sort of...but whats wrong a game getting launched, 200ish (or whatever) players hit the floor around the same time, some go north, some south etc, 2 weeks later, the north men have built a castle and farm the local cyclops for leather hides, where as the southerners have divided into warring nomadic swamp tribes who are perptually killing and hunting themselves and all invaders, using poisens from some local monster, or the easterners who have become naval merchant explorers...and the westerners are hardcore role players who play elves (shudder) and any new players have to contend with this mix, or organize themselves and fight to erect their visions etc etc forever?
i see currently lore based game memes as the enemy of such player created lore.
Because "player created lore" is dull, predictable, and entirely devoid of creative inspiration. Players cannot be trusted to fill roles that are remotely beneficial to the global community, let alone those intended by developers. They will not form "castles" or "naval merchants" as you have described. Instead they will inevitably become wandering mobs of player-gankers, griefers and paranoid farming clans. Without a storyline, without a cohesive unavoidable plot to drive the world around the players, progression becomes nothing but a repetitive, agonizing grind to reach yet another level tier. Final Fantasy XIV is a perfect example of a game that featured virtually no lore and suffered enormously for it. What it sounds to me is that you're asking for a game entirely based around PvP, of which we already have plenty.
im so sorry you missed shadowbane. yes, there were gankers, but the player communities (mostly formed by guilds who absolutely hated eachother) were astonishing.
shadowbane define terrible launches, and the gankers DID drive many on the fence newbs away by being to harsh. but for those who persisted for the first 2-3 months, real gaming cultures began to evolve, and few ever left the game again, until it was purchased by UBI and driven into the ground.
there was some lore, but it essentially consisted of 12 (i think) factions with race class restrictions like church/thief guild/barbarian etc, and that was only one server.
it worked tremendously well, and filled an important niche, that has sadly left many old timers like me without a home. if the emulator ever gets up and running, plz do give it a try, you'll be blown away at how fun a game can be without a permanent unchanging simplistic run of the mill overused black and white story line can be.
sort of...but whats wrong a game getting launched, 200ish (or whatever) players hit the floor around the same time, some go north, some south etc, 2 weeks later, the north men have built a castle and farm the local cyclops for leather hides, where as the southerners have divided into warring nomadic swamp tribes who are perptually killing and hunting themselves and all invaders, using poisens from some local monster, or the easterners who have become naval merchant explorers...and the westerners are hardcore role players who play elves (shudder) and any new players have to contend with this mix, or organize themselves and fight to erect their visions etc etc forever?
i see currently lore based game memes as the enemy of such player created lore.
Because "player created lore" is dull, predictable, and entirely devoid of creative inspiration. Players cannot be trusted to fill roles that are remotely beneficial to the global community, let alone those intended by developers. They will not form "castles" or "naval merchants" as you have described. Instead they will inevitably become wandering mobs of player-gankers, griefers and paranoid farming clans. Without a storyline, without a cohesive unavoidable plot to drive the world around the players, progression becomes nothing but a repetitive, agonizing grind to reach yet another level tier. Final Fantasy XIV is a perfect example of a game that featured virtually no lore and suffered enormously for it. What it sounds to me is that you're asking for a game entirely based around PvP, of which we already have plenty.
im so sorry you missed shadowbane. yes, there were gankers, but the player communities (mostly formed by guilds who absolutely hated eachother) were astonishing.
shadowbane define terrible launches, and the gankers DID drive many on the fence newbs away by being to harsh. but for those who persisted for the first 2-3 months, real gaming cultures began to evolve, and few ever left the game again, until it was purchased by UBI and driven into the ground.
there was some lore, but it essentially consisted of 12 (i think) factions with race class restrictions like church/thief guild/barbarian etc, and that was only one server.
it worked tremendously well, and filled an important niche, that has sadly left many old timers like me without a home. if the emulator ever gets up and running, plz do give it a try, you'll be blown away at how fun a game can be without a permanent unchanging simplistic run of the mill overused black and white story line can be.
My sense is that shadowbane was uniqute in that it happened in an earlier time when these games were just coming into being. Not muds of course or even UO but Shadowbane was still back when players who found it were serious.
can you honestly say, with the influx of this new gaming generation, that they would do exactly as you describe? I really doubt it. Oh, some would but it would be more like in the scenario I described.
There's a difference between the very first people who rushed to buy video cards so they could play everquest when it launched and the players who are preordering games to get into betas so they can then cancel them and do the same elsewhere.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
sort of...but whats wrong a game getting launched, 200ish (or whatever) players hit the floor around the same time, some go north, some south etc, 2 weeks later, the north men have built a castle and farm the local cyclops for leather hides, where as the southerners have divided into warring nomadic swamp tribes who are perptually killing and hunting themselves and all invaders, using poisens from some local monster, or the easterners who have become naval merchant explorers...and the westerners are hardcore role players who play elves (shudder) and any new players have to contend with this mix, or organize themselves and fight to erect their visions etc etc forever?
i see currently lore based game memes as the enemy of such player created lore.
Ok, let's talk about what really will happen.
The north men will complain that they want to have friends in the south and why can't everyone get along while other north men will get bored with farming the local cyclops population. Others will say they built a castle but it's boring and there's no action.
the southerners are divided because i0wnz is griefing the "rightousDudz" clan and they are pissed. They then bring their friends and higher lvl alts as the conflicts escalate with much swearing and racial slurs (actual racial slurs) thrown about chat.
The easterners are bored because they built a navy but no one to pvp with their ships because everyone else is land based. So they grab some friends and start griefing the northerners which is pretty good except the northerners are prepared for a land war so the easterners start shouting imbalance.
