haha first comment.. not important whatsoever :P

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I very much enjoyed the Asheron's Call storyline, but with monthly live events where the main characters were played by Dev's, it made it easy to care. Other games, not so much.

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Not all that important to me really.

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SWG vet here, playing LOTRO, loved EVE's massive player contributed lore, disappointed that the Warcraft lore wasn't central to WOW, and looking forward to SW:TOR -- so, um, yes, it's important to me.

Games with rich lore create an environment where some basic level of RP isn't forced. You know what a hobbit burglar is likely to be like, and tend to fall into it a bit. You know what a Bothan spy might do or say, and you crack on it sort of casually.

Too many hard core RPers are stilted, but the sort of natural theater games that emerge in high lore environments helps immersion and adds a dimension of humor and fun to any MMO.

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If there were any sort of Lore that was different from one game to the next I'd be into it, but really all the stories are the same. Its hard to care when its all the same.

No way, a tree-dwelling race of fair-skinned, pointy-eared, agile humanoids!? They're trying to protect their forest/race/political state from certain doom? I am so there.

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For me, lore, self consistent and interesting, is what keeps me playing games. Its THE most important thing. I loved wandering around Norrath and learning all about the history and the races, the events that were unfolding. WoW was pretty good too, except it had, in my opinion, way too many real world references and jokes that kept breaking me out of the lore... "Oh, yeah, Paris Hilton, I got it, not funny, whatever."

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Lore is important to me. But not all the time. I love the way lore has been incorporated into WoW; its there and good to go if your into it, but can be quickly brushed away or avoided if you're not into it. Which is good for me, since I hate going into new games and getting lore thrown at me from all sides and i can't keep up (i have especially bad memory with names and places, so i need to take things slow). It seems the lore just gets lost when some games throw it all on you at the beginning, but then expect that to be known when other lore comes into play.

Also, the WoW setup is nice for those times where you really can't be bothered (trying to just grind or level quickly, or when you're really tired).

However, the WoW lore kept me reading for days and days on lore websites, when the servers were down or I just wanted to go beyond the information in the game. Its absolutely fascinating, and can really help with game immersion.

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Very important to me. Without lore there'd be no differences between races or classes, no reason behind any of the actions. We'd just be a cluster of bounding boxes rolling virtual dice at each other.

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If the lore is presented by means of quest dialog, then no. I pretty much just skip down to the "kill 10 rats" part and move on. If the lore comes by way of scripted events and/or cut scenes, then I'm much more likely to notice and actually pay attention.

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A few months ago I would have said that its not important. That would have been because I never played a game with good lore. At least I had never played a game that really got me into the lore without poorly written walls of text.

Then I played the Chronicles of Spellborn (past level 10). After a while, the story line was my main motivation to play the game. The content and writing of the stories were excellent.

Even after beta testing five up coming MMORPG's that are due out soon, none of them could compare to the story lines in Spellborn.

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Its important when I notice its missing, but as its usually there, generally I'll gloss over it, but other times I will get into it a bit.

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I think people say its not important, but it came to me thats why WoW might be so big - tons and tons and tons of lore. It does make you feel part of something bigger - even if you don't notice it.

Same with Eve Online - I actually felt part of my faction and it was part of my character.

A lot of games that have non existent, or meaningless lore probably don't do nearly as well unless you just like hacking and slashing.

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Lore is pretty important to me for a game I expect to stick with. Warcraft felt very lore rich to me at the outset and then seemed to dry up for a while. Pleased to see the return of some of that in WOTLK. Still wouldn't mind some more non-progression but interesting to explore places though. That was something that Oblivion had worked out pretty well.

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Reading these posts is funny to see how everyone plays.

For those that do not want Lore...you just want a game that doesn't bother you with details just as long as you get to kill stuff basically.

For those that want Lore, you want a well scripted game with a reason to play it...basically what I want in a game as I think SOMe sort of lore has to be present to even give the game a reason.

This is something that is brought up every night in OOC in Lotro.."Do I have to do the Epic Quest line?"...and the answer is always No, you don't. There are plenty of other quests that give you those "Go kill 10 rats" to level with.

So really, if you play a fantasy MMO and do not want the lore...why are you really playing when a FPS or a PvP based MMO would probably fill your needs better?

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Lore is the only thing that's important to me. It's why I played Star Wars Galaxies (pre WoW inspired changes) and it's why I play LotRO. Once Turbine deviates from Tolkien lore, I'll lose interest in the game and probably stop playing.

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As someone above stated, it is important, extremely important, when presented in the right way. Via cutscenes or scripted events, YES. Through other boring arbitrary means, like small text in a book sitting on a shelf in a library, interesting but overall not interactive or engrossing enough for me to care.

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I think Lore plays a big role, It can be great and make the world feel immersive, or it can give devs room for live events and lots of future things to add in. However it can also limit creative freedom like in games like SWG and LOTRO where the fan boys lock the devs down.

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Lore is incredibly important to me, if i'm playing an MMO I want to be immersed. WoW's real life references really ruin the great back story it has to offer. My favourite lore so far has definitely been Final Fantasy XI, but WoW could win easily if it were more immersive.

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