion the player experiences eg loading zones etc of a "persistent world": You don't everything in the game to be there if you are not there as it were? The other thing they talk about is the sense of change an MMO needs and persistent change by chaining branches of dynamic events effects that for the duration or phase you happen to be experiencing.
I personally think that a lot of mmos allow for a global world and pull it off, but have mostly failed at providing a personal level of story that ties in with the greater events sweeping the land/world at the time your avatar step-in to rearrange matters!
Instancing allows a sense of choice and permanence and therefore meaning or regret etc that recycling in the persistent side of the server cannot cope with. Characters and personal choices and details become possible. This can be enhanced with a small team of friends in an instance additionally and of course the story forks in the chapters.
It is true this opens the door to single-player preference... but adding this I don't think divorces any player from the communal side of the game where greater persistence is being worked on also?
Originally posted by MurlockDance
Originally posted by MumboJumbo
That's some historic context to story/quests in MMOs. I've not played MMO that long tbh so that's a good read here for me : )
Themepark MMOs seem to have all the investment and polish atm in the industry and it's ridiculously easy for them to churn out inumberably beautiful landscapes and awesome looking worlds and creations; I'm still SHOCKED there are players left who "ooh & argh!" over a new mmo announcement and/or fly-over video of a new world on a new shiny engine! It's great but behind glass is all I think at that stage/demonstration.
When you play you find immediately: 1) Card-board thinness to the world's interactions with you and 2) to the mobs/npc's interactions with you equally lacking depth.
DEs are supposed to sort out 1) and Personal Story (PS) I am expecting will sort out 2) limitations imposed by AI giving you choices and depth of feeling and narrative to pursue and explore the world and listen and learn about.
That's a really brief summary of why PS has me very excited for themepark mmos.
The REAL problem with a lot of MMOs is the hand-holding as you say but themepark mmos are all about a guided experience. Sandbox is the only place I'd really expect to find something where players can create/interact and develop their own meaning in game terms. At least a good ripping yarn in an MMO will add to the combat polish etc of a themepark and it's shiny graphics, even if it is by the writing team/lore team (let's hope they are pros!).
Very well-said. I especially like how you say the world is behind glass in the on-rails approach.
There seem to be two kinds of themepark games though.
One variety is barely a themepark and almost a sandbox in the sense that it might have zones that are level-based, and a few quests here and there, but there are no in-game indications where to go next after you've out-leveled the area. You either ask a fellow player (or go to a third party website if you're really stumped), or you go and explore. EQ1, AO, and DAoC fit into this category. The themepark tag was given to them because their gameworld was loosely structured on level ranges and a lot of players associate levels with themeparks automatically in opposition to some other games that were out at the time that fit in the sandbox variety, namely UO. You can come up with your own stories and do your own thing in these older games, no doubt about it.
The second variety is completely storyline-based, on-rails, and the player is always told where to go next. I won't describe this in anymore detail you already know the rest Pretty much everything to be released after EQ2 has been like this, even VG where there are tons of quests (though you can play that in a less quest-heavy way... I'll give it that).
I don't know what games you've played and I don't know how much Flippy Darkpaw, the EQ1 Progression server, is like the EQ I played back in 2001, but if you tried it, you'd see immediately the differences between an EQ1 themepark and a WoW themepark (or AoC, WAR, etc.). Tons of forum posters repeat ad nauseum that WoW is an EQ clone, but not really in my opinion.
My two centimes is that it's not really themeparks in general that are the problem, it's the modern incarnation of themeparks that is.
There is actually a great post I'll dig up on why mmos and perhaps mostly themepark mmos have gone the route you describe above... basically, Sandboxes will polarise attitudes: Love it or hate it while themeparks that are v guided to appeal to as many as possible will sell better... I'll edit and dig up the post that explains the logic why developers tend towards this design.
But it's great that MMOs are getting more emotion, gestures, voice-overs, drama, story arc, character development and combination with lore in such detail and direction?!
direction guys.... would you like to do something that would lead to nothing?????
My issue is with game-manufactured, personalized stories. It's not really a story if nothing changes. Like in WoW, no matter what you do, the game world never changes until the Blizzard releases a new expansion. That's like if your story is to pour a glass of water, but no matter how many times you put liquid into the glass, it doesn't fill up until the game decides to fill it. That removes the immersion aspect of the game, and it seems rather unsatisfying to me.
MMOs are different from single-player games in that they they're not just about one person playing hero anymore (despite many MMOs trying to simulate that). The story that is created is the one that your actions decide, and how they affect the world around you, like in real life. Rather, that's my take on multiplayer, anyway.
Like I've said before, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the stories and worlds created by games like WoW. It just doesn't do it for me, and I would rather see that effort put elsewhere in a game.
I've been on Facebook too much. I keep reading really good posts and opinions and find myself looking for the "Like" button... I'll petition for it later.
When it comes to story, there really does have to be a balance. Going to extremes one way or the other just spells doom. For example... well, there aren't many MMOs with no story. Maybe Runescape, but that seems to be doing well enough. On the other side though, the Matrix Online. It was completely story driven. They would make a big announcement about some battle in some park and everyone and their uncle would swarm there. It actually got so bad it was comical to watch the stupid amount of people in your lag ridden slide show of a game flooding into one tiny area.
And really, there was absolutely nothing else to do.
In my perfect world (which I hope to build some day soon), there is an ongoing story of the world itself. (A major NPC was assassinated, an important location was attacked and destroyed, and artifact has appeared and is now in control of an evil overlord, etc.) If the player likes, they can look in on it whenever they choose. If it seems like something interesting is going on, they can step in and get involved. If not, they can go about their virtual life however they see fit (though they will still see some minor changes in the world around them as this background story plays out.)
There is actually a great post I'll dig up on why mmos and perhaps mostly themepark mmos have gone the route you describe above... basically, Sandboxes will polarise attitudes: Love it or hate it while themeparks that are v guided to appeal to as many as possible will sell better... I'll edit and dig up the post that explains the logic why developers tend towards this design.
But it's great that MMOs are getting more emotion, gestures, voice-overs, drama, story arc, character development and combination with lore in such detail and direction?!
I have an idea already why this is the case. It's because real RPGs only appeal to a small group of players, whereas that's not interesting for game companies from a business prospective.