The Westerners are hardcore role players who complain that pvp is ruining their stories.
Lots of shouts of "noob" and "go back to wow".
In Lineage 2 we had backdrop lore but no quests to really "inflict" story on players. Just players dropped in a world with loose goals. There was no grand vision or easterners and westerners. There was name calling, players flaming other players because they finally got killed and couldn't handle it, players making alts and cheating other players all under the name of ''we're spies" and essentially a lot of sophmoric nonsense.
Every time I see players start talking about "player's stories" I can't help but recall what really weren't stories but more like anecdotes in the best cases and people who had issues and were working them out in the internet in the worst case.
I'm not against player conflict. The most interesting game play came from player conflict. But so was a lot of nonsense.
in shadowbane, the most hardcore role playing guild (called Virakar) dominated a continent, became the top PvPers, created their own language, and even conquered the lore server at least twice. everyone had a great time, for years, even their enemies, who were many, and often ganked into oblivion. the potential for living story lines was so great, no one who actually understood the mechanics ever left.
and there was not one single quest giver in the entire game. just a world full of land and resources to be perpetually warred over.
sort of...but whats wrong a game getting launched, 200ish (or whatever) players hit the floor around the same time, some go north, some south etc, 2 weeks later, the north men have built a castle and farm the local cyclops for leather hides, where as the southerners have divided into warring nomadic swamp tribes who are perptually killing and hunting themselves and all invaders, using poisens from some local monster, or the easterners who have become naval merchant explorers...and the westerners are hardcore role players who play elves (shudder) and any new players have to contend with this mix, or organize themselves and fight to erect their visions etc etc forever?
i see currently lore based game memes as the enemy of such player created lore.
Ok, let's talk about what really will happen.
The north men will complain that they want to have friends in the south and why can't everyone get along while other north men will get bored with farming the local cyclops population. Others will say they built a castle but it's boring and there's no action.
the southerners are divided because i0wnz is griefing the "rightousDudz" clan and they are pissed. They then bring their friends and higher lvl alts as the conflicts escalate with much swearing and racial slurs (actual racial slurs) thrown about chat.
The easterners are bored because they built a navy but no one to pvp with their ships because everyone else is land based. So they grab some friends and start griefing the northerners which is pretty good except the northerners are prepared for a land war so the easterners start shouting imbalance.
The Westerners are hardcore role players who complain that pvp is ruining their stories.
Lots of shouts of "noob" and "go back to wow".
In Lineage 2 we had backdrop lore but no quests to really "inflict" story on players. Just players dropped in a world with loose goals. There was no grand vision or easterners and westerners. There was name calling, players flaming other players because they finally got killed and couldn't handle it, players making alts and cheating other players all under the name of ''we're spies" and essentially a lot of sophmoric nonsense.
Every time I see players start talking about "player's stories" I can't help but recall what really weren't stories but more like anecdotes in the best cases and people who had issues and were working them out in the internet in the worst case.
I'm not against player conflict. The most interesting game play came from player conflict. But so was a lot of nonsense.
in shadowbane, the most hardcore role playing guild (called Virakar) dominated a continent, became the top PvPers, created their own language, and even conquered the lore server at least twice. everyone had a great time, for years, even their enemies, who were many, and often ganked into oblivion. the potential for living story lines was so great, no one who actually understood the mechanics ever left.
and there was not one single quest giver in the entire game. just a world full of land and resources to be perpetually warred over.
I find it hard to believe that the people being ganked to oblivion enjoyed it but I guess it's possible. I played the game for five minutes, crashed twice and third time I fell through the ground.
I have to agree with the story quests though. MMO stories usually aren't that good and I'd probably enjoy the game more with the freedom to pick my own role rather then leveling up in specific zones made for parts of the story. But I really do enjoy lore and backstory and I enjoy having preexisting problems in my games. Doesn't mean I want to follow a story based quest line.
Example - No backstory there is a pretty world so I decide to build a fort cause I feel like and I group up with some other people to build it cause they feel like it too.
With backstory. Virus gets out and causes people in the pretty world to become zombies. I decided to build a fort to protect myself from zombies and some other people I met decide to do the same. Oh no, zombies are attacking our new fort so we should go kill them.
Having something there already makes the game more enjoyable for me. Games with freedom and no backstory tend to develop to a point and then simply become traveling the world looking to gank someone.
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
It's mostly the grindy gameplay and zerg-to-win PVP that brings these games down. Basically it's drudgery-based gameplay when you log on each day, as opposed to doing some considerably more enjoyable things in themeparks.
If someone could connect ratings-based, even-team PVP to persistent territory in a sane way, they might have a hit on their hands. But realistically (or at least, historically) those two mechanics (good PVP and territorial control) tend to be rather exclusive except in non-MMO environments.
Make a sandbox where I can log on for 2 hours and always be doing interesting things, and I'll play (along with many others.) And in fact that's where ATITD and H&H offered a glimmer of hope for sandboxes. But the mainstream sandboxes really don't have a clue, and are primarily aimed at zerg PVPers I guess. If the average gameplay is grindy and boring, and culminates in an uninteresting incredibly one-sided slaughter of a battle, that's not going to attract me at all.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Personally, I'm sick of being strong along a chain of quests to be spoon fed a story that's made to give the illusion that you're the one and only hero out to save the world...
Why?
