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Psychology of a Story hater: do they really like the quest system in current MMO's that much?
MMO.Maverick
Member CommonPosts: 7,619
I've read a LOT of posts of people disliking Bioware's story direction, and them thinking it will ruin their MMO gameplay. What I didn't read was their answer to the question:
if you dislike Story in a MMO, do you really like the current way of questing that much?
Because that's what Bioware intends to do, revamping the typical MMO quest mechanics to make it more engaging and enjoyable.
Funny thing is, they're not the only ones.
There are at least three game companies who thought the questing mechanics and story were lacking in the current MMO's and who decided to add focus to it in their own upcoming MMO's: Star Wars the Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, and The Secret World.
The ANet devs mentioned themselves in their presentation sessions how they tended to click away quest text in other MMO's, just as a lot of MMO gamers do. Not because they dislike story or quests, but because the quest text felt disconnected with the world and dull, it just doesn't pull you in.
That's what those game companies strive to improve upon, making quest gameplay more interesting and engaging to do, and the overall story while you're playing more immersive.
Sure, you will always have those MMO gamers who don't care one bit for the story or lore that is revealed in quests and who see quests as nothing more than a means to quickly reach endgame where the 'real game' starts (raiding).
But for those people that were used to doing that in WoW, LotrO, EQ2 and other MMO's, they'll still be able to do that in SW:TOR, the story aspect can be skipped over if people really like to. Although it's not something I would skip, it's still optional.
That's why I don't grasp those people who're so much against deepened storytelling in MMO's: because, if you dislike the Story aspect in SW:TOR, then that means that you're satisfied with current questing mechanics, right?
Because that is the logical conclusion: people who don't like more story via improved, questing, must be convinced that the questing as done in current MMO's for many years now is the best quest gameplay MMO's have to offer.
TL;DR
Why hate improved storytelling via questing in MMO's, if it isn't because you think quest gameplay is perfect as it is in current MMO's?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
You're missing the point. Disliking story in an mmo isn't because you like the current questing system. Its more about players who see mmo's as a world to play in. The more the game defines for you who your char is, what your char is doing, the less fun it is because the single predominant feature of mmo's is the other players. mmo's should focus on building community, not playing the game for us.
In standalone games, I want story. In mmo's I want community.
This is precisely right.
Additionally, most people don't mind story in an MMO at all but they consider that there are more important MMO elements that should be featured and developed before story. And, of course, they also think that there are different ways of delivering story - some more enjoyable, immersive and efficient than others.
@Dhayes68: I think it's a difference of taste. I don't see why it's a 'or... or' situation, and not a 'and... and'
Why can't a MMO have both a good guided experience and also a lot for the community to offer?
Arguments:
- ANet is doing the same, deepened storytelling that also restricts you in your personal story, but also enough other features for the community to bond
- A lot of MMO gamers enjoyed AoC's Tortage experience with its immersive storytelling, and were dissatisfied that it didn't continue like that after L20. Bioware intends to fix that by providing a complete story experience up to level cap and beyond, and unique for all classes.Also, there being an immersive story didn't bite there being enough things around in AoC for community to bond.
- if MMO's aren't about story provided by the devs, then scrap all the quests, that would leave all the freedom and building their own story to the players. The fact that this isn't happening for as good as all the MMO's is because MMO gamers need quests, even with the meagre lore and story in them, to make their MMO experience more enjoyable, and they need to have their quests be more than simple tasks without background. Else sandbox MMO's would be a lot more popular than they are these days, and else MMO gamers would complain a lot less about 'quest grinding' in Asian MMO's if quests meant nothing more to them than simple leveling tasks.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
My question is, why does having a personal story automatically mean theres no community and no other players to play with? I think theres a misconception that when you play the personal story, you are stuck in a box by yourself, you don't see anyone, you can't talk to anyone, and you don't play with anyone, but this isn't how the story is implemented. Most of the missions you run, will be in the open world where you will have the ability for PUGS, where you can meet players and the community.
