MMORPGs shouldnt go with story. it just doesnt make sense that 1000 heros running around killing same rats for the same person and all doing the same story quest....

MMORPGs should be sandbox open world with full pvp, great economy and crafting system, political systems.... story should be player driven and raids and boss mobs should be played by GMs. there should also be a system to play mobs by players. you start with playing a lv 1 rat and some day you playing that super demon group boss.... would be something new, or?

The better MMOs of the future, imo, are going to be the ones that allow you to move your character forward in a wide variety of ways -- via general questing, group quests/dynamic events, storyline quests (instanced or not), crafting, PvPing, exploring, minigaming, and so on. Players should be free to patch together the elements they like best and thereby move forward in the game.

I don't object to story in MMOs -- even instanced SP storylines -- as long as my character is not hamstrung by it or forced to go through it.

Where SWTOR failed story-wise, imo, was in literally forcing all players down preselected story paths that you HAD to complete. Keeping the element of a personalized story is fine by me, welcome even. But story should be OPTIONAL not coerced, and it should vary based on a variety of factors and player decisions.

Here again, I feel SWTOR would have fared better to create 4 optional story tracks per faction that allowed any class to choose any story track, as was done in GW2. Once you got to Coruscant, for example, you should have had the option to choose among one of four story tracks. Making the various stories class-specfic was unfortunate, imo. If you liked a class, but hated the story/companions to go with it, for example, you were pretty much hosed.

SWTOR is incomplete game. I get feeling every time I play they had time to do right first planets, when you experience story without any real time between cutscenes. Then tedious movearound  starts on later ones and if - you are casual player - you forget what you were doing in main storyline.

I think if they had more time (yeah, yeah) to make game what it should be - KotOR 3-10 they would succedeed tremendeously, at first, but still lost in general - no one can add more content fast enough. I can babble about making most story quests accessible for all classes, re-organizing how story will go completely, etc. But it is easy to criticize and be a gamer - much harder to make and develop.

Game failed. It is stuck halfway between usual MMORPG (so much WoW elements) and very good single player game, albeit none of the above. It is miracle SWTOR as it is still alive. I love game despite what it is for great stories and environment. Veeery good for Star Wars roleplayers, although I became  one because I had nothing else to do. But I find myself playing less and less because classes are boring and endgame content - well, that's me, no WoWrider.

In such critical condition game goes to surgery - look at Final Fantasy IV.

swtor isnt more incomplete than other mmos. swtor isnt a real mmo.

its a single player game with occassional multiplayer instances

not a completely bad game, but a bad mmo...

Originally posted by maplestone
My main problem with "story" is that the writers are only ones getting to really getting to play, I'm just following in their footsteps.

You must really hate reading novels!  Watching TV shows.....movies....etc

Originally posted by vayman

Game companies need to let us make our own stories in MMOs. Give us the world, give us the freedom, give us the tools. We'll do the rest.

That said, it would be fine to have some evolving storylines along with the sandbox. Something to rally behind as a community and get involved in before returning to our normal routines within the virtual world.

No matter how hard they try, MMOs aren't going to be able to come close to the stories found in single player games. MMOs should focus on what they're meant to do: provide an online roleplaying experience for a massive amount of players at once.

I think this is a better argument than:

"Long story, short ... story/questing has its place, but I think it's time to make it more of a thing to do on the side, rather than a primary and main element to an MMO."

Story plays an important part in immersing players - it IS half of the title MMO/RPG - but allowing players to craft their own stories and roleplay their own way is what will keep them playing past the point of grind, levelup, dungeon, repeat.

Besides, let's be honest here, an MMORPG story is going to be too generic, cliche, and mass-marketed to be able to ever compete with an isolated, single player experience... even if it is Bioware. But I respect them for trying!

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Originally posted by maplestone
My main problem with "story" is that the writers are only ones getting to really getting to play, I'm just following in their footsteps.

