Do you think story is really what MMO players want?

[moldysox]

In that case I don't get how you can compare the completely player driven endgame of the best sandbox mmorpg ever created to what world of warcraft has become.

 

no i may have worded it wrong Story means nothing.. end game is whats need UO had massive pvp guilds waring guilds ect....

[Rollcageuk]

Firstly I think telling a story in a better way doesn't actually change the story itself. Sure you might enjoy it while your being told it, but many people love great stories because they stay with you where gameplay just fades away. TOR and WoW stories both do this, TOR just read their story out for you rather than make you actually read something.

 

Secondly adding story should theoretically make the game better. If it has everything WoW has + story, you might say that makes it a better game. The problem is getting on a par with WoW in all of those other areas is going to be almost impossible when you are dedicating yourself to story as an MMO. It is also debatable whether the class line up in SWTOR is better than in WoW and hence how the overall pve/pvp experience is.

 

People have been saying raiding in TOR is quite dull and basically just involves adds spawning at different times in boss fights.

 

Finally adding in late game quests wouldn't really work because once you've done them, their gone. People would go through them faster than BioWare can make them which would result in people just getting bored.

 

I'd also like to say I haven't for one moment implied this game CAN'T be competing with WoW if it changes things. What I'm saying is that adding in story isn't really making the gaming experience that much better and so TOR won't offer WoW players and other MMO players anything that revolutionary.

 

It's obvious that you have completely missed the point of the story telling.

Adding story DOES make the game better, it may not be revolutionary but it takes an aspect that WOW failed at and made it better. It absorbs you in and makes your character more than just hitting 1-2-1-4-1..etc and looting whatever is dropped.

 

If you want to just fight in yourr games, then I suggest you go back to WOW or COD, because both those are lifeless fighting games.

 

Several years of just raiding has damaged your ability to enjoy the game for what it is, instead you are focussed purely on the end game content. "How quickly can I get to 50 and deck myself in the Leet gear?""your self worth in game seems to be focussed purely on this one thing

You've rushed to hit 50 , skipped all the story and as a result you have failed to take part and immerse yourself in what should be an enjoyable, fun part of the game. It's a shame, but I know that is what blizzard has done to some of the MMO community.

 

And late game quests could work, they just have to make them big enough and interesting enought that people want to do them. Yes, you will complete them but in doing so you will have another story for your character, another adventure, another chapter in the SW world.

 

People have been saying raiding in TOR is quite dull and basically just involves adds spawning at different times in boss fights.

 

And that is different to WOW how? Every instance in WOW has Addons for most major bosses. This isn't different. in addition, you are talking about a game that has been out 2 weeks. They have posted that they are working on more end game content. Play another class, and this time instead of pressing space bar and rushing all the way through content, take part in the game, enjoy the class story and try to enjoy the game rather than just thinking about all the gear you might get. The gear will still be there in a month, so why rush?

[Gunryu]

And you have agreed with me, TOR is telling the story in a better way.

 

Better is subjective, better for who? Better for the people who can and prefer to read faster than the voice overs? Better for people who don't CARE why they are doing the grind? Better for people who are sick of hearing the same lines over and over? or better for YOU?

[moldysox]

oh btw UO pre tram best mmo ever

[SnoopyDoo]

Is story important in a story based MMO?

 

Is that even a real question?

 

Read the original question...

 

Quit trying to be smart.

[daemian]

@OP: Story is what this MMO player wants. Your mileage may vary but 'story' done in this fashion is something I've wanted to see in an MMO for many many years, and while I don't claim the game is perfect, overall I'm not disappointed either. I'm enjoying it immensely.

 

In short, I guess I don't share your concerns.

Edited January 3, 2012 by daemian

[Redshirtricky]

I love discussions like these, where the different camps just demonize each other and put up endless straw man arguments as "proof" why x failed/succeeded.

 

I've got a 40s sawbones smuggler, and I have to say I loved the story. It ramped up nicely from act 1.

 

Do I spacebar the sidequests sometimes? Sure, when they're babbling in gibberish alien speak and I read through what they wanted me to do.