I"ve never liked questing in MMORPGs. I've always preferred grinding (getting together in a group and killing stuff ot the bottom of a dungeon), and occaisional questing for something like a big quest chain with a big reward at the end, but the constant quest, quest, quest, run back to nPC get another quest, is boooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrring.
Why?
Because unlike a single player game, questing in an MMORPG generally does NOTHING to your character and does NOTHING to the game world.
Go get me 10 rat tails.....................because...................
Nothing after 10 rat tails makes the slightest difference in the world. Doesn't matter if Stehpen King or JK Rowling writes the quest story, it's going to end up EXACTLY the same.
You bring back 10 rat tails, and you get some boots.
The in between story means jack shite.
The more the experience is guided the more it degrades the feeling of ownership of my character, the more it limits the opportunity for community building. I'm not saying no story, just that it shouldn't be mandatory nor should it be the guiding focus of the game. In mmo's the guiding focus should be on interaction between players, not interaction between the player and an npc.
A good example of this is a game like AoC, with one starting area and even worse one background story that pre-defines your char as the singular 'hero' of the game. In a massively multiplayer game, thats just stupid.
MMO's should have story. Background story, story to provide context for the player's existance. Many stories for many players to engage in the many potential activities an mmo should offer. However lately it seems that story is overtaking community as the focus, and really an mmo without community is kinda worthless to people who feel the way I do.
From what I understand in the posts I read, it appears that people are arguing that story takes away from the Role Playing factor since it limits you to a pre-written script, that and the whole themepark vs sandbox thing, personally i think the story will be great so i have no gripes.
We go trough life with many yet there is a time we must walk our path alone.
I don't mind Biowares qestlines at all. But I do dislike that they only offer that to level up.
GW2 offers both a similar system and their dynamic world, that means you can either do you story or be out and just do dynamic quests or dungeon, whatever you feel for.
My perfect game is a mix between a very open sandbox and a bioware styled thempark, where you yourself choose which playstyle you prefer or mix as you want.
I will not say anything for certain since TOR isn't out yet but it seems like Bioware doesn't offer enough alternative gameplay for my taste. That is the reason I believe in Guildwars 2 and world of darkness online instead of TOR for myself, you other people have to decide for yourself.
Some people prefer sparks over substance, personally It looks like comparring magazines to books to me.Besides whenevr a game company introduces something of an open do what you want world everybody gets all pissy saying,'theres nothing to do, its just a big empty world.' People need there hands held and their feet walked for them, especially mmoers because were a bunch of whiny bitchy little turds.
It doesn't automatically mean there is no community. It just degrades it to a point where its likely there won't be much of community. Community is based on the chars of the players. Having a situation where all the players have the same background story inhibits that.
I don't say story is bad. The point is as the focus on story is growing, its becoming too much at the expense of focus on community building.
I only have one thing to say Book Fan Clubs.......
We go trough life with many yet there is a time we must walk our path alone.
Personally I think that MMO's that can combine sandbox elements with themepark elements successfully, will be the ones that come out on top in the future.
Regarding SW:TOR, they recently already mentioned that there are other ways of leveling/gaining xp besides the story questing: as far as I can recall they mentioned PvP, exploration, doing the World Quests (regular quests, not Class story-related) and I think crafting (not 100% sure about the last one).
I agree with Dhayes, in that MMO's have become more solo player games than they used to be, in EQ it was more about doing stuff together, even grinding together could be great fun, the fact that grouping was enforced was oft irritating when you couldn't find a group, but awesome when you could find one.
The solo oriented gaming is an effect of the focus in MMO's since 2004 on quest leveling instead of mob grinding leveling.
But both companies, Bioware and ANet, already mentioned that they recognized the danger of their deepening of Storytelling via quests, and both are implementing features and mechanics to encourage grouping up and doing things together. Sure, they're different mechanics both use, but only gameplay after beta and launch can determine how successful they were with those.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
To be fair, World Quests are Story Quests, they just aren't Personal Story Quests, unless I'm somehow greatly misinformed.
I think I see things mostly the same way you do, but i don't entirely agree with the statement above. At least not with SWTOR as you can experience the story with your friends.
