"Digital retcons" and you

[soldant]

That would entirely depend on the MMORPG in question, but the idea that MMORPGs don't tell good stories is one of those enduring myths of gaming that should have disappeared a long time ago.

In general though they don't. I mean a single player game can be unique to a player and thus can have closure, but it doesn't make sense in a persistent world where every single player does the same thing but in the same game world as every other player. There can't be a million heroes of the Alliance all in a single world who all did exactly the same thing. It's a good thing that MMORPG plots are fairly nebulous. It also encourages player-driven stories. Look at EVE. Who cares if the game's got a plot or not, the player actions are far more entertaining.

[deano2099]

There can't be a million heroes of the Alliance all in a single world who all did exactly the same thing.

Except in WoW, there are. And it works. A certain suspension of disbelief is required but it works. Yes, good stories come out of EVE but frankly, most players are playing a tiny, boring role in those stories. That's why it's more fun to read about than play. Letting everyone pretend to be the hero might make less sense but it's more fun.

And MMOs are a good example in relation to the original point because, EVE and the like aside, most of them do attempt to tell a story. WoW has actually got really bloody good at it now, and although I'm bound to get responses from a ton of people who last played it five years ago and are sure it's shit, the Cataclysm leveling content does story pretty damn well. At the expanse of exploration and world-building I think, but each area has its own arc that your quests build towards and they flow into each other.

But you can't play the original stories anymore. They're gone.

[soldant]

Except in WoW, there are. And it works.

It's also very much downplayed. The storyline text exists pretty much only as something to go before an Accept button and to give you some sort of vague reason to kill 25 Kobolds or whatever. The story experience from an MMO compared to an SP game is very different, because without the story being downplayed at least somewhat the suspension of disbelief is a lot harder to achieve.

[Taidan]

It's also very much downplayed. The storyline text exists pretty much only as something to go before an Accept button and to give you some sort of vague reason to kill 25 Kobolds or whatever. The story experience from an MMO compared to an SP game is very different, because without the story being downplayed at least somewhat the suspension of disbelief is a lot harder to achieve.

I think we're back to that "Urban Myth" thing I mentioned earlier.

The problem is that when it's downplayed, it's done so by the audience, not by the writers. A lot of people do skip the quest-text and just "get on with it". On the flipside, a lot of people actually bother to read the stuff and discover that there are some good stories being told there, regardless of whether or not you're interested. (Interestingly, originally in WoW you couldn't actually skip the quest-text, as in an attempt to get you to engage, the game forced you to wait for the text to slowly "write itself" across the window. They changed it to its current design after a couple of months in response to overwhelming demand.)

The storyline text exists pretty much only as something to go before an Accept button and to give you some sort of vague reason to kill 25 Kobolds or whatever.

You could apply that criticism to any game. And most Hollywood movies, while we're at it. The story exists as a mechanism to help drive the action. It doesn't automatically make the story itself good or bad.

Within World of Warcraft itself, as the example given, there are a lot of bad and uninteresting mini-stories. There are also a lot of quite good stories, some of which can cross multiple zones and last for weeks of gameplay. It's a big game, y'know? And as Deano said, Blizzard are getting better and better at doing this. (At least they were. I quit late last year, after finishing all of the Cataclysm "single player" content and the first tier of raids. No idea what state the game is in right now.)

On topic, one of my favourite questlines was completely taken out of the game a couple of years back, and I'll never be able to go back and play that again. Remember the really long one about the Black Dragons' infiltration of the Alliance, when in the course of your investigations you wind up freeing that guy from prison, escorting him through the streets of Stormwind to the castle, (while all the guards snap to attention and pay various complements) before getting involved in a big scrap? Gone. Deleted from existence. "Digitally Retconned".

Also, MMORPGs don't solely provide repetitive kill/collect X quests. That is also an urban myth. Still on WoW, the variety of gameplay that Blizzard have managed to get out of that engine is quite staggering.

Moving on to the future, Bioware are about to release "The Old Republic", which is taking the "Everquest-alike" framework and really pushing the storytelling element. I'm sure we've all seen the trailers. The storytelling looks as good as Knights of the Old Republic. The fact that it's an MMO doesn't appear to detract from that. That game is just as subject to "Digital Retconning" as any other online game.

[soldant]

A lot of people do skip the quest-text and just "get on with it". On the flipside, a lot of people actually bother to read the stuff and discover that there are some good stories being told there, regardless of whether or not you're interested.