 

Will end game gamers who want the best of the best gear like WoW and other more mature mmos better? I think so. This game's still an infant and the majority of the player base isn't even at level cap yet.

 

For me, it worked. The story of my smuggler paid off.

 

They have loads of time to make X dungeon (x gear) > Y dungeon (Y gear) > Z dungeon (Z gear). If that's what serious raiders want, they can have that in other MMOs now or they'll have to wait for it. Nothing wrong with that style of play. They want the gear to be able to show it off and be the best characters in game.

 

For me, I like KOTOR 3, and the fact I can replay it from different points of view.

 

People just have to remember that not everyone who plays WoW or any other MMO are hardcore raiders, nor are they all sunday drivers. Most are in the middle, and we're happy for every aspect.

[SnoopyDoo]

It's obvious that you have completely missed the point of the story telling.

Adding story DOES make the game better, it may not be revolutionary but it takes an aspect that WOW failed at and made it better. It absorbs you in and makes your character more than just hitting 1-2-1-4-1..etc and looting whatever is dropped.

 

If you want to just fight in yourr games, then I suggest you go back to WOW or COD, because both those are lifeless fighting games.

 

Several years of just raiding has damaged your ability to enjoy the game for what it is, instead you are focussed purely on the end game content. "How quickly can I get to 50 and deck myself in the Leet gear?""your self worth in game seems to be focussed purely on this one thing

You've rushed to hit 50 , skipped all the story and as a result you have failed to take part and immerse yourself in what should be an enjoyable, fun part of the game. It's a shame, but I know that is what blizzard has done to some of the MMO community.

 

And late game quests could work, they just have to make them big enough and interesting enought that people want to do them. Yes, you will complete them but in doing so you will have another story for your character, another adventure, another chapter in the SW world.

 

 

 

And that is different to WOW how? Every instance in WOW has Addons for most major bosses. This isn't different. in addition, you are talking about a game that has been out 2 weeks. They have posted that they are working on more end game content. Play another class, and this time instead of pressing space bar and rushing all the way through content, take part in the game, enjoy the class story and try to enjoy the game rather than just thinking about all the gear you might get. The gear will still be there in a month, so why rush?

 

Again you are acting like TOR doesn't have all of the same grinding and meaningless looting as WoW.

 

When you get to max level this is what you will be doing. The difference in TOR is that we have been told a little bit more about why we go and 'Kill X of Y'.

 

You speak as if getting to the max level is a terrible problem and how people should enjoy levelling. One of the big problems with this is that levelling ultimately has an end, and that end is the max level. People want things to be doing with their character at that stage and TOR is completely ignoring that. This game is being enjoyed by many because of the story elements but that will end eventually and then people will start leaving.

 

This is supposed to be an MMO and not a single player RPG. If it was single player I would happily take my time to play my classes story but I personally find that raiding and pvp is a lot more fun. That's just my personally view, nothing wrong with that. I'm not someone who just hoards loot, I just find the end game aspects of MMOs are more fun to actually play. I can get story through reading a book or film, gaming usually offers the lowest quality of story (as TOR has shown).

 

Please don't kid yourself that this game is any better than WoW at max level. You will indeed end up doing exactly the same things. This game's only new feature is that levelling has been sugar coated with a lot of story to distract people from the droning grind.

 

Finally you said I should take my time and get involved in the story of my character. I tried that, it got boring because all the quests were just so similar. The cut scenes have cheesy repetitive dialogue and I'm not going to waste what little free time I have being bored.

 

(also late game quests wouldn't really need to attract people to do them, they would probably get enough takers but I doubt they would work as something people can actively do on their character)

[SnoopyDoo]

I love discussions like these, where the different camps just demonize each other and put up endless straw man arguments as "proof" why x failed/succeeded.

 

I've got a 40s sawbones smuggler, and I have to say I loved the story. It ramped up nicely from act 1.

 

Do I spacebar the sidequests sometimes? Sure, when they're babbling in gibberish alien speak and I read through what they wanted me to do.

 

Will end game gamers who want the best of the best gear like WoW and other more mature mmos better? I think so. This game's still an infant and the majority of the player base isn't even at level cap yet.

