Originally posted by Razeekster

This is something I've continued to notice as I've played through both MMOs and PC games. MMOs always have seemed to lack something to me, some sort of spark, and I've finally figured it out. The storylines in MMOs usually, well to put it bluntly, suck. After playing through RPG titles for the PC and throughly enjoying their storylines and to go into the world of MMOs and realize that the story that most MMOs tell is terrible it's hard to get myself excited to continue playing (I do it though).

 

I don't understand why gameplay has to sacrifice a great story. I want to be surprised, not be one of those people who know everything that's going to happen in advance. Hopefully as MMOs continue to evolve (or devolve, whatever your perspective is) the story will be given more thought in each game.

whats a second playthrough like for you?

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by jimdandy26

OP, prepare to be inundated by the sandbox natives as story is a filthy word tied to themeparks.

 

Edit: Too late. :(

This is wrong, sandboxes have plenty of story. But normaly you make your own not have your path preplanned.

Sandboxes have story, lore, quests, and much more. This is a BS statement. I prefer story, just one that i make up as i go along and im a sandbox junkie. So am i calling story filth? Just that you dont need it which is true.

Really? I have yet to see an even semi decent storyline in a sandbox game. As for creating it yourself, there is a reason why pretty much all of it is fanfic and you guys return to your day jobs.

If you are insuating that player storyline sucks than I have to disagree with you 100%. Some of the best stories that I have seen have come from players. A great example is DA (Darkages). Most of the lore is player created and I have a hard time at times getting all caught up on it because the politics and religion is complicated and very well built. And guess what? It's all by players.

I agree with the OP.

This is happening because everyone is so focused on making sure other details are included in the games. Lets look at GW2. We wanted wpvp. We got realm wpvp, with realm wpvp how can we have storylines that create a puprpose beyond realm pride? It's not like it's orcs vs humans and the story defines the conflict.

It's quite simply the purpose of realm pvp is for realm pride. So now we get a thread like this one that wants to know what happened to story?

In the GW2 example humans fighting humans and norn fighting norn and char fighting char, yes it takes away from the story, almost enough for you to step back again and ask....

WHY ARE WE FIGHTING AGAIN?

Originally posted by aleos

Originally posted by Razeekster

This is something I've continued to notice as I've played through both MMOs and PC games. MMOs always have seemed to lack something to me, some sort of spark, and I've finally figured it out. The storylines in MMOs usually, well to put it bluntly, suck. After playing through RPG titles for the PC and throughly enjoying their storylines and to go into the world of MMOs and realize that the story that most MMOs tell is terrible it's hard to get myself excited to continue playing (I do it though).

 

I don't understand why gameplay has to sacrifice a great story. I want to be surprised, not be one of those people who know everything that's going to happen in advance. Hopefully as MMOs continue to evolve (or devolve, whatever your perspective is) the story will be given more thought in each game.

whats a second playthrough like for you?

 

 

That's why I don't usually have a second playthrough. Usually the first time is bad enough.

Agreed, AoC is great, but I'm a Howard fan as well, so biased :)  I think both the main story (all the way to the Onyx chamber) and the world quests (sometimes with references to the books) are awesome - but you have to actually talk with the npc's to fully enjoy that, not just playing the minimap and the quest tracker.

TSW is the same (not a surprise, Ragnar rocks), great main storyline with well-detailed npc's and really good side-missions.

To be honest I'm still a bit angry at TOR but the storylines are really good, especially the Sith ones. (light sided SI ftw :) )

Razeekster "LOTRO was very predictable to me." maybe because it follows the books? :) It still has a decent writing though, and the sideway stories are awesome (like Amarthiel or the Narsil reforging)

And I don't wanna miss STO from here, it has great Seasons, and there are amazing story archs in the Foundry as well...

So I think if you look by the numbers, maybe you're right, there are truckload of mmo's on the rails without any story or just copy-pasted from a pulp. But luckily there are still some story-heavy games as well, of course a good lore to back them up is a big help...

Lol, who the hell cares about story in an MMO?

Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.

Linear single player storylines in MMOs are a waste of resources, it's useless for long term retention.

