The Fib MMORPGs Keep Telling Me

Amathe · March 2017

Before reading this, please note that I said mmorpgs. Single player games often deliver better on the issue I am discussing.

FIB: Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max.

So I do a quest to walk grandma across the street.

I collect apples for Farmer Tom.

I help little Daisy find her doll.

I do a million things for a million NPCs.

And none of it means SQUAT.

Never have I reached a higher level and the little orphan child I rescued from bandits is now the Duke of Earl, who rewards me handsomely. None of it ever matters at all.

Just once I would like to make a choice in a mmorpg (other than character builds/equipment), and it actually be meaningful in the long run.

Amathe · March 2017

Torval said:

You do understand why choices mostly can't matter in a mmorpg right? It's an issue inherent to the genre that doesn't have a simple solution that is currently technologically available.

Yet oddly it's a promise that keeps getting made.

kitarad · March 2017

Unfortunately when a decision is made and then a player finds themselves locked out of certain areas or quests they whine and complain and the developers have to change their minds or risk the bad reviews the game will garner. So they end up creating ways to fix the faction or undo the choices the player has made or reducing the impact of the choices.

Players cannot handle it judging from the the questions and complaints you see in single player games. When they made some decision and obtained a bad faction with one house or companion in Pillars of Eternity they were posting about having to replay the game because certain choices screwed them for good.

VengeSunsoar · March 2017

They could do it so your choices made in quests like that affect your character such as opening up different quests or his NPCs view or treat you or even how you look (like swtor).

Distopia · March 2017

Amathe said:

Before reading this, please note that I said mmorpgs. Single player games often deliver better on the issue I am discussing.

FIB: Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max.

So I do a quest to walk grandma across the street.

I collect apples for Farmer Tom.

I help little Daisy find her doll.

I do a million things for a million NPCs.

And none of it means SQUAT.

Never have I reached a higher level and the little orphan child I rescued from bandits is now the Duke of Earl, who rewards me handsomely. None of it ever matters at all.

Just once I would like to make a choice in a mmorpg (other than character builds/equipment), and it actually be meaningful in the long run.

This isn't exactly true, using TOR as an example is rather easy really, as there are quest choices that have different effects, which is all single player games ever incorporate for the most part as well. While those choices don't effect the overall world, they do effect certain variables in the quest chain(s).. Which is all one can really expect in most MMORPG setups.

In reality most of these types of choices in games are mostly superficial. Single player or otherwise. Even the best of them over the years (games such as KOTOR) simply give you two paths to take in any given decision. The examples of stepping outside of that typical black and white paradigm are few and far between. Divinity:OS 2 promises something unique in that respect, a major reason I can't wait to play it.

To truly offer this type of thing in an MMORPG you'd have to use extreme phasing. Which becomes problematic in maintaining the multi-player approach this particular genre uses (keeping friends who want their own choices to matter together). All we get now are slight visual changes and slight differences in which npcs are present to each individual user (like in ESO). That's about the extent they can use phasing without placing people in different worlds than those they like to play with.

Sovrath · March 2017

Amathe said:

Torval said:

You do understand why choices mostly can't matter in a mmorpg right? It's an issue inherent to the genre that doesn't have a simple solution that is currently technologically available.

Yet oddly it's a promise that keeps getting made.

Can you be more specifc? Because I don't know of any game where your choices matter other than Star Wars the Old Republic (and there is a limit to how much they "matter") and perhaps Elder scrolls Online and possibly The Secret World.

What game are you talking about? Because it feels like you are talking in hypotheticals.

TyranusPrime · March 2017

Out of curiosity (and before I can truly answer), which MMOs exactly said that your choices matter and have an effect on the game world? (Note: "effect on gameplay" is a useless set of words from any Dev, since ANYTHING a player does or does not do will change your gameplay experience relative to another player's)

Phaserlight · March 2017

Amathe said:

Before reading this, please note that I said mmorpgs. Single player games often deliver better on the issue I am discussing.

FIB: Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max.

So I do a quest to walk grandma across the street.

I collect apples for Farmer Tom.

I help little Daisy find her doll.

I do a million things for a million NPCs.

And none of it means SQUAT.

Never have I reached a higher level and the little orphan child I rescued from bandits is now the Duke of Earl, who rewards me handsomely. None of it ever matters at all.

Just once I would like to make a choice in a mmorpg (other than character builds/equipment), and it actually be meaningful in the long run.

I don't mean this haughtily, but you obviously have never played a quest arc designed by me.

