SWTOR

[Tmon]

MMO quests to date usually boil down to: Either do exactly what the NPC says and get a reward, or don't.

There are not multiple ways to accomplish the overreaching goal.  You cannot turn the quest foozle in to some other person.  You can't partially complete the objective.  You can't purposefully not accomplish the goal to cause a different outcome.  It's do X for a pellet.

LotRO has started to experiment with adding some consequences to the player's choices recently. They put in a mini-arc where the player can hunt some rats protected animals for rewards, but can turn the quest giver in if they so choose. Doing the latter closes the chain but gives different reward (and different title)

Unsurprisingly people whined, but more about lack of big red text warning they're about to make some actual choice, than the presence of choice itself.

I wouldn't call it whining.  If your choices in the quest system haven't had consequences and they add one that does with no warning, I think you have a right to be a little pissed off.

[tmp]

I wouldn't call it whining.  If your choices in the quest system haven't had consequences and they add one that does with no warning, I think you have a right to be a little pissed off.

They did put in the warning. It just wasn't bright red.

[Lantyssa]

I'm with WUA on this.  If sticking to your roleplay is character slightly sub-optimal character, well that the drawback to sticking with your roleplay.

I, personally, am fine with that.  For a mass market game that wants to change the paradigm, then they're going to have to do things, well, differently.

[WindupAtheist]

As long as the differences your choices make don't leave you CRIPPLED compared to someone else, I wouldn't be that concerned. The super poopsock "everyone will have jewelcrafting if they want to raid" hardcore powergamers aren't a market much worth worrying about. They'll suck the fun out of the game trying to be 1% more powerful no matter what you do.

[Venkman]

I think the moment you call something "MMO*", people show up assuming character optimization, raiding, flamefests over PvP, and e-peening during and beyond play sessions. Those are things to which the "MMO" label is synonymous. It makes it easy to sell a new title, but it makes it harder to offer true alternatives. It's worse too because now it's MMO = WoW = automatic-lose. The world wants labels, but I think it's time for Publishers to create a new one.

Calling it something else changes that. People aren't as concerned about someone else's progress or why they have a certain foozle because they just assume that player made different decisions along the way. And they leave it at that.

THEN you can make games where a player can make decisions that support their place in a narrative. Until them, you call in MMO and your players show up to manage stats and get pissed about everything that gets in the way of it.

[ajax34i]

Wasn't the consensus a while back (in this thread) that they're trying to make a Single Player Online, actually?  Has to be online, cause, well, that's the only way to reliably prevent piracy, but otherwise it's the single player rpg experience all the way?

[Sky]

I think the moment you call something "MMO*", people show up assuming character optimization, raiding, flamefests over PvP, and e-peening during and beyond play sessions. Those are things to which the "MMO" label is synonymous. It makes it easy to sell a new title, but it makes it harder to offer true alternatives. It's worse too because now it's MMO = WoW = automatic-lose. The world wants labels, but I think it's time for Publishers to create a new one.

Or just stop being bitches that give a fuck what armchair devs or minmaxtards think or say.

[Venkman]

You can't change the people. You can only try and change those who show up.

/confucious

[Fordel]

Powergamers will powergame. Let them. Personally after years of WoW and every character being a hero who does identical things, I'd like an actual story that gives me a choice about being a prick or not. Even if I only get the +2 lightsaber instead of the +3. I'm playing a blackguard in Baldur's Gate 2 at the moment, and his reputation can't go above 13 or he'll lose his evil powers. But at lower reputation everything costs more. Oh noes, I'm suboptimal. But it's fun.

You can just steal everything and sell it back though!

[Sky]

Here's a start: no raids.

Work on it from there. Let the lunatic fringe froth freely and then go back to the other game they play obsessively while bitching about how much it sucks.

[DLRiley]

True storytelling in an MMOG is missing one key ingredient. The only people who can act upon the world are the players. The NPC's do fuckall. They are there for 2 purposes: 1) to be killed or 2) to vend something (either a quest, a service, a product or a goods for currency exchange). Despite all their backstory, the NPC's that inhabit the world are there in complete service to the players. They have no motivations of their own other than kill the player or serve the player. The AI is fuckstupid - it can only love/hate/be indifferent to the characters. It doesn't seek to change the world, whether by conquering it or feeding the hungry or anything of the sort. All the lore about how Oceania is at work with Eurasia means dick if they expect the player to make all the efforts.

There won't be a real story in MMOG's until the AI is act and reacting to stimuli and motivations other than serving the player.

The basic personal story of players in MMOG's is "Look how I manipulated this series of levers."

I was hoping someone other than me would come to the same conclusion. Alas, you will inevitably be hit by the argument that players and only players should be the ones affecting the world whether through pve or pvp, despite the fact that it is extremely more easy and possibly equally more fun for that exact same player base if the game is set up that way. Waiting for someone to have the balls to not listen to the bitching and moaning.

