Does Story Matter In MMOs?

Perhaps sparked in part by my playthrough of The Witcher 3, the game that I believe simply outdid every story-based RPG ever created, I have recently begun to question story elements in MMOs. Stories are great for linking together structured content and providing some sort of “purpose” for taking part in this structured content. “It isn’t just a quest grind!” the story exclaims proudly, “the story relies on it!” But at what point do you cease to care about the story?

It’s easy to dismiss the discussion on the basis that “no one reads the story anyways.” We all skip right through to the quests and then complain when they’re boring fetch quests, right? As evidenced by recent controversy surrounding changes to Blade & Soul’s story for the Western release, this is not entirely true.

I wouldn’t fault you for assuming that, though. I do it regularly too. At some point I realized that the majority of free-to-play MMOs, in specific, hit points where the story gets absurd. “Go get ten of this item from random mobs so we can seal up this interdimensional rift this demon that you just defeated left behind and stop the siege on the city.” It feels like they are reaching for purpose, desperately attempting to keep you interested over the course of hundreds of hours of remedial tasks.

This strategy becomes unbelievable quickly. One too many games have placed me in the shoes of some lowly soldier that slowly becomes a hero. Ever-present danger calls me into action and I’m lead across the game world, slowly cleaning it up, only for someone else to have to clean it up right after I do.

The hero archetype isn’t believable. I can only liken it to the final moments of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s main story. The final boss shows up, you’re ready to take it down, and then someone else swoops in and defeats it for you. Only in MMOs this potentially happens hundreds or thousands of times before you ever reach the content. The boss has been killed many times over and you’re consciously aware of that fact the entire time. Perhaps it’s a world boss and some other group actually swooped in and defeated it. It simply respawns for the sake of your play experience. This is an issue with single-player games as well, but the difference is that it is your world. The bosses are yours. Your experience is the only one that matters.

Perhaps that is why many opt to not read the story. If it won’t matter anyway, why bother reading it? I imagine that part of the rise of instanced content can be attributed to attempts to make content feel meaningful. In instanced content, there is the illusion that you are the only one—or the only group—partaking in killing a boss or completing a dungeon, in theory, at least.

Stories imply a finite amount of content. More often than not, the amount of content you have access to will directly correlate with the amount of story that has been written and added to the game. This wouldn’t be quite as much of an issue if the story was intended to lead players into a place where they begin to write their own story, but I can’t think of a single time that this has been the case.

The MMORPG genre at present is in an interesting place. Generally, all players agree that more meaningful content would be nice, but they are divided beyond that. Some don’t want to interact as much and think that better stories would provide more meaningful content. Others want more sandbox elements and community interaction.

Regardless of how well-written the story is, I don’t think that static stories can save MMORPGs. I actually think they may be holding the genre back. A story implies a largely single-player, or perhaps co-op, experience. It implies personalization. Living worlds with hundreds of other players in them aren’t personalized. Ideally, the story of a virtual world would be written by its players. Perhaps developers could host events that decide the fate of the world based on the manner in which players participate.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a great example of why static stories aren’t conducive to MMORPGs. Their Knights of the Fallen Empire campaign launched recently, allowing players to make choices that actually matter. They affect the story—for you. You can call the story “dynamic” if you want, argued under the assumption that choices affecting the story implies dynamism, but should the same choices be made you will get the same results. The game has become more of a single-player experience than ever. It removes the incentive to interact with other players.

Stories will likely always be a part of the traditional MMORPG formula. I would like to see structured content handled more dynamically, with ever-changing questlines and states of emergency in various parts of the world. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that that will happen any time soon. Rather, we will be stuck with stories that encourage solo play for some time to come.