Let's see SWTOR, LotRO, AoC, TSW, AoC, EQ2 and WoW all have stories. Just told in different ways WoW had some really good storylines if one was willing to follow the chains all the way through. Take the old Defias Botherhood quest chain for instance, if you followed that chain all the way through. You find out that there was more behind the actions of Van Cleef and his gang or the kidnapping of King Varian. The problems with MMOs is that once you hit max lvl the stories end and the carrot on the stick grind begans. In Wow at max lvl their major lore and stories are hidden behind raids eg: the fall of Illidan or the fall of the Lich King, but after you beat those raids. There is nothing left but to grind gear and wait for the next instances, raids, and dailies. So in effect all MMOs start out with some sort of story, there has to be a background story as to why the world exist and why the events in said world are taking place. Some MMOs do this better than others, but all of them seems to drop the ball on story after max lvl.
Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.
I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but who the hell cares about story in an MMO? I do
And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.
I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)
Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.
I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but who the hell cares about story in an MMO? I do
And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.
I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)
With RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout, Dark Souls & Skyrim, why even bother with MMOs?
I mean they have better story, content, quests, combat...
Themeparks are just dumbed down single player rpgs.
Story is ok, but i would rather have player made content extending the lyfe of a MMO for YEARS over a horrible 3 week long MMO story.
With RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout, Dark Souls & Skyrim, why even bother with MMOs?
I mean they have better story, content, quests, combat...
Been there done that
2 things, the smaller is that mmorpg's can be played together with friends, the bigger is, well, I'm a fan of those lores.
There are no single player rpg's in Middle-earth (only lame console action craps), Hyboria, Alpha Quadrant... and for TSW, c'mon it's Ragnar's new game and in case of TOR, I just needed some new story after the KotOR's.
This is something I've continued to notice as I've played through both MMOs and PC games. MMOs always have seemed to lack something to me, some sort of spark, and I've finally figured it out. The storylines in MMOs usually, well to put it bluntly, suck. After playing through RPG titles for the PC and throughly enjoying their storylines and to go into the world of MMOs and realize that the story that most MMOs tell is terrible it's hard to get myself excited to continue playing (I do it though).
I don't understand why gameplay has to sacrifice a great story. I want to be surprised, not be one of those people who know everything that's going to happen in advance. Hopefully as MMOs continue to evolve (or devolve, whatever your perspective is) the story will be given more thought in each game.
I feel the opposite, I love singleplayer RPG's, love the story's in them.
When I enter a MMORPG I expect it to give me feature's in a gameworld to create my own story, my own virtual life. Everything NPC's might be able to do in SRPG's should be things (optional) that players should be able to do. My story in a MMORPG should be my own, my own experiance's due to the freedom I do expect from a MMORPG.
If a well know singleplayer RPG is made into a MMORPG I simply don't understand why that MMORPG wouldn't become a sandbox MMO, because we already had the guided but still enoyable game experiance in it's singleplayer game, shouldn't we have more freedom in a MMORPG? Sure let there be story but that story should really impact the ingame world in some way's.
And that's why I feel it's hard to put story rightfully into a MMORPG and believe due to how story impacts in singleplayer games people expect it to have the same type of impact in a MMORPG.
Being an old timer, I think the problem is the players. Every game that I have played recently, has a story and a reason to get you to the end. I think folks are in such a hurry to level cap, they just load up the quests without even reading them and blazing to complete them.
After playing SWTOR I dod not think I can ever play game where I have to read quests... I am completely spoiled by VO.
But yep, to enjoy a story you got to know why you kill these 10 mobs... SWTOR is one of few MMOs that it actually gives you a reason to do it.
Edit: Under condition that you don't spacebar through mission LOL
I understand up to a point. The problem is with addons, dungeon finders, arrows that point us to a quest objective, rest experience and much more, it's coming to the point we don't even need to be there to play. Immersion is the partially the players responsibility and it is being thrown out the window. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I think you can have story in MMOs. You have to really to have a background to the world you are in and storielines to evolve it.