Sovrath · March 2017

Phaserlight said:

Amathe said:

Before reading this, please note that I said mmorpgs. Single player games often deliver better on the issue I am discussing.

FIB: Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max.

So I do a quest to walk grandma across the street.

I collect apples for Farmer Tom.

I help little Daisy find her doll.

I do a million things for a million NPCs.

And none of it means SQUAT.

Never have I reached a higher level and the little orphan child I rescued from bandits is now the Duke of Earl, who rewards me handsomely. None of it ever matters at all.

Just once I would like to make a choice in a mmorpg (other than character builds/equipment), and it actually be meaningful in the long run.

I don't mean this haughtily, but you obviously have never played a quest arc designed by me.

So then, you would ...

Have a player walk grandma across the street only to run into Farmer Tom. Farmer Tom seems a bit nervous but offers to take grandma the rest of the way if you would be willing to collect his apples and bring them to the customers. While delivering to the customers, each one asks a very odd thing for you to do and each time they verify that "tom sent you". At the end of the day you collapse from exhaustion thinking none of that meant squat only to hear chants of Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn wafting through the window.

Then, suddenly, the sky darkens and the sun turns black!

I love it! It says "yes" to me in a big way, make it so!

Amathe · March 2017

In answer to some questions:

1. I'm sorry @Phaserlight, I don't know you so I can't say if I have run any quests designed by you. Heck, of the hundreds of thousands of quests I have run since early 2002, I could not tell you the name of anyone who wrote any of them. But if you are doing a better job of it, good work.

2. In general, I recall statements of this nature in regard to the marketing of SWTOR and Warhammer. I feel there were others but it's not like I have been keeping a journal for years so that one day I could quote chapter and verse in a forum post.

Sovrath · March 2017

Amathe said:

2. In general, I recall statements of this nature in regard to the marketing of SWTOR and Warhammer. I feel there were others but it's not like I have been keeping a journal for years so that one day I could quote chapter and verse in a forum post.

Well that's the thing, I can't really recall a lot of games that made that claim.

Some, as I mentioned above, actually do give you some agency in what is happening to the story or world (Star Wars with characters and Elder Scrolls for characters/world for example) but that's not something I recall a lot of.

I do remember Aion actually making that claim at the start of development then all of a sudden they never mentioned it and when it was finally released it wasn't the game they had originally touted. For better and for worse I suppose.

Shaigh · March 2017

The difficulty with having different outcomes is that for all results you have to make new unique content, the more choices you get to make the more redundant content you end up creating. In witcher 2 you had two different chapter 2, you had 3 different chapter 3, in some ways that means you had to create 6 chapters for a game that only has 3 chapters.

A game like dwarf fortress is interesting due to its emergent gameplay but its going to take a really really long time until we see something like it in an mmorpg. Even today there are times when static quests breaks in mmorpg, imagine what would happen with emergent gameplay in an open world.

Kyleran · March 2017

Play EVE, closest you will come to player choices having an impact on the gameplay experience and on the universe itself.

Frammshamm · March 2017

Amathe said:

Before reading this, please note that I said mmorpgs. Single player games often deliver better on the issue I am discussing.

FIB: Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max.

So I do a quest to walk grandma across the street.

I collect apples for Farmer Tom.

I help little Daisy find her doll.

I do a million things for a million NPCs.

And none of it means SQUAT.

Never have I reached a higher level and the little orphan child I rescued from bandits is now the Duke of Earl, who rewards me handsomely. None of it ever matters at all.

Just once I would like to make a choice in a mmorpg (other than character builds/equipment), and it actually be meaningful in the long run.

never played age of wushu I see...

Its always the people who have strings of games in their signatures, as if that means SQUAT, that play every game in the same boring linear way and then complain about it on forums.

Jill52 · March 2017

While a game with primarily dynamic, player-directed content would be nice, static content is easier to develop so that's what we get.

However, there are still ways to implement more player influence into the game's world. Here's a couple:

Player created content - give players a set of tools to make and submit their own quests, dungeons, etc. Players can change their own content based on what other players do if they want to. This was done in the original version of Graal Online back in 1998-ish.

Live story events - with these a team of GMs (live event team) would act as D&D style dungeon masters. They would directly play the roles of main NPCs and alter the event story accordingly in real time as the players play through it. When the event ends, the outcome of the event and all the player choices made during the event will have changed the direction the game's main story goes. I know, "that's crazy and it could never be done", right? No. The system I describe existed in The Matrix Online. That was back in 2005 so if they could do it back then they definitely can do it now.

