MMOs shouldn't have a plot

[Mike Fang]

After a recent experience I've come to the realization I may need to think about changing my tune a bit. I've been an avid MMORPG player for several years now. I like the concept of MMOs: a large, persistent game world where you create a character that's unique unto yourself and take part in adventures where you're a part of an intriguing plot along with your friends. It allows you to explore a detailed, rich world where you never know what you're going to discover and can lead to all sorts of experiences.

Unfortuantely, while you're off having those experiences, you could come back to familiar territory and find out there was a world-shaping event and YOU MISSED IT. This is the nut shot that MMOs have persistently given me; if I'm going to roleplay in the developer's story, then I damn well better be ready to dance to THEIR tempo, and they're playing Riverdance at triple speed, so hop to it! This is something I've said before, so I'll try to summarize my persistent gripe: MMO developers release content updates so fast that you have to play the game at breakneck pace if you want to roleplay within the overarching plotline and feel like you're actually significant. If you don't, things go on without you and you're left standing in line to be the latest person to kill off "a bunch of pixelated ones and zeros," as Yahtzee once put it.

This is a problem that I've found I don't run into when I'm involved in player-controlled roleplaying. The players set the pace, you get a sense of accomplishment and significance, and you can slow down or speed up as the players see fit. You don't wind up feeling rushed to get to a given location or to beat a certain bad guy; it -will- still be there when you're ready.

Now some may argue that you can't expect an entire world to revolve around just you. Okay, fair enough, but in the real world, you aren't persistently given the sense that you're actions are pivotal or vital to world-shaping, history-setting events. But that's exactly what you get in most MMOs. You're told that by completing this quest, you'll go down in history as the person who save a city from a plague or overthrew the tyrant necromancer terrorizing the valley. Immersion into that plotline through the eyes of your character is a big part of the fun of an RPG, but it gets shattered when you read the announcement that The Official Canon is that said necromancer was killed as of YESTERDAY...and you were planning on joining your guild to go through his tower to fight him TODAY. Now you're stuck fighting an evil magician that you know shouldn't even be there while 90% of the rest of the people who play the game have already stepped over his corpse and gone through the portal in his lair to explore the parallel dimension beyond.

So what's the solution here? Well as the title suggests, I think MMOs shouldn't have a plot. Actually, let me clarify; MMOs shouldn't have an OVERARCHING plot. Here's what I mean; having a rich, well-detailed setting and backstory to an MMO is great. It's useful for explaining why things are the way the players find them. It gives famous NPC's for the characters to encounter, locations for them to explore, and so forth. Good graphics, sound, game mechanics give players great tools to explore and interact with the world that's been created. And that's where development should STOP. The writers should be focusing on creating the background and should then let the PLAYERS come up with THEIR OWN STORIES. There's no way for writers to be able to predict all the possible permutations of characters that a player base can come up with, nor for a developing company to set a pace of plot progression that's good for every player. So they shouldn't even be TRYING. With such a huge number of players, if the company tries to play dungeon master, they're going to inevitably leave a large number of players in the dust.

If an MMO developer just created a big, open world with a backstory, NPCs to encounter and mechanics for the players to use, the players themselves can use their imaginations to come up with all sorts of stories. Player organizations, be they guilds, companies, cults, etc. will have great significance, especially if crafting mechanics are included and a mechanic is also included to allow building persistent/destructible player housing and guild/organization headquarters. Players can come up with their own plots and stories for why they would be allied with this or that NPC and why they'd either defend them in a dynamic event or try to attack them. Good emote and environmental interactions (i.e. sitting in chairs, laying down in beds, animations for eating and drinking, etc.) could add realism and quality of performance to the game. When expansion packs come out, they can add new places to explore, new NPC's to encounter, and so forth, and even back story to explain how this new area got opened up by the action of NPC's "off camera." This could eliminate the feeling for players that they were expected to be somewhere by a certain point.

I still think MMOs have a lot of potential and could be a great way to roleplay. But I'm seriously starting to believe it'll only happen if MMO developers follow the example of the makers of D&D: stop trying to be the dungeon master and just give the players the tools they need.