Because I'm playing an MMO, not a single player RPG. If I want to be the hero and center of the story, I would play a single player RPG, because they do it infinitely better than an MMO. Furthermore, I simply can't appreciate the "tailored" storylines in MMOs because any sense of heroics or accomplishment is always negated by the fact that pretty much every other player has done the exact same thing. When everyone is a hero, noone is.
Additionally, it leads into a ll sorts of continuity issues in the game. If player A hasn't done a zone, and player B has, they're technically in two different points in the game's timeline. From a gameplay perspective, who cares? But if you're an RPer you basically have to jump through mental hoops to basically outright ignore storyline components. For example, not every player can claim to be the one to have put hogger out of his misery, because within the lore he should only die once.
Lore in MMOs should exist to paint a broader picture of the gameworld, and should fluidly evolve throughout the gamespace. If lore progresses from the game, it should be reflected throughout all zones, and not just in the most "current"high level zone. I'm honestly sick of game worlds where you follow a fairly linear progression where you "finish" one zone to hop to the next in the perscribed order, with very little to no reason to ever go back an visit the old zone.
In the end though, it really just turns into another Sandbox vs Themepark arguement...
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
It's mostly the grindy gameplay and zerg-to-win PVP that brings these games down. Basically it's drudgery-based gameplay when you log on each day, as opposed to doing some considerably more enjoyable things in themeparks.
If someone could connect ratings-based, even-team PVP to persistent territory in a sane way, they might have a hit on their hands. But realistically (or at least, historically) those two mechanics (good PVP and territorial control) tend to be rather exclusive except in non-MMO environments.
Make a sandbox where I can log on for 2 hours and always be doing interesting things, and I'll play (along with many others.) And in fact that's where ATITD and H&H offered a glimmer of hope for sandboxes. But the mainstream sandboxes really don't have a clue, and are primarily aimed at zerg PVPers I guess. If the average gameplay is grindy and boring, and culminates in an uninteresting incredibly one-sided slaughter of a battle, that's not going to attract me at all.
it was called shadowbane, and ive been lauding it here for the past 3 hours. everyone who ever played (and made it past the crappy launch) swears its the single best justification for inventing electricity. you could stand around for hours if you wanted to, but if you were motivated, you could up and start fighting towards build empires at any moment. literally!
I think it is the absence of individual choice in MMORPGs, and I bemoan that just as well. I like good lore and a background and setting, a story going on around me. But I want to chose my own path in it. The SWTOR idea of "letting the Captain live or not" is some first step. Also defining my character more as individual not some generic thing he is and must be. Like all Darkelfs must be evil. Why? Are all humans the same alignment? It's just an absurd idea that a race is so and so. Or everyone of a certain class is so and so. People are different, and so should game characters be.
I like the setting of a story, but I want to be my own not make some preset things I HAVE to do.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
I don't think they are saying that. I know I'm not saying that.
What I am saying is that with the influx of new and different players you are not playing with the same types of people. You will not get the result you think you will get.
If you look at my little spoof you will see my interpretation of how a good many players seem to think these days.
There are so many players used to "easier" games that any time they go into a game that doesn't have some feature they start spouting the "any modern mmo has a X".
They also want fast leveling to cap, quest markers, etc.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
Well, I think the point that it would be boring is the players themselves. Players don't have the same range of emotions and same motivations that you expect a believable character to have in a world, because they are just playing a game. So while stuff can change and evolve it would be of the level of generic guild A taking over the land of generic guild B because they want their stuff. Not really the material of a riveting story.
It isn't the dynamic nature of the game but the manner in which it change that seems dull.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
It's mostly the grindy gameplay and zerg-to-win PVP that brings these games down. Basically it's drudgery-based gameplay when you log on each day, as opposed to doing some considerably more enjoyable things in themeparks.
If someone could connect ratings-based, even-team PVP to persistent territory in a sane way, they might have a hit on their hands. But realistically (or at least, historically) those two mechanics (good PVP and territorial control) tend to be rather exclusive except in non-MMO environments.
Make a sandbox where I can log on for 2 hours and always be doing interesting things, and I'll play (along with many others.) And in fact that's where ATITD and H&H offered a glimmer of hope for sandboxes. But the mainstream sandboxes really don't have a clue, and are primarily aimed at zerg PVPers I guess. If the average gameplay is grindy and boring, and culminates in an uninteresting incredibly one-sided slaughter of a battle, that's not going to attract me at all.
it was called shadowbane, and ive been lauding it here for the past 3 hours. everyone who ever played (and made it past the crappy launch) swears its the single best justification for inventing electricity. you could stand around for hours if you wanted to, but if you were motivated, you could up and start fighting towards build empires at any moment. literally!
But SB seemed both zergy and grindy. Neither of the two core problems I stated were solved there. Or at least, I'm positive it was grindy and unsure whether it was zergy (because the super boring grind defeated me.)
Planetside was indirectly the correct response to SB's mechanics: "Why force users down an ultra-crappy PVE treadmill to reach the PVP? Why have zerg-centric PVP? Why have PVP so damn infrequent? Let's make an epic goddamn war game where you log on and consistently join a war!" I doubt SB was a huge influence on Planetside's mechanics, but they certainly made huge strides towards solving all of the issues inherent to open PVP games (at least for players who want games about combat.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
It's mostly the grindy gameplay and zerg-to-win PVP that brings these games down. Basically it's drudgery-based gameplay when you log on each day, as opposed to doing some considerably more enjoyable things in themeparks.
If someone could connect ratings-based, even-team PVP to persistent territory in a sane way, they might have a hit on their hands. But realistically (or at least, historically) those two mechanics (good PVP and territorial control) tend to be rather exclusive except in non-MMO environments.