Originally posted by Po_gg

Agreed, AoC is great, but I'm a Howard fan as well, so biased :)  I think both the main story (all the way to the Onyx chamber) and the world quests (sometimes with references to the books) are awesome - but you have to actually talk with the npc's to fully enjoy that, not just playing the minimap and the quest tracker.

TSW is the same (not a surprise, Ragnar rocks), great main storyline with well-detailed npc's and really good side-missions.

To be honest I'm still a bit angry at TOR but the storylines are really good, especially the Sith ones. (light sided SI ftw :) )

Razeekster "LOTRO was very predictable to me." maybe because it follows the books? :) It still has a decent writing though, and the sideway stories are awesome (like Amarthiel or the Narsil reforging)

And I don't wanna miss STO from here, it has great Seasons, and there are amazing story archs in the Foundry as well...

 

So I think if you look by the numbers, maybe you're right, there are truckload of mmo's on the rails without any story or just copy-pasted from a pulp. But luckily there are still some story-heavy games as well, of course a good lore to back them up is a big help...

I actually never read the books :)

TSW I would be able to play, but I don't like the combat in it at all. I do agree that Ragnar rocks though (played both The Longest Journey and it's sequel).

Let's see SWTOR, LotRO, AoC, TSW, AoC, EQ2 and WoW all have stories. Just told in different ways WoW had some really good storylines if one was willing to follow the chains all the way through. Take the old Defias Botherhood quest chain for instance, if you followed that chain all the way through. You find out that there was more behind the actions of Van Cleef and his gang or the kidnapping of King Varian. The problems with MMOs is that once you hit max lvl the stories end and the carrot on the stick grind begans. In Wow at max lvl their major lore and stories are hidden behind raids eg: the fall of Illidan or the fall of the Lich King, but after you beat those raids. There is nothing left but to grind gear and wait for the next instances, raids, and dailies. So in effect all MMOs start out with some sort of story, there has to be a background story as to why the world exist and why the events in said world are taking place. Some MMOs do this better than others, but all of them seems to drop the ball on story after max lvl.

Originally posted by Crynswind

Lol, who the hell cares about story in an MMO?

 

Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.

I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but  who the hell cares about story in an MMO?  I do :)

And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.

I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg :)  rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by Crynswind

Lol, who the hell cares about story in an MMO?

 

Only the people who play MMOs like console games, play for a couple of weeks and then move on.

I know I'm the minority in the story / content subject, but  who the hell cares about story in an MMO?  I do :)

And I do move on from games - which doesn't have a story, or has a weak one... But those I mentioned I'm playing since 3-4 years (except TSW and TOR since they're fairly new), with lots of alts so I played them through countless times.

I think the difference can be illustrated with the font size, because for me they aren't MMO's, they're mmoRPG's emphasis on rpg :)  rpg games with a community, with working economy for crafters, and group play / roleplay (so rpg's in the old, pen-and-paper sense, not the lame, diablo-like "kill-loot-level up-yeah that's rpg" meaning)

 

With RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout, Dark Souls & Skyrim, why even bother with MMOs?

I mean they have better story, content, quests, combat...

Themeparks are just dumbed down single player rpgs.

Story is ok, but i would rather have player made content extending the lyfe of a MMO for YEARS over a horrible 3 week long MMO story.

Originally posted by Crynswind

With RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout, Dark Souls & Skyrim, why even bother with MMOs?

I mean they have better story, content, quests, combat...

Been there done that :)

2 things, the smaller is that mmorpg's can be played together with friends, the bigger is, well, I'm a fan of those lores.

There are no single player rpg's in Middle-earth (only lame console action craps), Hyboria, Alpha Quadrant... and for TSW, c'mon it's Ragnar's new game :) and in case of TOR, I just needed some new story after the KotOR's.

Originally posted by Razeekster

This is something I've continued to notice as I've played through both MMOs and PC games. MMOs always have seemed to lack something to me, some sort of spark, and I've finally figured it out. The storylines in MMOs usually, well to put it bluntly, suck. After playing through RPG titles for the PC and throughly enjoying their storylines and to go into the world of MMOs and realize that the story that most MMOs tell is terrible it's hard to get myself excited to continue playing (I do it though).

 

I don't understand why gameplay has to sacrifice a great story. I want to be surprised, not be one of those people who know everything that's going to happen in advance. Hopefully as MMOs continue to evolve (or devolve, whatever your perspective is) the story will be given more thought in each game.