Bioware for example has been going the route of making their RPGs more and more movie-like. This appeals to more people, but it doesn't appeal so much to many an RPG-player because it's not what they're really looking for. I make my comments based on criticism I've seen by players about DA:O, DA2, ME2 especially. Though there are favorable opinions for those games of course, my feelings about DA:O in particular coincide with what the 'old skool' RPG-players tend to think about the DA series.
To me an RPG-player is someone who loves the genre and will have played many of these games and will continue to buy this genre of game, whether it's single player or an MMOG. I'm an example of an RPG-player. I still have some of the old AD&D games from the late 80s like Pools of Darkness, I have BG1/2, Torment, DA:O, Divine Divinity, and more MMOs than I would care to post here heh.
There is a growing lack of polished RPGs coming out that cater to RPG-players and more and more of these hand-held, movie games coming out from the studios with big bucks. We have to look to small, usually European indie studios for the more traditional games.
I've been playing RPGs since the 80s, and massively multiplayer games since the 90s. In 1994, text-based MUDs were completely arcane for the average person, not least because you had to know UNIX and how to macro in order to play them at all, plus you had to have an internet connection which was rather rare in those days. The genre was too inaccessible. Come UO's release and then EQ1's, these games were finally in a format that could be enjoyed by anyone with an ok computer and a decent internet connection. The only problem is that they still seemed pretty arcane to most people, for whatever reason.
With the third generation of MMOs (WoW, AoC, WAR, etc), they've finally become mainstream but the downside is that in my opinion they're becoming less and less of an RPG and more and more... well... something else. It's not that this is a horribly bad thing, it's just that it does not cater to RPG-players.
I agree that a force-fed personalized story doesn't really cut it. A personalized story should be made personal by the experience a player makes for himself in a game. If the devs remove all chance of doing that, it kills the game for me since the game becomes a slightly interactive movie with little replay value and therefore low longetivity.
Brandon Reinhart – Lead Designer at Spacetime Studios – held a lecture at this year's ION Game Conference called Narrative Design for MMOs: Using Storytelling to Craft and Convey Vision. MMO narrative can be as simple as an NPC telling you to go kill ten rats for a humdrum reason, or something as complex as retrieving a jewel to appease the king of a warring faction. In both examples narrative exists, but the quest involving the jewel is more engaging than the rat quest. Narrative can be an asset to an MMO and help draw players into the world more than anything else, but it can also be nothing more than a string of text players quickly click through to get a new quest and the experience that comes with it.
In Reinhart's mind there are two main laws of visionary designing that should be followed: 1) Thou shalt tailor thine delivery to the audience, and 2) Thou shalt engender buy-in. In non-Shakespearean terms it all boils down to crafting the narrative so that the audience understands the developer's vision, and yet also doing it so that the player might perceive that vision as their own. There is a general rule in writing that states a writer should never tell their audience what they can show them, a statement that Reinhart echoed in his presentation. Though narrative is important to compel the player forward, he said it should be done with images and not words, since stories create mental images and then those images become real to the player.
Reinhart presented three important tools that he believes are important to the overall health of the narrative design of a game. For starters, he believes that designers should break their story down into a concept pyramid, which easily breaks apart and shows the various narratives making up the whole concept of the game. A story about intergalactic war, for instance, could be broken down into a story about humanity versus aliens. This could then be broken down even more by focusing on things like the science of humans versus the religious doctrine of the alien race. By tailoring delivery in such a way, it's possible to break a vision down into its fundamental concepts, compartmentalize complex ideas, create opportunities for dialogue, and inform the audience gradually the overall narrative of the game.
The second tool is the "key moment" – a picture perfect snapshot that encapsulates everything there is about your game in one tightly directed shot. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and Reinhart illustrated that idea nicely by showing some conceptual art from the game he is working on entitled Blackstar. A slideshow of concept art was shown, showcasing intriguing character models, a cool sci-fi setting, and a gigantic battle between two soldiers and a snarling monstrosity on top of a suspended bridge. Reading about a game can sell copies, but more often than not it's a screenshot or video that wows players with promise. The "key moments" should fill the viewer with creativity, making them experience such emotions as suspense, unknown outcomes, and a sense of potential energy.
Lastly, developers should lean toward aspiration driven character design to really stress the narrative elements of their game. When it comes to this aspect of game creation, fantasy genre developers have an easy start, since the plethora of lore available allows players to see a character model and intuitively know what niche they’ll likely fill. Look at an orc, for example, and you'll know almost instantly that they are a barbaric group and more than likely of evil persuasion. If you see a knight dressed in the brightest white armor they can find, there is an instant recognition where players will automatically assume that knight is good. Fantasy games have it easy in that regard, but all games need to focus on player aspiration and convey the character's values without relying on words.
The lecture ended with "The Great Law of Conveying Vision" – a slide that not only pertained to MMO narrative, but all writing in general. Reinhart stated that you can't afford to be a prima donna when it comes to your narration, you should avoid being defensive, constantly revise and rewrite, and always maintain the ability to step back and view the story. It was a panel that not only helped reveal some light on Spacetime Studios' Blackstar, but was also an educational look into how MMO game narration makes it into the final release product.
I'd almost like to see MMO's brought (brought back, really) to the point of being simulated fantasy worlds. Just like dropping you into real life; you do what you want and within the limitations of your abilities.
EQ1 did this very well, IMO, as did UO and AC1. You started out as a 1st level character in a racial starting area and stepped out on your own, with only a crude map and a sense of adventure as your direction. (Oh, the NPC bartender might give you a suggestion appropriate for your level, like go hunt goblins in Everfrost). But you were in a "world" and you decided what parts of the world to travel to, to explore, and to level up in (or farm for mats in).
Worlds, not stories. Background lore is fine, but a player should never feel he or she is forced to follow the script to some banal, worn, infinitely repeated story.
I agree with this and if wandering into a region you shouldn't be in you soon found out. These days it is difficult to die.
I don’t get it. Why is a story so important to people in an MMO? I can understand if the world has good lore surrounding it, but why a personalized tale?
I don t think that many people love a story in a MMO, that s why I believe SWTOR will be a relayive flop.