[Ghambit]

So basically what we all want here is simply a dynamically persistent campaign set in a storytelling mode of MMORPG.   Soooo, Falcon 4.0+Heavy Rain+WoW.  Easy peesy!   

[Aez]

I'd sacrifice story telling for dynamism.
The stories are so bad anyway and everyone has the same.  It makes it pointless.

[ghost]

Wasn't the consensus a while back (in this thread) that they're trying to make a Single Player Online, actually?  Has to be online, cause, well, that's the only way to reliably prevent piracy, but otherwise it's the single player rpg experience all the way?

Once could argue that this is what made WOW so popular.  Most people just sort of meander through on solo mode and it has a pretty good solo PVE experience the first or second time through.

[Venkman]

MMOs are about the opportunity to socialize, not the absolute need to.

[Soln]

I probably already asked this, but is there real PvP?


It seems like it's just PvE with maybe the hope for arenas or a PvMP down the road, like LotRO has.

[taolurker]

 

This discussion devolved since the trailer released (which was maybe the last time I looked at this thread). Mor phat newz pls... also sorry for Sir Brucing.

I dunno... As far as story in an MMO goes, I understand what they are going for with the voice-overs and also selectable paths, but there also are a few things not discussed here yet. I agree with the grief factor, but.. a Sith who was not fully evil and possibly growing darker would make a decision contrary to a Jedi, or is that not believable? Believability is the key, and some people just don't believe (or bother to read walls of text).

Story and setting are different things, and quests, backdrops, plot and whatnot are not what makes the story.. Or am I missing this playing from the original incarnation of MMO which was why it had RPGS on the end of it.

MMOs are about the opportunity to socialize, not the absolute need to.

Once could argue that this is what made WOW so popular.  Most people just sort of meander through on solo mode and it has a pretty good solo PVE experience the first or second time through.

Yes, opportunity to scoialize, and most of the time (in the early days of MMOs) people meandered along and just randomly joined together.. Before the days of LFG, Uber min maxxers, and campers all competing for the same phat lewts. The Story is what the player makes it, and the quests, NPCs and whatnot all add to the player's story.

"Does the world need the quests as background?" is really the question... especially if the players are evolving the world and things are persistent?

I did wander around and socialize, which was usually made more fun by sneaking around saying snarky comedic things in character with emotes. Possibly one of the best 6 hour gaming sessions I ever had was when a contested spawn on the early EQ servers resulted in numerous duels and camaraderie, along with insane roleplaying comedy. The chat log was like 12 comics had somehow all migrated to the same area, and more fun than any pickup group ever. I would like to see a goddamn MMO have some balls and end camping by allowing parties to fight one another for a spawn or game space. Now that's some good story there!!

If you're okay with "story" being an optional side novel/audiobook for people who want to read it.

If it doesn't persist it doesn't matter.

If my decisions affect the world, or even my character, then I care.

Go into your average MMO.  How many people are talking about the story?  How many are talking about skills/XP/things that affect them?

Most decisions effect your character.  The world, usually not so much.

The problem is most want to be a special snowflake and feel awesome, but they don't want others' snowflakeness to mess with their game.

The real trick would be in making persistance which was directly effected by players... Of course it would either require a huge live team to run quest events and story arcs, as well as evolve the world along with it. Similar to the EQ Prograssive servers.


Oh BTW

Here's a start: no raids.

^^
THIS

[UnSub]

I'll wait and see what actually comes out, but if players want a storyline that they can influence / be important to and a world that changes as a result of their actions, SWOR might have the right approach - lots of instanced areas focusing on the story of the character. You can invite other people to play through it with you or solo it.

I don't think you can get both a massive open world and stories / world changing events that actually hinge on individual decisions. The larger the world, the larger the group of players (i.e. guild size) needed to change it.

[Samprimary]

ffffffffffff the new swtor cinematic is aces but the development team is still basically a bunch of SWG castoffs and harvey the wondertard reprobates

Why are they getting my hopes up for a product that I want to see done well so I can play a motherfucking jedi but which will almost invariably be a bunch of disappointing shit that hemorrhages users after the first month?

I mean and sorry if I'm being too cynical but augh!

[Tuncal]

Leaving aside story narration vs. interaction in an MMO, I don't see how storytelling as your game focus is profitable. In order to keep your players paying a subscription, you need to feed them content. WoW does that through raiding and repetitively grinding the same instance for half a year. I don't see ANY kind of story keeping up with that kind of repetition. So that leaves the other option, linear content akin to leveling 1-60 except vastly improved by amazing storytelling techniques (that's what they're trying to hype, right?). Except this type of content gets devoured at a much much faster pace. How will Bioware be able to develop content that would keep your average player entertained for let's say, 2 years, and make a profit? This makes me think the story will be just a side flavor, and gameplay will be the deciding factor for SWTOR's success, just like every other MMO on the market.

