Its kind of unavoidabe, but otherwise not important.

If other aspects of the game are great, I could perfectly live with poor lore, and good lore wont compensate an otherwise poor game.

Its pretty much like graphics. Nice to have them, unavoidable to have them, but essential for having fun ? No, poor graphics is perfectly fine if the game is fun.

Cut scenes/story driven quests:

Just one small way to make players interested in the game.  Can be utilized as a reward or as a way to immerse the player and stimulate their creativity.  However, this type of content takes a long time to create and short time to enjoy so devs should only use enough of it to get players interested in deeper gameplay.

Lore/reading in or outside the game:

Some people dig it.  The fanatics will read it cuz they don't have anything better to do.  Always good to have it, but you may as well let the players write it themselves.

I think it's largely dependent on how many authors you have ghosting your IP's novels. They can use a consistent framework to draw from.

It's odd that the players would consider it so important, given how often they've seen companies produce entire continents from thin air to sell an expansion.

Originally posted by Powellfl
I don't really need a story to hold my hand and tell me where to go. On the other hand lore is what makes the adventure interesting.

agreed.

A well done story doesnt hold any hands. It does hold hands when its poorly used and it becomes a quest hub grind.... Devs seem to have a thing with this badly made questing system that they apparently cant let it go and do something new and different.

only back story is important for me(reason whay I playing some mmo)

but about personal story  I don't care ,

brw. personal story is an ilusion,there is not personal storyes,there are milions same storyes in any story based mmo's

Having played several MMO's now which have had rich and detailed back stories, I can say that most people I know, or have just watched playing, spacebar through the story as quickly as they can to get to the game.

I remember when AoC came out, there were several quests near the mid game that had a lot of back story.  You'd walk up to the quest giver and he'd have at least a minute or two of dialogue to read to understand exactly why you were going to kill so-and-so.  I remember reading the entire quest and thinking to myself "Am I the only one even bothering to read this?". 

So I backed up and just watched people running up to the quest giver.  Even a speed reader would need thirty seconds to read the entire quest, so anything under that I decided they were just spacebaring through the text to pick up the quest.

Less than one person in every twenty players, in the course of sitting there for about 30 minutes, spent more than ten seconds standing in front of that quest giver before running off... and that quest was full of world lore and back story.  So, honestly, I think the game only needs the bare minimum of story for todays kiddie gamers who are only interested in reaching max level as soon as possible.

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Vorthanion
It should be important if you like RPG's, otherwise, you're in the wrong genre and should be playing FPS, RTS, Platformers or action adventures / hack and slashers.

Thank you for informing me of what should be important to me, and if not, where I belong.  Really opened my eyes.  Now if only they could get us our own drinking fountains.

You betcha, you look like a lost puppy in need of some serious help.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Vorthanion
It should be important if you like RPG's, otherwise, you're in the wrong genre and should be playing FPS, RTS, Platformers or action adventures / hack and slashers.

Thank you for informing me of what should be important to me, and if not, where I belong.  Really opened my eyes.  Now if only they could get us our own drinking fountains.

You betcha, you look like a lost puppy in need of some serious help.

Just where would we be without people beneath us to condescend to?

Pass the grey poupon.

I've gone somewhat.

Like World of Warcraft brought me in because I was already a fan of their lore from Warcraft 2 & 3. But then the hand holding, waiting, staticness of it all kind of smothered me out.

Then there was Shadowbane where there was lore, the racial lore was actually really nice, and it guided the open ended game play rather well. Then it really became background noise as each session was it's own story.

Then there was EQ1 where it was all there, and you got bits and pieces, and were left to put a lot together.

It's important, but ultimately it can be too much or too little.

Of course it is, I mean, isn't an RPG just a story that you can be a part of?...would you not want to be part of a good story as opposed to a bad/boring one?..

Lore has and always will be an extremely important part, I love it when developers release additional story content like books to further engross the player.

Originally posted by Sagorn

I was just curious how important the average MMO player feels the lore/storyline of the MMO they are playing is. I see a lot of people saying that they usually open the quest text, click accept and then go do what they need to do and then click complete with no idea who they were doing it for, or why.

Practically speaking, does it matter the reason an NPC gives when he wants to you kill 10 grasshoppers?  Has anyone ever turned down a quest on principle because they don't agree with the NPC's rationale or morality?

I think the story/lore is very important.

But it has to be interesting, unique and deep. I really liked Lineage's lore and it gave me another reason to be interested in the game and keep playing to find out more. I felt more immersed too.

I voted yes. I really like to know/feel my setting.

If I see a field I want to know that there was a battle there, if I come across a half buried statue I want to know who that was and why that statue was made and why it's not maintained.

Originally posted by dave6660

Originally posted by Sagorn

I was just curious how important the average MMO player feels the lore/storyline of the MMO they are playing is. I see a lot of people saying that they usually open the quest text, click accept and then go do what they need to do and then click complete with no idea who they were doing it for, or why.

Practically speaking, does it matter the reason an NPC gives when he wants to you kill 10 grasshoppers?  Has anyone ever turned down a quest on principle because they don't agree with the NPC's rationale or morality?

lol, raises hand. I have.

I'm not a role player but I do consider myself an "internal roleplayer". made up term just for my use. When I'm not in a group I like to imagine my character,their personality and their motivations.

If I quest is beneath my character or against some "reason" I won't accept it. Especially because I don't like quests that much anyway, so if I take one it better be of interest.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by dave6660

Originally posted by Sagorn

I was just curious how important the average MMO player feels the lore/storyline of the MMO they are playing is. I see a lot of people saying that they usually open the quest text, click accept and then go do what they need to do and then click complete with no idea who they were doing it for, or why.

Practically speaking, does it matter the reason an NPC gives when he wants to you kill 10 grasshoppers?  Has anyone ever turned down a quest on principle because they don't agree with the NPC's rationale or morality?

lol, raises hand. I have.

I'm not a role player but I do consider myself an "internal roleplayer". made up term just for my use. When I'm not in a group I like to imagine my character,their personality and their motivations.

If I quest is beneath my character or against some "reason" I won't accept it. Especially because I don't like quests that much anyway, so if I take one it better be of interest.

Haha!  That's awesome.

I'm not big on quests either.  I'll do them if they are there but I wouldn't miss them if they weren't.  I certainly am not going to read the quest text though.

If the lore/story is good I follow along and become interested. If it's just a " we couldn't pay good writers so here's a blah blah the bad guy is bad " story....I ignore it and kill stuff.

SWTOR the sith warrior story is the last time I remember actually being very interested in what was going on. I couldn't wait to get to the next part to see what happened. As much as I didn't like large parts of that game. The story in it was a 10/10 for me.

To me it's hugely important to have good lore and story to provide a baseline, but seeing it's an MMORPG as opposed to a CRPG, it has to give you space to build your own unique adventure into it as well (even some CRPGs let you do this).

If it's just about following a story without any freedom to do anything meaningful outside it, then that's just not doing what the genre does brilliantly. It can be a fun experience on its own, but it's a waste of MMOs' potential.

On the other hand, just "what players do" as lore & story doesn't cut it for me (it's like listening to people's dreams instead of reading books; surely exciting to them while they're having it, but listening to them it's just not).

So I need to have at least some written lore and story along with player impact.

Stories and quests are just excuses to kill lots of stuff.

However, good stories and lore adds to the fun factor ... gives the illusion that whatever you are doing mean something.

If the gameplay mechanics is not fun (i.e. mostly combat), no amount of story will save it. However, if gameplay is fun, stories add to it.