A story is importany in a single player RPG it is not necessary in a MMO
For me the main issue of story is the illusion that *I* have impact on the world. They are adressing ME and my personal background and not some generic "hello hero 768609 go kill stuff". It is the illusion that I matter as individual. Like a sneaky rogue send to spy on the enemy or the healer go save citizens in need or whatever. And ideally people react to my replies and my decisions.
Even on a more general level, take LOTRO. I loved the stories, especially from the Book quests, seeing how everything unfolded around me. Whats not to like? It's a bit like asking why people love chocolate. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I don’t get it. Why is a story so important to people in an MMO? I can understand if the world has good lore surrounding it, but why a personalized tale?
For me, it doesn’t matter. In fact, I prefer if an MMO doesn’t try to tailor a series of personalized events around me, because, in the MMO world, it’s not just about me; it’s about everyone. Not to mention, most of the time, they’re not even good stories. Even in a lot of single player games, the plot is bad. As much as I liked Oblivion, the main story was complete garbage, and I never even finished it. Granted, the lore surrounding the game was interesting. I think it’s just too difficult to come up with a story that’s so vague that it can apply to everyone. I’m not really blaming the developers, here, I just think it’s a really hard thing to do, and I haven’t seen it done very well yet.
That being said, what do you, the MMO community, think? Would you rather a lengthy single-player campaign that focuses on how special and awesome you are (ignoring the thousands, perhaps millions of others just like you), or would you like to see that time and effort applied to other, more applicable areas of an MMO?
Note that I’m only joking about the blatant one-sidedness of this issue, but I’d like to hear what you all think.
It's funny that you mention Oblivion. I really enjoy the dialogue, lore, and such, but i have always trashed the actual plot as well. i don't hate it, and i have only completed it once so far, but it follows a very generic fantasy plot. in all honesty, it never really bothered me, as i prefer to make my own game out of games, and it is such a simple plot, that no matter what kind of character i RP, the plot does little to muck it up. other then the intro/tutorial, i am free to ignore the main quest.
and to answer the question, no. i don't really want a personalized story in an MMO, unless it will be different from EVERY other person who EVER subs. ok... maybe not that extreme, but you see what i mean. and i'm not even trying to start a flame about how that would, or would not be possible. just saying that in a MMO, i want the freedom to decide my story, and i would rather see battle-mechanics improvised over anything else. my own personal story in a MMO is not a concern of mine.
For me the main issue of story is the illusion that *I* have impact on the world. They are adressing ME and my personal background and not some generic "hello hero 768609 go kill stuff". It is the illusion that I matter as individual. Like a sneaky rogue send to spy on the enemy or the healer go save citizens in need or whatever. And ideally people react to my replies and my decisions.
Even on a more general level, take LOTRO. I loved the stories, especially from the Book quests, seeing how everything unfolded around me. Whats not to like? It's a bit like asking why people love chocolate. ^^
That "illusion" is pretty transparent and superficial to most gamers, and repeating some "you-are-the-special-hero" routine gets pretty old and banal real fast, like after the first time around.
And the thing that dispels the "illusion" the most is some 50th level NPC telling my 1st level character how he is going to save the world, when my 1st level character obviously cannot take the two 1st level goblins standing around twenty feet away.
C'mon, we've graduated from the single player games a bit, or at least I hope so. It's time for worlds, not stories.
You want to have an "impact" on the world? How about playing in a hardcore PVE sandbox, working hard at something, and truly having an impact, recognizable and appreciated by the other players?
I think it depends.
Take LOTRO. Experiencing the "Fellowship leaves Rivendell" at night, and all for whom you quested from the fellowship farwell you like an old friend, is really touching. I don't care that I know everybody else experiences it too. I don't see it, and I am alone there. So I always was given that feeling like saving the world of Middle Earth, or being one of some selected few who kept it save.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me the main issue of story is the illusion that *I* have impact on the world. They are adressing ME and my personal background and not some generic "hello hero 768609 go kill stuff". It is the illusion that I matter as individual. Like a sneaky rogue send to spy on the enemy or the healer go save citizens in need or whatever. And ideally people react to my replies and my decisions.
Even on a more general level, take LOTRO. I loved the stories, especially from the Book quests, seeing how everything unfolded around me. Whats not to like? It's a bit like asking why people love chocolate. ^^
I thought the movie aspect of LotRO was ok, kinda neat for the time since it was the first MMO to adopt it.
However, it didn't make sense that it was a completely personal story since it was originally meant to be done in groups. How can you personalize something that was intended for fellowship play? Don't you also find it a bit weird when a story starts out revolving just around you, then requires you to find a group of people who just so happen to have experienced the same experience as you but each one by themselves? I guess nowadays it's basically all soloable, but originally it was not.
That really bugged me actually, and I had the same reaction in GW1. It seemed odd to have so many players in a town that just suddenly appeared there after I had battled through swarms of monsters with my henchies. They of course had already battled the same monsters with their henchies and we suddenly magically find ourselves in the same town but never met along the way.
I definitely prefer CCP's way of handling things where every pod pilot is special, but there are thousands of us. We're elite because even if we're thousands, there are billions of average joe schmoes that can never be pod pilots. I am playing Rift a bit now and I think it's the same idea: we're Ascended and therefore special, but there are many of us. The wording though for the quests is ambiguous. Originally, I thought that the story was referring to my character being the only one who could save Telara, but after having read more of the quests, I think they're referring to the Ascended in general. If I am right about the latter, then Trion is actually dealing with the storyline more like CCP does.
If MMOs are going to have stories, there seem to be at least two ways to do it:
1. Player-directed. In PvP, this is the EVE Online approach where players are given the tools and the environment, and they work together to fight each other for domination of the game world. Players pursue their personal goals or hop on somebody else's coattails to help them with theirs. In a PvE setting, rival factions are replaced by NPC baddies.
2. Designer-directed. MMOs have failed in this regard because they have repeated the same personal story for each player. Instead, single player RPGs should have been scaled up along a different axis - the entire player base should be treated as one hero. For example, first the player base will clear the baddies out of the player capital, reclaiming it as their own. Then they will need to find masses of resources to rebuild it. Then they need to rebuild it. All the while, baddies are showing up to try to stop them. Then they start expansion, finding their captured NPC leaders and so on. That storyline applies to the entire player base.