Make a sandbox where I can log on for 2 hours and always be doing interesting things, and I'll play (along with many others.) And in fact that's where ATITD and H&H offered a glimmer of hope for sandboxes. But the mainstream sandboxes really don't have a clue, and are primarily aimed at zerg PVPers I guess. If the average gameplay is grindy and boring, and culminates in an uninteresting incredibly one-sided slaughter of a battle, that's not going to attract me at all.
it was called shadowbane, and ive been lauding it here for the past 3 hours. everyone who ever played (and made it past the crappy launch) swears its the single best justification for inventing electricity. you could stand around for hours if you wanted to, but if you were motivated, you could up and start fighting towards build empires at any moment. literally!
But SB seemed both zergy and grindy. Neither of the two core problems I stated were solved there. Or at least, I'm positive it was grindy and unsure whether it was zergy (because the super boring grind defeated me.)
Planetside was indirectly the correct response to SB's mechanics: "Why force users down an ultra-crappy PVE treadmill to reach the PVP? Why have zerg-centric PVP? Why have PVP so damn infrequent? Let's make an epic goddamn war game where you log on and consistently join a war!" I doubt SB was a huge influence on Planetside's mechanics, but they certainly made huge strides towards solving all of the issues inherent to open PVP games (at least for players who want games about combat.)
SB wasnt just about combat. it was about meaningful politics back up by the everpresent threat of war. players didnt just play to have meaningless mass duels or group vs group. nations fought over territory, which were defined by geography and resources. fueds between nations quickly spiraled into global trade wars, but it was never just about hacking mindlessly at available opponents.
even the grind was a hotly contested territorial matter, as guild would war over areas with the best spawns, and there were only two spots in the entire map that could get characters to max level, and they were perpetually drawing mass ammounts of pvp from dozens of guilds.
SB's launch and its sub par graphics were its only flaws, it really spins the critics of open world sandbox pvp on their heads.
I've never played Shadowbane, but I will say that the indie MMO Face of Mankind (back when I played it last year) does an amazing job at creating an epic political environment driven entirely by players. There are absolutely no NPCs in this game, and nothing preventing the game from turning in to total anarchy, but the playerbase seems willing to cooperate and follow a strict political hierarchy in order to achieve long turn economic gain. In addition, death punishments for notorious law offenders can be absolutely brutal- ranging from hours spent in a high security virtual prison camp to complete account deletion- whereas players who are willing to follow the local government can instantly respawn without any sort of drawback.
These cases still seem to be isolated examples, however. Game developers seem unwilling to make gameplay policies that would encourage player driven lore, and it becomes harder and harder to create this sort of environment as the playerbase increases. I really doubt any big budget titles could possibly manage this. EVE Online perhaps is the closest thing we will see, but I don't find these kinds of total sandbox games satisfying in the long term. I really do want some sort of epic story.
i dont mean have a blank slate. i definately like atmosphere, and culture.
what i dont like, is when games (and they all seem to do this) irrevocably mix gameplay with the story board or vision the devs created.
i acknowledge that game designers are very creative and expressive people, and i applaud them for their vision. what i do not always enjoy, is having to play in the same story line they have created.
races and classes, for example. i am in favor of as much customization as possible. i think the visual aspect of character design should be as up to the player as possible. this was one of the most ground breaking aspects of City of Heroes/Villains. letting people choose from an extremely broad variety of options. guilds could design their own races, or individuals could go as unique as they wanted. the same goes for classes. offer a huge list of abilities, purchasable through a given number of creation points, and let players build as they see fit.
what i dont want to keep doing, is endless playing (essentially watching) the same archetypal movie over and over again, which is pretty much what all MMO's do at present.
Well, lore can be both good and bad. The "we take Forgotten realms and Middle earth and mix them and add some ideas from Xena and legend of the seeker" lore Many MMOs have is boring and really uninspired.
I usually consider that a game have bad lore if it forces you to do a lot of stuff that no movie or book character would do.
Think "would Conan, Rand or Aragorn do this?" when you play a MMO and you'll find out how good the lore is. Is the background lore fine enough for a book or just random crap some collage student wrote to get some money for beer?
Rail roading is not really the same thing as lore, that is more of a gameplay option.
Lore is how good the background and NPCs are written. If the game have quests they are lore but not the mechanics of running them.
Choices isn't really lore either, it is game mechanics. Both themeparks and sandboxes can have good or bad lore. Most of them sadly have bad lore but there seems to be a recent trend (That ANET started when they hired Jeff Grubb for GW: Nightfall) to hire in actual authors that write higher quality stuff than general people.
CCP/White wolf and 38 Studio also have done the same. This is hopefully the start of a trend that betters the lore of the MMOs in general. Maybe we can get rid of the D&D 1970s feeling most MMOs have since the genre started, you know when the DM rolls on a table and let you meet some random encounter or forces you to clear cellars of giant rats or similar bad stuff.
