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Why such dire storylines?
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
Why is it that so many MMORPGs have storylines along the lines of, some evil and malevolent person/group/entity/force is threatening to conquer/destroy/unpleasantly alter the city/country/world/galaxy/universe, and it's up to you to stop him/her/it/them? This occurred to me today as I was playing Wildstar and doing quests for some Mordesh who are perpetually on the brink of basically turning into zombies. But it's not unique to Wildstar; lots of MMORPGs have a storyline in which everything you hold dear is on the verge of being destroyed in some cataclysm.
It's probably a carry-over from single-player games. But in single-player games, such a storyline makes sense. If you're going to have violence, you want to have some justification about how you're the hero who has to kill evil things in order to save the world, not just some psychopath murderer. But in a single-player game, Link can either save Princess Zelda and then all is right with Hyrule at least until the next sequel, or else fail and the land is overrun by evil. You save the world or you don't, and you get some sort of closure, at least until you decide to play through the game again.
But in MMORPGs, you basically can't change the world, as that would ruin things for others. In most MMORPGs, nothing you can do, for better or for worse, can make the denizens whom you're supposedly trying to rescue any more or less secure. The NPC who begged you to save the town from Bob the Really Big Dragon doesn't even wait until you're out of earshot from turning in the quest before asking someone else to save the town from Bob the Really Big Dragon. Sure, you thought you just killed Bob and even got the quest reward for it, but Bob isn't really dead, because that would spoil the game for someone else. Of course, Bob isn't actually interested in attacking the town, as that would also mess up the game for people who will come along two years later.
But if the world is in dire circumstances, and you can't change that no matter what you do, then the world is and always will be in dire circumstances. Doesn't that strike you as a miserable, depressing place to live? Some people say they want an immersive game in which you play the role of a character who lives in the game world, but would you really want to live in a world that is forever on the brink of annihilation? And doesn't it get a little ridiculous that the world is always supposedly a hair's breadth away from catastrophe, but that catastrophe does not and never can come?
Now, not all MMORPGs are like that, of course. Some have the theme that there's this really dangerous area that you've come to, with the unstated implication that you could leave and go back home and be safe. That, I think, makes more sense. But most MMORPGs don't seem to be written that way.
Comments
It helps to sort of cover up the really mundane nature of quests in themeparks:
NPC: " You there, Go shovel exactly 10 pieces of horse poo out of my stable please!"
Player: "Um well couldn't you do that yourself?
NPC: "Well I could but....The big orc tribe is attacking and you'll be a HERO if you help us prepare to fight them off! Yeah, It's totally part of an epic task! I'm just not being lazy!"
I could not agree more, Quiz. In my opinion, "Epic Stories" have no place in a game that changes only with new patches/expansions or rarely reflects a player's interaction with that story.
Knowing beforehand that no matter what a player does, the game will not change is kind of futile. Save the world, don't save the world. There is no difference.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
You can become more powerful, and kill more stuff faster.
Or you can be entertained by a professional crafted storyline. I don't see people complained about stories not changing in Tombraider, or Halo.
Now some of those games even have branching story lines. May be people are not there to look for making a difference .. they are looking for being entertained .. and making a difference is not the only way of being entertained.
that goes back to what Quizzical said. Those are single player games. Even if their story dont change, it has the potential to change and still be good. In an mmorpg, it will never be able to change because many people are inside the same world in the same server so if anything changes it will affect other players.
I personally think it would be mor einteresting if things actually change in an mmorpg. If i kill Bob the Big dragon and you were not there, sorry you missed it and will never see him again because he is dead. Everyone moves on. But as much as i want to see that happening. That would make devs go nuts with so much content they would have to constantly create to keep the world flowing and feel alive where you never see or do the same thing twice because the game keeps evolving. That, unfortunately and as much as i want it, is not viable in mmorpgs. Not in a story driven themepark anyway.
So instead we have mediocre storytelling and content. I wish they at least tried a bit harder to make it different.
I don't think I could remember the last MMO storyline I thought was really dark. They all strike me as various adaptations of the typical superhero movies that are so popular today... which really aren't that dark.
Just because a lot is in jeopardy before the hero rides to the rescue and magically saves the day again does not make a story dark.
Overall I think it's lazy writing. It's just much easier to try and make a plot compelling when survival of the entire world (I'm looking at you ESO) is riding on the outcome rather than trying to make more ordinary events compelling.
Nah .. just do it in instances or with phasing ... you can have your own "copy" of the world, and change for you. Now, I do agree that MMOs don't use that kind of design enough, but in principle it is doable.