Both approaches boil down to allowing players to find their place in the game environment, but the overarching storyline either comes from the players or it comes from the designers. It is that overarching storyline that gives the world its life and provides opportunities to players.
I personally have no problems with a semi-linear, developer-driven, storyline. Even in an emergent-gameplay MMO. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are my two more favorite games. They have fairly linear storylines. Sure, they do branch at certain points, but they are not entirely open either. The biggest thing about them is that you can do them on your own time scale, while still progressing/exploring in the game. You don't mindlessly repeat the same content over and over and over to advance, like you would in an MMO and I think that that is what needs to change about them.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I personally have no problems with a semi-linear, developer-driven, storyline. Even in an emergent-gameplay MMO. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are my two more favorite games. They have fairly linear storylines. Sure, they do branch at certain points, but they are not entirely open either. The biggest thing about them is that you can do them on your own time scale, while still progressing/exploring in the game. You don't mindlessly repeat the same content over and over and over to advance, like you would in an MMO and I think that that is what needs to change about them.
I agree with you to an extent. I don't have a problem with linearity, either. However, you're bringing single-player games into the argument. Games like Fallout aren't really meant to have the longevity of MMOs. While I enjoyed Fallout 3, after a month, I put the controller down and was done.
I do have a complaint about some of the newer single players games, though. They have kind of taken page out of the MMO book by creating similar type quest systems. Like in Oblivion or Fallout, you can just go up to someone and pick up a quest, which goes in your quest log. My issue with this is that the MAIN story is also something that's just stuck in a quest log. Not to mention that in the 20 seconds it takes for an NPC to construe their plight, you're asked to gain some kind of emotional connection to care. But you're not doing it because you care about the NPC, you're doing it for the reward, and that's what single-player games are turning into. Reward-driven, not story driven, just like MMOs.
Despite really liking both Oblivion and Fallout, I never really got into the main stories I found myself not caring about any of the characters involved, because we, the players, never really got to know them. We're more or less just told that we're supposed to care. I think part of the issue is that the developers want to create a world where the player can take a good or bad path, but I never really felt that it worked very well, because the conclusion is usually the same. Sometimes it's a little different, but the discrepancies are usually mild and come across as lazy.
If MMOs are going to have stories, there seem to be at least two ways to do it:
1. Player-directed. In PvP, this is the EVE Online approach where players are given the tools and the environment, and they work together to fight each other for domination of the game world. Players pursue their personal goals or hop on somebody else's coattails to help them with theirs. In a PvE setting, rival factions are replaced by NPC baddies.
2. Designer-directed. MMOs have failed in this regard because they have repeated the same personal story for each player. Instead, single player RPGs should have been scaled up along a different axis - the entire player base should be treated as one hero. For example, first the player base will clear the baddies out of the player capital, reclaiming it as their own. Then they will need to find masses of resources to rebuild it. Then they need to rebuild it. All the while, baddies are showing up to try to stop them. Then they start expansion, finding their captured NPC leaders and so on. That storyline applies to the entire player base.
Both approaches boil down to allowing players to find their place in the game environment, but the overarching storyline either comes from the players or it comes from the designers. It is that overarching storyline that gives the world its life and provides opportunities to players.
I don't think I am alone here, but I don't consider #1 to be a story at all. I could see it being classified as a story but only in a very vague sense of the word and especially not on the same level as #2.
So in a situation like #1, I don't percieve any story in the game at all and just feel like I am playing a game that does not have that component, the world doesn't feel fleshed out like in #2.
So to me the only way to have a story is to have it designer directed, unless we start giving players scripting tools to literally make their own stories.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
He was merely pointing out that self-made amateur stories would likely not be sufficiently entertaining for him.
Once you have been around long enough, few things seem new to you anymore. Well, if you're smart enough to learn from your life.
Honestly, I see very little difference between self-made amateur stories and "professional" stories in video games. Really, there is very very little you can actually do in a video game when it comes to the storyline. It's almost always black & white. I don't mean 'good vs evil' or 'justice vs criminal' but instead, just black & white. Very simple, very easy, very boring.
I am easily entertained as well...which is saying something.
It is because everyone wants to be "the cool 23 year old buff, good looking but still masculine white male" such as the stereotyped Star Wars: Force Unleashed hero. Is it just me or does every video game character look like him, and the developers wanted you to feel "it is you!!!!" Well, unless you're not white, 6'10, ultra masculine, and nearly bald while still remaining to have enough hair to "be you".
Of course, I don't want to play as a World of Warcraft long bearded human with a mustache longer than my sword. Not all the time anyways, and not for my "main" as I don't like mustaches unless on a dwarf (who I don't really like either).
Where was I?
Mustaches suck, but so does every story in every game ever. Even the good ones.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Good story and good writing makes you attached to the game world. You want to see want happens. You want to see those NPCs again. You care what happens to them. It motivates you to go forward and play more and learn more. It is also an excellent way to introduce the player to the game world and its lore.
A game without a story can seem... clinical.
Precisely. This is why the lazy sandbox games fail so badly and indeed some themeparks, there is no sense on belonging. No sense of "role" in the roleplaying.
SWG did it excellently for a sandbox, but the storyline was already well established before they even began the coding. This being said, combining sandbox with themeparks was done so well. I'll never forget my first visit to Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabbas Palace, awesome stuff
Rift is a prime example of how not to do it, the lore is lazy, the story is tacked-on and superfluous. It's horrendously bad, far too serious and comes across as a bad parody of itself.
Warcraft does it brilliantly, you get to know the NPC's, the races and why the world is the way it is. The mix of good humour and engrossing narative is done very well. It's no conincidence WoW still boasts 11 million subs. Storyline isn't the whole reason, but it's one important slice of the pie.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Apparantly some focus group, found out (by asking the right questions) that players want to be the personal hero of a game.
So we get cataclysm and GW2, and I am sure others are following shortly. GW2 even boast that there will be no grinding, but story driven gameplay. Story driven is just another form of grinding, but I think it makes the game easier to control for the developers.