That sounds absolutely awful. The instant I get off that boat I'm grabbing the biggest sharp object I can find and start mauling everyone in sight.
then people will band together to kill you, and if you get away, you will start a bandit guild, and build a thieves town. we will build our town, and eventually go to war, or set aside our differences to trade/fight other organized player groups.
why does this sound so bad? i like shooters, and imagining non open PvP is like imagining a turn based FPS to me...what's the point, and where's the fun?
i dont mean have a blank slate. i definately like atmosphere, and culture.
what i dont like, is when games (and they all seem to do this) irrevocably mix gameplay with the story board or vision the devs created.
i acknowledge that game designers are very creative and expressive people, and i applaud them for their vision. what i do not always enjoy, is having to play in the same story line they have created.
races and classes, for example. i am in favor of as much customization as possible. i think the visual aspect of character design should be as up to the player as possible. this was one of the most ground breaking aspects of City of Heroes/Villains. letting people choose from an extremely broad variety of options. guilds could design their own races, or individuals could go as unique as they wanted. the same goes for classes. offer a huge list of abilities, purchasable through a given number of creation points, and let players build as they see fit.
what i dont want to keep doing, is endless playing (essentially watching) the same archetypal movie over and over again, which is pretty much what all MMO's do at present.
Well, lore can be both good and bad. The "we take Forgotten realms and Middle earth and mix them and add some ideas from Xena and legend of the seeker" lore Many MMOs have is boring and really uninspired.
I usually consider that a game have bad lore if it forces you to do a lot of stuff that no movie or book character would do.
Think "would Conan, Rand or Aragorn do this?" when you play a MMO and you'll find out how good the lore is. Is the background lore fine enough for a book or just random crap some collage student wrote to get some money for beer?
Rail roading is not really the same thing as lore, that is more of a gameplay option.
Lore is how good the background and NPCs are written. If the game have quests they are lore but not the mechanics of running them.
Choices isn't really lore either, it is game mechanics. Both themeparks and sandboxes can have good or bad lore. Most of them sadly have bad lore but there seems to be a recent trend (That ANET started when they hired Jeff Grubb for GW: Nightfall) to hire in actual authors that write higher quality stuff than general people.
CCP/White wolf and 38 Studio also have done the same. This is hopefully the start of a trend that betters the lore of the MMOs in general. Maybe we can get rid of the D&D 1970s feeling most MMOs have since the genre started, you know when the DM rolls on a table and let you meet some random encounter or forces you to clear cellars of giant rats or similar bad stuff.
but its still forcing players to contend with unchanging narratives that never actually "happened". when a player guild ACTUALLY burned down your town and drove your guild off your lands, you now have to either be nomads, fight to get your land back, or invade other peoples lands. all of which will impact real memories of real players, and create a real history in the process.
i dont mean have a blank slate. i definately like atmosphere, and culture.
what i dont like, is when games (and they all seem to do this) irrevocably mix gameplay with the story board or vision the devs created.
i acknowledge that game designers are very creative and expressive people, and i applaud them for their vision. what i do not always enjoy, is having to play in the same story line they have created.
races and classes, for example. i am in favor of as much customization as possible. i think the visual aspect of character design should be as up to the player as possible. this was one of the most ground breaking aspects of City of Heroes/Villains. letting people choose from an extremely broad variety of options. guilds could design their own races, or individuals could go as unique as they wanted. the same goes for classes. offer a huge list of abilities, purchasable through a given number of creation points, and let players build as they see fit.
what i dont want to keep doing, is endless playing (essentially watching) the same archetypal movie over and over again, which is pretty much what all MMO's do at present.
From the above it is clear that you either do not want to play games that possess a strong narrative and/or you are an idiot. I say that last part because mmorpgs are rpgs, games that are far more defined by their narrative than their graphics or gameplay. I also say that last part because, considering what I've just said, you are posting in a mmorpg forum. While it is true that sometimes narratives can overcome the game, where it looks like someone is simply playing a movie (cf. some people's opinions of FFXIII) , most video game genres and especially rpgs require a strong narrative. WIthout this gameplay exists within a world where it's neither clear nor understandable, where there is no discernable game.
This post is an on-going reminder of how the rpg genre as a whole has been bastardised by a generation of player who simply don't want to play rpgs, they want action and not a strong narrative of any kind. There are games like that, where lore takes a back seat to gameplay: FPS, racing, sports sim, fighting, puzzle, et cetera. Play those games and stop, stop complaining about things that define a genre you clearly do not want to participate in.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain. (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
i dont mean have a blank slate. i definately like atmosphere, and culture.
what i dont like, is when games (and they all seem to do this) irrevocably mix gameplay with the story board or vision the devs created.
i acknowledge that game designers are very creative and expressive people, and i applaud them for their vision. what i do not always enjoy, is having to play in the same story line they have created.
races and classes, for example. i am in favor of as much customization as possible. i think the visual aspect of character design should be as up to the player as possible. this was one of the most ground breaking aspects of City of Heroes/Villains. letting people choose from an extremely broad variety of options. guilds could design their own races, or individuals could go as unique as they wanted. the same goes for classes. offer a huge list of abilities, purchasable through a given number of creation points, and let players build as they see fit.
what i dont want to keep doing, is endless playing (essentially watching) the same archetypal movie over and over again, which is pretty much what all MMO's do at present.
From the above it is clear that you either do not want to play games that possess a strong narrative and/or you are an idiot. I say that last part because mmorpgs are rpgs, games that are far more defined by their narrative than their graphics or gameplay. I also say that last part because, considering what I've just said, you are posting in a mmorpg forum. While it is true that sometimes narratives can overcome the game, where it looks like someone is simply playing a movie (cf. some people's opinions of FFXIII) , most video game genres and especially rpgs require a strong narrative. WIthout this gameplay exists within a world where it's neither clear nor understandable, where there is no discernable game.
