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Story: World or Personal?
robert4818
Member UncommonPosts: 661
So, here's the general question.
What would you like a game's story to focus on more? The world, or your personal Character?
I know that these two can blend together from time to time, but for now, lets treat them separately.
World stories focus on what happens in the world much more than they focus on you personally. While some cutscenes and quests are focusing on what you might do to help the world. The primary focus is on the world itself. You, as a player, are reacting to the world, and whats going on inside of it. (Big things, wars breaking out, monster's emerging, etc.) (Think MMO expansions, GW2, FF11 for a blend)
Personal stories focus much more on your character. You are not only the hero, but you are the driving force. You are the chosen one, the destined one, etc. Everything revolves around you, and your personal story. (Think SWTOR)
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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neither.
what I like is a gaming platform that allows for players to indirectly create their own stories. (I say this abstractly).
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I only care about backstory. I don't like that the story takes my hand and leads me.
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Both? The world should be interesting, but so should I.
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Neither. I just want tools.
The ability to construct player towns with houses, shops, banners, guild/town specific colors and emblems, hierarchy, write books, create own religious system, create farms, decorate all the previous, very detailed crafting, sieges with the ability to make and move siege equipment. Complete open skill system with skill decay or a cap on skills you can perfect. All I need is a little lore behind the races that are available.
Both. How the individual relates to the whole. As above so below.
World.
I think when a game's story is built around the setting rather than the character, it better accommodate's the notion that one is playing the game with other human-controlled characters. You might be special among your peers, but you are still one of many. IMO as the story becomes more personal, grouping becomes something that feels tacked on for the sake of meeting the expectations of an MMO. At the extreme end you have the "single-player online RPG" phenomenon, something which has plenty of its own fans but which deviates greatly from what "massively multiplayer" once meant.
After playing TOR I now know I don't care for a personal story that centers around a certain faction and class. I'm not a alt-aholic so that prevents me from experiencing many stories, which was the main selling point. The other problem with MMO personal stories is that they are all too similar to other player's stories, or exactly the same. If they weren't so linear they could differ from others. (kinda like TSW)
I'm probably something like 25% Personal 75% World story...atleast thats how I play TES games.
The thing about personal story versus world story is that you can't really have a world without some sort of world story, unless the game is 100% sandbox and the story is simply there are players in a sandbox. You can have a game with no directed, personal story because you can present the world's story as your character's personal story. Players just conveniently ignore that other players are following the same story.
I couldn't pick one over the other. I think both are going to become necessary for future games. A personal, branching story and an inline world story. I think for an MMORPG, the world story you're following needs to have a specific path, because it affects everyone else and will be repeated by many players. The personal story line should have branches, different paths and the possibility of failure (which leads to a different story).
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I want to be one little cog in the virtual world machine, where my actions have a butterfly effect on the people around me. Just like in the real world.
Story and games don't tie well together imo anyway, but MMORPGs seem particularly ill-suited for them, especially when they are shoehorned on as badly as SWTORs stories were.
If you write a story, I'm going to ignore it.
Give me lore. Give me simulations. Give me news and history. I'll bring the story.
+1 on this!
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I disagree. If I "write" a world story, You are going to sit up and take notice. Why? Because a big part of the game will be reacting to what is going on in the game world.
So, yeah, your country's capital city. World story just invaded it. Its now a dungeon (for the time being) while you and your friends are now refugees in "new Capital".
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Neither of the two offered choices.
I prefer an organic world where stories are created by the actions and decisions of the players, and are not scripted by the Devs for players to follow...personal or world focussed.
Th exception being, World Wide Events that the Devs may initiate from time to time in the worlds, and the players still decide to participate and make that event part of their own story or not through their decisions and actions during these events.
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I pledge no alliegence to a city. I wander the wilds and drag none by the leash of friendship behind me.
Your *news* is of interest to me, but your *story* is not my road.
All you need is your word processor to make your own story.
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Single Player RPG = Personal
MMORPG = World
However, I think that the story should be a little bit about both. The only personal story I care about in the mmo realm is the lore of my race and class. World lore and the main plot in the world is more interesting to me.
Given the two choices I’m going to say World is more important. I like the idea of an entire fleshed out living world that I am dropped into, and my character is a clean slate. It is then on me to create a story for my character in that world. In a linear quest driven MMORPG you end up with thousands of heroes with identical stories, and if everyone is a Hero…no one is a Hero.
And of course when "New Capital" starts causing problems with a neighboring country, and the two go to war. Then you'll end up taking more notice. Otherwise you wander through a warzone, anyone inside of it is free PVP bait.
Point is, you HAVE to react to the story in some way shape or form. HOW you react is up to you. In the case of war, you might simply avoid the area, you might be more cautious through it, lest you get attacked, you might even jump into it just to kill people.
World story's by their very nature, cause you to react, even if its to shrug your shoulder and avoid it as much as possible.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
This.
Need third poll option.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
What about a world story PREVENTS players from indirectly creating their own stories?
Imagine an MMO that's set on earth from 1939 to 1945. World War 2 would have been the "World Story". I wouldn't JUST be the background and lore, because the events of the war would still take place. France would be conqured early, with the invasion of Normandy in 1944. Hence, World Story.
My question to you is: What did YOU do? What is YOUR Story?
Were you french undergound? A British Spy? American Pilot? Refugee? What did you do, where were you at when the Allies invaded Normandy? What about the bombing(s) of london? Were you rescuing survivors, were you in the air trying to shoot down the incoming planes? Where you leading people to safety?
The world story doesn't PREVENT you from making your own story. Your story is created BY YOU in how you react to the events going on in the world.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I think our difference opinion here is merely one of terminology. I see "story" as a comic where the pages flip one after the other, from a beginning scene to an end scene with maybe a few choices along the way about what order I read things in. What you are describing now is closer to what I'm refering to as "simulation". Stuff happens. The world state changes. That affects what I encounter as I go about my fishing.
If you never write dialogue for my character, if you never put gates in front of me that block all character development until I agree to do quest X, then there's no contradiction between our ideas.
Personal story just doesn't fit in an MMO setting. If you play as the hero (which every MMO story inevitably shoves down your throat it) it is too hard to feel immersed when you just ran into 20 heroes with the same hero title as you.
World story arcs will always be the way to go. Let people IMPACT the world story. Have events, have dynamic systems, have faction leaders and guild initiatives and world PvP objectives and blah blah blah. Letting me impact the game world will give me more satisfaction in an MMO than any personal story ever could.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Then I think we might be in pretty much agreement.
World Story is one where events happen, but those events happen to the World, and players have to react to them. Like I said, there is some blending between the two, and its quite possible to have both World and Personal stories at the same time.
For example FF11, is probably the biggest Blurr between the two. Events happen to the WORLD, and its up to YOU through the focus of the story quest lines, to actually solve the problem (with the hellp of other adventurers).
However, if you look at early MMOS, EQ1, Anarchy Online, etc., its a purely World Driven Story game. Events happen, your character can choose to go explore them, or not. But many of those changes will affect him, regardless of whether he wants them too or not, even if it doesn't force him to do a story. Cataclysm was like that in a way. The world changed. Like it or not. You had to adapt to it. The quest lines made it much more personal, but the event itself was world story.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Back in the EQ days, we called that sort of "story" Lore. Things that happened in the world, became part of the lore and history of the world.
I suppose you could call it world story, but to me, story implies linear storytelling with a beginning, middle, end, plot, character development, themes, setting, etc. Basically the entire MMORPG as a whole was the story. But the "world story" was just the events/history of the world, which is pretty easy to ignore and not care about, because it wasn't shoved down our throats.