 

[Uriain]

I think your idea has some great merit to it, but there is some serious hurdles, both technically and socially that would have to be addressed.

1) While "dynamic" content in MMO's is starting to become a bit more common, the level you are talking about is what Shadowbane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane - did. This concept is neat, and frankly pretty awesome in terms of player interaction it raises the more important, and often more annoying second point.

2) People online can be jerks. Lets face it, PK'ers, Open World PvP, and people racing to top level just to be able to safely "kill noobies" is something that happens in any game where you have open PvP. Lineage II was VERY bad for this. So if you take a fully dynamic game you would have to remove the PvP aspect of it, which (imo) removes a ton of the dynamic aspect.


Lastly here, I just wanted to comment on this little snippet from your second paragraph:

"I'll try to summarize my persistent gripe: MMO developers release content updates so fast that you have to play the game at breakneck pace if you want to roleplay within the overarching plotline and feel like you're actually significant."

This is because the people who hit the end of each content (base or expansions) and when they hit that wall, they then become the vocal minority which seems to dominate every board. These companies then take that vocal minority as its "player base" and caves to their constant barrage of <insert complaint/fix/patch comment>. At least that's how it seems.

EvE is probably the closest thing to a "fully Dynamic" game we have on the market, as minus the space stations, everything is controlled by the players.

 

[Sp3ratus]

You would've liked SWG, at least before the CU and the NGE. The problem is that most big MMOs these days are theme park MMOs, rather than sandbox MMOs, like SWG was. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concepts, but a theme park MMO is essentially an MMO which guides you through the game, shows you all the exciting places and tells you different stories set in the game universe. A sandbox MMO is what you're describing and what you want.

SWG let you make a character, picking race, gender, name, appearance etc. and then set you free in the world. You had lots of different skill trees that could only be unlocked by gaining enough of that experience. You could mix and match exactly how you wanted. Want to be a bounty hunter fightning with fists or swords, instead of guns? Go right ahead. Want to be a Jedi with animal companions? Sure. What you wanted to be was really only limited by your imagination. At least, it was, until CU and NGE came along and ruined the game.

There wasn't really a story in the game, other than it being set in the Star Wars universe between the 4th and 5th movie. I have a lot of great memories from the game, because of things I did with my guild, like hunting Krayt dragons for pearls on Tatooine or being awarded a whole stack of buff food for taking out an ex-guild member, who had turned Jedi. Turns out he was a bit of douche, so the whole guild was happy that I took him down and cost him a lot of XP.

What I'm really trying to say is we made our own stories in the universe. There weren't really raids per say, but the game didn't really need it, to be fun. I haven't played an MMO since, which is a bit sad, because having such an open world and one set in a universe like Star Wars was just amazing.

As for whether an MMO needs it? Both types of MMOs have their merits. I quite liked GW2 and that had a decent story to push the game forward. I also played WoW for many years, before quitting last year. Having an entirely open world and no direction isn't for everyone. Not that there's anything bad in it, but I can't quite picture WoW as being as big a success as it it, without adhering to the theme park MMO idea.

I think the real problem with MMOs and stories are pacing. It's hard to have proper pacing, when you're being "interrupted" by side quests, that aren't really optional, because you have to be a certain level to progress in story missions. GW2 has this, as does TOR. It's hard to tell a story that you can't follow all the time, because of level restrictions.

 

[WoW Killer]

Well the issue I've always had is that story is largely a single player experience. We've had SW:TOR which was more gratuitously story driven than most MMOs. The single player was fine, I actually quite enjoyed it. But I soon as I hit cap I didn't feel much like taking part in the multiplayer game, since I'd had very little experience with that side of things up to that point. The whole dialogue thing in the dungeons was largely a flop, because as soon as you've seen it once you don't care anymore (and dungeons are things you tend to repeat, generally speaking). Even worse, if it's your first run but everyone else has already run it a dozen times, you'll be urged to skip all the cutscenes.

