I want to be the story, and I don't want it to be scripted. If I wanted a kick-ass story I would play a JRPG. I haven't felt that I was the story since CoX . I believe that came from NOT LOOKING LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. But I digress.
SWTOR had the most compelling stories. Light and dark side choices were given weight by being able to purchase light and dark side items. I would still be playing it if they didn't remind you constantly about what you were missing out on by not being a subscriber and the fact it took what felt like half an hour to get to a location. I continue to view the class stories on youtube from time to time. I loved the stories and the theme but tolerated everything else until I was done with the storyline.
"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
Originally posted by boxsnd Didn't we agree that a great story wasn't enough to save SWTOR? What makes you think it will save ESO? You still need a good endgame and as of yet we have seen absolutely nothing about it.
Why do you think people spent thousands of hours in Skyrim just running around exploring? Or Oblivion? Or Morrowind? Do you think it was because of cool end-game? No. It's because of the sense of discovery and exploration. There's no reason to think the same can't apply to an MMO.
I think if ESO just sticks to the strengths of the series... it will be able to afford to cut loose a lot of shallow bloated ideals about what an MMO is supposed to have.
DUH,
because those were single player games that offered MUCH more freedom and exploration (not to mention mods) with no subscription fee.
Tell me why people should pay monthly to get an inferior experience.
That was the same logic that Bioware thought it would work with SWTOR. "Hey, people just love our single player games! The storytelling! the voiceovers! the immersion! The plot! So why not make an inferior version of that with a sub fee .... there is no reason to think the same can't apply to an MMO!"
Well.... it didn't work past the first month. And it won't work for ESO.
Sorry.
Do Bioware games have a deep history of allowing the player to spend hours and hours and hours exploring off the beaten trail? No... not really. Bioware games have a history of pretty much rail-roading you down one fantastic story.
What do Bethesda games do? Exactly opposite. In fact, I would argue that their storytelling has never really been that great. What HAS been great is the fact that their games offer so much of it, and the fact that you don't have to do ANY of it, and still have plenty to do.
I'm not even talking about story. All I'm saying is they need to play to their strengths. If all they did was build a huge world with caves and just all kinds of crap to explore - that would be enough to satisfy. The quests and stories are just bonus.
SWTOR had good stories, man. You can't tell me it didn't. It hit some high points. If you're going to tell me it didn't, then frankly, we're done with this conversation since you're too cynical to even have a reasonable discussion in the first place. But SWTOR was way too much like the Bioware formula that simply wasn't MMO material. Bioware makes on-rails RPGs. They always have. And lo-and-behold, SWTOR came out to be the most on rails MMO I've played in recent history. There wasn't a single quest that wasn't in a pre-defined quest hub. Not one. There was zero reason to explore.
TES series is fundamentally different. I think it's core values are perfect for an MMO, because the story has never be an obtrusive thing. It's totally there, and you can do it whenever you want. But you can literally level up and enjoy the entire game without taking on a single quest.
If that doesn't scream MMO, I don't know what does. This is exactly what people wanted - something to do besides questing. They want other things to do. Well... here is your playground - go nuts.
RPG have always been about story crafting, not story telling. This game doesn't let you craft squat, it leads you around by the nose and takes all of the power away from the player. This is everything wrong with MMORPG right here.
All they have to do is not make the rewards so large to quest. Make it so if I go out and kill 10 rats its basically the same as if I went out and killed 10 rats without a quest.
The ironic thing is here is that this is EXACTLY how Elder Scrolls Single player games work. Its not like the MMO space is a magical place where this is not possible.
You don't understand, you can't do that. Thats an "old" way of doing things, and old = bad. New, good, old, bad.
So long as you keep all that in mind most of these posts will start making some sense.
Can't do it because it's old? It sounds like you're being sarcastic(being the internet, it's impossible to tell) but really... you "can't do that" because it would make questing obsolete.
No modern gamer would bother talking to some boring NPC to get a quest to kill 8 dookie mounds and then run allll the way back to him to get the reward if they could get the reward without the talking and backtracking. Is that whats attempted to be said here in this thread? That the questing system is tired and needs to be trashed?
Well no shit.
Yes, i was being sarcastic ;-)
I was indirectly making the point that getting XP from killing mobs is an unacceptable solution to most of the new guard of "mmo gamers" (i put that in quotes because i can make a solid argument that they arent mmo players and are in fact just displaced single player gamers, but thats another post altogether) because anything that was done in the past is, in their eyes, old and useless. Most of it is just standard generational narcissism (i.e. new generations thinking they're better/smarter than older geneations), but a lot of it is brainwashing or conditioning by major game companies (see the whole F2P > Subscription argument).