[Lantyssa]

A different story for eight characters versus one character doing the same instance over, and over, and over....  It'll depend how much they can put in and how fast they can write new stuff, however that doesn't mean there will be less content.

[DLRiley]

By the way does anyone remember why Bioware is gearing up to break the record on money losing game concepts (full loot ffa pvp is going to be dethroned  )? There has to be someone in Bioware saying "eventually we going to actually have to pay these writers".

[gryeyes]

Leaving aside story narration vs. interaction in an MMO, I don't see how storytelling as your game focus is profitable. In order to keep your players paying a subscription, you need to feed them content. WoW does that through raiding and repetitively grinding the same instance for half a year. I don't see ANY kind of story keeping up with that kind of repetition. So that leaves the other option, linear content akin to leveling 1-60 except vastly improved by amazing storytelling techniques (that's what they're trying to hype, right?). Except this type of content gets devoured at a much much faster pace. How will Bioware be able to develop content that would keep your average player entertained for let's say, 2 years, and make a profit? This makes me think the story will be just a side flavor, and gameplay will be the deciding factor for SWTOR's success, just like every other MMO on the market.

Have to crank out continual content. Maybe have the "carrot" be rare branches in storyline. Instead of gear you replay old content for items/situations that offer additional lore progression. Have the world get "updated" once a month or two that catches the world up to the current state of story. Pretty tricky stuff to pull off but at least its an attempt for something new.

[Venkman]

Before the days of LFG, Uber min maxxers, and campers all competing for the same phat lewts. The Story is what the player makes it, and the quests, NPCs and whatnot all add to the player's story.

It still does. It's just a steadily smaller percentage of people that care.

But I'm not sure which EQ you were playing to have said that first sentence. Maybe things were different before Kunark when I showed up, but by then it was all about LFG (Orc Lift, Oasis Docks, Windmill, etc.), min/maxxing (why else were people there?), and camping (SoW boots, FBSS?). The only rp I ever saw was in the RP sub-board on my guild's EZboard forum.

The reason to show up to these games has not changed in 10 years. Who has showed up has though. Because the games were made for a wider audience and that wider audience means more personalities. And RP has never been a requirement outside of Underlight

I'll wait and see what actually comes out, but if players want a storyline that they can influence / be important to and a world that changes as a result of their actions, SWOR might have the right approach - lots of instanced areas focusing on the story of the character. You can invite other people to play through it with you or solo it.

This is what I'm thinking as well. A bit of what EQ2 did with their progressive instances, but more like what the old Mythica promised. I still remember the blank look I got when I ask that developer how they'd handle a group of people entering an instance when everyone was on a different part of that story though. And years later we saw the results of that in WoW. Argent Vanguard is an outdoor instance that can  (and does) look different to two different people standing next to each other when they're on different parts of the quest. I still remember the length of that thread from EQ2 beta when it was discussed... in early 2004.

I'd bet all the big story arcs are predominantly solo, which is why I'm getting a Fallout3+DLC vibe too.

[tmp]

Have to crank out continual content.

Daily quests seems to be all the rage, and don't take as long to make as raid instance for few catasses. Plus they can be launched in a way different from current model -- rather than whole bunch of stuff every few months, consider adding (repeatable) quest or two every few days. Meaning for a casual player there's almost always something new to check out.

Obviously though, having voice work added to everything isn't going to help with such 'rapid development'.

[Lantyssa]

Trained voice actors can perform a lot of lines in a day.  It takes far longer to write and revise.

[tmp]

I was thinking rather, the expenses and work involved with arrangement of recording session would perhaps go againt "frequent small updates" model since if you go to trouble of getting the actors to work etc, it makes more sense to try and record large batches instead of just handful of lines.

[Engels]

This whole discussion is making me cranky. Heroism in MMOs is entirely different than heroism in a single player RPG. It has to be. People who want content change based on their actions are suffering from twitteresque narcissism. Its fine for single player RPGs like Fallout3, but in MMOs the focus should be on the permanence and grandeur of the world around you, not what you, joe player, can do to influence it. Dating myself, in EQ's Kunark and later expansions, there was always this unspoken assumption that all quests were an interaction with a large, deeply rooted world where you were not much more than a grain of sand on the beach of time.

As a toon you could be a hero to your friends in a given battle, by performing excellent chain heals, or sucesfully FD pulling a nasty mob out of a cluter of others, or some other technical feat, but the world itself did not change other than maybe offering you a deeper story arc you could choose to continue in.