What's even more annoying is that they take this "single player" rpg storylines and toss the minto an mmo where it just doesn't fit.
Nothing can sap you right out of any interest in an mmo's "Story" then when you are the one and only "chosen" one and you do all of these "super important" quests and you see...100's of other players doing the same exact thing.
I wish more mmo's would develop a story around you know.....having hundreds and thousands of other players? Why does everyone have to be the "chosen" one or the "Special" one? Why not let players make up their own choices? Have factions, wars, social quests, all of which the PLAYER chooses and shapes his or her own storyline?
Well, it's a formula, but it's definitely older than the current crop of superhero movies. Those movies take a lot of their material from older comic books, and the older comic books and games in turn take a lot of inspiration from myth.
This is what the formula looks like:
One inhuman enemy that wants to destroy or enslave the playable races - they are often introduced at the beginning of the story but usually not available as low level enemies. In Tera this is the Argons. In Ryzom this is the Kitins. WoW has more than one enemy in this position, but Demons are arguably the main one since they were the main one in Warcraft III, which provided the roots of WoW's story, and Demons were behind the creation of the various undead enemies.
You the player are most likely a refugee or war orphan of this big threat, though a common second option is to come from a warrior clan or tribe that has committed itself to "fighting the good fight" and needs you to toughen up quick so you can join your higher-level relatives.
Multiple smaller 'human' enemy factions who are causing internal problems; the high level warriors are busy with the real war, so these are left for lower level "trainee" players to cut their teeth on. Cultists/druggies and bandits/pirates are the two main types, though small-scale voodoo priestesses, noblemen with dreams of being tyrants, mad scientists, "savages" who probably don't know about the world-wide threat and are more interested in removing the "civilized people" (aka playable race civilians) who were intruding on their territory before being distracted by the world-wide threat, and that sort of thing often add variety. Plus, y'know, monsters, which are often acting out of character due to being disturbed, infected, corrupted, or controlled by one of the smarter bad guy factions.
Then you have the history of uneasy alliance - the playable factions opposed to each other, who have a long history of being enemies and aren't 100% succeeding at working together against the new bigger enemy. The historical motivations for being enemies are usually a mix of racial prejudice, racial personality conflict, opposed religion, opposed politics, or economic struggle over a limited number of resources. Those are the PvP factions and NPC factions you can farm rep with.
I've never been one to feel MMORPG's are so far removed from other forms of gaming. Like the example you're providing, whether or not your angle is handed to you singularly (you fight the end boss)... It's still some form of peril striking the land, which brings everyone else into the scenario, you're not the only one rising up. You wouldn't be the only one rising up.
On top of that, there's as much a need to suspend disbelief in a multi-player scenario as there is in a single player scenario. That's pretty much the whole idea behind RPG gaming as a whole. WHen you start over analyzing the experience, you're defeating the purpose of an RPG. No matter what you're playing pretend...
WHen I look back at SWG I was in a rather large Guild, I can't think of a single person who didn't go off on their own and do their own thing, and more often than not. We only really came together for brief sessions as a whole, to PVP or handle other guild events. PVE was mostly a solo affair, be it one guy gathering hides to make some creds, or another out at the nightsister stronghold killing mobs for loot (searching for dot weapons in most cases).
The biggest difference between today and back then in my experience is, today we have actual content to experience, we don't have to make it up as we go. There was quite literally nothing motivating the PVE experience, outside of the few "themeparks" laid around the land with shallow singular storylines.
Going back to my first point, that's why this content exists, it's something that brings your individual character into the world, and relates it to it. OF course you never have to do it if you'd rather level up on group content and side content. IN turn you never see the end of the strife, as no one has risen up to stop it at it's source. Other players simply in large part fill in the supporting cast..
Lets not forget in many cases the big bad or main threats are handled in a group fashion, through dungeons and raids, as well as world group content ; an example being the Anchors in ESO.
In the end it all makes sense, to me anyway...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If the world is a nice place to live, then I don't need to change the world. The point of this thread was, if an MMORPG isn't going to allow players to substantially change the world, then why make the world so dire and in desperate need of being changed?
But with MMORPGs, you have a lot of jeopardy waiting for a hero to ride to the rescue, but heroes aren't allowed to ride in to the rescue because that would ruin the game for others. So you give the "heroes" some loot and hope they're happy while leaving the rest of the world to despair. That doesn't strike you as dark in the slightest?
But in real life, the world isn't constantly and visibly on the brink of being destroyed like it is in some MMORPGs. You can have conflict and intrigue without needing the perpetual threat that humanity might cease to exist in the month or so. In real life, we do exactly that.
