An Idea to make the Story actually interesting and Relevant to mostly all Users?

Hello Ashes Team and Community,

so me and a few friends were thinking on what the perfect mmorpg would look like to us, and then i certainly came to an Idea regarding a Story in an MMORPG. So mostly its known that Stories in MMORPG's are rarely interesting or relevant to people, because its mostly just skipping the story and going through the game to reach the end game content as fast as possible by destroying the R/E or F button. But then again a Story is actually a really important part of the Game in my Opinion, putting beside the RP'ers its a very interessting feature, especially if it has beautiful cutscenes, actually interessting lore and a meaning to it.

So going from ashes, we know that every server, will be different, and since unfortunately a lot of people dont really put their time into reading the story what if it ends up being a feature which people would do because they are actually interested in it, and the Rewards are something Unique..

I was thinking about a Story Progression which is basically hidden within the Game. There's obviously the Main quest but the Mainquest itself would only Progress if the people actually go for it as a Community. You Could add Certain Requirments where the community has to grind on a spot for like 3 days to fend off a demon army otherwise a village node gets completly destroyed or something like that, or we have to find hidden puzzle pieces to continue the mainquest, unlock certain things in the city's to be able to do something with the Main quest, etc.

To make it a bit easier to understand - What if there was a Server-wide MSQ Progression where everyone can participate and get like the usual MSQ Rewards except the one's who unlock the next phase of the Main Story. For Example: Lets say an NPC tells you a Story about the Lore and it gives you a hint (the hint is hopefully not too obvious it should be rewarding to find the piece needed to continue the story) on what it needs to progress to the next quest. Lets say its about an Old Royal Family which got slaughtered by Vampires and now the Castle which they were in is a Vampire Castle which also happens to be a Dungeon. (But this is something you have to figure out obviously by playing the game) so thats the hint, now there is an item like a Ring for example and its the Family Heirloom of that old Royal Family. That NPC is apparently one of the old Royal Guards and to progress that quest you hand him over that Ring which you dropped (RNG or certain requirments have to be met for it to drop) and once you unlock that quest, there is a server wide notification wich tells that the main story goes on, and depending on how hardcore it ends up to be there could be various unique items hidden in those MSQ's for all the First Timers who achieve to continue the Main Quest. Especially Title's and Cosmetics maybe unique mounts or pets too.

So of course this could be done even more Hardcore by creating it in a way where its actually bound to the server you are in so even the story is different on every server but i guess that would be a bit too much, never the less i feel like this would be a good addition in general adding to the unique'nes and experience for anyone who enjoy's a good story. Because if you play a game which you like, you end up wanting to know more about it at some point, and giving the Story such attention would be a first too i'd say. I cant really tell if this was ever in a mmo before but going from my experience i never saw something like this..

Sorry for my bad English, it's not my Main Language and i hope its understandable for everyone maybe its a cool idea to bring into the game who knows~ i just want to put it out there so feel free to discuss/add/change anything about this idea as much as you want, i think it can only just get more creative. Lets keep it civil tho.

Thanks for Reading!

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

George_Black

Mmorpgs should spend resources developing gameplay for player to player interactions, not story like singleplayer games.
Nothing comes free, so when the core design isnt story, why spend money on depth, detail and variety?
Shouldnt they spend money in constantly maintaining player to player systems?
Look at eso. Full of story, full of singleplayer elements and when it comes to player to player it's full of lag, bugs and impalances, and I wont even mention the lack of meaningful player to player content, besides all the OPTIONAL dungeons and BGs.

I disagree with you. When I want story I play singleplayer games. They should build on co-op features. Not mmorpgs. Mmos should be massive, real time, non instanced or fragmented.
Multiplayer. Not player-NPC.

Your idea can be a reality if a developer has endless cash to throw around. And we would enjoy it. But nobody has endless money.

Dygz

Ashes is a themebox.
Quite a bit of the story will be the rise and fall of Nodes…as dictated by the players.

Shogun_

Well that sounds already pretty interessting

HexologyNate

While it's an interesting idea - I think as mentioned by George_Black most funding should go towards core gameplay mechanics and polishing within the scope of an MMORPG before a super elaborate and server wide story progression system is even contemplated. But it is a cool idea!

