Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Story Driven MMOs
Scorchien
Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
Nice video here on Story Driven MMos if anyone is looking to choose one and immerse themselves in it , guy does a nice job of laying out the pros and cons of each ...
Check it out and subscribe to his channel , laid back informative vids on lots of games
Check it out and subscribe to his channel , laid back informative vids on lots of games
Comments
I don't touch Legends, only watched a few streams for the lulz, and talk fellas who tried it, but based on those the story is just as f..ed up like the gameplay. Elements replaced, forced into different order, "take xxx mission from him" before even see the given NPCs first cutscene, quests rewritten and shortened, mission order sometimes even defies common sense and leaving logic loopholes, etc.
Personally, when I tried to watch some base play streams I always ended up pissed over some stupid changes. True, that could be just a coincidence and badly picked streams... but:
according to a fellow lore addict who played through the whole sh.t till the Quarantine Wall in Kaidan, everything is just like that, or even worse.
He said it's like tearing up a great book, and glue it back together with a bit different page order and replacing / rewriting words and sentences randomly. The original is still there somewhere in the mix, but not even near as enjoyable as it was before.
I always find it amusing when someone says "yeah, lot of changes, but at least the story is still there"
My list would be:
1. TSW and LotRO shared place
3. STO
4. TOR (the original version)
5. AoC
The video makes a good point about post One Tamriel ESO in that the stories make a lot more sense if you play it the old way following you alliance story lines in the legacy zone order before you jump to other alliance zones. There are a handful of self-contained zones that you can do in any order - the zones that were added mostly as DLC after launch: Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast and Vvanderfell.
Other than those, I highly recommend that any new players do it the old way if they care about story.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Currently, ESO is driving me a bit nuts with this. The story needs me to go fight a big boss. Someone zones in, and I follow to help out. Only, the boss is in a personalized instance, and its me against the boss that I've already lost to seven times. No sign of the guy who zoned in half second before me. So much for the massive multiplayer aspect. The story aspect has spilled over into the other gaming mechanisms, forcing single solutions on everyone.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
1) SWTOR
2) GW2
3) LOTRO
4) WOW
But I haven't played TSW, FF14 or ES:O. Although I don't really like ES games so I doubt that game would jump in. TSW is the best from what I've heard.
2. TSW
3. FFXIV
4. GW2
5. ESO
Like Fantasy Sidescroller? Join http://blixtenquest.com now !
I hate being referred to as the hero, the one last hope... That just happens to be one of a long line of "last hope" heroes. It almost seems insulting to one's intelligence in a way, being told you're the chosen one all the while every other player standing beside you is being told the same thing.
NPC: "YOU are our only hope!"
<looks around at the 8 other players standing around hearing the same>
Me: "..... You being a smartass?"
I think everyone's comments here are actually pretty spot on about story driven MMOs.
@Po_gg, In my original recording of this I went into a long speech about the difference between a story driven MMO and lore driven MMO but it ended up on the cutting room floor and I'll probably do a whole video about this some time in the future. Like you said there's a lot of great stories in some games not on this list but unfortunately you have to go digging for them
Agreed the whole "your the hero to save the world" thing gets old when there are 50 other people standing around doing the same thing. I kinda like the way skyforge (and some others) did it where you're just one of many gods standing around and here's what you need to do today.
Thanks to everyone for checking out my video
youtube.com/c/dizzarian
But i also enjoy a good Story Driven game and many of these games are Intended for a signifigant portions of the Story to play out like a Novel , that you are a part of like in FF14 , a grand story that spans time... And also intened to play out like a Single player game , Exactly like the Single player game you enjoy , And i know you realize that you are not the only person that played Dragon Age for ex .. yes thousands of people killed those same Boss mobs there to ..
Really hard to tell the difference in some of these games at times when they go into Story cinematics anyway .. You dont see other players till it cycles out of the story ...
I think the sad thing is that LotRO should be at the top of the list, which tells you how badly the developers missed the mark, since they already had a rock-solid story to start with.
~~ postlarval ~~
But each to their own. I do agree that when the implementation is half-assed, it IS very immersion breaking. ESO has always been a major offender in this regard to me. Quest bosses that die the moment you step into the area (and quest complete) because another player JUST finished it for you... more people than a subway crowd running in and out of the area while you're supposedly deciding some NPC's fate... meh. Damn shame too, since their story content is rather good otherwise.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I will play a game for a good story - but once the story is up, if there is no further personal progression beyond Loot Treadmill, I'll bow out until the next bit of story. WoW, FFXIV and SWTOR all fall into this category for me, although with FFXIV there is a good bit more horizontal progression paths and I tend to meander in those for a bit before getting bored.
I haven't really been able to get into ESO or GW2. I've played both, and I've finished the initial main line story, but neither really hooked me enough to be interested enough to go back for follow-on stories, at least as of yet.
TSW - I dunno. I've tried it a few times. Wife loved it for a while there. I just can't seem to get into it either. I just don't think the vibe really interests me: I was never really an X-Files/Twin Peaks/Stephen King kind of person.
One thing to note is, the story driven mmo (which to me is the definition of themepark) started with WoW/Eq2 in 2004 and got refined by both and just about all mmos since.. before that no mmo were themepark.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
The only ones with interesting backstories are the one based on famous IPs like LOTRO and I would certainly not want to read a book where the heroes play second fiddle to the fellowshoip and generally do plenty of menial tasks.
I am not so sure MMOs need an acive story though. Background certainly helps but do we really need a complicated story with having me as the players being the only one that can stop a terrible threat?
What happened with just go around and adventuring? I feel that MMOs took something from singleplayer games that it can't really use nearly as well and that it actually hurt the playing experience instead of helping it.
Having the MMO story focusing on what happened before the server got online and letting the players deal with whatever is in the world the way they see fit seems more fun to me. I don't think we need a huge threat that the entire world needs to unite to fight (even if it will end in a small instance), we certainly don't need that in every expansion for every MMO.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Then you or the group can simply do what ever it is. It could be long and hard, as long as it's not a chain quest.
If you compare Everquest (pre 2006) with a post WoW mmo (themepark) lets say ESO as an example, then you should see a clear example of the difference between a mmo with stories (Eq) and a story driven mmo (ESO).
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
In EQ a story is typically made up by many different parts, npc speech of course, other npc referring to or partly involved with the specific story (and other stories), found items/scrolls, world layout, lore and much more, many parts optional to completing the quest/adventure/story.
Depending on the player, their curiosity, play style, ect such a story will be experienced differently and make up a personal story for that player... not a different story but a different perception depending on which parts the player pays attention to or find more relevant. Story is not driving the game, the player is driving.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0