So, some old concepts like these could make a comeback and allow for something a little closer to the dynamic, ever-changing world some of us want.

cameltosis · March 2017

This is why I don't like stories in my computer games. Games just aren't a good medium for telling stories, especially in the MMO space. The tighter the story, the more restrictive the gameplay. If you want player choices to be reflected in the world, then you need to do away with stories completely, otherwise you have to do some extreme phasing.

I'd much rather see the world changing at a faction level. Things like territory control is a great one. Fight well for your faction and you're area of control slowly extends. Allow players to build their own cities that change the landscape of the game. Have NPC factions that are themselves working to take back territory. Have the mobs in a zone change depending on who owns it, so if you own it, the quests / mobs might be small scale cleanup type things, but if the enemy owns it then your quests will be to reclaim it, wipe out a mini-boss etc.

You could put in some sort of automatic promotion / inheritance mechanic, for example if your faction managed to assault another factions home city and kill their king, have the king actually die and his son / brother / uncle inherit the throne, with new randomly generated character and skills. Combine with some sort of mechanic that auto-tweaks difficult, so if one factions leader is consistently killed, that faction "breeds" stronger children due to a hard life, so the leaders steadily get harder until it balances out.

CrazKanuk · March 2017

cameltosis said:

This is why I don't like stories in my computer games. Games just aren't a good medium for telling stories, especially in the MMO space. The tighter the story, the more restrictive the gameplay. If you want player choices to be reflected in the world, then you need to do away with stories completely, otherwise you have to do some extreme phasing.

I'd much rather see the world changing at a faction level. Things like territory control is a great one. Fight well for your faction and you're area of control slowly extends. Allow players to build their own cities that change the landscape of the game. Have NPC factions that are themselves working to take back territory. Have the mobs in a zone change depending on who owns it, so if you own it, the quests / mobs might be small scale cleanup type things, but if the enemy owns it then your quests will be to reclaim it, wipe out a mini-boss etc.

You could put in some sort of automatic promotion / inheritance mechanic, for example if your faction managed to assault another factions home city and kill their king, have the king actually die and his son / brother / uncle inherit the throne, with new randomly generated character and skills. Combine with some sort of mechanic that auto-tweaks difficult, so if one factions leader is consistently killed, that faction "breeds" stronger children due to a hard life, so the leaders steadily get harder until it balances out.

You mean MMOs aren't a great medium for telling stories. Games are perfectly fine, even for a changing world, but the world must change around YOU, singularly, it can't be changing around a million other people at the same time. There can't be a million other people who are the "Chosen One!"

Amathe · March 2017

Frammshamm said:

Its always the people who have strings of games in their signatures, as if that means SQUAT, that play every game in the same boring linear way and then complain about it on forums.

Ahh. so it all comes down to my listing some games I have played in my sig. Very helpful input, thanks.

Four0Six · March 2017

Seems to me like a case of "Hero Complex". While in a single player game one could in theory have huge effects on the story progression and development of the world, that simply isn't feasible in a MMORPG. Simply put, my choice shouldn't affect your game play.

Although I could argue that in a PvP castle siege game, there is player effect on the game world. If of course venders and what not, are tied to control. But I don't think that is what the OP is looking for.

mikeb0817 · March 2017

Torval said:

Amathe said:

Torval said:

You do understand why choices mostly can't matter in a mmorpg right? It's an issue inherent to the genre that doesn't have a simple solution that is currently technologically available.

Yet oddly it's a promise that keeps getting made.

And single player games don't do it any better. You don't any more impact on the game and world than the scripted narrative dictates. The only recent game that even has a modestly open narrative has been Shadow of Mordor and that was really crude in its implementation. Open narrative is hard, probably one of the most difficult challenges the industry could tackle.

What about the Fable games, particularly the last one in which you became the King and had a lasting visual impact on every zone in the game?

Amathe · March 2017

My post is not about me being the Hero or me doing something that affects everyone else's game experience.

It is about me doing things that will ultimately benefit me and my game experience. Making the things that I do matter to me later in the game, for example.

As I had said, "Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max."

Vermillion_Raventhal · March 2017

It would take procedural content that can be thrown away. Something this genre should have long worked on as it would save countless dollars in the long term. Shadow of Mordor seems to be trying to go this route but this genre would benefit far more from personalized content.