I do like story driven games, and I still regard Baldurs Gate 2 as one of the best games I played, but story driven in the personal way we see it, belongs to singleplayer games and has no home in a mmorpg - But you could ask again, are these new games actually that or rather action games in a shared world.
Personally I lasted a few hours in cataclysm, which was just the culmination of what WoW had build up to for a series of expansions. I am certain GW2 will be even worse (better if you like story driven), although this time in HD and more action gameplay. I guess what bores me is I feel I am watching a movie that, simply put, I just need to click next to continue.. and thats not what I want in a rpg game.
Someone on this board said it best "Give us worlds, not stories".
Someone on this board said it best "Give us worlds, not stories".
Any world is full of stories. Unless every mob and npc in the game is played by a human being and the game start when the players arrive to a completely empty world you need stories that explains why the world looks as it does.
There is a reason why there is an inn at a certain point, there is a reason the old ruins were built and later became ruins and so on.
Story is important, you can't have a world without it.
But don't confuse story with a quest driven game that forces your hand all the time. Just because there is a story doesn't mean the game always should show it in your face. A good story is something someone who look for it will find but anyone who doesn't care will just see small parts at time.
Look on your own country. There are a long story behind why it looks like it is today. You don't have to know the story even if it is an advantage in life because it will explain a lot of things about the country and the people living there to you.
And I really doubt that GW2 will be worse than Cata, in GW2 you can just run around and jump into the story whenever it works for you, in CATA do you have to do long quests lines to get to a specific part.
A world without stories are no world at all, it is just a random map.
I am sure you know what I mean, no need to twist it.
What I mean is personal stories with you (the player) as the hero, is inconsistent with a massive world where everyone else is the same hero.. it is constantly in the back of my mind that all I do has no point other than keeping me playing.
I am sure you know what I mean, no need to twist it.
What I mean is personal stories with you (the player) as the hero, is inconsistent with a massive world where everyone else is the same hero.. it is constantly in the back of my mind that all I do has no point other than keeping me playing.
Exactly
In older MMOs you were hardly the hero since there were almost no quest.
You were one like any other who had to play along with the other "mortals" to achieve anything.
That's why older MMOs were better and more fun than the present pile of shite.
I am sure you know what I mean, no need to twist it.
What I mean is personal stories with you (the player) as the hero, is inconsistent with a massive world where everyone else is the same hero.. it is constantly in the back of my mind that all I do has no point other than keeping me playing.
Well, all the players are usually heroes but I do know what you mean.
But my point was that it isn't stories that is the real problem here, it is that they try to use the same storytelling for a MMO as they do for a single player game. And that isn't the stories fault.
But I still think GW2 handles this better than Wow, there you can play a instanced singleplayer game if you like, but it is all optional. If you don't feel for it you can either PvP in the mist or run around in the open world as one of many.
Wow on the other hand (and Rift, EQ2 and others) forces you to play the soloquests with singleplayer tory unless you only want to grind mobs to level up.
Comments
I'm all for MMOs making the levelling process more engaging but when it comes to personal stories I can't really see what being online and multiplayer brings to the table. It seems to me not very much.
I enjoy story-based RPGs but I think they work better as single-player games because there is a lot more freedom to specialize on that aspect of the game. With an MMO i'd prefer they focussed on stuff that only MMOs can do.
direction guys.... would you like to do something that would lead to nothing?????
I think you completely misunderstood what I meant here. Let me clarify. (Seems like I have to go into great detail so many can understand on here)
You assume there was a back drop and like a stage and sorts. I full heartily agree that you should play a world not a game. So you're suggesting to have no background lore at all? Nothing?
Think about what you said there. "toss the script into the trash can". That is not really a good idea. There has to be some kind of back ground lore for the player can comprehend the setting. I'll let you take a peak at my design for my world and lets see if what your thinking compliments my design.
I plan on having a massive world that is hosted on a single shard server. That means, everyone plays on one master server. I have a main plot line that directly influences the world. As a server, players will burn their own history into the world by what they do, who they have alignments with what factions, how they interact with the world when world events arise. World events arise at certain times and players can trigger world events by their own actions as well. These events will influence a branch into the main plot. There has to be checkpoints in a story line to progress it. I do have an end to the story with a great twist.
Player stories and their adventures in the world are separate then the world event plot line. Again, what the player does in certian circumstances will influence the world around him by a story aspect. I have decided that players can directly influence the world by their actions so they can be FULLY IMMERSED into the living, breathing world in which they play in. No current existing mmo has this type of design yet. See my world map and you will see how colossal it will be and the endless adventures and stories you could create as a player.
I'll give an anology. It's like your a player while playing DnD. Your on the Dm's world and your fulfilling his story line by your actions. There is usually a beginning and an end result. Possible multiple ending results. DnD echos what I am trying to do with my design. I want players to log in and feel, its an adventure not a grind; and their personal and world story will compliment that and possibly be woven into each other.
Before you start typing read all what I have posted. If you're unsure of what it is don't put your personal opinion into it and fill it with assumptions. Ask questions and I'll be more than happy to answer then for you. Again, its a little bit of both, there is a script but yet the players are 100% free to change that to their liking. Without progression and direction there is no point in playing an RPG or MMORPG for that matter.
Great analogy! But I don't buy it.
The problem is the concept of MMO World you state is utopian ie perfect world. Technical limitations are the bottom-line (as dictated by cost, engine & network). Different methods are used to solve the problem of creating the illusion of "persistent & seemless" world: Too numerous and technical to go into!
ArenaNet lend a helping hand (once again) distinguishing between PERMANENT change and PERSISTENT change.
GW allowed a sense of permanent change to a players instance of a story as it was an instance mmo. If you read a lot of discussion by these players in forums a lot of them enjoyed (albeit cheesy or annoying npcs etc) this closeness to a personal story within a larger SETTING/Background of events ie just like the illusion the player experiences eg loading zones etc of a "persistent world": You don't everything in the game to be there if you are not there as it were? The other thing they talk about is the sense of change an MMO needs and persistent change by chaining branches of dynamic events effects that for the duration or phase you happen to be experiencing.
I personally think that a lot of mmos allow for a global world and pull it off, but have mostly failed at providing a personal level of story that ties in with the greater events sweeping the land/world at the time your avatar step-in to rearrange matters!