Its actually completely possible to have both a questing system and a kill mob system in the same MMO. All you have to do is make it so that killing mobs you can level in roughly the same amount of time as if you do questing. Then, neither side has anything to complain about since both are equally viable paths.
Personally i think so many MMOs make questing the only viable leveling method out of sheer hubris, i.e. that their quest storylines/writing/etc is so awesome, that why would anyone NOT want to do this?
Anyways. Thought i should clarify
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Good example using Bioware. You are correct, but out of instinct I don't consider games that ignore one aspect to focus on another "good games". My opinion but still. Yes, it IS possible to ignore gameplay to focus on the story and be a huge success. But to me that doesn't make a good game. It's an interactive movie.
I'll use Mass Effect as an example. Combat is poor and boring for the most part. ME is a huge success obviously, but the gameplay is pointless. I have to force myself to "play" the game when it is not fun for me and feels like a chore, just to see more of the story. I'd much rather they just make a movie if they want to tell a story with graphics. It looks like we disagree there.
DA: Origins, was the opposite. It's a great GAME, not a movie with choices. Its storyline seems generic in plain text, but since they did such a good job telling it through well written characters it didn't matter. Great gameplay too and great combat.
Yes, MMO companies have not tried to make a good story yet, which is why I have been saying they have inferior stories compared to single player games. If you don't really try, you won't do a very good job. You agree with me then, haha.
Your last sentence... very much yes. The companies probably need to stop designing MMOs for the single player gamer for starters. I'm aware that's where the money is, or at least where the suits think it is. But naturally the single player gamer wants to play single player games, so modern MMOs are developed like... inferior single player games. They come out mediocre and players leave. It might be more important for them to realize that before they focus on anything.
I didn't mean it was a law. It doesn't have to turn out that way, yet it always seems to. I brought up Planescape a while ago - remember what combat was like? It wasn't very good, nearly everyone agrees that it was a shortcoming. Of course the story was amazing. Even with this masterpiece game, the same thing happened - the story was the focus and it turned out wonderful. Combat was no doubt less important to the developers, and it ended up being the weakest part of the game.
I personally couldn't stand the combat in Torment and as a result, I played the game a lot less than I wanted to.
I actually quite enjoyed the combat in Mass Effect 2, I thought it struck the best balance between RPG and shooter mechanics of the entire series. The first game had the problem of presenting what were essentially traditional RPG mechanics in the clothing of a shooter, and the marriage was not an extremely successful one. Supposed to already be a badass war hero, and can barely hit the side of a mountain with a blaster? Huh?
I actually can't think of a single game that has done a *great* job of every element. Lots of games that did some things great, while others were "good enough," and I think that is probably where our disagreement actually is, when it comes to mechanics my "good enough" threshold is pretty low. Though I didn't finish the first Witcher game, because I hated the mechanics with a burning passion, for me they failed the good enough test despite the great storytelling.
And I think you are holding MMOs to a bit of an unfair standard. You seem to want to compare them only to the absolute best single player games when judging their narratives. You don't have to be able to compete with the best to be good. Honestly, I would rate the narrative quality of even the worst class story in TOR over what I have seen out of any modern RPG that isn't made by BioWare, Obsidian, or whoever the hell makes the Witcher series. Not including BioShock Infinite in that evaluation for two reasons; I haven't played it, and I'm not sure it's actually an RPG rather than a shooter with a story. I would also rate the plot of TSW over even TOR, though not the characters. For memorable characters, BioWare and Obsidian are the undisputed kings. Even LotRO has a pretty good story, if you happen to be a Tolkien obsessive (which I am not) and can stand the archaic use of textboxes.
As far as ESO goes, as far as I can tell from what we've been allowed to see, it looks like a good thing that Bethesda didn't make the game, because while Zenimax may not be on the BioWare/Obsidian level, they appear to do a hell of a lot better than the drek we usually see out of Bethesda. Some of the guild questlines in the various single player Elder Scrolls games have been pretty good, but the main questlines post-Daggerfall have been pretty bleh, and Bethesda's approach to voice acting is mostly of the so bad that text would be an improvement variety.
