The future of storytelling in MMOs

by Shawn Schuster Jun 16th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Business models, Game mechanics, Lore, PvE, Opinion, Roleplaying

We can't help but wonder what the future of MMO storylines may eventually evolve into. So many players have so many various preferences when it comes to their favorite game's plot, that it's not an issue of pleasing everyone at the same time, but what the majority wants. Tobold addresses this issue in his latest blog entry, and speculates on whether or not the MMO storyline will progress in the same evolutionary line as movies have, where they began as novelties of moving pictures and soon became rich with real plots and immersion for the viewers.

But if we follow the current trend of what's popular in MMOs, we'll see that the most popular games have little to no storyline. It takes a certain type of person to read every quest text and have a comprehensive understanding of what's going on in the game, and why they need to save the half-naked woman from the bad guys. That type of person seems to be a rarity, judging by the subscription numbers of the lore- and story-based games such as LotRO and AoC. But does this mean those games should stop being made? We certainly hope not, because it's always nice to have an intelligent game to play when you get burned out on grinding mobs and running errands.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, funcom, future, plot, storyline, tobold

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Arkanaloth said on 11:23AM 6-16-2008

I think one of the biggest issues with mmo storylines is that they're often given a very very far back seat..

I play RPG's, even MMORPG's, for story as well as gameplay.. and if the story is inaccessable or simply poorly implemented I feel far less connection to the game. Having experienced guild drama not once.. but 5 times, people come and go.. give me a reason beyond the community to experience the game.