Instancing allows a sense of choice and permanence and therefore meaning or regret etc that recycling in the persistent side of the server cannot cope with. Characters and personal choices and details become possible. This can be enhanced with a small team of friends in an instance additionally and of course the story forks in the chapters.
It is true this opens the door to single-player preference... but adding this I don't think divorces any player from the communal side of the game where greater persistence is being worked on also?
There is actually a great post I'll dig up on why mmos and perhaps mostly themepark mmos have gone the route you describe above... basically, Sandboxes will polarise attitudes: Love it or hate it while themeparks that are v guided to appeal to as many as possible will sell better... I'll edit and dig up the post that explains the logic why developers tend towards this design.
But it's great that MMOs are getting more emotion, gestures, voice-overs, drama, story arc, character development and combination with lore in such detail and direction?!
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
My issue is with game-manufactured, personalized stories. It's not really a story if nothing changes. Like in WoW, no matter what you do, the game world never changes until the Blizzard releases a new expansion. That's like if your story is to pour a glass of water, but no matter how many times you put liquid into the glass, it doesn't fill up until the game decides to fill it. That removes the immersion aspect of the game, and it seems rather unsatisfying to me.
MMOs are different from single-player games in that they they're not just about one person playing hero anymore (despite many MMOs trying to simulate that). The story that is created is the one that your actions decide, and how they affect the world around you, like in real life. Rather, that's my take on multiplayer, anyway.
Like I've said before, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the stories and worlds created by games like WoW. It just doesn't do it for me, and I would rather see that effort put elsewhere in a game.
I've been on Facebook too much. I keep reading really good posts and opinions and find myself looking for the "Like" button... I'll petition for it later.
When it comes to story, there really does have to be a balance. Going to extremes one way or the other just spells doom. For example... well, there aren't many MMOs with no story. Maybe Runescape, but that seems to be doing well enough. On the other side though, the Matrix Online. It was completely story driven. They would make a big announcement about some battle in some park and everyone and their uncle would swarm there. It actually got so bad it was comical to watch the stupid amount of people in your lag ridden slide show of a game flooding into one tiny area.
And really, there was absolutely nothing else to do.
In my perfect world (which I hope to build some day soon), there is an ongoing story of the world itself. (A major NPC was assassinated, an important location was attacked and destroyed, and artifact has appeared and is now in control of an evil overlord, etc.) If the player likes, they can look in on it whenever they choose. If it seems like something interesting is going on, they can step in and get involved. If not, they can go about their virtual life however they see fit (though they will still see some minor changes in the world around them as this background story plays out.)
I have an idea already why this is the case. It's because real RPGs only appeal to a small group of players, whereas that's not interesting for game companies from a business prospective.
Bioware for example has been going the route of making their RPGs more and more movie-like. This appeals to more people, but it doesn't appeal so much to many an RPG-player because it's not what they're really looking for. I make my comments based on criticism I've seen by players about DA:O, DA2, ME2 especially. Though there are favorable opinions for those games of course, my feelings about DA:O in particular coincide with what the 'old skool' RPG-players tend to think about the DA series.
To me an RPG-player is someone who loves the genre and will have played many of these games and will continue to buy this genre of game, whether it's single player or an MMOG. I'm an example of an RPG-player. I still have some of the old AD&D games from the late 80s like Pools of Darkness, I have BG1/2, Torment, DA:O, Divine Divinity, and more MMOs than I would care to post here heh.
There is a growing lack of polished RPGs coming out that cater to RPG-players and more and more of these hand-held, movie games coming out from the studios with big bucks. We have to look to small, usually European indie studios for the more traditional games.
I've been playing RPGs since the 80s, and massively multiplayer games since the 90s. In 1994, text-based MUDs were completely arcane for the average person, not least because you had to know UNIX and how to macro in order to play them at all, plus you had to have an internet connection which was rather rare in those days. The genre was too inaccessible. Come UO's release and then EQ1's, these games were finally in a format that could be enjoyed by anyone with an ok computer and a decent internet connection. The only problem is that they still seemed pretty arcane to most people, for whatever reason.
With the third generation of MMOs (WoW, AoC, WAR, etc), they've finally become mainstream but the downside is that in my opinion they're becoming less and less of an RPG and more and more... well... something else. It's not that this is a horribly bad thing, it's just that it does not cater to RPG-players.
I agree that a force-fed personalized story doesn't really cut it. A personalized story should be made personal by the experience a player makes for himself in a game. If the devs remove all chance of doing that, it kills the game for me since the game becomes a slightly interactive movie with little replay value and therefore low longetivity.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
I'll reply to posts later, but as researching B* dug up an interesting article on stories/narratives in MMOS:
June 9, 2008
ION 2008 - Narrative Design for MMOs with Spacetime Studios
by: Jason Van Horn
Brandon Reinhart – Lead Designer at Spacetime Studios – held a lecture at this year's ION Game Conference called Narrative Design for MMOs: Using Storytelling to Craft and Convey Vision. MMO narrative can be as simple as an NPC telling you to go kill ten rats for a humdrum reason, or something as complex as retrieving a jewel to appease the king of a warring faction. In both examples narrative exists, but the quest involving the jewel is more engaging than the rat quest. Narrative can be an asset to an MMO and help draw players into the world more than anything else, but it can also be nothing more than a string of text players quickly click through to get a new quest and the experience that comes with it.
In Reinhart's mind there are two main laws of visionary designing that should be followed: 1) Thou shalt tailor thine delivery to the audience, and 2) Thou shalt engender buy-in. In non-Shakespearean terms it all boils down to crafting the narrative so that the audience understands the developer's vision, and yet also doing it so that the player might perceive that vision as their own. There is a general rule in writing that states a writer should never tell their audience what they can show them, a statement that Reinhart echoed in his presentation. Though narrative is important to compel the player forward, he said it should be done with images and not words, since stories create mental images and then those images become real to the player.
Reinhart presented three important tools that he believes are important to the overall health of the narrative design of a game. For starters, he believes that designers should break their story down into a concept pyramid, which easily breaks apart and shows the various narratives making up the whole concept of the game. A story about intergalactic war, for instance, could be broken down into a story about humanity versus aliens. This could then be broken down even more by focusing on things like the science of humans versus the religious doctrine of the alien race. By tailoring delivery in such a way, it's possible to break a vision down into its fundamental concepts, compartmentalize complex ideas, create opportunities for dialogue, and inform the audience gradually the overall narrative of the game.