 

For me, it worked. The story of my smuggler paid off.

 

They have loads of time to make X dungeon (x gear) > Y dungeon (Y gear) > Z dungeon (Z gear). If that's what serious raiders want, they can have that in other MMOs now or they'll have to wait for it. Nothing wrong with that style of play. They want the gear to be able to show it off and be the best characters in game.

 

For me, I like KOTOR 3, and the fact I can replay it from different points of view.

 

People just have to remember that not everyone who plays WoW or any other MMO are hardcore raiders, nor are they all sunday drivers. Most are in the middle, and we're happy for every aspect.

 

Would you not agree however that this story element you are enjoying is just a single player game? Nobody is actually saying they love the MMO side of this game, just the story.

[daemian]

Would you not agree however that this story element you are enjoying is just a single player game? Nobody is actually saying they love the MMO side of this game, just the story.

 

Speaking for myself, I love the story, but I'm loving the group play aspect too. Flashpoints are a blast, and I've had fun grouping up to do the class and side quests too. As you say, different opinions - but to me it's the best of both worlds.

Edited January 3, 2012 by daemian

[JayneKobb]

Having come from the previous king of story and lore (LOTRO...and they still win on Lore), I have to say that I my level of enjoyment in SWTOR is much higher than in LOTRO. Will it be in 6 months? Who knows.

 

In the mean time though, Im happily along for the ride.

[Redshirtricky]

Would you not agree however that this story element you are enjoying is just a single player game? Nobody is actually saying they love the MMO side of this game, just the story.

 

You've defined what an MMO is supposed to be in your head. Bioware made this game. If you don't like the story, it'll be as you said. Very similar to other MMOs already in existent.

 

If you don't like the narrative, you're free to go to another MMO. I'm not going to say you're a bad person for doing so, nor will I put down your choice of gameplay. People vote with their dollars.

 

I like teamming up with the gaming community I'm with for heroics and flashpoints. I enjoy soloing my class quests. Sometimes I even bring along other friends so they can enjoy my class story.

 

it's KOTOR 3, with the option to team up and be a traditional MMO. That's Bioware's MMO. If you don't like the cup of tea, then just switch to another brand. No harm, no foul.

[Mizarus]

You ask people that and then give us the story of your life in the form of a huge wall text

[DarksideniYokoso]

No, story is not that important to mmo players. YES, story is the CORNERSTONE of bioware games and bioware fans.

 

My vote goes to YES.

[SnoopyDoo]

You ask people that and then give us the story of your life in the form of a huge wall text

 

How constructive this post was...

[PANZERBUNNY]

(My main point out of all of this is that I don't think adding Story as a new pillar of the MMO is a smart move when trying to beat other MMOs in the market)

 

I've been reading a lot of posts recently about what people think of this game but none directly discuss how the pillars of MMOs are being dealt with in TOR. This game is STORY DRIVEN, we've heard it numerous times now. I've heard many times In interviews the devs say they wanted story to be the new pillar in MMO and I don't think that this is a realistic prospect.

 

---> ESSAY ALERT <---

 

Think about what happens when you read a book. The story is interesting while your reading it and it can stay with you forever. You get a certain satisfaction out of knowing the parts of it. SW:TOR is saying to players 'Make your own story, live it out in your own way' This is a good idea, I myself find the idea of living an online life in the Star Wars universe to be exciting and thrilling. There is however a key problem I feel which is that this is an MMO. And what happens in all MMOs is that you reach this little brick wall called, the max level...

 

The problem with this idea of 'making your own story' is simply the restraints of the game itself. I find it very difficult to embrace this idea because I know that eventually I will run out of content or indeed just get bored with my character. Its also very difficult to live out a truly believable story in an MMO since the majority of time is spent killing defenceless animals or collecting random crap.

 

The original poll done on these forums indicated that the main things people looked for in MMOs were PvP or PvE. Anyone who has played an MMO before will surely realize that these two concepts are the foundation of the end game content. For SW:TOR these apparently weren't a problem. They made this game STORY DRIVEN despite the fact that only a tiny portion of MMO gamers would consider this even the slightest bit important. So why?