That aside, the root of your issue seems to be the lack of perma-death on lore-significant enemy NPCs. Is that really a major gripe? You defeat the bad guy with the big long backstory, and moments later he reappears so other players can do the same. Ok, that's kind of a plot-hole, but it's obvious why that mechanism needs to be there. Your solution is to take away any lore-significant actions from the players (i.e. make killable enemies lore-insignificant). So ummm, isn't that a bit selfish? As I've said, I'm not much into the story and lore in MMOs, but at the same time I don't think it's detrimental per say (other than taking development time away from gameplay I guess). Presumably there's players who much prefer dungeons like Foundry or ICC with significant plot developments; who am I to take away their fun just because I'm not into the story myself? That seems like quite an extreme solution to a very finicky gripe.

But on Themepark versus Sandbox, I would prefer a more sanbox-ey approach I suppose. That's on gameplay grounds though. The trouble with the themepark approach is it creates this disconnect between single player and multiplayer (and between different grades of multiplayer). Say in WoW, the open world content is almost all tuned for single player, while the instanced stuff is tuned for specific multiple of five. And then the rewards are tuned such that you can only progress so far solo, and you have to go through dungeons before going into raids etc. I think the content should be set up to let players play the game they want to play. If I want to run content with two friends, I shouldn't be forced to group up with two other random people I don't know just because the dungeons need five players.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well that is odd because I found myself coming to the end of every relevant story part long before there was any more, and then it usually turned out the stories were not actually that relevant or memorable anyway.

Only thing that really stuck with me over the years of MMO-ing was screwing around with mates, and boredom... dear god the boredom.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I still feel that The Matrix Online did MMO storylines the best out of any others I've heard about or experienced.

There was an overall story to the game, but the day to day and minute to minute events were a mixture of player made story and interaction with actual pivotal characters live role played by staff. Sure it didn't always happen exactly as planned, but their stories would often interact with your own so there was a purpose to role playing and creating strong characters/storylines. You could just play for the larger scale storyline stuff and get that, but taking the time to interact with the world and craft your own tales was actually rewarding on a much larger scale.

 

[Mike Fang]

I think your idea has some great merit to it, but there is some serious hurdles, both technically and socially that would have to be addressed.

1) While "dynamic" content in MMO's is starting to become a bit more common, the level you are talking about is what Shadowbane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane - did. This concept is neat, and frankly pretty awesome in terms of player interaction it raises the more important, and often more annoying second point.

2) People online can be jerks. Lets face it, PK'ers, Open World PvP, and people racing to top level just to be able to safely "kill noobies" is something that happens in any game where you have open PvP. Lineage II was VERY bad for this. So if you take a fully dynamic game you would have to remove the PvP aspect of it, which (imo) removes a ton of the dynamic aspect.

...This is because the people who hit the end of each content (base or expansions) and when they hit that wall, they then become the vocal minority which seems to dominate every board. These companies then take that vocal minority as its "player base" and caves to their constant barrage of <insert complaint/fix/patch comment>. At least that's how it seems.

EvE is probably the closest thing to a "fully Dynamic" game we have on the market, as minus the space stations, everything is controlled by the players.

Yeah, that is true, it would be a pretty challenging project to take on. And I agree with the thing about the people who hit end content very quickly; they're the kinds of players that drive me crazy, because 9 times out of 10 they don't care about the plot, setting or story, they just want to mash the buttons and check off the achievements from their lists. Also the think about PK'ing jerks is a concern...but at the same time, that could be considered a part of the challenge of the game. Rivalries between individuals or groups could add to the experience, creating competition between guilds and the like. However, I know that there's a fine line between fair competition between players and harassment. But, I think with the right mechanics, ill-behaved players could be countered with things such as bounties that could be set on players by others for killing them, or penalties for players that get reported for harassing others in game with things like body camping.

You would've liked SWG, at least before the CU and the NGE. The problem is that most big MMOs these days are theme park MMOs, rather than sandbox MMOs, like SWG was. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concepts, but a theme park MMO is essentially an MMO which guides you through the game, shows you all the exciting places and tells you different stories set in the game universe. A sandbox MMO is what you're describing and what you want.