You must really hate reading novels!  Watching TV shows.....movies....etc

I like reading, but reading stuff like the "DragonLance Chronicles" which were based on actual Dungeons and Dragons play sessions are a little more interesting to me.. If I could get my hands on a novel that was based on actual events that happened inside of an MMO world basicaly crafted by its players, it would interest me more..

Originally posted by Saerain

I don't understand why TOR's story is being referred to here as ‘the singleplayer experience’. That may have been traditionally true, but TOR was a move to change that. It showed that it could be a multiplayer experience, and that's what it is.

If people didn't play through it with their friends, that's their loss, I guess.

I agree here. Leveling with friends is so much more enjoyable in SWTOR. Quests are designed in the way that they recognize the party , classes, gender etc. Different dialogs comparing single player versus group. It's pretty amazing actually. The best fun is to level oposite LS versus DS. Sometimes I just ROFL.

Edit. And lets not forget about Spectacor mode for class quests:)

Originally posted by Netspook

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Originally posted by birdycephon
But lets face it, some people like to go to a party, and just be around people without actually interacting with them.

Thats fine.  The difference is they aren't impeding the people who DO like to interact with other people.

The problem is all MMO's are being made to cater to the "be around without socializing" people.

Its like if you had a club, and instead of having things that groups of people can do, like tables for them to drink at, in groups, and billiards tables for several people to play billiards, or ping pong tables, whatever, that the club had a bunch of isolated booths where everyone showed up to the club, but all you did at the club was drink by yourself in your isolated booth while you surfed the web on your laptop and didnt actually talk to anybody else in the club, or do any kind of group activity.

The problem then arises if you want to go somewhere to drink socially and play some billiards with your buddies, you can't go to that club.  Now, in normal life, you just go to a regular club.  Problem is in the MMO industry the antisocial single player MMO types are the majority of the pie.  SO the people who control the money who pay the people to make the games force them to make games that cater to that demographic, leaving actual MULTIPLAYER lovers, out in the woods.

 

You seem to be assuming that there are only two kinds of people/players. The truth is that a lot (most?) of us, likes to have the opportunity to be both, and to be able to "switch" any time we like. And I admit, I'm less social when soloing, I guess most of us are. If that's problematic for you, then it's... well, your problem.

No, i'm not assuming anything.  I know there are more than 2 types of players.  I, like you, am one that does both.  The group i was referring to are the ones who feel that if they have to do anything in a group or raid, they are being "forced" to group.  These are the people who pull the "we should be able to get the same gear as raiders by soloing" card, and the "i pay $15/mo so i should be able to see EVERYTHING" card.  They're the ones who have ruined the genre.

People like you and i who don't begrudge other people's play style are just fine.  As long as a game has a reasonable amount of solo content, we're generally happy.  We don't go and piss and moan on forums because 30% of the development resources are allocated towards raiders and raiding, or group content, etc.

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Originally posted by Tithenon
... and monsters (don't call them mobs, a mob is a large group of people or bad guys)-, ...

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On Topic:
As far as story goes, I think most players like at least a little story in their games. It usually gives purpose to their characters existence. Finding that sweet spot will differ with each player.

Stories become intrusive when they single out the player to the exclusion of other players. Then they are single player stories. How many times in SW:TOR did players see the message as they went through their storylines, "Only 1 <player class> allowed in this instance." That is becoming exclusive. Players start to think, "Better not group with another player of the same class as me."

Cut scenes take the player out of the game. Usually, the character just stands there while NPCs play out the scenario. I have sat through way to many cut scenes where some NPC dies and I could do nothing to prevent it. I just stood there, frozen in a scene, acting like my character would never act outside this scripted scene.

Stories in MMOs is a tough mix for me. Nothing I do will have an effect on the game world, so in essence it does not happen. This is easily done in single player games, as no other player will be experiencing your own world. So the world changes and all for the better as the game progresses. Therefor, stories in MMOs have to be told about minor things, not world changing events.