The part I disagree with is how they're being implemented in the games. Storylines are great when they're built into the world and into the lore for you to discover. Not when they're tied into the quests and delt to you piece by piece. This made it great in games like EQ where there were bits and pieces of the history of Norrath spread all over the place. Hail a few people in town and they may give you some conversation. Fnd out about the world in the quests they actually did offer that were well known. I remember my first Veeshan's Peak clear and going up to the top of the peak, stopping in the room with the stairs and the paintings on the wall that showed how the world was created by Veeshan. Little bits and pieces like that to make you wonder, think and ask around, research and really dig into the (hopefully) deep lore that the world has. Things like that offer way more than the wall of text or cinematic quest can offer, bar none.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others... Currently Playing: GW2
Really? I have yet to see an even semi decent storyline in a sandbox game. As for creating it yourself, there is a reason why pretty much all of it is fanfic and you guys return to your day jobs.
Asherons Call had one of the deepest stories in MMORPG history, it was a sandbox, and you had to FIND the story, it didnt get in the way of gameplay because the story, was in books thrown throughout the world both in and out of areas where a quest would take you. I remember going up to the second floor of a building that had a NORMAL shop on the first floor and finding a book on a table...the book had some 40 PAGES of story that did NOT lead to a quest, just some history of the world in it. In fact, many books in the game talking about places just leads to a dungeon or landmark, no questing involved...
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.
I had a lot of interesting stuff that happened to me in games like EVE and UO, and on their own they make for some fun short anecdotes. Still, none of that gives one the long-running, novel-ish taste of, say, the Imperial Agent storyline from SWTOR.
First time I stepped into UO, and then into a succession of MMOs for years, I said, "Uh, why no decent story?". Good, rich, consistent, big arcs of storylines never hurt, and honestly, I agree with the OP: Great storytelling is really really rare in MMOs.
On a related note, I think Blizzard did OK with storytelling in WOW for its time. We're past that now, but sadly, neither Bioware nor Funcom has managed to blend good storytelling into a solid game with a lot of liberty of gameplay.
The first game with plenty of well-implemented sandbox features and impressive developer-created story is going to make it big, in my opinion.
I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.
I had a lot of interesting stuff that happened to me in games like EVE and UO, and on their own they make for some fun short anecdotes. Still, none of that gives one the long-running, novel-ish taste of, say, the Imperial Agent storyline from SWTOR.
First time I stepped into UO, and then into a succession of MMOs for years, I said, "Uh, why no decent story?". Good, rich, consistent, big arcs of storylines never hurt, and honestly, I agree with the OP: Great storytelling is really really rare in MMOs.
On a related note, I think Blizzard did OK with storytelling in WOW for its time. We're past that now, but sadly, neither Bioware nor Funcom has managed to blend good storytelling into a solid game with a lot of liberty of gameplay.
The first game with plenty of well-implemented sandbox features and impressive developer-created story is going to make it big, in my opinion.
Agree 100% with you and the op, Tsw and Tor are really the only mmo's out of the thousands that have existed that have genuine story lines. Lotros excellent lore and good story are ruined by the "kill 10 boar" quests that constantly come up. The only sand box that had any kind of a story for me was Eve and that is because I pretended I was a pirate looking to loot and plunder, unfortunately no one but me knew I was playing a pirate so the story was an individual one LOL. I remember Shadow bane, to me the best part of the game was the PvP experience where groups of people would go out and attack other groups. the worst part of the game was when the group built a city, houses and such-that was a grind to me and not much fun-but other people like that sort of thing-so to each his own I guess.
I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.
First of all, the "story you create playing these games," was designed to be a game precisely because it seemed like a superior way to experience fantasy immersion than by reading a book. If Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had thought that reading (or writing) a book was a superior method, they probably wouldn't have bothered.
But beyond that, anything that can happen in a movie or a book can also happen in a sandbox. It's when the developers try to control the story that things start becoming dull, predictable, and lacking in character dynamics and background. Stories from the sandbox games I've played abound, and when players are taking the time to tell them to each other - you know they pass a certain threshold of interest-level.
