With a large number of story driven MMO's released recently, and their following failures, I thought it would be a good time to make this thread. It's something that's been on my mind since before the release of TOR. It started to form after spending long periods of time in SWG, WoW, and EQ. I don't think the idea of developer side story mmo's, or as I think of them, hard story mmo's. I think the idea is inherently flawed when applying it to the MMO genre. Ultimately, I think the less a developer does to control their product's evolution, the better off their game will be.
Why? Well, for one, MMO's don't generally end. At least, they're not generally intended to end. That's usually a bad thing, telling paying customers to go home. The problem is, if you advertise the game as having an epic story line, you have to deliver. And when players reach the end of that content, one must deliver again, and again, and again. Even with the best writing staff, you can see how this eventually becomes a convoluted mess. How do you get a player invested in a story after they've defeated the third or fourth "greatest threat to the world ever?" What is the logical conclusion of WoW's story? There is no way to end that.
So, how would I propose solving this? I think they need to put the emphasis on player side story, or as I think of them, soft story mmo's. Put just enough back-story in there to allow the player to enter the world, but let it fan out from there. Allow them to decide what happens through their interactions with each other and the world around them. Take away the artificial barriers created by factions. Allow the players to come up with the reason they're doing something. It's usually quite practical and realistic. After all, what is an auction house but a giant reversed quest hub? You present your product to quest givers who give you gold for your work. Slap some experience towards trade, and you have a new way for players to advance in the game. The only difference between this and the types of quests already present is that one doesn't have a paid writer (and in TOR's case, a paid voice actor) giving you a reason to go kill boars.
On the subject of expense, it would far cheaper and less prone to bugs as well. Why pay someone to program an NPC and a quest with the NPCs and mobs which go along with it, then pay another person to write the quests when you don't need to? Why come up with thousands of items when you can come up with a way to let players do it themselves? Morrowind had a great system for crafting spells and potions. Take that and apply it to weapons and armor as well. Suddenly, being able to craft something has meaning. This helps lead into another short falling of recent mmo's. A focus on combat.
This can mostly be placed on WoW's shoulders. SWG had the right idea of allowing players to advance in many different ways. You didn't have to be a soldier. In fact, it was often more interesting to not be one. Another game which illustrates this same concept that combat isn't everything is EVE. It shows that giving players choice in how they advance, a different path than combat, can still work well.
As a side note, mmo's really need a way to control the rate at which resources are produced. Otherwise, you get runaway inflation which can destroy an in-game economy.
I propose that Rapture would make an excellent MMO based on these ideas. The game would begin in a darkened antechamber outside a bathysphere. As players advance, more of the city in unlocked. Flooded chambers are drained, power is returned, and the city slowly comes back to life. There are no quest givers telling you where to get power or food, or even how to turn power on. The only story is you survived a plane crash over the Atlantic and found the entrance to Rapture. There are splicers crawling through the hallways easily able to kill a lone new player. Deaths are permanent. Your name, race, and sex are all randomly chosen for you upon creation. You can fill in the gaps yourself as to why they're in Rapture. All in game resources are limited. Power, food, water, money, adam. It all runs out eventually, and it will deplete faster as more players join in. Players can formulate new plasmids and sell them. Friendly fire is always on. The game's very mechanics would contribute to the themes of Objectivism.
Why? Well, for one, MMO's don't generally end. At least, they're not generally intended to end. That's usually a bad thing, telling paying customers to go home. The problem is, if you advertise the game as having an epic story line, you have to deliver. And when players reach the end of that content, one must deliver again, and again, and again. Even with the best writing staff, you can see how this eventually becomes a convoluted mess. How do you get a player invested in a story after they've defeated the third or fourth "greatest threat to the world ever?" What is the logical conclusion of WoW's story? There is no way to end that.
So, how would I propose solving this? I think they need to put the emphasis on player side story, or as I think of them, soft story mmo's. Put just enough back-story in there to allow the player to enter the world, but let it fan out from there. Allow them to decide what happens through their interactions with each other and the world around them. Take away the artificial barriers created by factions. Allow the players to come up with the reason they're doing something. It's usually quite practical and realistic. After all, what is an auction house but a giant reversed quest hub? You present your product to quest givers who give you gold for your work. Slap some experience towards trade, and you have a new way for players to advance in the game. The only difference between this and the types of quests already present is that one doesn't have a paid writer (and in TOR's case, a paid voice actor) giving you a reason to go kill boars.
On the subject of expense, it would far cheaper and less prone to bugs as well. Why pay someone to program an NPC and a quest with the NPCs and mobs which go along with it, then pay another person to write the quests when you don't need to? Why come up with thousands of items when you can come up with a way to let players do it themselves? Morrowind had a great system for crafting spells and potions. Take that and apply it to weapons and armor as well. Suddenly, being able to craft something has meaning. This helps lead into another short falling of recent mmo's. A focus on combat.
This can mostly be placed on WoW's shoulders. SWG had the right idea of allowing players to advance in many different ways. You didn't have to be a soldier. In fact, it was often more interesting to not be one. Another game which illustrates this same concept that combat isn't everything is EVE. It shows that giving players choice in how they advance, a different path than combat, can still work well.
As a side note, mmo's really need a way to control the rate at which resources are produced. Otherwise, you get runaway inflation which can destroy an in-game economy.
I propose that Rapture would make an excellent MMO based on these ideas. The game would begin in a darkened antechamber outside a bathysphere. As players advance, more of the city in unlocked. Flooded chambers are drained, power is returned, and the city slowly comes back to life. There are no quest givers telling you where to get power or food, or even how to turn power on. The only story is you survived a plane crash over the Atlantic and found the entrance to Rapture. There are splicers crawling through the hallways easily able to kill a lone new player. Deaths are permanent. Your name, race, and sex are all randomly chosen for you upon creation. You can fill in the gaps yourself as to why they're in Rapture. All in game resources are limited. Power, food, water, money, adam. It all runs out eventually, and it will deplete faster as more players join in. Players can formulate new plasmids and sell them. Friendly fire is always on. The game's very mechanics would contribute to the themes of Objectivism.