 

I feel as though this game simply lacks in certain areas and the only thing I can think to blame is there total emphasise on story. I have no doubt that this game will do well simply because there are plenty of people willing to put up with the quantity of story just to reach the end game. But what end game? Patching will surely add more content but with an old system ( eg. The Holy Trinity ) it will make it no different to WoW which has put a lot of focus into making its end game as fun as possible. BioWare needs to wake up and realize that this is something too important to just pretend isn't important and although the game may be story based, they do need to put end game in or the hardcore MMO players will just get up and leave.

 

On the topic of story I really don't like the way BioWare as implemented their vision of story. Just because I have a nice conversation with a quest giver doesn't mean that him telling me to kill 10 boars (or droids) will be any more fun. Are people really that stupid as to believe that STORY is going to make an MMO more fun in the end game. I look forward to new titles such as GW2 which promise to actually change end game for the better by directly tackling the problems people have with PVE and PVP.

 

This game feels more dull than WoW in the questing sense because adding in all this story actually increases the time that killing 10 boars would normally take. 'But thats just if you want to grind to max level', sure ill admit one thing I loved about WoW was that I could get to max level in no time by just grinding. That still doesn't change the fact that most MMO players are just like me, they want to get to that end game content as soon as they can and SW:TOR has tried to change that by introducing more stuff for you to do while you level up. This doesn't actually make the game experience any better in the sense that people still want to be max level as soon as they can, so I suppose much of this new content is in fact just pointless if people are just going to skip over it. I feel as though BioWare has actually harmed themselves by making story so important especially in the levelling part and I am not sure how they intend to carry this over into the end game.

 

To try and fix this many people may suggest that you re roll an alt, BioWare has tried to make it clear that making a new character is a whole new story and yet wont I be doing exactly the same quests? I find it hard to build this vision of a new character when so much of what I am doing is the same as what my main did previously. There is only 1 area to go and quest in for each level group, yes you could leave a location sooner or spend longer in another but you are not really living a new story except for of course your classes main one.

 

For an MMO which values story so highly it seems embarrassing that there is actually very little choice in how your story progresses. Oh I get to choose if i'm 'Light or Dark side', I do question the philosophical side of this game as can you really split life so plainly into just good deeds and evil ones. Yet the game gives you brownie points for taking one side which means players are either all evil or all good. Is there no middle ground? How can someone build a true story for themselves when the game pushes them to choose good over evil or vis versa. Yes you could just ignore the whole system but is it not outrageuous in the first place that they split moral choice so plainly?

 

To finish I would like to just discourage anyone from saying any obvious comments and that the single reason why I am posting this is to see if anyone in the community shares my concerns. BioWare has put their eggs in one basket on this game and I feel they have missed out some crucial parts of what makes MMOs successful.

 

(My main point out of all of this is that I don't think adding Story as a new pillar of the MMO is a smart move when trying to beat other MMOS in the market)

 

 

_EDIT_

I changed my main point's wording a little bit to greater reflect my actual opinion.

 

Yes.

 

A game that isn't engaging with atmosphere etc is easily replaced by anything in the same genre.

 

An engaging story is an engaged player.

[spazzdla]

TLDR.

 

However for your title.

 

The ONLY ONLY reason I am playing this game is the story.

[Mizarus]

How constructive this post was...

 

it tells you that opinion is subjective and should be treated as such.

 

the only reason MMO players dont care about story is because a MMO game never cared about its story.

 

SWTOR does care about its story and make its players do the same, just because it havent been done before it dosent mean it shoudnt.

 

people crave innovation and new things, story on MMO's is a new thing, apreciate it, dont complain about it.

 

SWTOR would be a terrible game without story i would not play it

[Nitsud_Deus]

Books run out of content and end as well.

 

Story is important to me. I would not have bought this game if there was not the story. I like a story with my game.

 

To me warcraft is just fancy farmville....timesink with no motivation

[SWImara]

Having come from the previous king of story and lore (LOTRO...and they still win on Lore), I have to say that I my level of enjoyment in SWTOR is much higher than in LOTRO. Will it be in 6 months? Who knows.

 

In the mean time though, Im happily along for the ride.