As someone else pointed out about Asheron's Call, there would be nothing stopping a developer from placing full-blown stories inside the books of a sandbox game. They in no way need to make the gameplay characters part of the stories that appear in those books, either. I think forcing character actions through a predeveloped storyline is generally frowned upon and winds up feeling linear and unimaginatve.
I would agree, however, that most sandboxes fail precisely because the story that is possible within them gets steamrolled by combat zergs and meta-game motives.
In designing story-driven missions, the client is very scripted (by nature) but the player might be totally unpredictable. It is up to the designer to decide how much leeway to give the player in interacting with the story content. I try to focus on characters within the context of the game world; I think up everything I can about the characters I am designing ahead of time, asking what their personalities, motivations, and ties to the game world are. Then I place myself in the character's shoes that I am trying to write, given his or her current predicament and objectives. I do my best to build a sense of context and urgency, while remaining true to the source (lore and context).
Then I ask myself how many different corners the player might turn, and how far I am willing to tango with them. I try to allow more than one way to complete a mission wherever it is feasible. I sometimes go off on long tangents that lead to interesting mission structures. I also try to allow the player to interact with the story context frequently and in different ways.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
1) Single Player games and MMOs used to differ because of the story. In a SP game, *you* are the only hero. There are not millions of other saviors of the universe. Therefor, the story can be so much more in depth with lots of variance and twists and turns. MMOs constantly have to factor in that millions of players will be playing.
2) Choices. In MMOs, if you say "No." to a quest giver, that ends the play right there, with few exceptions. Most quests chain together off of each other. Gone are the days where players had a choice in what they agreed to do with NPCs. Not every player wants to save the world. Some want to rule the world. Storylines hardly ever incorporate these choices.
3) When MMOs release, they have a complete storyline for saving the universe. This does not work well with a persistent online world. Once a player saves the universe, what else is there? A bigger, badder, more terrible threat in a future expansion? That is a slippery slope to take a step down. AND... The game NEVER changes because the player saved the universe. Single Player games have the freedom to deal with this aspect. MMOs do not. Single Player games do not have to deal with millions of players in a persistent world like MMOs do. They are made to be played through to the end. MMOs should not have ends to them. Storylines give games an end point.
- 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
World of Warcraft might have terrible quests, but dig into the lore some, and enjoy its depth, because it is DEEP.
Screw it why not lets throw LOTRO in there as well! Every bit of that game had pretty decent localized story.
IMO those 4 have too much story and at times interferes with the gameplay......TBH I dont need much story...Just tell me who my character doesn't like and i'll do the rest.
1) Single Player games and MMOs used to differ because of the story. In a SP game, *you* are the only hero. There are not millions of other saviors of the universe. Therefor, the story can be so much more in depth with lots of variance and twists and turns. MMOs constantly have to factor in that millions of players will be playing.
2) Choices. In MMOs, if you say "No." to a quest giver, that ends the play right there, with few exceptions. Most quests chain together off of each other. Gone are the days where players had a choice in what they agreed to do with NPCs. Not every player wants to save the world. Some want to rule the world. Storylines hardly ever incorporate these choices.
3) When MMOs release, they have a complete storyline for saving the universe. This does not work well with a persistent online world. Once a player saves the universe, what else is there? A bigger, badder, more terrible threat in a future expansion? That is a slippery slope to take a step down. AND... The game NEVER changes because the player saved the universe. Single Player games have the freedom to deal with this aspect. MMOs do not. Single Player games do not have to deal with millions of players in a persistent world like MMOs do. They are made to be played through to the end. MMOs should not have ends to them. Storylines give games an end point.
I just wanted to respond to AlBQuirky's points
1) I disagree that a single-player RPG will necessarily have more depth to its story content than an MMORPG, provided the designers take into account the context. Some players may find it more rewarding to build a successful in-game business as a humble shop-keeper or traveling trader, than as a hero who slays the far-out mysterious menace, or as a military leader. Why can't there be story content for each?
