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mmorpg storylines make soloers of us all
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
When we talk about solo versus group play, it's in the context of fighting monsters by yourself or fighting monsters with other people.
But there is another sense of "solo." It's your character's story in the gameworld. Or, it's your character's experience of the gameworld through story.
When you read a novel or watch a film, seldom is there only one protagonist. Usually you have a main character who has adventures with other important characters. Luke had Han, Leia, Obi, etc. Frodo had the fellowship. The main character's story and his or her fate is tied up with the actions of others. Imagine how uninspiring Star Wars would be with only Luke, or LoTR with only Frodo.
What it would seem like is, well, a mmorpg. There you have a character and whatever you do, be in on your own or with groups of people, your story is just about you. Sure you may group with others. You may belong to a guild. But there is no other person in the game who is a permament, necessary part of your story. You can drop in and out of groups or guilds at will.
Now imagine a game where at mid to higher level, you have an opportunity to accept an epic quest. The quest will have a major storyline, which could take months to complete, and when you accept it you choose other players who will undergo that quest with you. Once chosen, the group is bound to each other. No one can succeed alone. Every character will make choices and take actions along the quest, and their choices and actions will affect you. You will succeed as a group or you will fail as a group.
Now you have at least one story where it is not about you and you alone.
What do you think? If this is not the answer, what would make mmorpgs more like stories and less like just one character running quests or whacking things?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
The battles are enough. The story doesn't have to involve more than you and the protagonists, as long as the gameplay part is done with other players.
This is what I noticed during my 6 month static party with 5 other people when we cleared one of the major storylines in FFXI.
The problem is that MMOs try to fit epic heroic stories onto a template that is more suited to everyday heroes. The archetype of one man/woman being the savior of the village, nation, world is silly in a open online world where you have to wait in line to kill the dragon.
MMOs are better suited to everyday, unsung heroes; the heroic FedEx employee (with a two-handed sword), the epic animal control officer, and the mage police officer.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
You can still be the 'sidekick'.
Personally, I've always felt that social interaction in MMOs should be by choice, and never by design, including every quest that requires a group.
However, in the example you've given above, you would meet your intensions, but what about problems that may creep up down the road. What if someone bound to the group quest can't log on for a day or a week. Does that make the other members of the group unplayable? Or if not, could they outlevel the missing person or the content their waiting to do? What if that someone simply stops playing the game? These are all problems you'd have to consider and address.
Ultimately, we each log in separately, so we are a group of individuals playing together. Your design requires a team; if you only can field 6 members of a football team, those 6 can't play and the game is lost. I, for one, would not want to play a game with that level of dependancy. It's worse than raiding, because at least there you can often pick up sub-ins. Your design doesn't seem to allow that.
Now, if you made it so that those 'other positions' could be filled by real players or hired NPCs, you've got my interest. But then again, that would probably lead you back to the everyone is soloing point.
While I think your concept could theoretically work, it would not work well. It's hard enough getting people to show up for a 2 or 3 hour raid. Can you imagine trying to get them to show up consistantly for months?
I think thats part of the reason TOR allows for a companion, and that group questing allows for group members to take part in mission dialog as well. In the end the storylines in MMOs are made to bring the player from level one to max level, most everything else is optional in many games.
I look at FFXI and LOTRO as doing the story aspect the right way while still involving the group. MOre MMO's like that would be a good thing.
Matter of fact, I think this is where FTPs and SOME PTPs will always fall short because they NEVER address the story side. They just throw you into a world and give you very generic quests and don't really try to immerse you. They innovate with classes and gameplay mechanics but they always miss the most important factor in a true MMORPG, story and "world".
I understand your concern. But those types of problems are part of what make a story. In the LoTR, Boramir tries to take the ring. Then he died. Golum tries to lure Frodo and Sam to their deaths. Merry and Pippin are taken by orcs. Galdalf is dragged down by the Balrog. The group went on.
Conflict and set backs are what make a story. But in a mmorpg, people are so used to let's get this over with so I can get my item that it's hard to even discuss having a storyline outside of standard quest text, leveling and item aquisition. That is why I say that whether you fight monsters alone or with others in these games, as a story it's pretty much a solo encounter.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
So what is the solution? Is the group allowed to continue minus that one player, or is it simply out of luck? What if that one player logs back in two days later to find the group has moved on cause they chose not to wait for him? I'm not looking for lore solutions, I'm genuinely curious as to what game mechanics you would have in place for these types of situations.
I think your idea (OP) would make for a very interesting way to play an mmo. I feel it would fit best into some kind of end game based lateral character progression. Perhaps into a game like Guild Wars for instance that has a very low level cap and most of the game is designed around playing through at that max level.
To avoid the pitfalls of people being active and inactive at different times.