 

Fellow LotRO player here (I still play) and though on lore you're right from the beginning I felt like my character was essentially meaningless due to the game being set in the 3rd age etc. The story in SWTOR is pretty awesome, even in contrast with many single player games I've played. If nothing else its great to see that its not precisely the same as every other game, it was getting to the point in MMOs (even LotRO) that I didn't understand why I bothered reading the quests. That may be some folks' cup of tea, but I'm glad this game did it differently.

 

 

Yes.

 

A game that isn't engaging with atmosphere etc is easily replaced by anything in the same genre.

 

An engaging story is an engaged player.

My sentiments exactly, without a story its no different than any other MMO. There will always be a "next big MMO" for gamers to hop over to (I've been that guy often myself) features (particularly features that already exist in another game) aren't enough to keep a player base, an engaging story might be. Just another issue of different strokes for different folks I guess. I definitely hope they fix lots of the issues in the game and add some depth to systems (PvP in particular) but at the moment the game's got my attention more than any MMO has for years (since Shadowbane), and I loathe Star Wars as a setting.

Edited January 3, 2012 by SWImara

[Nemrodh]

Yes it's important to some people, but it will not carry an mmo

 

^this. I'm already skipping some cut scenes.. I do enjoy the story.. but if i play all 8 classes per side that's 4 times for the 2 starter areas per side, and 8 times for everything else.. no thank you..

[Rollcageuk]

Again you are acting like TOR doesn't have all of the same grinding and meaningless looting as WoW.

 

When you get to max level this is what you will be doing. The difference in TOR is that we have been told a little bit more about why we go and 'Kill X of Y'.

 

You speak as if getting to the max level is a terrible problem and how people should enjoy levelling. One of the big problems with this is that levelling ultimately has an end, and that end is the max level. People want things to be doing with their character at that stage and TOR is completely ignoring that. This game is being enjoyed by many because of the story elements but that will end eventually and then people will start leaving.

 

This is supposed to be an MMO and not a single player RPG. If it was single player I would happily take my time to play my classes story but I personally find that raiding and pvp is a lot more fun. That's just my personally view, nothing wrong with that. I'm not someone who just hoards loot, I just find the end game aspects of MMOs are more fun to actually play. I can get story through reading a book or film, gaming usually offers the lowest quality of story (as TOR has shown).

 

Please don't kid yourself that this game is any better than WoW at max level. You will indeed end up doing exactly the same things. This game's only new feature is that levelling has been sugar coated with a lot of story to distract people from the droning grind.

 

Finally you said I should take my time and get involved in the story of my character. I tried that, it got boring because all the quests were just so similar. The cut scenes have cheesy repetitive dialogue and I'm not going to waste what little free time I have being bored.

 

(also late game quests wouldn't really need to attract people to do them, they would probably get enough takers but I doubt they would work as something people can actively do on their character)

 

Well then you have a choice to make:-

 

1. You can go back, stop thinking about the pure end game race that has ruined WOW and try to enjoy the rest of the game. Maybe level an Alt.

2. You can also wait until the end game feature list is longer. As most of the community are not yet max level, as they are enjoying the extra aspects, end game content is not a priority.

BW have said they are working on more endgame content, so be patient

3. Leave, go back to WOW and carry on your endless slog for gear that in 12 months time when Pandaville comes out will be completely worthless, just as all the previous expansions have rendered all previous effort wasted as well.

 

As I said, Blizzard has ruined the gaming experience for some, and you appear to be a prime example, thinking only of one single aspect:- end game gear. If you want to keep playing like that, I wish you good luck, and hopefully goodbye (no offense intended). I do hope BW add more stories and long chains that tell stories, suck my character in and make me care what happens to him/her. I also hope they add more instances and raids aswell, but unlike WOW I hope they don't do at the expense of the story aspect.

 

Good luck

[ThiborF]

The original poll done on these forums indicated that the main things people looked for in MMOs were PvP or PvE. Anyone who has played an MMO before will surely realize that these two concepts are the foundation of the end game content. For SW:TOR these apparently weren't a problem. They made this game STORY DRIVEN despite the fact that only a tiny portion of MMO gamers would consider this even the slightest bit important. So why?