2) I try to follow the rule of "every action has a consequence"; a player saying "No" to an NPC may indeed shut off one branch of opportunities, but it may open up another. A refusal can stand out to an onlooker even more than an acceptance. Perhaps that onlooker has something that needs to be done that is against the interest of the NPC who was refused. This tends to lead to "shorter" trees, however I would rather have a mission structure that is sensitive to player choice and leaves the player wanting to experience more, than a drawn-out and well-treaded path that leads in a straight line.
3) The danger of developing a static universe, or story inertia; this is huge, and I don't have a good answer for it, other than never to send the player out to intentionally "save all life as we know it" unless s/he is in the employ of a deluded or unreliable character. I have missions in production that were written over four years ago, and are still being played. I guess the silver lining is that if I haven't written myself into a box I can expand on ideas that have already been introduced and refer back to old characters who were my favorites when I go back to design new content. Focusing on the character's place in the world, not the player with whom s/he is interacting, is crucial to me.
With these precautions, writing a story-driven mission tree becomes kind of self-perpetuating; it doesn't necessarily follow standard storytelling norms, but it can definitely draw on storytelling tradition. There is a kind of telling, then a re-telling, then going back and deciding what the re-telling means.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
With these precautions, writing a story-driven mission tree becomes kind of self-perpetuating; it doesn't necessarily follow standard storytelling norms, but it can definitely draw on storytelling tradition. There is a kind of telling, then a re-telling, then going back and deciding what the re-telling means.
1. Some people like being the 'hero' and some like being the 'everyday man'. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of people prefer being the hero. How you can balance that need with the MMO setting hasn't been done yet. Some just ignores the 'MMO setting' (SWTOR), others ignores that need (EVE).
2. Having a wider and shorter mission structure might appeal to some but again, this means the story isn't 'long' which can be difficult when it comes to story telling. You have less space to do 'stuff' with. You are also introducing a large number of variables that you can't account for sometimes later on.
Look at WoW and how their Lore is constantly being checked, re-checked and still has ret-cons. And that only has 'yes' as an option. I'd say re-using a character is going to be painful; did the player say 'Y' at point A? Point B? Point C? etc
3. 'Upping the ante' is always something to look out for. Look at Dragon ball Z for what happens if a comic decides to run 50 books more cause it is selling too well. XD
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.
I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but who the hell cares about story in an MMO? I do
And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.
I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)
Of course you do.
But you see, you have to understand one thing. The thing YOU like is everywhere. Most MMOs now are "Quest Driven" with a story attached. Even FPS, Puzzle Games (Portal 2, which has an amazing story) have story-lines and linear progress attached to them. You do enjoy them, I believe you. But I, in the other hand, I am SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING THIS CRAPPY STORY TELLING SHOVED UP MY THROAT EVERY TIME I TRY TO ENJOY SOMETHING THAT IS FAR FROM READING A STORY.
I long for freedom, I long for developers setting us free in a triple A MMORPGs. The best stories to be told, in my 30 years of gaming experience, are the stories that you make during a game's experience (being in a nasty situation with your friends in a dungeon, getting lost, finding a place, dying, escaping certain death...etc) and not a sub-par, so-so, linear story writen by amatures. I'd rather read a book or watch a movie.
Can't I just get an MMORPG without a story (but with a deep lore). The reason why I couldn't login to SWTOR, RIFT and other games is because I really... really... really.. really.. really.. really.. CANNOT survive the boredom of being forced to having to listen or read BORING story-lines. If they've removed all this crap and set me free to do whatever I want to do. Choosing my own destiny (dungeon, crafting, meeting friends to tackle a group challenge..etc) I would have logged in more. But everytime I want to play the game I go "Aaaaaah... I can't do this, it's so boring...".
But trust me, I do believe that you do enjoy them.
But you see, you have to understand one thing. The thing YOU like is everywhere. Most MMOs now are "Quest Driven" with a story attached. Even FPS, Puzzle Games (Portal 2, which has an amazing story) have story-lines and linear progress attached to them. You do enjoy them, I believe you. But I, in the other hand, I am SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING THIS CRAPPY STORY TELLING SHOVED UP MY THROAT EVERY TIME I TRY TO ENJOY SOMETHING THAT IS FAR FROM READING A STORY.