...As for whether an MMO needs it? Both types of MMOs have their merits. I quite liked GW2 and that had a decent story to push the game forward. I also played WoW for many years, before quitting last year. Having an entirely open world and no direction isn't for everyone. Not that there's anything bad in it, but I can't quite picture WoW as being as big a success as it it, without adhering to the theme park MMO idea.

I think the real problem with MMOs and stories are pacing. It's hard to have proper pacing, when you're being "interrupted" by side quests, that aren't really optional, because you have to be a certain level to progress in story missions. GW2 has this, as does TOR. It's hard to tell a story that you can't follow all the time, because of level restrictions.

Yeah, I've heard of SWG and it does sound like it was the kind of game I had in mind. As for GW2 and TOR, I'm actually playing both games, currently. TOR's good for some fun, though I'm not making much of an effort to really roleplay at this point. GW2 I'm trying a bit more, and while I'm really loving the game, one of the developers recently made a forum post saying that an in-game, one time event was able to occur within the plot's canon because a certain major villain was dead, even though I and a ton of other players couldn't have gotten to fight him yet. That really disappointed me, 'cause until now, GW2 seemed to have done a really great job of not making me feel like someone else was setting my pace for me by making all the plot-pivotal events occur in instances. In hindsight, I guess it couldn't go on like that forever, but I didn't expect it to happen less than a year after release.

Oh, and just as an aside, I tried to voice my disappointment and frustration on the GW2 official forums; everyone who responded just shot me down. Some were a bit more polite than others, but the overall sentiment seemed to be either I was wrong and the villain wasn't dead until I wanted him to be dead (I really don't see how that could work and mesh with the game canon) or I was being pretentious and selfish so I should shut up and keep my bad vibes to myself.

Well the issue I've always had is that story is largely a single player experience. We've had SW:TOR which was more gratuitously story driven than most MMOs. The single player was fine, I actually quite enjoyed it. But I soon as I hit cap I didn't feel much like taking part in the multiplayer game, since I'd had very little experience with that side of things up to that point. The whole dialogue thing in the dungeons was largely a flop, because as soon as you've seen it once you don't care anymore (and dungeons are things you tend to repeat, generally speaking). Even worse, if it's your first run but everyone else has already run it a dozen times, you'll be urged to skip all the cutscenes.

That aside, the root of your issue seems to be the lack of perma-death on lore-significant enemy NPCs. Is that really a major gripe? You defeat the bad guy with the big long backstory, and moments later he reappears so other players can do the same. Ok, that's kind of a plot-hole, but it's obvious why that mechanism needs to be there. Your solution is to take away any lore-significant actions from the players (i.e. make killable enemies lore-insignificant). So ummm, isn't that a bit selfish? As I've said, I'm not much into the story and lore in MMOs, but at the same time I don't think it's detrimental per say (other than taking development time away from gameplay I guess). Presumably there's players who much prefer dungeons like Foundry or ICC with significant plot developments; who am I to take away their fun just because I'm not into the story myself? That seems like quite an extreme solution to a very finicky gripe.

But on Themepark versus Sandbox, I would prefer a more sanbox-ey approach I suppose. That's on gameplay grounds though. The trouble with the themepark approach is it creates this disconnect between single player and multiplayer (and between different grades of multiplayer). Say in WoW, the open world content is almost all tuned for single player, while the instanced stuff is tuned for specific multiple of five. And then the rewards are tuned such that you can only progress so far solo, and you have to go through dungeons before going into raids etc. I think the content should be set up to let players play the game they want to play. If I want to run content with two friends, I shouldn't be forced to group up with two other random people I don't know just because the dungeons need five players.