This post is an on-going reminder of how the rpg genre as a whole has been bastardised by a generation of player who simply don't want to play rpgs, they want action and not a strong narrative of any kind. There are games like that, where lore takes a back seat to gameplay: FPS, racing, sports sim, fighting, puzzle, et cetera. Play those games and stop, stop complaining about things that define a genre you clearly do not want to participate in.
i dont think you understand what the term "role playing" actually means. it does not mean you have to sit in someone else's narrative and be a character that they imagined. it simply means you are playing a role that is not you. i have given dozens of examples of how games can be arranged without a preexisting story board. please refer to pretty much any of my earlier responses if you wish actually know what point of view that i am actually representing.
it seems you havent ever thought that such was possible, and if you have any actual reasons, id love to hear them. popping into a thread ive started to insult me is hardly the way to make your point.
i dont think you understand what the term "role playing" actually means. it does not mean you have to sit in someone else's narrative and be a character that they imagined. it simply means you are playing a role that is not you. i have given dozens of examples of how games can be arranged without a preexisting story board. please refer to pretty much any of my earlier responses if you wish actually know what point of view that i am actually representing.
True. roleplaying often includes speaking in character with other players.
Well, at least no one is stupid enough to say that tanking is roleplaying this time.
but its still forcing players to contend with unchanging narratives that never actually "happened". when a player guild ACTUALLY burned down your town and drove your guild off your lands, you now have to either be nomads, fight to get your land back, or invade other peoples lands. all of which will impact real memories of real players, and create a real history in the process.
this is development, not just text production.
Lore is also what adds logic to the game. It tells you why the world looks like it does before the game starts, it tells you why the races are like they are and generally tells you what happened before the game started.
Why are there even guilds fighting eachother?
Without lore is a game just randomly placed things and that isn't much of development in my book.
It is true that player created content is fun and important as well in many games but without background lore nothing happens for a reason.
I am not impressed of sandboxes that have no background or reason for anything. There are cities and ruins but the ruins never were anything else than ruins and the cities have little logic to them.
A good game have both good lore and player created content. Too bad most games have neither.
From the above it is clear that you either do not want to play games that possess a strong narrative and/or you are an idiot. I say that last part because mmorpgs are rpgs, games that are far more defined by their narrative than their graphics or gameplay. I also say that last part because, considering what I've just said, you are posting in a mmorpg forum. While it is true that sometimes narratives can overcome the game, where it looks like someone is simply playing a movie (cf. some people's opinions of FFXIII) , most video game genres and especially rpgs require a strong narrative. WIthout this gameplay exists within a world where it's neither clear nor understandable, where there is no discernable game.
This post is an on-going reminder of how the rpg genre as a whole has been bastardised by a generation of player who simply don't want to play rpgs, they want action and not a strong narrative of any kind. There are games like that, where lore takes a back seat to gameplay: FPS, racing, sports sim, fighting, puzzle, et cetera. Play those games and stop, stop complaining about things that define a genre you clearly do not want to participate in.
Roleplaying is not about narratives. You have no clue what a RPG game is.
I on the other hand have played P&P RPG games since '84 and MMORPGs since '96.
Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have no narrative theme at all. They are still RPG games.
And there are actually many games here that doesn't force you to do anything. Get your facts straight before calling people idiots.
Lore is also what adds logic to the game. It tells you why the world looks like it does before the game starts, it tells you why the races are like they are and generally tells you what happened before the game started.
Why are there even guilds fighting eachother?
Without lore is a game just randomly placed things and that isn't much of development in my book.
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.
Comments
im so sorry you missed shadowbane. yes, there were gankers, but the player communities (mostly formed by guilds who absolutely hated eachother) were astonishing.
shadowbane define terrible launches, and the gankers DID drive many on the fence newbs away by being to harsh. but for those who persisted for the first 2-3 months, real gaming cultures began to evolve, and few ever left the game again, until it was purchased by UBI and driven into the ground.
there was some lore, but it essentially consisted of 12 (i think) factions with race class restrictions like church/thief guild/barbarian etc, and that was only one server.
it worked tremendously well, and filled an important niche, that has sadly left many old timers like me without a home. if the emulator ever gets up and running, plz do give it a try, you'll be blown away at how fun a game can be without a permanent unchanging simplistic run of the mill overused black and white story line can be.
My sense is that shadowbane was uniqute in that it happened in an earlier time when these games were just coming into being. Not muds of course or even UO but Shadowbane was still back when players who found it were serious.
can you honestly say, with the influx of this new gaming generation, that they would do exactly as you describe? I really doubt it. Oh, some would but it would be more like in the scenario I described.
There's a difference between the very first people who rushed to buy video cards so they could play everquest when it launched and the players who are preordering games to get into betas so they can then cancel them and do the same elsewhere.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
in shadowbane, the most hardcore role playing guild (called Virakar) dominated a continent, became the top PvPers, created their own language, and even conquered the lore server at least twice. everyone had a great time, for years, even their enemies, who were many, and often ganked into oblivion. the potential for living story lines was so great, no one who actually understood the mechanics ever left.
and there was not one single quest giver in the entire game. just a world full of land and resources to be perpetually warred over.
I find it hard to believe that the people being ganked to oblivion enjoyed it but I guess it's possible. I played the game for five minutes, crashed twice and third time I fell through the ground.
I have to agree with the story quests though. MMO stories usually aren't that good and I'd probably enjoy the game more with the freedom to pick my own role rather then leveling up in specific zones made for parts of the story. But I really do enjoy lore and backstory and I enjoy having preexisting problems in my games. Doesn't mean I want to follow a story based quest line.
Example - No backstory there is a pretty world so I decide to build a fort cause I feel like and I group up with some other people to build it cause they feel like it too.