Fantasy RPGs are based on pen and paper RPGs which themselves are based on books. They all have this in common. In fact single player games that lacks this get complaints about it, like Dragon age 2 where a lot of people here complained about the fact that the point of the game is to get rich yourself instead of really saving the world.
But you do have a point, a storyline about a lone hero who saves the world by killing the bad guys isn't really working that well in a massive game. Maybe a MMO that isn't so focused on just good and evil would indeed feel like it makes more sense. Few people is really all good or bad after all and the ones that really are would stand out a lot more in a game where most people were selfish instead of pure evil or good.
Heroes like Conan is hardly super good, in the books he care mostly for Conan and if he saves the world he do it for himself, not to save peoples souls. A few more MMOs that think like that might be refreshing.
Because nowadays people make game base on data , and data show a lots player interest in that kind of story.
So until the data change , they will keep throw suck dire storylines in player's face.
I agree that kind of story don't go well with MMORPG but it can't be helped ,
after many topic , all i see is nowadays player base treat MMORPG like singleplayer game , i just wonder why they keep making those kind of MMORPG instead of singleplayer RPG .
That's more young Conan, before he had a real worldly view. But I see where you're going here, I'd still say individual storylines in Conan were all about some great evil that threatened everyday folk. Conan was a wanderer that never knew where he belonged or where he wanted to be. In a sense anyone can create that storyline for themselves in plenty of MMORPG's. It's all about being noncommittal.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You can at lower levels in many games but once you get higher up you must be good (or in some cases evil)- In pen and paper RPGs with aligment (far from all of them have that but D&D, Pathfinder and Palladium among others) you can be good, evil or neutral/selfish. MMOs are way more black and white than that.
As for Conan, before he became king he did not help people around just to be nice, he helped them because he got payed for it, to get a girl, to help friends or because he himself were threatened. Later he worked to make the kingdom he himself ruled greater, hardly a super good save the world reason either.
I do think that opening up a third path besides being goody2shoes or super evil, something like Ash from Army of darkness would make the games more interesting and less 2 dimensional.
Not all MMO's are based on such a thing though. EVE isn't, TOR isn't, as well as many others. TOR as an example is simply the same story of battling oppressive control as Star Wars has always been. The Sith don't want to destroy the universe they want to control it and bring their version of the force forward as the truth. That's just one example of many. While it deals with the notion of good vs Evil it goes much beyond that.
ESO does follow such a story, but TES titles always have such a story in place so it's just par for the course.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
P&P and video games are different beasts. they have always differed in many regards .It's easier to leave mechanics to text and imagination than it is to translate those mechanics into game-play, that stays interesting.
Again like I said in my last post not all MMO's are this way. EVE isn't as a simple example. Anything three faction isn't either. Well in the sense that it isn't just two sided, black vs white.
You don't have to commit to PVP, you don't have to commit to one guild or one group of friends, you can live exactly as conan in many MMO's. Although much like Conan you're going to eventually find, without committing to something you're not going to find a whole lot of options in life outside of truly having nothing but trinkets and metal..
This convo is quickly moving into the realm of game style vs game-style rather than themes. There's little content to create for noncommittal types, outside of crafting or homesteading. Sure if resources weren't finite you could offer a lot but you do have to create the content for those who do commit to something. IF there's nothing to commit to you really have a lack of content options and motivations to put purpose behind mechanics.
It's really the old being Uncle Owen vs being Luke debate.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As many things I think it ultimately comes down to sandbox vs. themepark. Sandbox game can let you play the kind of character you want to to play in terms of alignment and also do not need any "save the world" stuff. A themepark though has to give you a story and reason for what you are doing come up with by devs and most people want to be the big hero so that's what you will get in most games.
Me, I like very bleak low fantasy stories where everything's shades of grey morality and there are no real clear-cut heroes but in more sandboxy settings you can have some settings that I would like and some settings that the lollipops and rainbows hippie-types would like
It's usually the other way around - sandboxes, being at least partly procedurally generated, tend to have very unified settings, while themeparks tend to have one of every different kind of setting even if they have no obvious relationship to the core game concept.
Yep, in more sandbox games we are not heroes following the same story as everyone else. At least outside of questhub elements.
Well my point was that themeparks need heroes for their stories and heroes need some form of powerful enemy to fight .Sandboxes are much more just living in a world and not having to save it. Just because the most popular sandbox game in engineered to be a "cold dark place" doesn't mean you couldn't design a sandbox with the exact opposite goal in mind or (probably better) something in the middle.