Yeah, I can sympathize with the TOR thing; I've encountered the "I've seen this already so I don't care if you want to watch it or not," players in instances, and they can be really obnoxious. But my issue is the lack of perma-death? Ahhhh nononononono. My issue is I'm tired of plot progression set by developers who cater to players who don't care about the plot. Frankly, since you openly admit you're not into the plot of an MMO, you clearly aren't going to understand my concerns. And as far as lore-significant actions, all player actions will be lore-significant in my proposal because it will be the PLAYERS creating the majority of the in-game lore. Back story would be the only thing they wouldn't directly impact. No, it's not a perfect solution, it's just an idea.

 

[Tom_green_day]

The only MMO i've played for any extended time is Runescape and that is because it sorted out all of those problems. PVP? 1 quite large area for it, somewhere you don't really need to go in otherwise that has good loot in places.
Respawn system was great too, taking you to a set location and only letting you keep your 3 most important items.
Also the world was large and packed with interesting things.
Haven't played it for years now and those adverts really aren't helping, but it used to be amazing.

 

[Eddie the head]

The only MMO i've played for any extended time is Runescape and that is because it sorted out all of those problems. PVP? 1 quite large area for it, somewhere you don't really need to go in otherwise that has good loot in places.
Respawn system was great too, taking you to a set location and only letting you keep your 3 most important items.
Also the world was large and packed with interesting things.
Haven't played it for years now and those adverts really aren't helping, but it used to be amazing.

It was a hell of a grind though. It took so long to get any skill to max level. But there was a lot to do.

 

[Sixcess]

Yeah, I can sympathize with the TOR thing; I've encountered the "I've seen this already so I don't care if you want to watch it or not," players in instances, and they can be really obnoxious.

That's the one thing that I really hated about City of Heroes. Many of the major story arcs came to a finale in forced team content, and even assuming I could find a team for the older stuff in particular, they'd just blast through it at such a pace I'd end up having to check the wiki afterwards to see what I'd just done. Not very satisfying.

OT: what you suggest is interesting, but it won't happen in an AAA MMO unless the market goes through some big changes. MMOs are simply too expensive to develop, and the uber sanbox genre you want hasn't been very successful in recent years - except, to some extent, the anomaly that is EVE.

Mind you, given the less than stellar performance of recent MMOs like SWTOR and TSW maybe the industry will start looking to be a bit more adventurous, but it'd be a brave publisher that threw 50-100 million dollars at a sandbox.

Or maybe they'll just keep doing the same old same old, regardless of diminishing returns. Oh hi, Elder Scrolls Online...

There is an upcoming sandbox MMO called Salem [http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/salem] which might be closer to what you want - but it's by no means a polished graphically rich AAA.

 

[VanQ]

I actually miss playing Tibia. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing special about it at the time, but it was a particular kind of MMO that was more common back then. That being, an absolute sandbox. The developers built a world, wrote some lore and then unleashed players into it.

And that was it. There were hardly any quests and they were more or less just tutorials and there was no set path you could take to level up. And of course, there was no level cap. None. You could grind 24/7/365 and never hit a wall.

It was the polar opposite of the Theme Park MMOs that dominate the market today. That's not to say that the game was empty. Not at all, there was high demand and competition for player housing. There was rumour that 6 all powerful demons were deep beneath Edron, plotting their rise. There was treasure deep beneath the dwarven caverns of Kazordoon. And there was nothing stopping you from attempting to plunder it at level 5, 60, 200 or 350 which iirc was the level cap when I left. I say level cap but it was a soft cap, just a placeholder until the devs programmed higher levels as players approached it.

But the strongest draw to the game was the community born from the total freedom the game offered. You could often meet the same folk camping the Thais Depot. chatting while charging their Heavy Magic Missile and Ultimate Healing runes. Other times the streets were a massacre, either at the hands of a player that got his hands on some Ultimate Explosion runes or an NPC Orc Raid.

People stuck together in social groups as a defensive and social construct, sharing plunder and protecting one another. Maybe if they stuck together long enough they could raise enough gold to rent a guild hall. Player interaction was at its peak back then.

The freedom expressed in MMOs of the past is all but gone now. But I've rambled on with my nostalgic memories for too long and I feel old.