For me, the main culprits are everything that is related to things outside of your personal progression.
Dumbing down of crafting. When your game have better loot drops than crafted items, there is zero reason to interact with that community. Even if they are equal in quality to drops, most games have dumbed crafting down to something you can level an alt to do in short order. So players just support themselves, especially since the crafting trend seems to be mostly consumables. This coming from a guy who never crafts.
In my opinion, loot. It seems to be the driving force in games now, whereas I remember playing to simply earn badges. Sure people can be rewarded, but people don't like sharing rewards, or helping others get it since you are cutting into your own rewards time. To me, SWG went downhill starting with the holo-grind. A group centric, community game quickly turned into a solofest with just that addition, from what i experienced. That is when I saw AFK dancers, all my crafters dropping crafting, there were no doctors in hospitals, unless they were tumbling.
Global chat. I hate it, or more specifically, what it has done. No one talks anymore, partially because of the above, as there is no reason to talk to anyone. Fallen Earth was a crafters game supposedly, with a great community. Well I saw 2 people say something in 2 months of playing but the same 10 people swamping all legitmate questions or plees for groups with there pointless banter all day long.
And yep, downtime. I am not talking about a pointless 30 boat ride to an Island. The RvR is Warhammer with just plain boring, because players died, payed a very small fee to instantly heal, then charge back into the fight. The battlegrounds were endless zergs with the same 30 people, over and over.
To me, all games now focus on complete, and constant, combat, and nothing else. If everyone is fighting all the time, you wouldnt even notice there was a community. Your personal progression is a factor, but not as much as those things to me. And for the record, I mostly soloed in SWG, but I knew who my crafters were, where to find doctors to heal, and which Cantinas would contain dancers to heal.
I just can't seem to not post walls of text, sorry.
He is not missing the point and neither are you. A balance of storyline open world elements and persistant longevity is what an MMO is about. YOu will struggle with community because most mindless MMO players and i'd say thats about 99.8% just want to win and the MMO concept does not fit with hitting Max Level(or whatever the Max metric is)
If what you are saying was true you wont have a problem with SWTOR as you don't have to follow the class arc less than 5% of the game content(accross 8 classes) and probably under 1% of the game world played in. The real problem is selfish people.
And the QUOTE :
"I don't like story arcs because some people will get rewards from a part of the game I do not like"
"It's all about community, so lets remove guilds and have in game societies that work against the NPC component of the world"
"I don't have time , why can't I level faster so I can win and move on"
All the above play against MMOs
Most people here whine about end game sounds to me like they don't want to play in the world they just want to win, thats not community. What Cypher is doing is playing the provided class storyline /profession, you have to pick one so if youre not even willing to do that you will end up with utopian explorer,chater and a charachter that never develops.
The way I see SWTOR is a good mix of storyline and vast open worlds.
If you want a limited sandbox , with no storyline you won't get it in any but the indie MMOs.
I will play this with a group of friends I will play SWTOR with, we will play against the world and have fun we will all have our own charachter storylines and backgrounds. Regardless of any story Bioware put in game. We will all treat the class arcs as the equivalent of taking a driving quest, you only start to learn to really drive once you have passed your test.
So how does Biowares story arcs and quests effect our gameplay with respect to our individual charachters it doesnt.( Certain framework elements cant be avoided but that wont define our charachters because the class arc will be our driving tests and we will support each other while doing them , but the real fun will be had playing in the open world for us.
We have one group member who will try to compete but eventually he joins in the fun. I will only respect people who understand the World and environment not thos ewho hit end game in 2 days or whatever timescale they manage it in.
(Oh and we may only play 8 hours a week, maybe more )
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Rather than a world to play in, I'd rather have a world that feels pretty real (in congruence with a good IP of course). I dislike sandboxes because they are just something for people to play in and as such they aren't very immersive to me. TOR looks good because the NPCs are more than cardboard cutouts and you don't get forced to do things in a stupid manner (like questing inevitably leads to). All this makes the world alive and something you interact with, and with a community, it is one you and your friends together can interact with. Obviously this needs to be designed to be fun (so in a real sense we all want something to play in, of course). Players alone just aren't good at making a world like this.
