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Getting tired of the story
dhayes68
Member UncommonPosts: 1,388
I need storylines in MMO's like I need community in standalone games.
Devs are losing focus on what makes MMO's fun/interesting: the other players. Instead they're focusing on what I can get without the fee's in a standalone game.
Comments
Have you SEEN the sheer amount of DLC coming out these days? You don't even get full stories any longer in some games...they save half of it for the 1st DLC dump.
I honestly haven't played a good "standalone" game since...FF9. Matter of fact....story has NOT been an issue that you are describing at all. Hence why they are beginning to focus on it more. Oh, and the best MMORPGs? The ones with stories! GW, FFXI, Lotro, tiny bit of WoW, although it could be delivered a bit better. Games without it suck, IMHO. I'd name them but I don't want to piss too many people off lol.
I too am tired of developer made stories, and had posted a thread long ago on how they could make a game completely lore filled with player stories instead of a " storyline". Like all the books in the in game library are the tales of actual players, the statues and cities named after players.. completely design the world around the players.. But then again, I am one who has no use for NPC's and would much rather a game where I could solely advance through pvp. I confess, I usually skip through dev stories as quickly as possible without even paying attention because I just find them irritating. I play massive games for massive player interaction, not a single player rpg with other people there..
Mass Effect, GTAIV, etc...
But, regardless, perhaps I wasn't clear. I was referring to MMO's where story, and your char's role in the story is becoming the central focus of the game, as opposed to the idea of an MMO as an environment for players to play in.
The MMO's you mentioned the storylines are more back story and can be ignored if you felt like it. Also, none of those are recent.
Games evolve and eventually the MMO games will too. There are a few sandbox games left DFO and EVE being the better more popular of them at the moment. But, I'd like to believe they too will evolve and take a bigger share of the attention.
Honestly, I'd rather they all survive and grow. I like variety.
Yes, I too want them to thrive and survive, and it is great and all they put alot of effort into their stories to make them rich in content for the players that actually enjoy them.. But for me. They do nothing fo r me, nope- nadda. find them irritating and I don;t want to be forced to read/ listen to them at all, and want to play without involving myself in them.
I would love to see more content in player driven stories.. Like the best ranger in the game gets a ranger statue of them with their name on it. wanted posters around the cities where you have pics and names of the players who have killed the most players in the game, like the books in the libraries are real stories about actual players. yea that would at least be interesting for me.
I view stories/ npcs like a bot. It's not real, it will never be real because a player isn;t doing it themselves. I do not want games to determine my enemy or my ally, I want to determine that for myself. I want the freedom to go where I want when I want and do what I want when I feel like it, and not have the game deciding that for me.
But, regardless, perhaps I wasn't clear. I was referring to MMO's where story, and your char's role in the story is becoming the central focus of the game, as opposed to the idea of an MMO as an environment for players to play in.
The MMO's you mentioned the storylines are more back story and can be ignored if you felt like it. Also, none of those are recent.
Ok, so which recent MMORPGs are doing this? I know GW2 and SWTOR are touting Story as the central point of their design, but seeing as they aren't out yet, we can't really judge them yet. We don't know if it "takes" away any environment to just play in. If anything, it looks to just be the focal point and then the environment play or what I like to call "world" feel is there for when you finish the story or in between when you feel like finishing the story later. I just don't see the issue really.
I do see the issue in games like Eve and Darkfall. While they have their focus, I personally feel they could use some sort of "story" aspect to suck me into the "world" and atmosphere.
^^This More games for like minded gamers to find players that like what they like. I see no reason why every MMO should be made according to a single idea. Sandbox, Themepark, FFA PvP, Story based and any combo as a hybrid is fine as long as they are well made games.
I still do not understand why people want to try to force every company to evolve into "their" type of game. And if they don't, they want to try to convence everyone that the game is the worst game in history. Why can't there be multiple MMO format games so more players can have fun? It drived me crazy.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
The best open world experieneces I know of are the TES series of games, which are ripe with story. Every action has a story behind it for the most part. What's wrong with combining such rich story telling with an open world type of format, in a multiplayer setting? Lore to seek out individually (Class stories:TOR, Personal stories: GW2) as well as in a grouping situation, could work very well IMO.
When I look back at playing SWG, one of the most open ended games ever, all it was missing was a decent story, as Star Wars lore for it's time period was ripe for the picking. Had they focused post transportation and space development on story based content they would have done much better IMO.
Also looking back at my SWG experience I only remember grouping for guild purposes (PVP or resource/loot gathering), as most pick-up groups were solo based. I don't think story has much to do with restricting community, at least not nearly as much as human tendancy. People tend to solo, whether a game be open ended or linear, at least when there's a story to follow they don't have such a dull experience.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Sandbox games don't need story so much as they need news. What is happening? What is changing? Where are the big parties happening? What big achievements have been accomplished. You need a trickle of gossip that gives you something you can talk about in-character (or on the boards) with other players. I think the way that the politics of Eve have sometimes overflowed into even the mainstream press speaks volumes about the power of emergent story arcs. Eve is dependant on PvP drama to fuel its stories, but I can see the basic logic of how to assemble a simulation/generator that had PvE versions of the same kind of large-scale drama.