Ppresuming the epic quest takes a number of weeks perhaps months to complete there could be a dynamic system involved.
First a group of say 8 players is decided upon, then the quest is started and those players are locked into that group for this quest.
The group remains a constant and the content the group faces changes dynamically to suit the number of members present.
If 2 members are present they will have to undertake a smaller part of the story line, perhaps travel, or small skirmished, scouting ect. If 8 members are present then they would be sent on a more involved part of their story such as a large battle or large dungeon fight ect. Anywhere between 2 and 8 members the content would be scaled to match.
Then you say, ah but how could that fit into a story arc. The story arc would be unique to each group - as the number of members online at a time designates the type of content, the type of content experiecned and in what order would determine the story.
Large battle at the start > scouting the enemy > moving through a cave found to be hostile > large battle with cave boss > navigating a maze -
This would most likley have to be instanced which is a shame, but when think of this, consider systems like LOTRO's skirmish thingy and the world changing thing - is it called phasing? that WoW uses.
Thats my take on the matter
I think it is a great idea.
Let me preface this by saying I am not a game designer so hopefully other people will have better ideas on making it work than I do.
But as to my proposal, this would be a truly epic quest. Not everyone will succeed. And the quest is not the whole game, just a part.
In my mind, you would choose a group of adventurers very carefully. People you like and people you feel you can depend on. Part of what makes the quest extra challenging is making that choice wisely. Another part of what makes it challenging is the risk your groupmates may let you down. Yes, the group could succeed despite the failings of some of its members. But it can't succeed without the help of most of them. If you fail, you can start over with a new group. But that would be a big deal because you return to square one. Failure is not simply a corpse run. This quest is bigger than that.
Not only would this be another level of game story, think about what it means to the community. If you want to undertake this quest, you need to make some serious friends. If have a bad rep on your server for being selfish, good luck finding someone to do this quest with you.
It also rewards behavior that has really fallen by the wayside of late, that being friendship making. Nowadays group members, and even guild members, are too often seen as disposable, or people to be replaced by the next "top dpser." This is a quest where the relationships are the main determiner of success or failure.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You started off well by noticing that pre-planned heroic stories cause a problem in mmos. Unfortunately you went off the track again by assuming that there must be a way to make these kind of stories work.
EPIC STORYLINES DO NOT BELONG IN MMOS.
The only reason they keep appearing in mmos is because the games developers have plenty of experience at writing stories for single player games and as mmos are a relatively new genre, these companies have not yet fully developed the skills and experience to make real mmos yet. Some companies have managed to pull it off but many of them simply dont understand how to do it. They are getting there slowly as can be seen with some of the upcoming mmos that are beginning to integrate dynamic content into their games - quests that are NOT set in stone and in fact change depending on what the players do.
It should be blatantly obvious to even the most simplistic of thinkers that you cant have a pre-planned story where the player is a hero and then apply it to everyone in the game. On top of that there seems to be this stupid obsession with everything having to be "epic". I'm totally sick to death of seeing that word on this website. It gets applied to everything in these mmos. Will it have an epic storyline? Will my character be an epic hero? Will I get epic gear?
WAKE.....THE......F**K.......UP!!!
(thats not aimed at you personally by the way)
The only type of stories that mmos should have is events that may or may not occurr based on the players actions. Players should be able to participate in those events and through their efforts shape and change the gameworld and also effect each others gaming experience. If the story is already planned out and there is nothing the players can do to change it then whats the point? Thats not an mmo. Thats a single player game placed on a server......and a bad one at that.
So yeah the solution to making mmos more like stories?
DONT!!!
Make them more like virtual worlds instead. Why the hell do you want to be reading stories in an online game when there are loads of real living human beings to interact with? Leave the stories to single player games. Simple.
[Mod Edit]
So... if one player doesn't show the rest of the group can continue, but they might struggle somewhat? And if that player shows up later and finds the group moved on... tough luck? I'm not trying to be negative, but RL trumps gaming, and we have to be realistic.
It is an interesting concept, and I applaud your creativity. I just don't think it's very practical. I can say that, as a soloer, I would want no part of it.
In City of Heroes, they have task forces, which are a series of missions that must be done by a group. Once that group starts, members can leave, but no one new can join. If the group does half of it one day, they can continue the next. The missions are all scaled to the number of players that started it, so the group could continue missing a few, but it would be harder. These TFs take from 1 hour to as much as 9 (Dr. Q). I can tell you, it's not easy getting a group together for the longer ones, and someone almost always quits part way through for some reason or another. I can't imagine trying it for something that would take weeks or months.
The task force is kind of what I thought of when he was explaining it. I remember some taskforces would take so long people would drop out, and just a handful of us would continue trying to accomplish them but it was nearly impossible.
