Yeah..um...right...story is meaningless. When I go to the movies....I buy the ticket and then play video games in the lobby until the last ten minutes. It's all about the endgame. Books?....what the hell is a book?

Originally posted by Terranah

I'd rather make my own story.  I've read hundreds of novels over the years and if I wanted to read a book I would drive over to Borders or log in to Amazon and buy a few.

 

I see the reasoning there, but if it were true, nobody would be watching movies. In filmmaking history, there have been people who believed that going the drama route would amount to merely copying theater, and that films should be more than drama, or stories.  

So from what I see here, there are a lot of people who just don't see computer gaming as a storytelling medium. Why not? The whole adventure and RPG genres thrive on stories - and computer gaming is surely not averse to telling them. I do read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies and I can honestly say some of the story moments in computer games rank up there with the good novels and movies: Planescape: Torment, Dreamweb, Sanitarium, The Longest Journey, Baldur's Gate 2 have many moments of brilliance in this regard. 

As for MMOs, I would agree the genre up to now is quite weak as far as storytelling goes. Even a game like LOTRO, which makes some smart use of instancing to progress the story, is quite flat when you compare it to any of the games mentioned above.

For me, this weaknessup to now makes Bioware's goal of making storytelling work in an MMORPG even more interesting. Sure, they can fail miserably, but how do you achieve something exciting without risking making a fool of yourself? :)

Usually what makes me quit most mmos is the lack of story and how it is presented, so I am happy they are focusing on that.  And the combat sounds awsome from what people said in E3.

Personally a story is what makes a game so interesting. Some of the long quest chains in wow that were not just kill x type boar, now kill y type boar, the ones that went across zones and gave lore, with a story, were great.

I am glad you just wish to run up to a NPC, click it, instantly get a quest, no info or anything, kill something, return to it, and get generic sword x, and move to the next npc.  That sounds pretty fun to me too! Gosh what was I thinking for wanting a story, for wanting to have the gameplay have a feel to it.

I am sure you can find a game just like that out there though.

 I disagree with the OP completely.

On another note ... he says failures such as AoC and Warhammer.  True those 2 are not bragging 11 million players but they are not failures.  Nothing has to be as successful as WoW to not be a failure.

I believe story is what you make of the games, however to have a company such as Bioware bring their expertise to the table is a good thing.  Maybe it will fail, maybe it will be as large as anything before it.  Either way, Bioware is bringing something to the genre that I am excited about.

I think one of the reasons story has seemed less important in MMOs is because you feel like you're just walking in the footsteps of the people who did that quest before you, the same quest hundreds of people behind you are going to do. When you're playing a single-player game, your "solo-ness" gives you enough suspension of disbelief (as far as the questing assembly line goes) to allow the illusion that you're the hero (or villain) to take root.

We'll have to wait and see if BioWare is able to achieve this same thing when our characters are surrounded by dozens of other players waiting to do the same quests we are, some of them talking sports, some doing /Wookie_Dance_7 in a Jawa's face. The interviews seem to at least make it clear that they're aware of the problems players tend to cause for one another when it comes to questing and immersion, but we won't really know if their solutions will work or not until we have a chance to play the game. Like most things, I suspect it'll largely come down to personal preference in the end.

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

Very interesting questions indeed. I have the same doubts.

I want story. Hell, I might even go trial SWG it excites me so much.

Plus they also said in the video stories for classes would be different -- replayability? ok...

I care about story. What I don't want is more PvP people behaving like jerks because they like to pwn and be lee7. We have had enough of that.

Lets have a good story for a change.

Originally posted by Netzoko

<Snippage>...People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints?

I disagree about the above...I mean WoW seems to be doing well and it has that stuff.  Plus, quite a few of us think story is quite important to a game!  But I do find it amazing the amount of information about actual gameplay that has not been said by them.  Why so mum?

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

Well in my mind an engaging story is what is missing from mmo's these days. To me this is awesome news an mmo with an actual story not hey i'm a farmer cna you go kill the wolves in my garden than turn in and he says can you kill 20 more that is what is wrong with mmo's today.  And if you listen they said they were trying to remove the grind completley so maybe there is more to it than just the story there. 

And not everyone wants a classless sytem I'm for classes if they get some custimization. In Star wars galaxies pre cu they had all skills but guess what I and many others specified a class. I was a bounty hunter.  some were smugglers some were doctors. They all still played a class.

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

Are you serious.....it seems you think the game should play itself until you are ready to pick it up,  Why would you not want your character to have a storyline, that would have been like only doing the boss fights in Final Fantasy 7.   Yeah you get to see the awesome combat animations and so forth but you lose out on the totally epic storyline,  when you could of had your cake and eat it too.  You ability to condescend yourself makes MY brain swell.  But then i remember you probably hate MMOs and it makes it all better. 