In MMOs, however, there are 1000s (or more) of other players that may or may not want to experience the changes you just made to their own world experience. Maybe they wish to experience what you just did for themselves and choose a different outcome. The big thing is that it is no longer "My World", like it is in a single player game. It becomes "Our World."

For me "SPORPG" means a storyline where *I* am the hero, the savior of the universe. Just like all the other 1000s of players. Nothing I do affects the game world, even though their are massive events taking place during the storyline. They take me out of the world and place me in a different "phase", so to speak, where nothing I do matters outside of that specific instance. It has nothing to do about solo vs. grouping for me.

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Originally posted by YakCast
I agree with you on what you are syaing in this article but I have noticed you keep misspelling MMO's with MMOs and it's driving me nuts. You are refering to MMO's in general not in the plural sense! I was going to let it slide on this article but looked ata  few of your articles and you keep doing it. This needs to stop! 

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EQ is an MMO.
Rift, EVE Online, and UO are MMOs. Plural, not possessive or contractions.

Originally posted by AlBQuirky

 

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Originally posted by YakCast
I agree with you on what you are syaing in this article but I have noticed you keep misspelling MMO's with MMOs and it's driving me nuts. You are refering to MMO's in general not in the plural sense! I was going to let it slide on this article but looked ata  few of your articles and you keep doing it. This needs to stop! 

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Apostrophes indicate possession or contractions. "MMOs" is neither a possessive noun nor a contraction like "MMO is/was". MMOs is a plural, for which one does not use an apostrophe.

 

EQ is an MMO.
Rift, EVE Online, and UO are MMOs. Plural, not possessive or contractions.

Someone needed to say it, and so I thank you. Too much of this crap on these forums these days. For god's sake people, it's theme park not themepark. Two frickin' words. That's another one that drives me nuts.

lol, sometimes the little things can gnaw away at you like Chinese water torture.

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Originally posted by maplestone
My main problem with "story" is that the writers are only ones getting to really getting to play, I'm just following in their footsteps.

You must really hate reading novels!  Watching TV shows.....movies....etc

By your logic, if reading was good enough for books, it must be good enough for movie-goers to read the captions and there was never a need to add sound.

Autonomous content in an MMO is vital.

We don't go to a movie theater to have conversations yet we do go for the social aspect of being in the theater with other people. Video games are first and formost a media format. Just because they are interactive and set in social opportunities, this does not mean they are cooperative or mutual goals social situations. The reason games are dungeon grinds is because of the inability of development to create mutual goals content.

It doesn't need to be black and white either. MMO games can have both group and autonomous content. You can't force solo, you can try and force group though and it seldom works.

Originally posted by AlBQuirky

 

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Originally posted by YakCast
I agree with you on what you are syaing in this article but I have noticed you keep misspelling MMO's with MMOs and it's driving me nuts. You are refering to MMO's in general not in the plural sense! I was going to let it slide on this article but looked ata  few of your articles and you keep doing it. This needs to stop! 

---

Apostrophes indicate possession or contractions. "MMOs" is neither a possessive noun nor a contraction like "MMO is/was". MMOs is a plural, for which one does not use an apostrophe.

 

EQ is an MMO.
Rift, EVE Online, and UO are MMOs. Plural, not possessive or contractions.

Everything you said is correct, AlBQuirky.  I wanted to add that there is a further convention with apostrophes and abbreviations that's worth noting here: if there is internal punctuation in the abbreviation--Ph.D., for example--than an apostrophe would be required; thus, Ph.D.'s not Ph.D.s.  So possession and contraction are not the only justifications for apostrophes.

/cheer grammar

Originally posted by Thorbrand
No such thing as a single player MMO. Definition of a MMO makes it impossible to be a single player game. This is what companies need to be held to what defines a MMO before they can claim their games are a MMO. No such thiing as a single player massivley multiplayer game. I think that pretty much explains it.

Instead of just reading the title and commenting... try reading the whole article. I was using it as a hyperbole. Basically exaggerating a lot of game's use of questing and story. Focusing more on single player elements rather than multiplayer.

Then again, if you'd read, you'd know.