I don't agree though that they need to stop targeting the "single player" gamer. I think that while nobody has nailed the magic formula yet, they are attempting to move in the right direction, which is to offer solo, small group, and large group content both in the leveling process, and at end game. And there is really no logical reason that the solo content shouldn't be built around a personal narrative, at least not in a themepark game.
Originally posted by Octagon7711 SWTOR had the most compelling stories. Light and dark side choices were given weight by being able to purchase light and dark side items. I would still be playing it if they didn't remind you constantly about what you were missing out on by not being a subscriber and the fact it took what felt like half an hour to get to a location. I continue to view the class stories on youtube from time to time. I loved the stories and the theme but tolerated everything else until I was done with the storyline.
Eh, not to nitpick, but it is easy to solve the reminder problem; just subscribe. That said, I know exactly what you mean about tolerating things. I actually enjoy the PvP, but going through the shared PvE content more than a couple times while trying to do all the class stories becomes incredibly painful. Almost everything (in terms of planetary quests and side quests) in the game is fun once, but only a small subset is fun twice, and I can't think of anything that is fun more than twice.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Originally posted by boxsnd Didn't we agree that a great story wasn't enough to save SWTOR? What makes you think it will save ESO? You still need a good endgame and as of yet we have seen absolutely nothing about it.
Why do you think people spent thousands of hours in Skyrim just running around exploring? Or Oblivion? Or Morrowind? Do you think it was because of cool end-game? No. It's because of the sense of discovery and exploration. There's no reason to think the same can't apply to an MMO.
I think if ESO just sticks to the strengths of the series... it will be able to afford to cut loose a lot of shallow bloated ideals about what an MMO is supposed to have.
DUH,
because those were single player games that offered MUCH more freedom and exploration (not to mention mods) with no subscription fee.
Tell me why people should pay monthly to get an inferior experience.
That was the same logic that Bioware thought it would work with SWTOR. "Hey, people just love our single player games! The storytelling! the voiceovers! the immersion! The plot! So why not make an inferior version of that with a sub fee .... there is no reason to think the same can't apply to an MMO!"
Well.... it didn't work past the first month. And it won't work for ESO.
Sorry.
Do Bioware games have a deep history of allowing the player to spend hours and hours and hours exploring off the beaten trail? No... not really. Bioware games have a history of pretty much rail-roading you down one fantastic story.
What do Bethesda games do? Exactly opposite. In fact, I would argue that their storytelling has never really been that great. What HAS been great is the fact that their games offer so much of it, and the fact that you don't have to do ANY of it, and still have plenty to do.
I'm not even talking about story. All I'm saying is they need to play to their strengths. If all they did was build a huge world with caves and just all kinds of crap to explore - that would be enough to satisfy. The quests and stories are just bonus.
SWTOR had good stories, man. You can't tell me it didn't. It hit some high points. If you're going to tell me it didn't, then frankly, we're done with this conversation since you're too cynical to even have a reasonable discussion in the first place. But SWTOR was way too much like the Bioware formula that simply wasn't MMO material. Bioware makes on-rails RPGs. They always have. And lo-and-behold, SWTOR came out to be the most on rails MMO I've played in recent history. There wasn't a single quest that wasn't in a pre-defined quest hub. Not one. There was zero reason to explore.
TES series is fundamentally different. I think it's core values are perfect for an MMO, because the story has never be an obtrusive thing. It's totally there, and you can do it whenever you want. But you can literally level up and enjoy the entire game without taking on a single quest.
If that doesn't scream MMO, I don't know what does. This is exactly what people wanted - something to do besides questing. They want other things to do. Well... here is your playground - go nuts.
You're missing the point again.
Swtor had good stories? The point is that the single player was BETTER and had no subscription fee. This is why they failed as a mmorpg.
ESO has exploration? Well it was done before in mmorpg but the point is the single player game is still by miles BETTER in terms of freedom and exploration. Can you go out and explore EVERYTHING you see? no. Can you go underwater? no. Can you kill an npc and impact the world? no (that's particulary hilarious with all the instancing and phasing going on). Do the npc have schedules? no.
and the list can go on and on.
You can feel that ESO is just ok or "enough" but the fact is that "exploration and freedom" wise is not even close to the single player franchise. It doesn't play his strong points. You are playing a downgraded version of Skyrim and a subscription fee on top of it.
It doesn't scream MMO. And it doesn't scream MMO themepark in particular. ESO could have been a MMO sandbox and it could have been more in line with a TES experience and its strong points.... ZENIMAX made the wrong choice the moment they decided to go themepark.