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

THIS^^

/AGREE

I will go on a limb to say if the story is actually engaging, and most importantly the choices that you are forced to make through narative story are 100% impactful and not a time fill . . . people may like it but it's yet to be see.  I don't think story will turn people off, but to your point they haven't addressed the major flaws in our MMOcookiecutter.

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

See, your problem is assuming everyone feels the same way about levels and classes and story as you do.  Play a different game and let the people who are going to enjoy this one enjoy it.

If you don't like story then I guess you do not like Star Wars because that is what Star Wars is, a gigantic big story. The movies were based on storytelling and the game will be the same. There will be plenty of action and many things for players to do but it revolves around your choices, your story. So yeah, I care about story.

---

Originally posted by Swanea
Personally a story is what makes a game so interesting. Some of the long quest chains in wow that were not just kill x type boar, now kill y type boar, the ones that went across zones and gave lore, with a story, were great.
I am glad you just wish to run up to a NPC, click it, instantly get a quest, no info or anything, kill something, return to it, and get generic sword x, and move to the next npc.  That sounds pretty fun to me too! Gosh what was I thinking for wanting a story, for wanting to have the gameplay have a feel to it.
 
I am sure you can find a game just like that out there though.

---

Yep, it's called EQ2. I swear that game has ZERO story. All you do is grab quests that mean nothing just to get xp. Sure, it has a ton of so called LORE, but that's just backstory(history) and only seen really through picking up in game "books". That's not story interaction though.

I care about the story, it is one of the things that are worst in MMOs and we will see a lot more story in upcoming games like WoDO and Guildwars 2 also.

The OP is wrong, some people don't care about the story but they are probably the same people that like Steven Seagalls movies also.

MMOs have other issues that needs to be fixed also but Bioware do have a point.

Originally posted by hubertgrove

Originally posted by Netzoko

It blows my mind how out of touch developers are with the MMO base. With literally the biggest IP in the world, their focus is NOT what gamers have hated about mmos for years. No no, they will contiune to shovel the bullshit, but will now have STORY!

Are you kidding me? The level of absurdity is making my brain swell. People hate classes, they hate levels, they hate watered-down gameplay and grind. Does BioWare plan on address these -universal- complaints? Fuck no, to them the problem with MMOs is story? My mind is utterly blown. From forum to forum across the internet, followers are asking the same basic questions. Whats pvp like? Whats pve like? How are the classes? What is the item system like? Yet over and over, every single dev blog and release is about story. I just can't wrap my head around the unsurpassable amount of ignorance by the dev teams. You would think that seeing the failings of supposed "blockbuster" MMOs like Aoc and WAR would send a message, but no. Alas we continue to be insulted by developers who ignore the -KEY- issues people have with the genre, and instead focus on something utterly worthless.

Newsflash jackasses, your customers arn't upset with lack of story, they are upset with the cookie cutter MMO template that money grubing bandwagoners like you continue to reiterate and expect to sell.

THIS^^

Big font doesn't make you more right.

Looking at many posts in these forums, and the sales of games NOT mmos, I'd say the numbers prove you are wrong.   As people gravitate from other gaming genres to MMOs, they want the same feeling they get playing Gears of War, Halo, or Final Fantasy.  They want to feel like they are the hero, that they are a part of the story, and what they do matters to the game.  They want story, and they want to be a part of that story. 

You don't see the forest for the trees.  The biggest part of any game is immersion.  If you are doing a quest that influences the story of the game, that is immersion.  Going to x and killing y is not immersion.  It is grind.  They are spending millions in complex storylines and days worth of audio dialogue, to create a unique experience for every player, and you are saying that is cookie-cutter and not what players want? 

I think you are the one that needs to get a damn clue.

Originally posted by haggus71

Originally posted by hubertgrove

THIS^^

 

Big font doesn't make you more right.

Looking at many posts in these forums, and the sales of games NOT mmos, I'd say the numbers prove you are wrong.   As people gravitate from other gaming genres to MMOs, they want the same feeling they get playing Gears of War, Halo, or Final Fantasy.  They want to feel like they are the hero, that they are a part of the story, and what they do matters to the game.  They want story, and they want to be a part of that story. 

You don't see the forest for the trees.  The biggest part of any game is immersion.  If you are doing a quest that influences the story of the game, that is immersion.  Going to x and killing y is not immersion.  It is grind.  They are spending millions in complex storylines and days worth of audio dialogue, to create a unique experience for every player, and you are saying that is cookie-cutter and not what players want? 

I think you are the one that needs to get a damn clue.

You can't be more right. You're either right or you're not.

And people don't want "the same feeling they get playing Gears of War, Halo, or Final Fantasy" if they did, they'd go out and play 'Gears of War, Halo or Final Fantasy'.

And when it comes to immersion, here's where you are catastrophically deluding yourself. How can anyone be immersed if they have to follow a pre-set story on rails and are forced to make one of four pre-written responses every three minutes? Do you know what immersion is? It's not being forcefed your own actions in a one-story-fits-all themepark.

WAKE UP^^