I long for freedom, I long for developers setting us free in a triple A MMORPGs. The best stories to be told, in my 30 years of gaming experience, are the stories that you make during a game's experience (being in a nasty situation with your friends in a dungeon, getting lost, finding a place, dying, escaping certain death...etc) and not a sub-par, so-so, linear story writen by amatures. I'd rather read a book or watch a movie.
/snip
What is stopping you from enjoying non-story based MMOs?
Wurm online?
EVE-online?
If what you like is a niche product you aren't going to get the variety that the majority enjoys.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
If I'm playing in a virtual world, I want to make my own story. If I want it to be spoon-fed to me, I'll go play single player RPG. Therefore, I don't consoder the lack of a stellar story component to be negative at all.
Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.
I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but who the hell cares about story in an MMO? I do
And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.
I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)
Of course you do.
But you see, you have to understand one thing. The thing YOU like is everywhere. Most MMOs now are "Quest Driven" with a story attached. Even FPS, Puzzle Games (Portal 2, which has an amazing story) have story-lines and linear progress attached to them. You do enjoy them, I believe you. But I, in the other hand, I am SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING THIS CRAPPY STORY TELLING SHOVED UP MY THROAT EVERY TIME I TRY TO ENJOY SOMETHING THAT IS FAR FROM READING A STORY.
I never said that everyone should play stories, on the contrary I said I know I'm in the smaller group... and the whole thread is about how storyline is fading out from games, so eventually you'll have more and more games to choose from without a crappy story
And if I already commenting, I agree with Nikopol
Originally posted by Raithe-Nor
Originally posted by Nikopol
I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.
First of all, the "story you create playing these games," was designed to be a game precisely because it seemed like a superior way to experience fantasy immersion than by reading a book. If Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had thought that reading (or writing) a book was a superior method, they probably wouldn't have bothered.
In sandboxes those memorable events you experience doesn't add up to a well-written story with background, etc., those are just separate memorable snippets which are good to recite in a conversation for example.
And for GG and D&D, the whole pen-and-paper rpg genre is about storytelling ok, maybe not for the "rollplayers" - in my language we had a much more insulting word for them, but I can't translate that properly
Even if you have total freedom, there's the GM who controls the world and keeps every thread in his hands. I wrote somewhere earlier that I had the luck to play with 2 very good GMs (and a few weaker ones too...) during my player years, one of them even wrote later. But such freedom cannot be put into code, especially not if you have to follow hundreds of players. Maybe a few years from now we'll see the perfect virtual world with complete freedom in every aspect, controlled by a well-programmed GM AI... I'd love that.
Comments
Let's see SWTOR, LotRO, AoC, TSW, AoC, EQ2 and WoW all have stories. Just told in different ways WoW had some really good storylines if one was willing to follow the chains all the way through. Take the old Defias Botherhood quest chain for instance, if you followed that chain all the way through. You find out that there was more behind the actions of Van Cleef and his gang or the kidnapping of King Varian. The problems with MMOs is that once you hit max lvl the stories end and the carrot on the stick grind begans. In Wow at max lvl their major lore and stories are hidden behind raids eg: the fall of Illidan or the fall of the Lich King, but after you beat those raids. There is nothing left but to grind gear and wait for the next instances, raids, and dailies. So in effect all MMOs start out with some sort of story, there has to be a background story as to why the world exist and why the events in said world are taking place. Some MMOs do this better than others, but all of them seems to drop the ball on story after max lvl.
I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but who the hell cares about story in an MMO? I do
And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.
I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg
rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)
With RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout, Dark Souls & Skyrim, why even bother with MMOs?
I mean they have better story, content, quests, combat...
Themeparks are just dumbed down single player rpgs.
Story is ok, but i would rather have player made content extending the lyfe of a MMO for YEARS over a horrible 3 week long MMO story.
Been there done that
2 things, the smaller is that mmorpg's can be played together with friends, the bigger is, well, I'm a fan of those lores.