The worst part for me was the beginning, trying to amass a group to take on those task forces... we would literally wait for an hour just trying to find players... and then when we get into the TF and lose a couple, it was pointless to continue and we'd start all over.
You cannot base an entire epic storyline strictly off of a set group of people, its just not prudent. Many people would never get such a thing accomplished unless it had a queue system that randomly grouped people so that everyone had a chance to complete these missions.
Bump for appreciation of my previous post which was 10th in this thread
I am not familiar with city of heroes but yea the taskforces sound like a step towards the idea proposed here. Could perhaps public quests warhammer style be some how used to perpetuate an epic story arc?
Only if they expanded it to encompass an extremely large amount of area with objectives that would entice players to come together to complete.
Chances are slim on that one though as even in WAR, if you didn't have a group for the PQs there were quite a few you couldn't do to completion.
Now imagine a game where at mid to higher level, you have an opportunity to accept an epic quest. The quest will have a major storyline, which could take months to complete, and when you accept it you choose other players who will undergo that quest with you. Once chosen, the group is bound to each other. No one can succeed alone. Every character will make choices and take actions along the quest, and their choices and actions will affect you. You will succeed as a group or you will fail as a group.
Now you have at least one story where it is not about you and you alone.
Very bad idea. It is hard enough to get a few peopel commit to raiding for the 2-3 hours a week. You want to depend on someone else for MONTHS?
How many groups are stable over just days? I can imagine all the drama, schedule conflict and what-not.
I would MUCH rather solo the story line with some occasional grouping for bosses.
I agree, just think about it dude, don't throw ideas out before you actually think about it and see it working in your head, so many things can and probably will happen in that time, people stop playing, get busy with other stuff, just can't be bothered to log in, how are these people supposed to be able to log in at the same time so many times etc. etc.
AW
The fact that you disagree with the idea is fine. Being insulting, not so much.
But I do want to thank you for reminding me again that I live in an age where so many people believe if something can't be done in a few hours, it's just not worth doing. All I can tell you is, it was not always so.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
The task or strike forces in CoX could last over 5 hours for some of them. You couldnt add people once you started which makes sense from a certain perspective, i.e. just pulling someone without the skills to get through it, but it had that downside that sometimes you lost too many people to finish. Not that I have a better idea of how to balance that, maybe allowing adding people after a timer.
Still those were some of the best MMO times for me.
Though haha...after they had purple enhancements (think gear) and I had my main all ubered out and a friend and I were running someone through one of the easier task forces (to get them a respec), and my friend's power went out, and the 4th PUG person rage quit, it was just me and the guy who reallly needed a respec. He was about to qq after us running this 4 man thing for an hour and a half. It was pretty epic when I beat the terravolta respec with my spines/regen scrapper solo (other guy was dead in the reactor room with no rezzes).
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
For me, the story is everything in an MMO, which is probably why I prefer theme-park games. I can't really get into sandbox games because they really encourage you to make your own story and I'm not that great of a storyteller.
Now that I think of it and judging from what I've seen from other players in sandboxes, they are not such great storytellers either.
You've got an interesting thought on how storylines are written for mmo's but one of my problems is simply tying your own fate to that of someone you may not even know, I know for a fact I've up and quit a few games that I was very high level in for one reason or another it happens and I would feel for the person who encountered that in the middle, or better yet within the final ten percent of their epic quest. I think one of the biggest problems with the way story lines are written is gamers percieved "sophistication". I often wonder why people so often complain that "well we are all fighting the same dragon that's not epic!". Ok I understand that you the player behind the keyboard realizes this but why would your avatar in anyway be aware of what other people in the world are doing as he/she can't see what is going on and in my case I rarely speak to people about these adventures.
As players mmo community is far too hung up onthe experience being theres and no one elses, how does someone else having fought an epic encounter diminish it for you when you don't know the other people doing it in game and often times offline as well.
I'm not against seeing some mmo's release with unique ways to tell a story but problems like I first mentioned need to be considered if they expect to make any money.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Woah, insulting? I don't see anything insulting at all by my post, it's just something that has so many flaws to it, sorry if you found it insulting...
The few hours thing is actually really really funny, you'll probably find out soon, just remember.
-AW
AW
At best, this is a naive view. What shall newbies do when community have reached end level. This idea is something that would never work.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
No entertainment is worth coordinating with a group of people OVER MONTHS. Of course it is not always so. The world changes.
A few hundred years ago, life expectancy is like 45 and the best entertainment is like reading (that is if you COULD read .. most people could not then).
50 years ago, there is no computer games.
15 years ago, there is no MMOs, there is no internet.
Time is always changing. Embrace it or be left behind.