Happymeal2415

George_Black wrote: »

Mmorpgs should spend resources developing gameplay for player to player interactions, not story like singleplayer games.
Nothing comes free, so when the core design isnt story, why spend money on depth, detail and variety?
Shouldnt they spend money in constantly maintaining player to player systems?
Look at eso. Full of story, full of singleplayer elements and when it comes to player to player it's full of lag, bugs and impalances, and I wont even mention the lack of meaningful player to player content, besides all the OPTIONAL dungeons and BGs.

I disagree with you. When I want story I play singleplayer games. They should build on co-op features. Not mmorpgs. Mmos should be massive, real time, non instanced or fragmented.
Multiplayer. Not player-NPC.

Your idea can be a reality if a developer has endless cash to throw around. And we would enjoy it. But nobody has endless money.

I completely disagree. Story has to be a major part of it (not saying your aren't correct about eso or that mechanics are important too). New world has 0 story and died instantly. Without story you have dailies. You have and endless supply of dailies. And once you finally get through the slog of dailies and get the character you've been dreaming of you look around and can't do anything except disrupt other people doing dailies. Sick gameplay loop

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Mmorpgs should spend resources developing gameplay for player to player interactions, not story like singleplayer games.

They should have both.

Since the same person would not be involved in both, this is not a situation where you have to pick one or the other.

You really do not want a Lead Writer designing your PvP systems.

Story isn't for everyone. However, just because it isn't for you, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in an MMORPG.

If done right, an MMORPG's story can actually build community. EQ2 did this for most of the time I was playing it, where the game would leave messages and clues in various parts of the world. Graffiti on a town wall, messages carved in stone that literally needed to be translated, all sorts of things.

Again, it isn't for you, and that's fine. The thing is, there is more (MUCH more) to an MMORPG than the parts that just you like.

NishUK

I would be accepting of a "cool" looking story that explains the world and enviroment changes but one that involves many NPC's and NPC history imo takes away from the immersion about the game being about the players.

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

I would be accepting of a "cool" looking story that explains the world and enviroment changes but one that involves many NPC's and NPC history imo takes away from the immersion about the game being about the players.

Sure, the game is about the players.

Players are going to be running towns and cities, they are going to be kings and queens in their castles. In many games, these characters are pillars of the story.

However, they are not the only components, nor the only stories.

Verra has history - there is a story there from back when it was inhabited. The ability to discover that history should be in the game. To me, it would be immersion breaking if there was no evidence to be found at all of civilizations before everyone left for Sanctus.

Verra has gods - there is story there.

Even dungeons should involve some form of story, if they are done right. It doesn't need to be explicitly told, but there should be a story there that you can piece together if you look for it. Some of the best stories aren't actually told, they are pieced together.

Dygz

Again... Ashes is a Themebox.
Which means, while much of the story will be how the world progresses based on the rise and fall of Nodes - as players build and destroy cities and choose which buildings are constructed...
Nodes progression and building construction determine which mobs and NPCs appear, and which dev curated quests and Events are activated.

"When it comes to how MMO’s have been traditionally designed, most gamers are familiar with two distinct types of gameplay loops: the “theme park”, and the “sandbox”. The vast majority of MMO’s we’ve all seen come and go in the gaming industry have been of the theme park variety – these games put the player onto a specific path, guiding them along, with plenty of pretty sights in between the same old quest hubs, very little in divergent paths, virtually no freedom in player progression. Recently the MMO genre has seen some games of the sandbox nature come onto the scene, but despite the ultimate freedom the sandbox affords players, many are left wanting more, as there is by definition no pre built world content, no human touch, just the vastness of the “sand” for lack of a better term. Thus many MMO players often find themselves caught between the repetitive rock of the theme park or the vast dead spaces of the sandbox’s hard place. This chasm between the state of MMO gameplay loops is where we intend to inject Ashes of Creation’s Node system.[5]

In order for sandbox mechanics to mean something, there must be curated content to accompany the player’s choices. Which means, as the developers, we must create that Themebox style content but for every possible path the community may take."
---Steven

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

while much of the story

Yeah, we know. We can read better than Rottenborn.

The thing is, "much" and "all" are not the same thing.

We are talking about the parts of "all" that are not a part of "much".

Mag7spy

Back to the original post from what I gather its secret quest that you have to put some thought into, figure out the lore, etc to understand what to do and get further in hidden quest lines. sounds like a cool idea to me.