With backstory. Virus gets out and causes people in the pretty world to become zombies. I decided to build a fort to protect myself from zombies and some other people I met decide to do the same. Oh no, zombies are attacking our new fort so we should go kill them.
Having something there already makes the game more enjoyable for me. Games with freedom and no backstory tend to develop to a point and then simply become traveling the world looking to gank someone.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
im amazed by how many people here think players left to an open harvestable and buildable world would be boring. its never ending change and evolution.
guilds and nations form and fall. new players come and old players leave. certain regions become relatively civilized and patroled by alliances, other areas become savage hinterlands or backwaters to house unaffiliated ganker guilds, then...a major battle breaks a capitol and everything changes. a server could finally achieve a modicum of balance, when a new guild from another game suddenly arrives and changed everything....it was non stop political upheaval.
as for SB, buggy launch it definately had, absurdly simple graphics: check. extremely difficult solo play, absolutely, boring? never.
It's mostly the grindy gameplay and zerg-to-win PVP that brings these games down. Basically it's drudgery-based gameplay when you log on each day, as opposed to doing some considerably more enjoyable things in themeparks.
If someone could connect ratings-based, even-team PVP to persistent territory in a sane way, they might have a hit on their hands. But realistically (or at least, historically) those two mechanics (good PVP and territorial control) tend to be rather exclusive except in non-MMO environments.
Make a sandbox where I can log on for 2 hours and always be doing interesting things, and I'll play (along with many others.) And in fact that's where ATITD and H&H offered a glimmer of hope for sandboxes. But the mainstream sandboxes really don't have a clue, and are primarily aimed at zerg PVPers I guess. If the average gameplay is grindy and boring, and culminates in an uninteresting incredibly one-sided slaughter of a battle, that's not going to attract me at all.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I completely agree with the OP.
Personally, I'm sick of being strong along a chain of quests to be spoon fed a story that's made to give the illusion that you're the one and only hero out to save the world...
Why?
Because I'm playing an MMO, not a single player RPG. If I want to be the hero and center of the story, I would play a single player RPG, because they do it infinitely better than an MMO. Furthermore, I simply can't appreciate the "tailored" storylines in MMOs because any sense of heroics or accomplishment is always negated by the fact that pretty much every other player has done the exact same thing. When everyone is a hero, noone is.
Additionally, it leads into a ll sorts of continuity issues in the game. If player A hasn't done a zone, and player B has, they're technically in two different points in the game's timeline. From a gameplay perspective, who cares? But if you're an RPer you basically have to jump through mental hoops to basically outright ignore storyline components. For example, not every player can claim to be the one to have put hogger out of his misery, because within the lore he should only die once.
Lore in MMOs should exist to paint a broader picture of the gameworld, and should fluidly evolve throughout the gamespace. If lore progresses from the game, it should be reflected throughout all zones, and not just in the most "current"high level zone. I'm honestly sick of game worlds where you follow a fairly linear progression where you "finish" one zone to hop to the next in the perscribed order, with very little to no reason to ever go back an visit the old zone.
In the end though, it really just turns into another Sandbox vs Themepark arguement...
it was called shadowbane, and ive been lauding it here for the past 3 hours. everyone who ever played (and made it past the crappy launch) swears its the single best justification for inventing electricity. you could stand around for hours if you wanted to, but if you were motivated, you could up and start fighting towards build empires at any moment. literally!
I think it is the absence of individual choice in MMORPGs, and I bemoan that just as well. I like good lore and a background and setting, a story going on around me. But I want to chose my own path in it. The SWTOR idea of "letting the Captain live or not" is some first step. Also defining my character more as individual not some generic thing he is and must be. Like all Darkelfs must be evil. Why? Are all humans the same alignment? It's just an absurd idea that a race is so and so. Or everyone of a certain class is so and so. People are different, and so should game characters be.
I like the setting of a story, but I want to be my own not make some preset things I HAVE to do.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I don't think they are saying that. I know I'm not saying that.
What I am saying is that with the influx of new and different players you are not playing with the same types of people. You will not get the result you think you will get.
If you look at my little spoof you will see my interpretation of how a good many players seem to think these days.
There are so many players used to "easier" games that any time they go into a game that doesn't have some feature they start spouting the "any modern mmo has a X".
They also want fast leveling to cap, quest markers, etc.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well, I think the point that it would be boring is the players themselves. Players don't have the same range of emotions and same motivations that you expect a believable character to have in a world, because they are just playing a game. So while stuff can change and evolve it would be of the level of generic guild A taking over the land of generic guild B because they want their stuff. Not really the material of a riveting story.
It isn't the dynamic nature of the game but the manner in which it change that seems dull.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
But SB seemed both zergy and grindy. Neither of the two core problems I stated were solved there. Or at least, I'm positive it was grindy and unsure whether it was zergy (because the super boring grind defeated me.)
Planetside was indirectly the correct response to SB's mechanics: "Why force users down an ultra-crappy PVE treadmill to reach the PVP? Why have zerg-centric PVP? Why have PVP so damn infrequent? Let's make an epic goddamn war game where you log on and consistently join a war!" I doubt SB was a huge influence on Planetside's mechanics, but they certainly made huge strides towards solving all of the issues inherent to open PVP games (at least for players who want games about combat.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
SB wasnt just about combat. it was about meaningful politics back up by the everpresent threat of war. players didnt just play to have meaningless mass duels or group vs group. nations fought over territory, which were defined by geography and resources. fueds between nations quickly spiraled into global trade wars, but it was never just about hacking mindlessly at available opponents.
even the grind was a hotly contested territorial matter, as guild would war over areas with the best spawns, and there were only two spots in the entire map that could get characters to max level, and they were perpetually drawing mass ammounts of pvp from dozens of guilds.