There are no single player rpg's in Middle-earth (only lame console action craps), Hyboria, Alpha Quadrant... and for TSW, c'mon it's Ragnar's new game
and in case of TOR, I just needed some new story after the KotOR's.
Below is where we can disscuss and come up with new ideas for Sandparks!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5164689#5164689
I feel the opposite, I love singleplayer RPG's, love the story's in them.
When I enter a MMORPG I expect it to give me feature's in a gameworld to create my own story, my own virtual life. Everything NPC's might be able to do in SRPG's should be things (optional) that players should be able to do. My story in a MMORPG should be my own, my own experiance's due to the freedom I do expect from a MMORPG.
If a well know singleplayer RPG is made into a MMORPG I simply don't understand why that MMORPG wouldn't become a sandbox MMO, because we already had the guided but still enoyable game experiance in it's singleplayer game, shouldn't we have more freedom in a MMORPG? Sure let there be story but that story should really impact the ingame world in some way's.
And that's why I feel it's hard to put story rightfully into a MMORPG and believe due to how story impacts in singleplayer games people expect it to have the same type of impact in a MMORPG.
I understand up to a point. The problem is with addons, dungeon finders, arrows that point us to a quest objective, rest experience and much more, it's coming to the point we don't even need to be there to play. Immersion is the partially the players responsibility and it is being thrown out the window. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I think you can have story in MMOs. You have to really to have a background to the world you are in and storielines to evolve it.
The part I disagree with is how they're being implemented in the games. Storylines are great when they're built into the world and into the lore for you to discover. Not when they're tied into the quests and delt to you piece by piece. This made it great in games like EQ where there were bits and pieces of the history of Norrath spread all over the place. Hail a few people in town and they may give you some conversation. Fnd out about the world in the quests they actually did offer that were well known. I remember my first Veeshan's Peak clear and going up to the top of the peak, stopping in the room with the stairs and the paintings on the wall that showed how the world was created by Veeshan. Little bits and pieces like that to make you wonder, think and ask around, research and really dig into the (hopefully) deep lore that the world has. Things like that offer way more than the wall of text or cinematic quest can offer, bar none.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
Asherons Call had one of the deepest stories in MMORPG history, it was a sandbox, and you had to FIND the story, it didnt get in the way of gameplay because the story, was in books thrown throughout the world both in and out of areas where a quest would take you. I remember going up to the second floor of a building that had a NORMAL shop on the first floor and finding a book on a table...the book had some 40 PAGES of story that did NOT lead to a quest, just some history of the world in it. In fact, many books in the game talking about places just leads to a dungeon or landmark, no questing involved...
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.
I had a lot of interesting stuff that happened to me in games like EVE and UO, and on their own they make for some fun short anecdotes. Still, none of that gives one the long-running, novel-ish taste of, say, the Imperial Agent storyline from SWTOR.
First time I stepped into UO, and then into a succession of MMOs for years, I said, "Uh, why no decent story?". Good, rich, consistent, big arcs of storylines never hurt, and honestly, I agree with the OP: Great storytelling is really really rare in MMOs.
On a related note, I think Blizzard did OK with storytelling in WOW for its time. We're past that now, but sadly, neither Bioware nor Funcom has managed to blend good storytelling into a solid game with a lot of liberty of gameplay.
The first game with plenty of well-implemented sandbox features and impressive developer-created story is going to make it big, in my opinion.
I'd say SWTOR has awesome stories that rivals stories in solo-RPGs.
However, SWTOR is still a Star Wars story so you have to like SW stories to like SWTOR.
Other than that, can't think of one that is 'good'.
The difference between sandbox / themepark story is writing / reading a story.
I suck at writing so I prefer to read and last I checked, so do the vast majority of people.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Agree 100% with you and the op, Tsw and Tor are really the only mmo's out of the thousands that have existed that have genuine story lines. Lotros excellent lore and good story are ruined by the "kill 10 boar" quests that constantly come up. The only sand box that had any kind of a story for me was Eve and that is because I pretended I was a pirate looking to loot and plunder, unfortunately no one but me knew I was playing a pirate so the story was an individual one LOL. I remember Shadow bane, to me the best part of the game was the PvP experience where groups of people would go out and attack other groups. the worst part of the game was when the group built a city, houses and such-that was a grind to me and not much fun-but other people like that sort of thing-so to each his own I guess.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
First of all, the "story you create playing these games," was designed to be a game precisely because it seemed like a superior way to experience fantasy immersion than by reading a book. If Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had thought that reading (or writing) a book was a superior method, they probably wouldn't have bothered.