Also new world should not be used as an example of lack of story and saying that is why it failed that is a lie. New world failed because of lack of content. If it had fun content from 1-60 and more indepth class systems, tons more dungeons and better end game, better combat. That would be the mmorpg everyone was playing right now.

Happymeal2415

Right and what inspires content? The story, each npcs motivations which in turn are the reason they hand out a quest or a problem to solve. You say dungeons, 1-60 and end game. Those are all literally driven by narrative. New world was intended to be a base building survival game that tried to turn mmo late in development. The mmo part that's not developed is the narrative. Hence why it flunked

Shogun_

thats the thing, i still believe even if we as players are the main components building history in ashes since its tied to nodes, there is still a past right? and why wouldn't a past lore be able to interact with future development of the history which we creat by playing the game?

Ludullu

Happymeal2415 wrote: »

Right and what inspires content? The story, each npcs motivations which in turn are the reason they hand out a quest or a problem to solve. You say dungeons, 1-60 and end game. Those are all literally driven by narrative. New world was intended to be a base building survival game that tried to turn mmo late in development. The mmo part that's not developed is the narrative. Hence why it flunked

To some people all of that is important. And to some the only important thing is the gameplay itself and interaction with other players. And from what I've heard, NW didn't have anything good on either of those fronts.

I know hundreds of people who played Lineage 2 for yeaaaars, yet never knew what its story was about. But they knew each and every detail of the gameplay and had countless stories of interacting with other players.

Mag7spy

I will say this game does 100% need a narrative, something a lot of old mmorpgs lacked that were more focused on PvP. Doesn't mean you need infinte amounts of heavy story rp, but creating the feeling like in WoW for example when some old ancient characters shows up (granted they have a lot of lore to work with) it helps to more easily create story development and aspects to get people excited.

The more invested people are attached to your ip, the stronger hold you will have on people staying and wanting to come back and they have more memorable moments from a story perspective.

George_Black

Happymeal2415 wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Mmorpgs should spend resources developing gameplay for player to player interactions, not story like singleplayer games.
Nothing comes free, so when the core design isnt story, why spend money on depth, detail and variety?
Shouldnt they spend money in constantly maintaining player to player systems?
Look at eso. Full of story, full of singleplayer elements and when it comes to player to player it's full of lag, bugs and impalances, and I wont even mention the lack of meaningful player to player content, besides all the OPTIONAL dungeons and BGs.

I disagree with you. When I want story I play singleplayer games. They should build on co-op features. Not mmorpgs. Mmos should be massive, real time, non instanced or fragmented.
Multiplayer. Not player-NPC.

Your idea can be a reality if a developer has endless cash to throw around. And we would enjoy it. But nobody has endless money.

I completely disagree. Story has to be a major part of it (not saying your aren't correct about eso or that mechanics are important too). New world has 0 story and died instantly. Without story you have dailies. You have and endless supply of dailies. And once you finally get through the slog of dailies and get the character you've been dreaming of you look around and can't do anything except disrupt other people doing dailies. Sick gameplay loop

I played L2 with 0 story 0 dailies. There is no connection between dailies and no story. I dont know where you got that from. Dailies is player to npc gameplay. And I spoke against that.

No idea how you linked the two.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

I know hundreds of people who played Lineage 2 for yeaaaars, yet never knew what its story was about. But they knew each and every detail of the gameplay and had countless stories of interacting with other players.

Yeah, I've known many people that didn't pay attention to the games story at all.

I remember talking to one guildmate about a quest added to EQ2. It was the lead up to a new expansion, and I mentioned how the lore related to two lower level zones from the games original release. The person was shocked, he didn't even realize there were characters associated with those zones.

I spent the next 4 hours explaining various aspects of the games lore and story to him (only scratched the surface, honestly), and he was shocked at how much of what he thought were all disconnected zones over a range of levels were actually all connected to each other, but also connected to the upcoming expansion.

Point is, you absolutely can play a game without paying any attention to the story. However, that doesn't mean the game shouldn't have a story, nor does it mean you should argue that it shouldn't have a story.

All it means is that you should not pay any attention to the story when you play the game, as it is not what you are interested in.

An example of this from me is RP specific elements. I won't use them at all, ever. However, I know some people would, and as such the game should provide those RP elements for them. Not only that, but since I know it is not something I would use, I won't even bother commenting on any opinions on them that I have, because why would I?

Dygz

Well, usually dailies are there to help keep people playing after having raced through all of the story content.

Child Item