it is my opinion, and the purpose of this thread, to examine the possibility of whether or not built in lore PREVENTS the richness of player interaction. I believe it does, as it slots them into containers, rather than letting them build their own.
Why can not players express themselves within built-in lore? I don't think it prevents power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, "social festivals" nor anything of the sort. All this will just happen within the game's built in lore. It is simply the setting for the players to express themselves.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
it is my opinion, and the purpose of this thread, to examine the possibility of whether or not built in lore PREVENTS the richness of player interaction. I believe it does, as it slots them into containers, rather than letting them build their own.
Why can not players express themselves within built-in lore? I don't think it prevents power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, "social festivals" nor anything of the sort. All this will just happen within the game's built in lore. It is simply the setting for the players to express themselves.
can you explain why you think these things? id hate to just say the opposite of everything you said, but without any background or examples, i dont see how you come to these conclusions (which is not to say that you are wrong)
well, i think that often (in terms of mmo's) people confuse goals and motivations with lore. a basic description of a game (ie an open world full of resources where players have to organize and build to prevent other players from wiping them out) is not lore. it does not need any explaination. it is a complicated competitive game.
now, that is also true for football, which also doesnt require lore for the players to be movitaved to work together to win/prevent the other team for winning. players are play to...well play. if the goal is to not die, they will use whatever tools at their disposal to succeed. they dont need to have a prewritten story for why their team DESERVES to win, or why the enemy DESERVES to lose.
however, this aspect of the argument has led time and time again into a red herring. i am not against lore...just arbitrary drivel created by gamer developers to clothe their world. the lore i like, is the kind that is based on the real history produced by whichever players happen to be there, acting out of their own motivations, and setting their own precident. if you put 500 players in an mmo, they will wander and divide naturally into groups. these groups will be tempered and specialized based on the personalities found within, this will lead to conflict within the groups and between groups who are geographically able to meet, and mechanics allowing, will do battle and develope their regions for battle.
there will be power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, social festivals, you name it.
it is my opinion, and the purpose of this thread, to examine the possibility of whether or not built in lore PREVENTS the richness of player interaction. I believe it does, as it slots them into containers, rather than letting them build their own.
But even football is more interesting with lore. You know which team that beat your team before, if the game is home or not and so on.
Lore is kinda like putting salt on your french fries, it makes the taste better. People will still have fun without it but with the right amount of well written lore it can inspire the players to more things.
You are right that badly written lore prevents the richness of player intervention. But good written lore instead makes it even more interesting. Lore do not force you to do anything. Sure, your dad fought the orcs at the barttle of Black bridge but that doesn't mean you can't ally with them, but maybe you should watch your back a little bit extra just in case....
I think you are looking too much on bad lore because I totally agree that badly written lore is a hindrance but you are missing that it also can add to the fun if you go with it. But you can also ignore it, who cares who your father fought ages ago?, and the senile old bugger is probably lying anyways.
Both in a game and real life are there things that happened before and you can choose to ignore them or not, it is up to you. In a well designed game as in reality can you shape the world around you.
well, i think that often (in terms of mmo's) people confuse goals and motivations with lore. a basic description of a game (ie an open world full of resources where players have to organize and build to prevent other players from wiping them out) is not lore. it does not need any explaination. it is a complicated competitive game.
now, that is also true for football, which also doesnt require lore for the players to be movitaved to work together to win/prevent the other team for winning. players are play to...well play. if the goal is to not die, they will use whatever tools at their disposal to succeed. they dont need to have a prewritten story for why their team DESERVES to win, or why the enemy DESERVES to lose.
however, this aspect of the argument has led time and time again into a red herring. i am not against lore...just arbitrary drivel created by gamer developers to clothe their world. the lore i like, is the kind that is based on the real history produced by whichever players happen to be there, acting out of their own motivations, and setting their own precident. if you put 500 players in an mmo, they will wander and divide naturally into groups. these groups will be tempered and specialized based on the personalities found within, this will lead to conflict within the groups and between groups who are geographically able to meet, and mechanics allowing, will do battle and develope their regions for battle.
there will be power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, social festivals, you name it.
it is my opinion, and the purpose of this thread, to examine the possibility of whether or not built in lore PREVENTS the richness of player interaction. I believe it does, as it slots them into containers, rather than letting them build their own.