 

Oh I can think of a few reasons here. Player made polls are often biased initially just by their wording of the question and options. Also, those responding to that pull are a very small subset of MMO players so that brings in to question the statistical relevance of the results. And last I'll add that games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect are two very popular and very story given games by the developer. So there is most certainly a market out there for story driven RPGs.

 

Now then, that last point doesn't mean that great story driven RPGs seamlessly translate into successful MMORPGs. But, there is at least enough there to suggest it might work and be a good gamble with potentially great payoff.

 

That also doesn't mean it's going to be everybody's cup of tea. Some folks love to applaud "sandbox" MMOs yet one of the most noted for being that just shutdown their servers for good (SWG) so how popular is it. Others crave PvP centric MMORPGs. And while some were quite popular and arguably good in their time (such as DAOC), others fail to ever live up to their potential (WAR.) And with that plenty of folks opt to get their PvP kicks in death match style online play from various FPS titles (CoD, MW, BF, TF, etc etc.) All that means is there is room for a story driven MMORPG to carve out it's slice of the pie and still be successful. Only time will tell how big a piece it is.

 

 

On the topic of story I really don't like the way BioWare as implemented their vision of story. Just because I have a nice conversation with a quest giver doesn't mean that him telling me to kill 10 boars (or droids) will be any more fun. Are people really that stupid as to believe that STORY is going to make an MMO more fun in the end game. I look forward to new titles such as GW2 which promise to actually change end game for the better by directly tackling the problems people have with PVE and PVP.

 

This game feels more dull than WoW in the questing sense because adding in all this story actually increases the time that killing 10 boars would normally take. 'But thats just if you want to grind to max level', sure ill admit one thing I loved about WoW was that I could get to max level in no time by just grinding. That still doesn't change the fact that most MMO players are just like me, they want to get to that end game content as soon as they can and SW:TOR has tried to change that by introducing more stuff for you to do while you level up.

 

Alright, where to begin here. You assert people are stupid if they think story will make the "end-game" content any more fun yet I know plenty of folks that have commented that the story has made questing/leveling much more fun than previous game experiences and are looking forward to seeing the story for each of the four base classes on both factions. I think you could then easily jump to the conclusion that seeing the story for end-game content will be fun as well, at least for the first few times until a person has seen the different replies. That doesn't mean that once they've done an instance 3, 5, 10+ times that they won't be space-barring through the conversations at which point it will just as fun (or repeatedly nauseating) as end-game content in other titles.

 

As for killing 10 boars being more fun (or less/same) *shrug* for me, and I know some others I've talked to, the bits of story injected here and there break up the grind and especially the way some of the side kill X quests are done where it's pretty much a given you'll kill that many anyways unless you're a stealth class and try to avoid combat to reach main quest objectives.

 

Your second paragraph is where you make the jump to "most people are just like me." And as I read it, I understand your mindset ... it's all about end-game and anything that allegedly impedes your path to get to that from the moment you install the game is "grind". Leveling is just a waste of time to you and you would be much happier if some developer came along and said:

"Here you go. Spend the next 30 minutes creating your character, give him a short back story, customize him and kit him up with tier 1 end-game loot and then login and start doing those raids."

 

Don't misunderstand me, I know there is a segment of the general MMO playerbase that would love such a game. To assume that's everyone or even a majority is a bit of a stretch.

 

If you can't enjoy the story and it's just going to be seen as holding you back from getting right to your end-game instances then perhaps going back to your World of Raidcraft is what is best for your gaming enjoyment. There are plenty of folks that were waiting for BioWare to make a MMORPG to deliver one with a great story. So far, from lots of folks I've talked to, they have. Again, it's not going to be for everyone. But, then again, no MMORPG is every going to be. And, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's something that has to be fixed.

[TheHeadCapper]

TLDR.

 

However for your title.

 

The ONLY ONLY reason I am playing this game is the story.

 

/signed

[jimmybob]

Who cares what MMO players want? Pssh. All MMO players want is a boss with a billion hit points who it takes 5 hours to beat and who much more often than not beats YOU. End.