But i guess they already know it. They know that they will sell MILLIONS of boxes.... because Hey! it's a Elder Scrolls game! and after a few months with subs going down VERY fast they will prepare for the f2p conversion. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN. They already have a cash shop in place they just have to get the timing right.
The Elder Scrolls is usually pretty middle of the pack with its storytelling. TES games have always excelled at world building. Bethesda are known for creating detailed worlds full of varied and believable races and cultures. In that regard i'd say that ESO blows most mmos out of the water. There is a reason why TESO pushes for immersion more than most modern mmos. While the devs might not be the same as the ones from the main series, they have certainly identified what the Elder Scrolls series is good at.
If the emphasize of on MMO lies on fixed stories with voice overs without any real choices (no SWTOR, those are not choices), without any consequences, they get more or less reduced to interactive movies where the ending is always the same, you just have to push some buttons inbetween to progress the story. You could as well just watch someone playing the MMO on youtube, would be the same experience.
But I don't want to start a rant now, just let me say I totally disagree with the OP just from my point of view and what I expect from an MMO.
Originally posted by Kyleran If you don't realize that its supposed to be the players who make and live the story in a MMORPG, then you've missed the entire point and potential of the genre.
The stories the players have made in EVE in the past 10 years far exceed anything ever delivered in LOTRO, shame you've missed it.
Dude your confusing game experience with actual game play.
Comments
I want to be the story, and I don't want it to be scripted. If I wanted a kick-ass story I would play a JRPG. I haven't felt that I was the story since CoX . I believe that came from NOT LOOKING LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. But I digress.
My coppers.
"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
Do Bioware games have a deep history of allowing the player to spend hours and hours and hours exploring off the beaten trail? No... not really. Bioware games have a history of pretty much rail-roading you down one fantastic story.
What do Bethesda games do? Exactly opposite. In fact, I would argue that their storytelling has never really been that great. What HAS been great is the fact that their games offer so much of it, and the fact that you don't have to do ANY of it, and still have plenty to do.
I'm not even talking about story. All I'm saying is they need to play to their strengths. If all they did was build a huge world with caves and just all kinds of crap to explore - that would be enough to satisfy. The quests and stories are just bonus.
SWTOR had good stories, man. You can't tell me it didn't. It hit some high points. If you're going to tell me it didn't, then frankly, we're done with this conversation since you're too cynical to even have a reasonable discussion in the first place. But SWTOR was way too much like the Bioware formula that simply wasn't MMO material. Bioware makes on-rails RPGs. They always have. And lo-and-behold, SWTOR came out to be the most on rails MMO I've played in recent history. There wasn't a single quest that wasn't in a pre-defined quest hub. Not one. There was zero reason to explore.
TES series is fundamentally different. I think it's core values are perfect for an MMO, because the story has never be an obtrusive thing. It's totally there, and you can do it whenever you want. But you can literally level up and enjoy the entire game without taking on a single quest.
If that doesn't scream MMO, I don't know what does. This is exactly what people wanted - something to do besides questing. They want other things to do. Well... here is your playground - go nuts.
Yes, i was being sarcastic ;-)
I was indirectly making the point that getting XP from killing mobs is an unacceptable solution to most of the new guard of "mmo gamers" (i put that in quotes because i can make a solid argument that they arent mmo players and are in fact just displaced single player gamers, but thats another post altogether) because anything that was done in the past is, in their eyes, old and useless. Most of it is just standard generational narcissism (i.e. new generations thinking they're better/smarter than older geneations), but a lot of it is brainwashing or conditioning by major game companies (see the whole F2P > Subscription argument).
Its actually completely possible to have both a questing system and a kill mob system in the same MMO. All you have to do is make it so that killing mobs you can level in roughly the same amount of time as if you do questing. Then, neither side has anything to complain about since both are equally viable paths.
Personally i think so many MMOs make questing the only viable leveling method out of sheer hubris, i.e. that their quest storylines/writing/etc is so awesome, that why would anyone NOT want to do this?
Anyways. Thought i should clarify
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I actually quite enjoyed the combat in Mass Effect 2, I thought it struck the best balance between RPG and shooter mechanics of the entire series. The first game had the problem of presenting what were essentially traditional RPG mechanics in the clothing of a shooter, and the marriage was not an extremely successful one. Supposed to already be a badass war hero, and can barely hit the side of a mountain with a blaster? Huh?