I feel the opposite, I love singleplayer RPG's, love the story's in them.

When I enter a MMORPG I expect it to give me feature's in a gameworld to create my own story, my own virtual life. Everything NPC's might be able to do in SRPG's should be things (optional) that players should be able to do. My story in a MMORPG should be my own, my own experiance's due to the freedom I do expect from a MMORPG.

If a well know singleplayer RPG is made into a MMORPG I simply don't understand why that MMORPG wouldn't become a sandbox MMO, because we already had the guided but still enoyable game experiance in it's singleplayer game, shouldn't we have more freedom in a MMORPG? Sure let there be story but that story should really impact the ingame world in some way's.

And that's why I feel it's hard to put story rightfully into a MMORPG and believe due to how story impacts in singleplayer games people expect it to have the same type of impact in a MMORPG.

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Originally posted by Amjoco

Being an old timer, I think the problem is the players. Every game that I have played recently, has a story and a reason to get you to the end. I think folks are in such a hurry to level cap, they just load up the quests without even reading them and blazing to complete them. 

 

After playing SWTOR I dod not think I can ever play game where I have to read quests... I am completely spoiled by VO.

But yep, to enjoy a story you got to know why you kill these 10 mobs... SWTOR is one of few MMOs that it actually gives you a reason to do it.

Edit: Under condition that you don't spacebar through mission LOL

I understand up to a point. The problem is with addons, dungeon finders, arrows that point us to a quest objective, rest experience and much more, it's coming to the point we don't even need to be there to play. Immersion is the partially the players responsibility and it is being thrown out the window. /shrug 

I think you can have story in MMOs. You have to really to have a background to the world you are in and storielines to evolve it.

The part I disagree with is how they're being implemented in the games. Storylines are great when they're built into the world and into the lore for you to discover. Not when they're tied into the quests and delt to you piece by piece. This made it great in games like EQ where there were bits and pieces of the history of Norrath spread all over the place. Hail a few people in town and they may give you some conversation. Fnd out about the world in the quests they actually did offer that were well known. I remember my first Veeshan's Peak clear and going up to the top of the peak, stopping in the room with the stairs and the paintings on the wall that showed how the world was created by Veeshan. Little bits and pieces like that to make you wonder, think and ask around, research and really dig into the (hopefully) deep lore that the world has. Things like that offer way more than the wall of text or cinematic quest can offer, bar none.

I'll share my thoughts.

You have those standard MMOs that are pretty story/character driven(TSW/SWTOR) and then you have sandboxes Like Vanguard that let you tell your story with a bit of guiding. But what's with your standard Themeparks?

WoW has an interesting lore and awesome class/Main quests that are totally eclipsed by "kill 10 X" and "Fetch!" quests. I always liked the quests that tell the story of the zone and stuff like that(Honour hill in Westfall anyone?). Unfortunately, the same happened to LoTRO. Awesome Main quests boggled down by chores. What a shame(in both cases)!

Rift was totally blah. Uninteresting lore, weird world(and that's an euphemism) and Quest texts that were often a simple sentence or two. WTF??? That was made for pure Themepark endgamers I see...

AoC was nice until the end of Tortage and during the MQ. Everything else was shite. Tho they did depict Hyboria in a correct way. RoTG grind(when I better think it is not "Rise of the Godslayer"-it is "Rise of the GRIND" lol). Now that it is some Hardcore vomit.

WAR had an awesome writing and, I think, racial storylines conveyed the spirit of one's race just fine. They should've had class storylines tho. Warhammer's such a rich place for stories-why close it within some "lakes"? Come to think of it, WH would make for an awesome sandbox. Tho it's true they had first grade writers on WAR team-courtesy of Black Library of course(there were Nathan Long, Mike Lee and I think even Gav and Graham helped with it-their presence is certainly noticable). Too bad they fked up High Elves beyond any good belief and allied Chaos with the Dark Elves to boot(that's a no-no). Not to mention that game itself was fubar'd. Such a shame.