WoW does have more story in it than other MMOs but if a lot of people just skip the quest-text then I'd argue that it isn't particularly interesting and still takes a backseat to the game. The story is necessary for context, but it's still not as good as an SP game.

You could apply that criticism to any game. And most Hollywood movies, while we're at it. The story exists as a mechanism to help drive the action. It doesn't automatically make the story itself good or bad.

I could try to apply that criticism to any game but how far I'd get would depend on how good the story was. All stories in games are there ultimately to provide context for the gameplay like you said. A good integration between story and game results in a seamless experience where the two seem completely reliant on each other. Where you've got too much story and not enough game, you end up like these new-wave indie "art" games which have no gameplay beyond "move from A to B at incredibly slow pace." Where you go to the other way, you end up with a storyline that nobody bothers to read and skip it to get to the gameplay.

Also, MMORPGs don't solely provide repetitive kill/collect X quests. That is also an urban myth. Still on WoW, the variety of gameplay that Blizzard have managed to get out of that engine is quite staggering.

I know they don't, I did actually play WoW for a bit before I got tired of feeling like I had a 2nd job where I paid to turn up to work every day (I already had a job like that, it was called clinical practice!). But to be fair a large portion are "kill X to collect Y" style quests.

[Kollega]

Moving on to the future, Bioware are about to release "The Old Republic", which is taking the "Everquest-alike" framework and really pushing the storytelling element. I'm sure we've all seen the trailers. The storytelling looks as good as Knights of the Old Republic. The fact that it's an MMO doesn't appear to detract from that. That game is just as subject to "Digital Retconning" as any other online game.

Well, okay. At first i wanted to play the "MMOs are persistent so the punch of the story is neccesarily blurrier" card, but seeing how The Old Republic really pushes it's story, it dosen't seem that this card is valid anymore.

And again, even if the story of WoW is not the strongest one, there's also the lore of the game, the background stuff which is just as important as the story, and from what i heard, just as subject to digitally-delivered "Orwellian retcons". I have really overlooked that, haven't i?

[deano2099]

WoW does have more story in it than other MMOs but if a lot of people just skip the quest-text then I'd argue that it isn't particularly interesting and still takes a backseat to the game. The story is necessary for context, but it's still not as good as an SP game.

And 15% of people skip dialogue in Mass Effect 2

I know they don't, I did actually play WoW for a bit before I got tired of feeling like I had a 2nd job where I paid to turn up to work every day (I already had a job like that, it was called clinical practice!). But to be fair a large portion are "kill X to collect Y" style quests.

So like I said in my original post, you haven't played it recently then? As in, post-Cataclysm? In which case I'd respectfully suggest that you don't know what you're talking about. In that last expansion, Blizzard made great strides towards improving the story, and player engagement with the story, demonstrating that you *could* do it in an MMO. It's not just quest text anymore, there are in-engine cut-scenes, voice acting and so on. They've taken the "show, not tell" approach and there are very few quests left now that are "kill X to collect Y" ones. Now, many quests still actually boil down to that, but they're dressed up in story. Increasingly common are the "kill X then use object Z on the corpse" style quests - essentially the same thing mechanically, but you're more engaged with the story as you're actually *doing* something more than just killing and looting.

[Taidan]

WoW does have more story in it than other MMOs but if a lot of people just skip the quest-text then I'd argue that it isn't particularly interesting and still takes a backseat to the game. The story is necessary for context, but it's still not as good as an SP game.

I could try to apply that criticism to any game but how far I'd get would depend on how good the story was. All stories in games are there ultimately to provide context for the gameplay like you said. A good integration between story and game results in a seamless experience where the two seem completely reliant on each other. Where you've got too much story and not enough game, you end up like these new-wave indie "art" games which have no gameplay beyond "move from A to B at incredibly slow pace." Where you go to the other way, you end up with a storyline that nobody bothers to read and skip it to get to the gameplay.

Pretty much what Deano said. The fact that some games such as WoW, the Mass Effect series and Portal (as well as many others in all likelihood) attract people who are too impatient to actually enjoy the story still does not invalidate the fact that there are good stories there, for those who care.

I know they don't, I did actually play WoW for a bit before I got tired of feeling like I had a 2nd job where I paid to turn up to work every day (I already had a job like that, it was called clinical practice!). But to be fair a large portion are "kill X to collect Y" style quests.

Hmmm. Something tells me that you're coming to this conversation with certain preconceptions and biases. That's what we in the know refer to as the "Fox News approach to Gaming Discussion". :p