The second tool is the "key moment" – a picture perfect snapshot that encapsulates everything there is about your game in one tightly directed shot. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and Reinhart illustrated that idea nicely by showing some conceptual art from the game he is working on entitled Blackstar. A slideshow of concept art was shown, showcasing intriguing character models, a cool sci-fi setting, and a gigantic battle between two soldiers and a snarling monstrosity on top of a suspended bridge. Reading about a game can sell copies, but more often than not it's a screenshot or video that wows players with promise. The "key moments" should fill the viewer with creativity, making them experience such emotions as suspense, unknown outcomes, and a sense of potential energy.
Lastly, developers should lean toward aspiration driven character design to really stress the narrative elements of their game. When it comes to this aspect of game creation, fantasy genre developers have an easy start, since the plethora of lore available allows players to see a character model and intuitively know what niche they’ll likely fill. Look at an orc, for example, and you'll know almost instantly that they are a barbaric group and more than likely of evil persuasion. If you see a knight dressed in the brightest white armor they can find, there is an instant recognition where players will automatically assume that knight is good. Fantasy games have it easy in that regard, but all games need to focus on player aspiration and convey the character's values without relying on words.
The lecture ended with "The Great Law of Conveying Vision" – a slide that not only pertained to MMO narrative, but all writing in general. Reinhart stated that you can't afford to be a prima donna when it comes to your narration, you should avoid being defensive, constantly revise and rewrite, and always maintain the ability to step back and view the story. It was a panel that not only helped reveal some light on Spacetime Studios' Blackstar, but was also an educational look into how MMO game narration makes it into the final release product.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I agree with this and if wandering into a region you shouldn't be in you soon found out. These days it is difficult to die.
I don t think that many people love a story in a MMO, that s why I believe SWTOR will be a relayive flop.
A story is importany in a single player RPG it is not necessary in a MMO
How can one explain story...?
For me the main issue of story is the illusion that *I* have impact on the world. They are adressing ME and my personal background and not some generic "hello hero 768609 go kill stuff". It is the illusion that I matter as individual. Like a sneaky rogue send to spy on the enemy or the healer go save citizens in need or whatever. And ideally people react to my replies and my decisions.
Even on a more general level, take LOTRO. I loved the stories, especially from the Book quests, seeing how everything unfolded around me. Whats not to like? It's a bit like asking why people love chocolate. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
It's funny that you mention Oblivion. I really enjoy the dialogue, lore, and such, but i have always trashed the actual plot as well. i don't hate it, and i have only completed it once so far, but it follows a very generic fantasy plot. in all honesty, it never really bothered me, as i prefer to make my own game out of games, and it is such a simple plot, that no matter what kind of character i RP, the plot does little to muck it up. other then the intro/tutorial, i am free to ignore the main quest.
and to answer the question, no. i don't really want a personalized story in an MMO, unless it will be different from EVERY other person who EVER subs. ok... maybe not that extreme, but you see what i mean. and i'm not even trying to start a flame about how that would, or would not be possible. just saying that in a MMO, i want the freedom to decide my story, and i would rather see battle-mechanics improvised over anything else. my own personal story in a MMO is not a concern of mine.
I think it depends.
Take LOTRO. Experiencing the "Fellowship leaves Rivendell" at night, and all for whom you quested from the fellowship farwell you like an old friend, is really touching. I don't care that I know everybody else experiences it too. I don't see it, and I am alone there. So I always was given that feeling like saving the world of Middle Earth, or being one of some selected few who kept it save.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I thought the movie aspect of LotRO was ok, kinda neat for the time since it was the first MMO to adopt it.
However, it didn't make sense that it was a completely personal story since it was originally meant to be done in groups. How can you personalize something that was intended for fellowship play? Don't you also find it a bit weird when a story starts out revolving just around you, then requires you to find a group of people who just so happen to have experienced the same experience as you but each one by themselves? I guess nowadays it's basically all soloable, but originally it was not.
That really bugged me actually, and I had the same reaction in GW1. It seemed odd to have so many players in a town that just suddenly appeared there after I had battled through swarms of monsters with my henchies. They of course had already battled the same monsters with their henchies and we suddenly magically find ourselves in the same town but never met along the way.
I definitely prefer CCP's way of handling things where every pod pilot is special, but there are thousands of us. We're elite because even if we're thousands, there are billions of average joe schmoes that can never be pod pilots. I am playing Rift a bit now and I think it's the same idea: we're Ascended and therefore special, but there are many of us. The wording though for the quests is ambiguous. Originally, I thought that the story was referring to my character being the only one who could save Telara, but after having read more of the quests, I think they're referring to the Ascended in general. If I am right about the latter, then Trion is actually dealing with the storyline more like CCP does.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
If MMOs are going to have stories, there seem to be at least two ways to do it:
1. Player-directed. In PvP, this is the EVE Online approach where players are given the tools and the environment, and they work together to fight each other for domination of the game world. Players pursue their personal goals or hop on somebody else's coattails to help them with theirs. In a PvE setting, rival factions are replaced by NPC baddies.
2. Designer-directed. MMOs have failed in this regard because they have repeated the same personal story for each player. Instead, single player RPGs should have been scaled up along a different axis - the entire player base should be treated as one hero. For example, first the player base will clear the baddies out of the player capital, reclaiming it as their own. Then they will need to find masses of resources to rebuild it. Then they need to rebuild it. All the while, baddies are showing up to try to stop them. Then they start expansion, finding their captured NPC leaders and so on. That storyline applies to the entire player base.
Both approaches boil down to allowing players to find their place in the game environment, but the overarching storyline either comes from the players or it comes from the designers. It is that overarching storyline that gives the world its life and provides opportunities to players.
I personally have no problems with a semi-linear, developer-driven, storyline. Even in an emergent-gameplay MMO. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are my two more favorite games. They have fairly linear storylines. Sure, they do branch at certain points, but they are not entirely open either. The biggest thing about them is that you can do them on your own time scale, while still progressing/exploring in the game. You don't mindlessly repeat the same content over and over and over to advance, like you would in an MMO and I think that that is what needs to change about them.