SB's launch and its sub par graphics were its only flaws, it really spins the critics of open world sandbox pvp on their heads.
I've never played Shadowbane, but I will say that the indie MMO Face of Mankind (back when I played it last year) does an amazing job at creating an epic political environment driven entirely by players. There are absolutely no NPCs in this game, and nothing preventing the game from turning in to total anarchy, but the playerbase seems willing to cooperate and follow a strict political hierarchy in order to achieve long turn economic gain. In addition, death punishments for notorious law offenders can be absolutely brutal- ranging from hours spent in a high security virtual prison camp to complete account deletion- whereas players who are willing to follow the local government can instantly respawn without any sort of drawback.
These cases still seem to be isolated examples, however. Game developers seem unwilling to make gameplay policies that would encourage player driven lore, and it becomes harder and harder to create this sort of environment as the playerbase increases. I really doubt any big budget titles could possibly manage this. EVE Online perhaps is the closest thing we will see, but I don't find these kinds of total sandbox games satisfying in the long term. I really do want some sort of epic story.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/20/paradox-announce-free-to-play-mmo-salem/
That sounds absolutely awful. The instant I get off that boat I'm grabbing the biggest sharp object I can find and start mauling everyone in sight.
Well, lore can be both good and bad. The "we take Forgotten realms and Middle earth and mix them and add some ideas from Xena and legend of the seeker" lore Many MMOs have is boring and really uninspired.
I usually consider that a game have bad lore if it forces you to do a lot of stuff that no movie or book character would do.
Think "would Conan, Rand or Aragorn do this?" when you play a MMO and you'll find out how good the lore is. Is the background lore fine enough for a book or just random crap some collage student wrote to get some money for beer?
Rail roading is not really the same thing as lore, that is more of a gameplay option.
Lore is how good the background and NPCs are written. If the game have quests they are lore but not the mechanics of running them.
Choices isn't really lore either, it is game mechanics. Both themeparks and sandboxes can have good or bad lore. Most of them sadly have bad lore but there seems to be a recent trend (That ANET started when they hired Jeff Grubb for GW: Nightfall) to hire in actual authors that write higher quality stuff than general people.
CCP/White wolf and 38 Studio also have done the same. This is hopefully the start of a trend that betters the lore of the MMOs in general. Maybe we can get rid of the D&D 1970s feeling most MMOs have since the genre started, you know when the DM rolls on a table and let you meet some random encounter or forces you to clear cellars of giant rats or similar bad stuff.
then people will band together to kill you, and if you get away, you will start a bandit guild, and build a thieves town. we will build our town, and eventually go to war, or set aside our differences to trade/fight other organized player groups.
why does this sound so bad? i like shooters, and imagining non open PvP is like imagining a turn based FPS to me...what's the point, and where's the fun?
but its still forcing players to contend with unchanging narratives that never actually "happened". when a player guild ACTUALLY burned down your town and drove your guild off your lands, you now have to either be nomads, fight to get your land back, or invade other peoples lands. all of which will impact real memories of real players, and create a real history in the process.
this is development, not just text production.
From the above it is clear that you either do not want to play games that possess a strong narrative and/or you are an idiot. I say that last part because mmorpgs are rpgs, games that are far more defined by their narrative than their graphics or gameplay. I also say that last part because, considering what I've just said, you are posting in a mmorpg forum. While it is true that sometimes narratives can overcome the game, where it looks like someone is simply playing a movie (cf. some people's opinions of FFXIII) , most video game genres and especially rpgs require a strong narrative. WIthout this gameplay exists within a world where it's neither clear nor understandable, where there is no discernable game.
This post is an on-going reminder of how the rpg genre as a whole has been bastardised by a generation of player who simply don't want to play rpgs, they want action and not a strong narrative of any kind. There are games like that, where lore takes a back seat to gameplay: FPS, racing, sports sim, fighting, puzzle, et cetera. Play those games and stop, stop complaining about things that define a genre you clearly do not want to participate in.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
i dont think you understand what the term "role playing" actually means. it does not mean you have to sit in someone else's narrative and be a character that they imagined. it simply means you are playing a role that is not you. i have given dozens of examples of how games can be arranged without a preexisting story board. please refer to pretty much any of my earlier responses if you wish actually know what point of view that i am actually representing.
it seems you havent ever thought that such was possible, and if you have any actual reasons, id love to hear them. popping into a thread ive started to insult me is hardly the way to make your point.
True. roleplaying often includes speaking in character with other players.
Well, at least no one is stupid enough to say that tanking is roleplaying this time.
Lore is also what adds logic to the game. It tells you why the world looks like it does before the game starts, it tells you why the races are like they are and generally tells you what happened before the game started.
Why are there even guilds fighting eachother?
Without lore is a game just randomly placed things and that isn't much of development in my book.
It is true that player created content is fun and important as well in many games but without background lore nothing happens for a reason.
I am not impressed of sandboxes that have no background or reason for anything. There are cities and ruins but the ruins never were anything else than ruins and the cities have little logic to them.
A good game have both good lore and player created content. Too bad most games have neither.
Roleplaying is not about narratives. You have no clue what a RPG game is.
I on the other hand have played P&P RPG games since '84 and MMORPGs since '96.
Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have no narrative theme at all. They are still RPG games.
And there are actually many games here that doesn't force you to do anything. Get your facts straight before calling people idiots.
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.