I actually can't think of a single game that has done a *great* job of every element. Lots of games that did some things great, while others were "good enough," and I think that is probably where our disagreement actually is, when it comes to mechanics my "good enough" threshold is pretty low. Though I didn't finish the first Witcher game, because I hated the mechanics with a burning passion, for me they failed the good enough test despite the great storytelling.
And I think you are holding MMOs to a bit of an unfair standard. You seem to want to compare them only to the absolute best single player games when judging their narratives. You don't have to be able to compete with the best to be good. Honestly, I would rate the narrative quality of even the worst class story in TOR over what I have seen out of any modern RPG that isn't made by BioWare, Obsidian, or whoever the hell makes the Witcher series. Not including BioShock Infinite in that evaluation for two reasons; I haven't played it, and I'm not sure it's actually an RPG rather than a shooter with a story. I would also rate the plot of TSW over even TOR, though not the characters. For memorable characters, BioWare and Obsidian are the undisputed kings. Even LotRO has a pretty good story, if you happen to be a Tolkien obsessive (which I am not) and can stand the archaic use of textboxes.
As far as ESO goes, as far as I can tell from what we've been allowed to see, it looks like a good thing that Bethesda didn't make the game, because while Zenimax may not be on the BioWare/Obsidian level, they appear to do a hell of a lot better than the drek we usually see out of Bethesda. Some of the guild questlines in the various single player Elder Scrolls games have been pretty good, but the main questlines post-Daggerfall have been pretty bleh, and Bethesda's approach to voice acting is mostly of the so bad that text would be an improvement variety.
I don't agree though that they need to stop targeting the "single player" gamer. I think that while nobody has nailed the magic formula yet, they are attempting to move in the right direction, which is to offer solo, small group, and large group content both in the leveling process, and at end game. And there is really no logical reason that the solo content shouldn't be built around a personal narrative, at least not in a themepark game.
Eh, not to nitpick, but it is easy to solve the reminder problem; just subscribe. That said, I know exactly what you mean about tolerating things. I actually enjoy the PvP, but going through the shared PvE content more than a couple times while trying to do all the class stories becomes incredibly painful. Almost everything (in terms of planetary quests and side quests) in the game is fun once, but only a small subset is fun twice, and I can't think of anything that is fun more than twice.Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
You're missing the point again.
Swtor had good stories? The point is that the single player was BETTER and had no subscription fee. This is why they failed as a mmorpg.
ESO has exploration? Well it was done before in mmorpg but the point is the single player game is still by miles BETTER in terms of freedom and exploration. Can you go out and explore EVERYTHING you see? no. Can you go underwater? no. Can you kill an npc and impact the world? no (that's particulary hilarious with all the instancing and phasing going on). Do the npc have schedules? no.
and the list can go on and on.
You can feel that ESO is just ok or "enough" but the fact is that "exploration and freedom" wise is not even close to the single player franchise. It doesn't play his strong points. You are playing a downgraded version of Skyrim and a subscription fee on top of it.
It doesn't scream MMO. And it doesn't scream MMO themepark in particular. ESO could have been a MMO sandbox and it could have been more in line with a TES experience and its strong points.... ZENIMAX made the wrong choice the moment they decided to go themepark.
But i guess they already know it. They know that they will sell MILLIONS of boxes.... because Hey! it's a Elder Scrolls game! and after a few months with subs going down VERY fast they will prepare for the f2p conversion. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN. They already have a cash shop in place they just have to get the timing right.
The Elder Scrolls is usually pretty middle of the pack with its storytelling. TES games have always excelled at world building. Bethesda are known for creating detailed worlds full of varied and believable races and cultures. In that regard i'd say that ESO blows most mmos out of the water. There is a reason why TESO pushes for immersion more than most modern mmos. While the devs might not be the same as the ones from the main series, they have certainly identified what the Elder Scrolls series is good at.
If the emphasize of on MMO lies on fixed stories with voice overs without any real choices (no SWTOR, those are not choices), without any consequences, they get more or less reduced to interactive movies where the ending is always the same, you just have to push some buttons inbetween to progress the story. You could as well just watch someone playing the MMO on youtube, would be the same experience.
But I don't want to start a rant now, just let me say I totally disagree with the OP just from my point of view and what I expect from an MMO.
Dude your confusing game experience with actual game play.
They are 2 vastly different things