You did quests that presented the unfolding drama of the people of whatever culture you were interacting with (Thurgadin dwarves, Iksar Empire, etc), but at no point where you ever given the sense than you were anything other than that 'stranger that walked into town one day'. You completed a chain of quests, an NPC thanked you, gave you a trinket, your faction standing went up, and that was it. The next guy was waiting behind you for his quest hand in who would get exactly the same thing as you did, and we LIKED IT because the aftertaste was a greater sense of being in the world, even if we had not affected it one jot.

Your sense of accomplishment wasn't something the game itself trumpeted to the four winds, but was gained through the appreciation and respect of your on-line friends who knew they could rely on you to tank a mob well, or do some other difficult encounter competently. That is the whole point of multi-player games in general.

[Merusk]

People who want content change based on their actions are suffering from twitteresque narcissism.

You HAVE talked to Americans before, right?

[WindupAtheist]

stuff

That whole "EQ was static as hell and we liked it that way!" speech made me bored just by osmosis. Fuck Everquest already.

But WUA you like UO and that's even older! Herf derf!

When we spend 10 years seeing UO remade over and over and over again I promise I will STFU.

[Venkman]

Totally agree. If you want the same EQ model of static campgrindraid, that model has been capped. Sure there's ways to improve it. But you gotta start with what WoW is today, not what it was back on the drawing board. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile there's still so much other things people could be trying, even those carrying big IPs and an interested home office. Things like actual substantive immersion, twitchy UI, impactful PvP, crafting that people will actually enjoy in droves rather than relegate to the few that will suffer through it, etc.

Yes, I know I'm the one that usually goes on about LCD and browser crap most of us who even bother checking them out barely maintain interest in for long. Doesn't mean I gotta like those paths to financial success.

[Koyasha]

You did quests that presented the unfolding drama of the people of whatever culture you were interacting with (Thurgadin dwarves, Iksar Empire, etc), but at no point where you ever given the sense than you were anything other than that 'stranger that walked into town one day'. You completed a chain of quests, an NPC thanked you, gave you a trinket, your faction standing went up, and that was it. The next guy was waiting behind you for his quest hand in who would get exactly the same thing as you did, and we LIKED IT because the aftertaste was a greater sense of being in the world, even if we had not affected it one jot.

That's not even true anyway, there were plenty of quest lines and events in the game that had you doing massive, significant things that did affect the world according to the story, and there were even examples of things you could do that affected the world in practice (although only one permanent one that springs to mind off-hand - Sleeper's Tomb).  On a less permanent scale, the Coldain ring quests have you personally saving the entire Coldain nation from obliteration.  And if you fail, they actually get destroyed - for a couple hours.  (On a tangential side-note I can think of no other game I've personally played where you can factually affect the world to the level you could in the Velious Age, between the ring war actually destroying Thurgadin and the Sleeper awakening being permanent).  It was less common but still present in the Kunark Age.  Some of the epic weapon quests were about a huge storyline that you saved significant parts of the world.  Although some were more personal and simply about you making your weapon.

I think it is possible and interesting to make a story-based MMOG and I think it could very well be a success if done well, as long as adding new content is fast and common.  Production of content can take a short time if the game is designed for it and the tools are there to apply a written quest/adventure into the game in a short period of time.  I don't know if they're going to manage, but if anyone can it's probably BioWare.

[Engels]

Koyasha,

I think you misunderstood me. Yes, for a small amount of time, the world of Norrath changed while you were doing your quest. But the key point is that it reset itself and let the next person do the same story. The emphasis was on the story, not on the player 'leaving his mark'. I'll grant you the Sleeper's Tomb as the exception, but I think its fair to say that the exception proved the rule; you do not want players changing the content of the world.

The compelling aspect of EQ's storylines is that they were often very deep and often required the players to pay attention. Sure, some folks did do quests as bullet point lists of 'things to do' with little to no attention to the actual story, but the point is that the work was there, and there was a TON of it, a labor of love by Verant developers.

On-the-fly content, as is being suggested here, may work, but I suspect that it would be superficial and actually undermine attempts at storyline immersion.

[WindupAtheist]

Everquest has been iterated into oblivion over the course of a decade. It has nothing left to say.

I mean hey, static quests! Yeah, what a great idea! Someone should try making a whole game based on those someday! That would be novel! Maybe next we can talk about some text MUD from the eighties.

[Engels]

I know its your appointed duty to come out against EQ. It draws you out like a religion thread does in the politics subforum, but my point is really about in-depth story lines within an MMO versus 'malleable' story arcs created by players. EQ is just the example I am drawing from, but a better example would be a Fantasy novel (static content) versus a 'choose your own adventure' book (the one where you have to flip to a certain page depending on your 'choice'). Inevitably, the latter's story is going to be less immersive than the former.