But beyond that, anything that can happen in a movie or a book can also happen in a sandbox. It's when the developers try to control the story that things start becoming dull, predictable, and lacking in character dynamics and background. Stories from the sandbox games I've played abound, and when players are taking the time to tell them to each other - you know they pass a certain threshold of interest-level.
As someone else pointed out about Asheron's Call, there would be nothing stopping a developer from placing full-blown stories inside the books of a sandbox game. They in no way need to make the gameplay characters part of the stories that appear in those books, either. I think forcing character actions through a predeveloped storyline is generally frowned upon and winds up feeling linear and unimaginatve.
I would agree, however, that most sandboxes fail precisely because the story that is possible within them gets steamrolled by combat zergs and meta-game motives.
In designing story-driven missions, the client is very scripted (by nature) but the player might be totally unpredictable. It is up to the designer to decide how much leeway to give the player in interacting with the story content. I try to focus on characters within the context of the game world; I think up everything I can about the characters I am designing ahead of time, asking what their personalities, motivations, and ties to the game world are. Then I place myself in the character's shoes that I am trying to write, given his or her current predicament and objectives. I do my best to build a sense of context and urgency, while remaining true to the source (lore and context).
Then I ask myself how many different corners the player might turn, and how far I am willing to tango with them. I try to allow more than one way to complete a mission wherever it is feasible. I sometimes go off on long tangents that lead to interesting mission structures. I also try to allow the player to interact with the story context frequently and in different ways.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Three thoughts popped into my head for this.
1) Single Player games and MMOs used to differ because of the story. In a SP game, *you* are the only hero. There are not millions of other saviors of the universe. Therefor, the story can be so much more in depth with lots of variance and twists and turns. MMOs constantly have to factor in that millions of players will be playing.
2) Choices. In MMOs, if you say "No." to a quest giver, that ends the play right there, with few exceptions. Most quests chain together off of each other. Gone are the days where players had a choice in what they agreed to do with NPCs. Not every player wants to save the world. Some want to rule the world. Storylines hardly ever incorporate these choices.
3) When MMOs release, they have a complete storyline for saving the universe. This does not work well with a persistent online world. Once a player saves the universe, what else is there? A bigger, badder, more terrible threat in a future expansion? That is a slippery slope to take a step down. AND... The game NEVER changes because the player saved the universe. Single Player games have the freedom to deal with this aspect. MMOs do not. Single Player games do not have to deal with millions of players in a persistent world like MMOs do. They are made to be played through to the end. MMOs should not have ends to them. Storylines give games an end point.
- 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
IMO those 4 have too much story and at times interferes with the gameplay......TBH I dont need much story...Just tell me who my character doesn't like and i'll do the rest.
I just wanted to respond to AlBQuirky's points
1) I disagree that a single-player RPG will necessarily have more depth to its story content than an MMORPG, provided the designers take into account the context. Some players may find it more rewarding to build a successful in-game business as a humble shop-keeper or traveling trader, than as a hero who slays the far-out mysterious menace, or as a military leader. Why can't there be story content for each?
2) I try to follow the rule of "every action has a consequence"; a player saying "No" to an NPC may indeed shut off one branch of opportunities, but it may open up another. A refusal can stand out to an onlooker even more than an acceptance. Perhaps that onlooker has something that needs to be done that is against the interest of the NPC who was refused. This tends to lead to "shorter" trees, however I would rather have a mission structure that is sensitive to player choice and leaves the player wanting to experience more, than a drawn-out and well-treaded path that leads in a straight line.
