Would you be happy if your mmo ended the story before time?

comrademario

I'm currently playing end game on Allods Online on the European servers and I have to say that the storyline running through the game is awesome. I know a lot of mmorpg gamers don't pay much attention to the actual storylines running behind the quests and game, but a few of us do and this question is more for us.

 

Would you be happy if a game announced that they were going to finish the story arc in a forthcoming expansion and that within a period of time (lets say 1 year) the game would be shutting it's doors? I really got to thinking about this topic as I can definitely see a finish line in sight for the main story arc in Allods, although obviously developers can draw that out for as long as they like, or even begin a whole new story afterwards. That said I'm eager to find out the fate of Sarnaut and the two Gods fighting there so would like to know soonish.

 

Obiously the major drawback for a successful mmo is cutting off revenue before time, that means this scenario is likely to never happen. But a company with some forward thinking might see it as a promotional opportunity, if they had another game in the pipeline to take their current ones place. People always say that in showbusiness you should always leave them asking for more, so how about a developer we'll leave people crying out for more after giving them a satisfying conclusion to their current mmo. That way when you launch your new game you would most likely get all those players back immediately, and you may have developed a reputation among the mmo community for great storytelling.

karter64

If the dev's wanted to end a story and start a new one, as long as it had a decent flow from one to the next, I would be fine with that. If went so far off on a tangent that it seemed as if a whole new game was made I might have a problem with it.

I view it like a book. I enjoy a good story but eventually I want some resolution.

Sythion

Glad you asked this.

Unless a game was built from the ground up to embrace this kind of an "ending," I don't see it happening.

However, I do think it's necessary for the genre as a whole to look at this kind of thing as a possibility. Right now MMOs are worlds of meaningless quests and in the case of sandbox games, PvP gang wars.

There's gotta be more than this ahead of us, and I think players are going to have to accept some of the following possibilities as they play:

1. 
   Characters permanently, and inevitably die. (not necessarily just through combat)
2. 
   Characters power cap is determined by external factors other than time*xp/hour*gear_grinding_efficiency_variable.
3. 
   Worlds can end (and start over again)
4. 
   Quests can be failed, never to be successful again. (Excited about GW2 because it is implementing the first half of this)
5. 
   Players who disagree can express their conflict in game-impacting ways other than combat.
6. 
   Content for one player may differ drastically from that of another. (Excited about Wildstar because of this)

Basically, this genre will only evolve once the worlds we inhabit begin to take on some of the less pleasant aspects of our own.

Things have to matter.

 

Anyway, sorry for highjacking. Glad you're enjoying Allods story. Never played it myself but have generally found static MMO stories to be worthless. SWTOR has caused me to give up hope on static story telling forever.

AlBQuirky

That would kind of put a crimp in the play of latecomers. I guess if done well and the promise of a similar undertaking in the works, it could keep players interested.

The other backlash would be the time invested in building your character knowing that in a specified amount of time they would be retired. With normal MMOs, that time is undefined.