I can understand how someone would want as much as possible made and run by players, but I hope you can understand how for people who primarily want a really believable world that is not what we want.
You say you dislike sandboxes but which ones have you played if you don't mind me asking?
none.
he has played CoH, FFXI and WoW.
I've played other MMOs, those are just some of the more "recent" ones I played for any length of time. I honestly can't get that into sandboxes like EvE or the like. I want a game I can get into immediately and immerse myself in immediately and just as quickly exit when I am done. I want to be able to play a game without requiring massive amounts of time to coordinate or plan things out and the ability to leave or get back into a game with relatively little work. Nor do I like grinding, either kills, crafting, or gathering. Sandboxes simply don't do any of this in my experience. Sure, I don't have the most extensive experience with Sandboxes, but you can hardly blame me when a free trial is unable to maintain my interest. They aren't what I look for in an MMO.
I'm surprised you are so shocked that people who don't like Sandboxes exist. I thought it would be a rather obvious truth given the relative difficulty sandboxes have in succeeding compared to themeparks. I find this doubly ironic because rather than even attempt to refute the reasons I stated for not wanting a sandbox, you instead decide to attack me.
Note, this doesn't mean I dislike all possible sandbox-like elements, but rather that I dislike pure sandbox games. I want a game with an immense amount of work put into NPCs and story -- I like how TOR is looking because I also want real choices in how I respond/react to that story.
The reason I said he was missing the point is because he was equating not liking story with liking the current common questing dynamics of most mmo's. This is a false equation.
I'd also like to point out that when I talk about story vs community I'm not talking about themepark vs sandbox. Though they do often equal the same thing, its not what I'm specifically referring to.
I'm focusing specificially on the idea the the greater the role that dev defined, mandatory, cut-scene and npc driven storylines play in an MMO, the less of a role community plays. Please note i'm talking about gradients not absolutes. I'm not saying all story is bad. I'm noting that the pendulum (imo) is swinging too far towards storyline to the detriment of community building.
You haven't really demonstrated how this hurts the community.
You can brings friends along for class stories. Open world quests have stories too and there's a group mechanics that lets people make decisions together -- that builds community.
Where exactly is the harm coming from here really?
I don't like them and i have played eve, fallen earth, and other sandbox MMO's.... The only one I can say that I did enjoy for some time was SWG, but then it got old after about a year of non content and the same thing over and over again.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
When the mmo determines who your char is, what his backstory is, what his voice sounds like, provides npc's to fulfill the roles other players may have filled, etc... It discourages the kind of players from playing the game who build community. Clearly you don't agree, and that's fine, its not an absolute, but trust me, you want the kind of people who do feel that way in an MMO because they provide depth, width and color to the community that the dev's for obvious reasons can't provide.
You can choose from a variety of backstories from what I saw.
You never played a P&P game where the GM handed out characters? (Not my favorite way to play, but I don't mind it if I get a say in some aspects of the character). Beyond that, the companions don't replace anyone, they are just a tool to enable you to actually play with your friends without telling them to reroll their characters.
Frankly, I enjoying RP and I don't really get what you are talking about. I can accept that some people can be very finicky about such things, but such people are hardly a necessity as they are but a subset (and a small one) of community builders. You're talking about some fairly superficial stuff overall. You pick a vague background and YOU decide how your character acts. There's a tremendous amount of freedom there.
I agree (and NWN from Bioware is still the best game made in my opinion so I am not a Bioware hater).
But I think GW2 is on o something, as long as you can select to play a personal story or ignore it things are fine. Like PvP, dungeons or open world PvE? Well just do that instead then, no punishment, just play as you want.
It still splits up the community but you really can't get rid of solo players and there really isn't any reason for that either.
All good games provides the opportunity for different playstyles, and saying one is better than the others is not really fair.
But it is true that the less people see of others and the more instances you get, the worse community. Just look on Wow, the more instanced the game have become, the worse community have they gotten. The dungeon finder didn't exactly help either. I remember a while in 2005 when Wows community where known to be pretty good.