3) The danger of developing a static universe, or story inertia; this is huge, and I don't have a good answer for it, other than never to send the player out to intentionally "save all life as we know it" unless s/he is in the employ of a deluded or unreliable character. I have missions in production that were written over four years ago, and are still being played. I guess the silver lining is that if I haven't written myself into a box I can expand on ideas that have already been introduced and refer back to old characters who were my favorites when I go back to design new content. Focusing on the character's place in the world, not the player with whom s/he is interacting, is crucial to me.
With these precautions, writing a story-driven mission tree becomes kind of self-perpetuating; it doesn't necessarily follow standard storytelling norms, but it can definitely draw on storytelling tradition. There is a kind of telling, then a re-telling, then going back and deciding what the re-telling means.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
1. Some people like being the 'hero' and some like being the 'everyday man'. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of people prefer being the hero. How you can balance that need with the MMO setting hasn't been done yet. Some just ignores the 'MMO setting' (SWTOR), others ignores that need (EVE).
2. Having a wider and shorter mission structure might appeal to some but again, this means the story isn't 'long' which can be difficult when it comes to story telling. You have less space to do 'stuff' with. You are also introducing a large number of variables that you can't account for sometimes later on.
Look at WoW and how their Lore is constantly being checked, re-checked and still has ret-cons. And that only has 'yes' as an option. I'd say re-using a character is going to be painful; did the player say 'Y' at point A? Point B? Point C? etc
3. 'Upping the ante' is always something to look out for. Look at Dragon ball Z for what happens if a comic decides to run 50 books more cause it is selling too well. XD
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I have strong opinions about the cost-benefit of story, but the world is large enough to have more than one type of game.
Of course you do.
But you see, you have to understand one thing. The thing YOU like is everywhere. Most MMOs now are "Quest Driven" with a story attached. Even FPS, Puzzle Games (Portal 2, which has an amazing story) have story-lines and linear progress attached to them. You do enjoy them, I believe you. But I, in the other hand, I am SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING THIS CRAPPY STORY TELLING SHOVED UP MY THROAT EVERY TIME I TRY TO ENJOY SOMETHING THAT IS FAR FROM READING A STORY.
I long for freedom, I long for developers setting us free in a triple A MMORPGs. The best stories to be told, in my 30 years of gaming experience, are the stories that you make during a game's experience (being in a nasty situation with your friends in a dungeon, getting lost, finding a place, dying, escaping certain death...etc) and not a sub-par, so-so, linear story writen by amatures. I'd rather read a book or watch a movie.
Can't I just get an MMORPG without a story (but with a deep lore). The reason why I couldn't login to SWTOR, RIFT and other games is because I really... really... really.. really.. really.. really.. CANNOT survive the boredom of being forced to having to listen or read BORING story-lines. If they've removed all this crap and set me free to do whatever I want to do. Choosing my own destiny (dungeon, crafting, meeting friends to tackle a group challenge..etc) I would have logged in more. But everytime I want to play the game I go "Aaaaaah... I can't do this, it's so boring...".
But trust me, I do believe that you do enjoy them.
What is stopping you from enjoying non-story based MMOs?
Wurm online?
EVE-online?
If what you like is a niche product you aren't going to get the variety that the majority enjoys.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I never said that everyone should play stories, on the contrary I said I know I'm in the smaller group... and the whole thread is about how storyline is fading out from games, so eventually you'll have more and more games to choose from without a crappy story
And if I already commenting, I agree with Nikopol
In sandboxes those memorable events you experience doesn't add up to a well-written story with background, etc., those are just separate memorable snippets which are good to recite in a conversation for example.
And for GG and D&D, the whole pen-and-paper rpg genre is about storytelling
ok, maybe not for the "rollplayers" - in my language we had a much more insulting word for them, but I can't translate that properly 
Even if you have total freedom, there's the GM who controls the world and keeps every thread in his hands. I wrote somewhere earlier that I had the luck to play with 2 very good GMs (and a few weaker ones too...) during my player years, one of them even wrote later. But such freedom cannot be put into code, especially not if you have to follow hundreds of players. Maybe a few years from now we'll see the perfect virtual world with complete freedom in every aspect, controlled by a well-programmed GM AI... I'd love that.