But even football is more interesting with lore. You know which team that beat your team before, if the game is home or not and so on.
exactly! the team that beat you ACTUALLY beat. its not like both you and they just pretend to act though they beat you. and there is a huge difference there. if you want ACTUAL revenge, it will taste much sweeter, and explode in much more interesting ways, than if you only want PRETEND revenge. then your revenge will just be a random victory.
im also not saying that such players who like premade lore are wrong, or that such games should cease to exist (again with the awkward threat title :P) just that i think premade lore is a meme that has grown beyond the reckoning of most players, who due to limitation of experience, cant see the forest for the trees.
What I feel like the OP is describing (correct me if it has already been said or is completely wrong) is a true sandbox. Let the USER create what he or she sees fit. Classless. No levels. No factions. I feel like even lore is restricting and most lore can constrict a game to make it no longer a true sand box.
exactly! the team that beat you ACTUALLY beat. its not like both you and they just pretend to act though they beat you. and there is a huge difference there. if you want ACTUAL revenge, it will taste much sweeter, and explode in much more interesting ways, than if you only want PRETEND revenge. then your revenge will just be a random victory.
im also not saying that such players who like premade lore are wrong, or that such games should cease to exist (again with the awkward threat title :P) just that i think premade lore is a meme that has grown beyond the reckoning of most players, who due to limitation of experience, cant see the forest for the trees.
Still, the world did not start with you unless you play a game where all players get teleported or go of a ship to build their own place. That itself could be interesting but guess what: It is lore as well even if it is minimalistic lore.
And there are some things that it works pretty badly if the players make up themselves. Like religion, people tend to make lame gods or mix actual religions with gameplay that pisses other players off.
As for the orcs they beat your father and not you. But at least the soccer morons I know are talking about games that happened eons ago as well. You can ignore old stuff and you probably don't get as upset for something that happened before you were born but you can act on it if you like to.
My point anyways is that good written lore will not stop you from doing anything and shouldn't bother people who doesn't care about old crap but people who like to dwell in the past and search old ruins for ancient wisdom or just like to find a good excuse for a war can do so.
So I can buy that you don't care if the game have lore but I don't agree that good lore will be a bother to you or anyone else.
Bad lore is a completely different chapter that can destroy a lot of fun.
Why can not players express themselves within built-in lore? I don't think it prevents power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, "social festivals" nor anything of the sort. All this will just happen within the game's built in lore. It is simply the setting for the players to express themselves.
can you explain why you think these things? id hate to just say the opposite of everything you said, but without any background or examples, i dont see how you come to these conclusions (which is not to say that you are wrong)
Well, from what I've experienced these things happen naturally not based on the lore of the game, but what you can do in the game world. It's like another world within the world altogether. Sub-cultures. If the game features any sort of socialization or mechanics and systems that support it, people will build alliances and betray each other and so on. It's natural for us.
There may be some underlying "lore" struggles alliances and so on, but that's just the setting which you don't really have to make the "main" point of the whole game (like two factions fighting against each other because the lore says so). The lore might imply that these three countries have a rivalry past with each other, and that may be reflected in how the players act (although in a playful sense), but at the end of the day that's not the deciding factor when it comes to alliances and such. Two players of the opposing countries can ally together to stand against two players from the same countries. It might have some superficial meaning for the players, but it doesn't determine anything beyond some simple, non-serious RP. What really matters are the people and how well you can get along with them.
This is what I noticed after 6 years of playing a game like this. There was rather expansive in-game lore and even a very linear stories to go along with the lore, but that didn't determine anything that happened between the people residing in the game aside from very little things, because the lore wasn't made to be overly restrictive, like not being able to talk to people of the opposing faction.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
What I feel like the OP is describing (correct me if it has already been said or is completely wrong) is a true sandbox. Let the USER create what he or she sees fit. Classless. No levels. No factions. I feel like even lore is restricting and most lore can constrict a game to make it no longer a true sand box.
But that is mechanics, not lore.
Lore does not tell you to have classes, it might possibly tell you that you can't acess certain skills or classes if you are a certain race.
Look on a P&P game like GURPS. It have no classes or specific skills, you just get points and create anything you like. Still the world you play with have a lot of lore, but it doesn't really stop you from doing anything. Amber is even a better example, you can do almost anything there and have godlike powers but the game is very full of lore.
exactly! the team that beat you ACTUALLY beat. its not like both you and they just pretend to act though they beat you. and there is a huge difference there. if you want ACTUAL revenge, it will taste much sweeter, and explode in much more interesting ways, than if you only want PRETEND revenge. then your revenge will just be a random victory.
im also not saying that such players who like premade lore are wrong, or that such games should cease to exist (again with the awkward threat title :P) just that i think premade lore is a meme that has grown beyond the reckoning of most players, who due to limitation of experience, cant see the forest for the trees.
Still, the world did not start with you unless you play a game where all players get teleported or go of a ship to build their own place. That itself could be interesting but guess what: It is lore as well even if it is minimalistic lore.
And there are some things that it works pretty badly if the players make up themselves. Like religion, people tend to make lame gods or mix actual religions with gameplay that pisses other players off.
As for the orcs they beat your father and not you. But at least the soccer morons I know are talking about games that happened eons ago as well. You can ignore old stuff and you probably don't get as upset for something that happened before you were born but you can act on it if you like to.
My point anyways is that good written lore will not stop you from doing anything and shouldn't bother people who doesn't care about old crap but people who like to dwell in the past and search old ruins for ancient wisdom or just like to find a good excuse for a war can do so.
So I can buy that you don't care if the game have lore but I don't agree that good lore will be a bother to you or anyone else.
Bad lore is a completely different chapter that can destroy a lot of fun.
good and bad are subjective. True or false lore are not. for living real players, fluid lore (dependant only on their own actions and naturally occuring consequences, is far more suitable than cement lore, the devs (having just spent time and energy creating content) will not be so willing to flush as soon is it becomes a little less relevant to the existing player base. this causes a cultural staggaring, the prevents any meaningful (this doesnet mean fun or important, just not based on anything) development. without development that has meaning, what is the point of anything that happenes? nothing. no events have any weight, and even the player actions might as well just be a one line of text issued by some random npc.
"and then the pc heroically searched for, and found, the next npc in the quest ark. and lived happily ever after"
i guess this might appeal to some players. but its impact is insideous. it reduces the player's role to the smaller factor in a 2 dimensional narrative.
good and bad are subjective. True or false lore are not. for living real players, fluid lore (dependant only on their own actions and naturally occuring consequences, is far more suitable than cement lore, the devs (having just spent time and energy creating content) will not be so willing to flush as soon is it becomes a little less relevant to the existing player base. this causes a cultural staggaring, the prevents any meaningful (this doesnet mean fun or important, just not based on anything) development. without development that has meaning, what is the point of anything that happenes? nothing. no events have any weight, and even the player actions might as well just be a one line of text issued by some random npc.
"and then the pc heroically searched for, and found, the next npc in the quest ark. and lived happily ever after"
i guess this might appeal to some players. but its impact is insideous. it reduces the player's role to the smaller factor in a 2 dimensional narrative.
I don't know if they are subjective, if it hinders instead of helping it is bad lore. If it makes the game less fun because it forces you to do things you don't want to it is bad as well.
And you don't have to have a single NPC or quest to have lore in a game. Lore is the glue that hold the world together. It tells you why there is a ruin in the swamp but it does not ask you to go there to explore.
Good lore should open up posibilities and give you stuff to roleplay about. You can still create a palladin order with it's own lore but it is good too have some background gods so you can choose who your order follows.
Anything that isn't playermade like a starting city also needs it's lore, like why the city is built like it is and so on. Without any lore you have a rather chaotic random world.
Lore exists both in Eve and Wow, in UO and EQ. Having lore does not mean that the game have quests. In fact the game I know people are working hardest on the lore on right now is CCP/White wolfs sandbox "world of darkness online", White wolf is really going all out on the lore for it.
good and bad are subjective. True or false lore are not. for living real players, fluid lore (dependant only on their own actions and naturally occuring consequences, is far more suitable than cement lore, the devs (having just spent time and energy creating content) will not be so willing to flush as soon is it becomes a little less relevant to the existing player base. this causes a cultural staggaring, the prevents any meaningful (this doesnet mean fun or important, just not based on anything) development. without development that has meaning, what is the point of anything that happenes? nothing. no events have any weight, and even the player actions might as well just be a one line of text issued by some random npc.
"and then the pc heroically searched for, and found, the next npc in the quest ark. and lived happily ever after"
i guess this might appeal to some players. but its impact is insideous. it reduces the player's role to the smaller factor in a 2 dimensional narrative.
I don't know if they are subjective, if it hinders instead of helping it is bad lore. If it makes the game less fun because it forces you to do things you don't want to it is bad as well.
And you don't have to have a single NPC or quest to have lore in a game. Lore is the glue that hold the world together. It tells you why there is a ruin in the swamp but it does not ask you to go there to explore.
Good lore should open up posibilities and give you stuff to roleplay about. You can still create a palladin order with it's own lore but it is good too have some background gods so you can choose who your order follows.
Anything that isn't playermade like a starting city also needs it's lore, like why the city is built like it is and so on. Without any lore you have a rather chaotic random world.
Lore exists both in Eve and Wow, in UO and EQ. Having lore does not mean that the game have quests. In fact the game I know people are working hardest on the lore on right now is CCP/White wolfs sandbox "world of darkness online", White wolf is really going all out on the lore for it.
"good" and "bad", in this case, are referring to preferences, and that IS subjective.
i must to go bed, but i will part with this opinion;
no prewritten scenario, no matter how detailed, will ever be a fraction as exciting as knowing that the town your group built from nothing, spent weeks-months developing into a major center, is about to be attacked and possibley truly destroyed by a group of players your guild leader kicked out for breaking a guild rule.
when 30 angry players are charging towards your town, and the next 10 minutes truly decide everything about the rest of your gaming experience, there isnt a player alive who would prefer calmly reading static words at his own pace, explaining how elves long ago did so and so, and that's the orcs hate the good guys (but will never win, unless the devs already decided they would )
Player created lore has no potential. It simply cannot compare to a game with a script. As a role playing game, players should expect to choose which role they want to play, we aught to be kept within certain confines that tie a game together. Even improv musicians in bands are expected to keep within a certain melody and rhythm. If every musician were to go off on their own tangent, you would end up with utter chaos. How do you expect this to be different in video games?
Imagine what this "player-lore only" attitude would do to a future Lord of the Rings MMO. Forget the storyline, the quests, the area progression- you know, everything that makes the game fun to play. Lets just have orcs running around with elves, dwarves and goblins chatting it up at some public marketplace, and groups of Hobbits roleplaying Pokemon in the dungeons of Isengard. And Nazguls? Sure, we can have those, but we better let EVERYONE play as them because we wouldn't want developers deciding for players what they're allowed to do. Or get rid of them completely. Forget the quest to Mordor or the storyline of the Rings. It doesn't even matter at some point. The entire social structure of the game could change change overnight, not due to the rules of the game but because a few guild CEOs decided to screw life over for everyone else. I really doubt that would be fun to play.
[quote=Cruoris]no prewritten scenario, no matter how detailed, will ever be a fraction as exciting as knowing that the town your group built from nothing, spent weeks-months developing into a major center, is about to be attacked and possibley truly destroyed by a group of players your guild leader kicked out for breaking a guild rule. [/quote]
I'd say this is a perfect example of how entirely dull and predictable player created lore is in MMOs. If this is the extent of the plot that we're supposed to expect from future MMOs then this is not the genre for me. I like fleshed out characters, epic cutscenes, and games with an actual personality- not just a bunch of trolls and drama queens bickering over an artificial guild based bureaucracy.
I will say that the lore in most current MMOs leave much to be desired. If ANY MMO managed to have the quality of lore and presentation of games like Starcraft, Deus Ex, or Fallout, it would completely set a new standard for the rest of the industry. Maybe this is why the storyline in WoW and LoTRO are held with such a high regard- they already had a great deal non-MMO source material to work with. Maybe single player games attract much better writers (personally I think this is the case), but this isn't a problem with lore in general. We just need to have higher expectations for future MMO developers.
Comments
Why can not players express themselves within built-in lore? I don't think it prevents power struggles, alliances, betrayals, mass threats, peace times, "social festivals" nor anything of the sort. All this will just happen within the game's built in lore. It is simply the setting for the players to express themselves.
can you explain why you think these things? id hate to just say the opposite of everything you said, but without any background or examples, i dont see how you come to these conclusions (which is not to say that you are wrong)
But even football is more interesting with lore. You know which team that beat your team before, if the game is home or not and so on.
Lore is kinda like putting salt on your french fries, it makes the taste better. People will still have fun without it but with the right amount of well written lore it can inspire the players to more things.
You are right that badly written lore prevents the richness of player intervention. But good written lore instead makes it even more interesting. Lore do not force you to do anything. Sure, your dad fought the orcs at the barttle of Black bridge but that doesn't mean you can't ally with them, but maybe you should watch your back a little bit extra just in case....
I think you are looking too much on bad lore because I totally agree that badly written lore is a hindrance but you are missing that it also can add to the fun if you go with it. But you can also ignore it, who cares who your father fought ages ago?, and the senile old bugger is probably lying anyways.
Both in a game and real life are there things that happened before and you can choose to ignore them or not, it is up to you. In a well designed game as in reality can you shape the world around you.
exactly! the team that beat you ACTUALLY beat. its not like both you and they just pretend to act though they beat you. and there is a huge difference there. if you want ACTUAL revenge, it will taste much sweeter, and explode in much more interesting ways, than if you only want PRETEND revenge. then your revenge will just be a random victory.
im also not saying that such players who like premade lore are wrong, or that such games should cease to exist (again with the awkward threat title :P) just that i think premade lore is a meme that has grown beyond the reckoning of most players, who due to limitation of experience, cant see the forest for the trees.
What I feel like the OP is describing (correct me if it has already been said or is completely wrong) is a true sandbox. Let the USER create what he or she sees fit. Classless. No levels. No factions. I feel like even lore is restricting and most lore can constrict a game to make it no longer a true sand box.
Still, the world did not start with you unless you play a game where all players get teleported or go of a ship to build their own place. That itself could be interesting but guess what: It is lore as well even if it is minimalistic lore.
And there are some things that it works pretty badly if the players make up themselves. Like religion, people tend to make lame gods or mix actual religions with gameplay that pisses other players off.
As for the orcs they beat your father and not you. But at least the soccer morons I know are talking about games that happened eons ago as well. You can ignore old stuff and you probably don't get as upset for something that happened before you were born but you can act on it if you like to.
My point anyways is that good written lore will not stop you from doing anything and shouldn't bother people who doesn't care about old crap but people who like to dwell in the past and search old ruins for ancient wisdom or just like to find a good excuse for a war can do so.
So I can buy that you don't care if the game have lore but I don't agree that good lore will be a bother to you or anyone else.
Bad lore is a completely different chapter that can destroy a lot of fun.
Well, from what I've experienced these things happen naturally not based on the lore of the game, but what you can do in the game world. It's like another world within the world altogether. Sub-cultures. If the game features any sort of socialization or mechanics and systems that support it, people will build alliances and betray each other and so on. It's natural for us.
There may be some underlying "lore" struggles alliances and so on, but that's just the setting which you don't really have to make the "main" point of the whole game (like two factions fighting against each other because the lore says so). The lore might imply that these three countries have a rivalry past with each other, and that may be reflected in how the players act (although in a playful sense), but at the end of the day that's not the deciding factor when it comes to alliances and such. Two players of the opposing countries can ally together to stand against two players from the same countries. It might have some superficial meaning for the players, but it doesn't determine anything beyond some simple, non-serious RP. What really matters are the people and how well you can get along with them.
This is what I noticed after 6 years of playing a game like this. There was rather expansive in-game lore and even a very linear stories to go along with the lore, but that didn't determine anything that happened between the people residing in the game aside from very little things, because the lore wasn't made to be overly restrictive, like not being able to talk to people of the opposing faction.
But that is mechanics, not lore.
Lore does not tell you to have classes, it might possibly tell you that you can't acess certain skills or classes if you are a certain race.
Look on a P&P game like GURPS. It have no classes or specific skills, you just get points and create anything you like. Still the world you play with have a lot of lore, but it doesn't really stop you from doing anything. Amber is even a better example, you can do almost anything there and have godlike powers but the game is very full of lore.
good and bad are subjective. True or false lore are not. for living real players, fluid lore (dependant only on their own actions and naturally occuring consequences, is far more suitable than cement lore, the devs (having just spent time and energy creating content) will not be so willing to flush as soon is it becomes a little less relevant to the existing player base. this causes a cultural staggaring, the prevents any meaningful (this doesnet mean fun or important, just not based on anything) development. without development that has meaning, what is the point of anything that happenes? nothing. no events have any weight, and even the player actions might as well just be a one line of text issued by some random npc.
"and then the pc heroically searched for, and found, the next npc in the quest ark. and lived happily ever after"
i guess this might appeal to some players. but its impact is insideous. it reduces the player's role to the smaller factor in a 2 dimensional narrative.
I don't know if they are subjective, if it hinders instead of helping it is bad lore. If it makes the game less fun because it forces you to do things you don't want to it is bad as well.
And you don't have to have a single NPC or quest to have lore in a game. Lore is the glue that hold the world together. It tells you why there is a ruin in the swamp but it does not ask you to go there to explore.
Good lore should open up posibilities and give you stuff to roleplay about. You can still create a palladin order with it's own lore but it is good too have some background gods so you can choose who your order follows.
Anything that isn't playermade like a starting city also needs it's lore, like why the city is built like it is and so on. Without any lore you have a rather chaotic random world.
Lore exists both in Eve and Wow, in UO and EQ. Having lore does not mean that the game have quests. In fact the game I know people are working hardest on the lore on right now is CCP/White wolfs sandbox "world of darkness online", White wolf is really going all out on the lore for it.
"good" and "bad", in this case, are referring to preferences, and that IS subjective.
i must to go bed, but i will part with this opinion;
no prewritten scenario, no matter how detailed, will ever be a fraction as exciting as knowing that the town your group built from nothing, spent weeks-months developing into a major center, is about to be attacked and possibley truly destroyed by a group of players your guild leader kicked out for breaking a guild rule.
when 30 angry players are charging towards your town, and the next 10 minutes truly decide everything about the rest of your gaming experience, there isnt a player alive who would prefer calmly reading static words at his own pace, explaining how elves long ago did so and so, and that's the orcs hate the good guys (but will never win, unless the devs already decided they would )
good debating. until tomorrow.
Player created lore has no potential. It simply cannot compare to a game with a script. As a role playing game, players should expect to choose which role they want to play, we aught to be kept within certain confines that tie a game together. Even improv musicians in bands are expected to keep within a certain melody and rhythm. If every musician were to go off on their own tangent, you would end up with utter chaos. How do you expect this to be different in video games?
Imagine what this "player-lore only" attitude would do to a future Lord of the Rings MMO. Forget the storyline, the quests, the area progression- you know, everything that makes the game fun to play. Lets just have orcs running around with elves, dwarves and goblins chatting it up at some public marketplace, and groups of Hobbits roleplaying Pokemon in the dungeons of Isengard. And Nazguls? Sure, we can have those, but we better let EVERYONE play as them because we wouldn't want developers deciding for players what they're allowed to do. Or get rid of them completely. Forget the quest to Mordor or the storyline of the Rings. It doesn't even matter at some point. The entire social structure of the game could change change overnight, not due to the rules of the game but because a few guild CEOs decided to screw life over for everyone else. I really doubt that would be fun to play.
[quote=Cruoris]no prewritten scenario, no matter how detailed, will ever be a fraction as exciting as knowing that the town your group built from nothing, spent weeks-months developing into a major center, is about to be attacked and possibley truly destroyed by a group of players your guild leader kicked out for breaking a guild rule. [/quote]
I'd say this is a perfect example of how entirely dull and predictable player created lore is in MMOs. If this is the extent of the plot that we're supposed to expect from future MMOs then this is not the genre for me. I like fleshed out characters, epic cutscenes, and games with an actual personality- not just a bunch of trolls and drama queens bickering over an artificial guild based bureaucracy.
I will say that the lore in most current MMOs leave much to be desired. If ANY MMO managed to have the quality of lore and presentation of games like Starcraft, Deus Ex, or Fallout, it would completely set a new standard for the rest of the industry. Maybe this is why the storyline in WoW and LoTRO are held with such a high regard- they already had a great deal non-MMO source material to work with. Maybe single player games attract much better writers (personally I think this is the case), but this isn't a problem with lore in general. We just need to have higher expectations for future MMO developers.