GW was just...strange. It all felt too forced to me. In Prophecies, you basically jumped around the continent for no good reason. Remember, your mission ended when you successfully brought Ascalon refugees to Lion's Arch. There was no need for all that White Mantle/Shining Blade/Lich nonsense. In Factions, it was even more superficial, but at least it was packed with action and way more fun(imo only) than those Prophecies era jaunts. Nightfall was good, but it still needed a bit of mature tone. EoTN, along with GW 2, is too childish and too cartoony for my liking. Overall, the execution was above average, but not a dent over that(C+ or B-).

Aion-no comment. Haven't played enough but I wouldn't Expect too much. The same applies to TERA as well.

Those are my thoughts on your typical Themeparks.

edit: To those who say "if you want a story-GO SINGLEPLAYER!", I can only tell: "You go play Warhammer/Conan RPG in singleplayer!". In other words, some franchises, unfortunately, are available as MMOs only. We have no choice lol!

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Really? I have yet to see an even semi decent storyline in a sandbox game. As for creating it yourself, there is a reason why pretty much all of it is fanfic and you guys return to your day jobs.

 Asherons Call had one of the deepest stories in MMORPG history, it was a sandbox, and you had to FIND the story, it didnt get in the way of gameplay because the story, was in books thrown throughout the world both in and out of areas where a quest would take you. I remember going up to the second floor of a building that had a NORMAL shop on the first floor and finding a book on a table...the book had some 40 PAGES of story that did NOT lead to a quest, just some history of the world in it. In fact, many books in the game talking about places just leads to a dungeon or landmark, no questing involved...

I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.

I had a lot of interesting stuff that happened to me in games like EVE and UO, and on their own they make for some fun short anecdotes. Still, none of that gives one the long-running, novel-ish taste of, say, the Imperial Agent storyline from SWTOR.

First time I stepped into UO, and then into a succession of MMOs for years, I said, "Uh, why no decent story?". Good, rich, consistent, big arcs of storylines never hurt, and honestly, I agree with the OP: Great storytelling is really really rare in MMOs.

On a related note, I think Blizzard did OK with storytelling in WOW for its time. We're past that now, but sadly, neither Bioware nor Funcom has managed to blend good storytelling into a solid game with a lot of liberty of gameplay.

The first game with plenty of well-implemented sandbox features and impressive developer-created story is going to make it big, in my opinion.

I'd say SWTOR has awesome stories that rivals stories in solo-RPGs.

However, SWTOR is still a Star Wars story so you have to like SW stories to like SWTOR.

Other than that, can't think of one that is 'good'.

The difference between sandbox / themepark story is writing / reading a story.

I suck at writing so I prefer to read and last I checked, so do the vast majority of people.

Originally posted by Nikopol

I do like sandboxes, but the "story" you create playing those games is really not the sort of story the story-minded players are looking for. They're just "interesting stuff that happens". They're practically experiences. They only become stories in the telling - like here, on the forums. Some of it is really cool, but they lack most of the charm (themes, arcs, character development, subtext, etc.) of good, professionally-crafted stories as in a novel, a movie, or a game like The Longest Journey.

I had a lot of interesting stuff that happened to me in games like EVE and UO, and on their own they make for some fun short anecdotes. Still, none of that gives one the long-running, novel-ish taste of, say, the Imperial Agent storyline from SWTOR.

First time I stepped into UO, and then into a succession of MMOs for years, I said, "Uh, why no decent story?". Good, rich, consistent, big arcs of storylines never hurt, and honestly, I agree with the OP: Great storytelling is really really rare in MMOs.

On a related note, I think Blizzard did OK with storytelling in WOW for its time. We're past that now, but sadly, neither Bioware nor Funcom has managed to blend good storytelling into a solid game with a lot of liberty of gameplay.

The first game with plenty of well-implemented sandbox features and impressive developer-created story is going to make it big, in my opinion.

  Agree 100% with you and the op, Tsw and Tor are really the only mmo's out of the thousands that have existed that have genuine story lines.  Lotros excellent lore and good story are ruined by the "kill 10 boar" quests that constantly come up.  The only sand box that had any kind of a story for me was Eve and that is because I pretended I was a pirate looking to loot and plunder, unfortunately no one but me knew I was playing a pirate so the story was an individual one LOL. I remember Shadow bane, to me the best part of the game was the PvP experience where groups of people would go out and attack other groups. the worst part of the game was when the group built a city, houses and such-that was a grind to me and not much fun-but other people like that sort of thing-so to each his own I guess.