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I agree with you to an extent. I don't have a problem with linearity, either. However, you're bringing single-player games into the argument. Games like Fallout aren't really meant to have the longevity of MMOs. While I enjoyed Fallout 3, after a month, I put the controller down and was done.
I do have a complaint about some of the newer single players games, though. They have kind of taken page out of the MMO book by creating similar type quest systems. Like in Oblivion or Fallout, you can just go up to someone and pick up a quest, which goes in your quest log. My issue with this is that the MAIN story is also something that's just stuck in a quest log. Not to mention that in the 20 seconds it takes for an NPC to construe their plight, you're asked to gain some kind of emotional connection to care. But you're not doing it because you care about the NPC, you're doing it for the reward, and that's what single-player games are turning into. Reward-driven, not story driven, just like MMOs.
Despite really liking both Oblivion and Fallout, I never really got into the main stories I found myself not caring about any of the characters involved, because we, the players, never really got to know them. We're more or less just told that we're supposed to care. I think part of the issue is that the developers want to create a world where the player can take a good or bad path, but I never really felt that it worked very well, because the conclusion is usually the same. Sometimes it's a little different, but the discrepancies are usually mild and come across as lazy.
I don't think I am alone here, but I don't consider #1 to be a story at all. I could see it being classified as a story but only in a very vague sense of the word and especially not on the same level as #2.
So in a situation like #1, I don't percieve any story in the game at all and just feel like I am playing a game that does not have that component, the world doesn't feel fleshed out like in #2.
So to me the only way to have a story is to have it designer directed, unless we start giving players scripting tools to literally make their own stories.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
Once you have been around long enough, few things seem new to you anymore. Well, if you're smart enough to learn from your life.
Honestly, I see very little difference between self-made amateur stories and "professional" stories in video games. Really, there is very very little you can actually do in a video game when it comes to the storyline. It's almost always black & white. I don't mean 'good vs evil' or 'justice vs criminal' but instead, just black & white. Very simple, very easy, very boring.
I am easily entertained as well...which is saying something.
It is because everyone wants to be "the cool 23 year old buff, good looking but still masculine white male" such as the stereotyped Star Wars: Force Unleashed hero. Is it just me or does every video game character look like him, and the developers wanted you to feel "it is you!!!!" Well, unless you're not white, 6'10, ultra masculine, and nearly bald while still remaining to have enough hair to "be you".
Of course, I don't want to play as a World of Warcraft long bearded human with a mustache longer than my sword. Not all the time anyways, and not for my "main" as I don't like mustaches unless on a dwarf (who I don't really like either).
Where was I?
Mustaches suck, but so does every story in every game ever. Even the good ones.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Precisely. This is why the lazy sandbox games fail so badly and indeed some themeparks, there is no sense on belonging. No sense of "role" in the roleplaying.
SWG did it excellently for a sandbox, but the storyline was already well established before they even began the coding. This being said, combining sandbox with themeparks was done so well. I'll never forget my first visit to Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabbas Palace, awesome stuff
Rift is a prime example of how not to do it, the lore is lazy, the story is tacked-on and superfluous. It's horrendously bad, far too serious and comes across as a bad parody of itself.
Warcraft does it brilliantly, you get to know the NPC's, the races and why the world is the way it is. The mix of good humour and engrossing narative is done very well. It's no conincidence WoW still boasts 11 million subs. Storyline isn't the whole reason, but it's one important slice of the pie.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Apparantly some focus group, found out (by asking the right questions) that players want to be the personal hero of a game.
So we get cataclysm and GW2, and I am sure others are following shortly. GW2 even boast that there will be no grinding, but story driven gameplay. Story driven is just another form of grinding, but I think it makes the game easier to control for the developers.
I do like story driven games, and I still regard Baldurs Gate 2 as one of the best games I played, but story driven in the personal way we see it, belongs to singleplayer games and has no home in a mmorpg - But you could ask again, are these new games actually that or rather action games in a shared world.
Personally I lasted a few hours in cataclysm, which was just the culmination of what WoW had build up to for a series of expansions. I am certain GW2 will be even worse (better if you like story driven), although this time in HD and more action gameplay. I guess what bores me is I feel I am watching a movie that, simply put, I just need to click next to continue.. and thats not what I want in a rpg game.
Someone on this board said it best "Give us worlds, not stories".
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Any world is full of stories. Unless every mob and npc in the game is played by a human being and the game start when the players arrive to a completely empty world you need stories that explains why the world looks as it does.
There is a reason why there is an inn at a certain point, there is a reason the old ruins were built and later became ruins and so on.
Story is important, you can't have a world without it.
But don't confuse story with a quest driven game that forces your hand all the time. Just because there is a story doesn't mean the game always should show it in your face. A good story is something someone who look for it will find but anyone who doesn't care will just see small parts at time.
Look on your own country. There are a long story behind why it looks like it is today. You don't have to know the story even if it is an advantage in life because it will explain a lot of things about the country and the people living there to you.
And I really doubt that GW2 will be worse than Cata, in GW2 you can just run around and jump into the story whenever it works for you, in CATA do you have to do long quests lines to get to a specific part.
A world without stories are no world at all, it is just a random map.
I am sure you know what I mean, no need to twist it.
What I mean is personal stories with you (the player) as the hero, is inconsistent with a massive world where everyone else is the same hero.. it is constantly in the back of my mind that all I do has no point other than keeping me playing.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Exactly
In older MMOs you were hardly the hero since there were almost no quest.
You were one like any other who had to play along with the other "mortals" to achieve anything.
That's why older MMOs were better and more fun than the present pile of shite.
Well, all the players are usually heroes but I do know what you mean.
But my point was that it isn't stories that is the real problem here, it is that they try to use the same storytelling for a MMO as they do for a single player game. And that isn't the stories fault.
But I still think GW2 handles this better than Wow, there you can play a instanced singleplayer game if you like, but it is all optional. If you don't feel for it you can either PvP in the mist or run around in the open world as one of many.
Wow on the other hand (and Rift, EQ2 and others) forces you to play the soloquests with singleplayer tory unless you only want to grind mobs to level up.