Kajidourden · March 2017

People would rage about their choices actually mattering. I believe exactly 0 people when they say that.

cameltosis · March 2017

CrazKanuk said:

cameltosis said:

This is why I don't like stories in my computer games. Games just aren't a good medium for telling stories, especially in the MMO space. The tighter the story, the more restrictive the gameplay. If you want player choices to be reflected in the world, then you need to do away with stories completely, otherwise you have to do some extreme phasing.

I'd much rather see the world changing at a faction level. Things like territory control is a great one. Fight well for your faction and you're area of control slowly extends. Allow players to build their own cities that change the landscape of the game. Have NPC factions that are themselves working to take back territory. Have the mobs in a zone change depending on who owns it, so if you own it, the quests / mobs might be small scale cleanup type things, but if the enemy owns it then your quests will be to reclaim it, wipe out a mini-boss etc.

You could put in some sort of automatic promotion / inheritance mechanic, for example if your faction managed to assault another factions home city and kill their king, have the king actually die and his son / brother / uncle inherit the throne, with new randomly generated character and skills. Combine with some sort of mechanic that auto-tweaks difficult, so if one factions leader is consistently killed, that faction "breeds" stronger children due to a hard life, so the leaders steadily get harder until it balances out.

You mean MMOs aren't a great medium for telling stories. Games are perfectly fine, even for a changing world, but the world must change around YOU, singularly, it can't be changing around a million other people at the same time. There can't be a million other people who are the "Chosen One!"

Nope, I mean computer games in general.

To tell a good story, you need all actors in that story to perform their parts properly. Even in single player games, the developer can't control my actions, they just have to make assumptions and roll with it. This creates a very disjointed story with a lot of inconsistency. Developers start getting around this by programming ever more restrictions into their games, like linear levels, linear quest lines, dialogue that inevitably forces you to the same ending etc. These restrictions result in a better story (but still nowhere near as good as books or films) but much worse gameplay.

Easiest example is any game which assumes I'm the good guy. The quests and story all assume I'm the good guy and force me down the route of being good, but thats not who I am. I am far more nuanced than that - most of the time I'm good, but you what what, sometimes I just wanna kill that irritating character in game. Those nuances come out in the gameplay - I'll happily slaughter everybody in sight, smash open every crate and rob everyone blind - but are almost never reflected in the story.

Thing is, it's not really feasible to create a game which is intelligent enough to track all my actions, process them and then alter quests / dialogue accordingly.

The only stories, in my opinion, that work in gaming are the ones you create yourself. The developers should set up the general framework, but it is your actions in the game that create your personal story. It is why I prefer older games for stories. The technology back then prevented too much dialogue and minimal cutscenes and animations. You got the barebones of the story from the developers, and essentially filled in the gaps using your own experiences. A quest was remembered as easy or hard (story wise) based on how easy or hard it was for you, personally (gameplay wise), not because you reached the finish and a cutscene shows your toon saying "wow, that was hard".

Iselin · March 2017

Amathe said:

As I had said, "Your choices in our story line matter. They will affect your game experience. People who rush through the game will miss things that are import later. To have a full and well rounded character you need to experience the whole game, not just grind to max."

I've never heard that said about an MMORPG except by you

What I have heard, and fully agree with, is that in an MMORPG that tells a lot of stories through quests, you will be missing out on a lot of content and context if you don't do the quests.

It's fine to not like quest-centric themeparks: they're not everyone's idea of fun. But if you choose to play one of those and don't do the quests it's pretty much like skipping most of a book and turning to the last chapter to see how it turns out... why bother?

There are also a few games where some rewards can only be gotten through quests or things that help in PVE can only be gotten in PVP. or viceversa. The choices you make in how you play those games do in fact matter, but that has nothing to do with branching quest scripts.

Having MMORPGS where the things you do truly affect the world and everyone else in it at this moment in time is just science fiction in novels about MMORPGs like Ready player One, Reamde, etc.

Kyleran · March 2017

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

It would take procedural content that can be thrown away. Something this genre should have long worked on as it would save countless dollars in the long term. Shadow of Mordor seems to be trying to go this route but this genre would benefit far more from personalized content.

Citadel of Sorcery has long been promising to provide players personal content via reflected worlds which they could choose who and how many to share it with.

They've never shared how the "magic" will happen, top secret info which only the highest tier backers may be privy to.

Unfortunately seems to be stuck in a never-ending development cycle due to a lack of funding, but it is a game I hope can one day deliver on the "vision"

I'm just not placing any bets...

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The Fib MMORPGs Keep Telling Me

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The Fib MMORPGs Keep Telling Me

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV