As the previous guy said what goes in a MMO is mostly about ticking boxes on the basis of player expectation, so no it is not needed.
Apart from the issues the OP raised such a story also causes other problems. A personal story works well with a quest system, drawing you in. But the downside is that it messes up roleplaying as you have to ignore the fact that you are all meant to be THE hero. Even just on the basis of immersion it can cause similar issues. Having said that I think personal, class and race quests are the best way to do quests in a MMO.
Ideally once you have finished your story there will be the end game content and gameplay tools to make your own story, but that's where modern themeparks hit the rocks. It is terribly expensive to do it all, so MMOs have gone down the line of putting all the money into pre-endgame.
I'm sorry but I hate cutscences and story missions that break up groups. Has nobody heard of interactive storytelling? Single player stories in MMORPGs are just counter intuitive. Players should be able to make their own stories.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
If a game is designed around questing for your character's abilities then a player could create their own personal story through deciding which abilities they want and in which order.
For example you might have an apprentice wizard story in a newbie town with 5-6 quests for starting wizard abilities. Then the player might want to learn necromantic, charming or fire spells. The fire spells might be taught by a group of wizards to the west, necromancy by a group to the north, charm spells by a faction to the east. Some of these choices may be mutually exclusive and each of the journeys may involve other obstacles along the way which need to be overcome separately e.g. learning the charm spells might first require learning ancient language abilities which also involve quests to learn. Or they might want to learn staff fighting from the monk temple to the south.
With quests for special items designed around those path choices e.g. one quest for an amulet that boosts fire spells and another for one that boosts charm spells, each character's personal story could be different.
I think if they have to make personal stories they should be like origin stories and less like the uber hero for the current timeline. Let us play out the past to act as both the tutorial and character builder, then at endgame let us choose how we want to play into the world story
Apart from the issues the OP raised such a story also causes other problems. A personal story works well with a quest system, drawing you in. But the downside is that it messes up roleplaying as you have to ignore the fact that you are all meant to be THE hero. Even just on the basis of immersion it can cause similar issues. Having said that I think personal, class and race quests are the best way to do quests in a MMO.
Just put the story inside an instance or a phase.
SP games maintains the illusion that you are the only hero by separating you from all the other ones.
To me this asks the "Do you want to be the hero?" question that has consistently come up since SWTOR launched. From what I hear on message boards and general chat the answer is a resounding NO!, but I'm sure there are plenty fans of said mechanic out there.
Personally speaking I liked the quests in DAOC or Warhammer, where you had a story, but you were just a tiny cog in a much greater war machine, and I like open ended MMO's like UO even more where you build your own reputation among a tight knit community.
But to answer the question literally the answer would have to be no, since there are plenty of MMO's out there which have no personal story whatsoever.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
Apart from the issues the OP raised such a story also causes other problems. A personal story works well with a quest system, drawing you in. But the downside is that it messes up roleplaying as you have to ignore the fact that you are all meant to be THE hero. Even just on the basis of immersion it can cause similar issues. Having said that I think personal, class and race quests are the best way to do quests in a MMO.
Just put the story inside an instance or a phase.
SP games maintains the illusion that you are the only hero by separating you from all the other ones.
This could work, but it would presumably remove the player from all others while doing it?
Originally posted by Grixxitt
To me this asks the "Do you want to be the hero?" question that has consistently come up since SWTOR launched. From what I hear on message boards and general chat the answer is a resounding NO!, but I'm sure there are plenty fans of said mechanic out there.
Personally speaking I liked the quests in DAOC or Warhammer, where you had a story, but you were just a tiny cog in a much greater war machine, and I like open ended MMO's like UO even more where you build your own reputation among a tight knit community.
But to answer the question literally the answer would have to be no, since there are plenty of MMO's out there which have no personal story whatsoever.
WH quests were race quests and faction quests. DAOC used a more general questing approach. I would say the best questing I have ever done was in Lotro, SWTOR and TSW.
Originally posted by Incomparable So do people really want everything to be mashed up together?
Why "mashed up together"?
Stories take place in a world, whether it's personal stories, class or whatever. Why should there be different "worlds" (instances, single-player "prelude" to the online game or whatever method you come up with) to tell different (kinds of) stories?
While i agree that a character's personal story need not (should not) be the same quests for each player, each character's progression takes place in the game world, and so each "story" should take place there too.
And yes, i WANT my MMORPG's to offer lore that my char uncovers.
Comments
As the previous guy said what goes in a MMO is mostly about ticking boxes on the basis of player expectation, so no it is not needed.
Apart from the issues the OP raised such a story also causes other problems. A personal story works well with a quest system, drawing you in. But the downside is that it messes up roleplaying as you have to ignore the fact that you are all meant to be THE hero. Even just on the basis of immersion it can cause similar issues. Having said that I think personal, class and race quests are the best way to do quests in a MMO.
Ideally once you have finished your story there will be the end game content and gameplay tools to make your own story, but that's where modern themeparks hit the rocks. It is terribly expensive to do it all, so MMOs have gone down the line of putting all the money into pre-endgame.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/If a game is designed around questing for your character's abilities then a player could create their own personal story through deciding which abilities they want and in which order.
For example you might have an apprentice wizard story in a newbie town with 5-6 quests for starting wizard abilities. Then the player might want to learn necromantic, charming or fire spells. The fire spells might be taught by a group of wizards to the west, necromancy by a group to the north, charm spells by a faction to the east. Some of these choices may be mutually exclusive and each of the journeys may involve other obstacles along the way which need to be overcome separately e.g. learning the charm spells might first require learning ancient language abilities which also involve quests to learn. Or they might want to learn staff fighting from the monk temple to the south.
With quests for special items designed around those path choices e.g. one quest for an amulet that boosts fire spells and another for one that boosts charm spells, each character's personal story could be different.
I think if they have to make personal stories they should be like origin stories and less like the uber hero for the current timeline. Let us play out the past to act as both the tutorial and character builder, then at endgame let us choose how we want to play into the world story
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Just put the story inside an instance or a phase.
SP games maintains the illusion that you are the only hero by separating you from all the other ones.
To me this asks the "Do you want to be the hero?" question that has consistently come up since SWTOR launched. From what I hear on message boards and general chat the answer is a resounding NO!, but I'm sure there are plenty fans of said mechanic out there.
Personally speaking I liked the quests in DAOC or Warhammer, where you had a story, but you were just a tiny cog in a much greater war machine, and I like open ended MMO's like UO even more where you build your own reputation among a tight knit community.
But to answer the question literally the answer would have to be no, since there are plenty of MMO's out there which have no personal story whatsoever.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
This could work, but it would presumably remove the player from all others while doing it?
WH quests were race quests and faction quests. DAOC used a more general questing approach. I would say the best questing I have ever done was in Lotro, SWTOR and TSW.Stories take place in a world, whether it's personal stories, class or whatever.
Why should there be different "worlds" (instances, single-player "prelude" to the online game or whatever method you come up with) to tell different (kinds of) stories?
While i agree that a character's personal story need not (should not) be the same quests for each player, each character's progression takes place in the game world, and so each "story" should take place there too.
And yes, i WANT my MMORPG's to offer lore that my char uncovers.