Quote:
Originally Posted by mgeorge
I'm doubtful about any MMO being story driven only because I think it will be a very hard thing to achieve, but it will be interesting to see if they can pull it off.
I played Guild Wars for about a year, and a few others from time to time, but they all seem to be the same after a while. Without a solid story there's not really much reason to play them, other than becoming "uber" and being more powerful than everyone else. And that was my biggest issue with them. To many very immature people playing them.
Pertaining to AG's though, I think I actually might like an AG MMO. Why not? I know there's a Myst online game and although that type of game isn't my cup of tea, it could be a lot of fun roaming around with a bunch of other AG'ers trying to solve puzzles and whatnot especially if there was a good story to tie it all together.
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MMOs atm have been indeed about minmaxing your character, I was in a *top EU Guild* so I am quite familiar with raiding at the highest level, server firsts, finding your own tacts before a ton of videos comes online by other top guilds. I'd lie if I didn't admit I enjoyed it allot.
Now I don't play wow but I log from time to time, mainly to have a chat with guildies. In wotlk I have seen things moving towards another direction, in tbc only 3 guilds were progressing in Sunwell, only us had cleared the original (lvl 60) Naxxramas and only two guilds had killed C'Thun. Now, the whole server is at some point in ICC, maybe not in hardmodes but they still run the final raid dungeon. The game becomes more and more gear independent, not because gear isn't important anymore, but because it is very easy to get uber gear now.
What I am trying to say is that mmos are moving away from the everquest, hardcore-raiding, model. Blizzard announces a new mmo, based on totally new concepts & said it is going to be totally casual and Bioware wants SW:TOR to be story driven.
Even though I don't know how gameplay will look like at max level, there are some hints they'll stick to their word and make it story driven,
1) There is an audience for it, even many pro-hc raiders I know cba to raid anymore and wait for SW:TOR to play a more casual mmo.
2) Technology is being developed for it, I was quite impressed with area phasing in wotlk and in Cataclysm it can only get better. Phasing is very important as it allows thousands of people to progress on a questline and alter the environment they see, the area changes are not permanent for the rest of players.
3) Bioware does make good stories & good characters, it's what they do and they do it damn well, I don't see them trying to avoid implementing their strongest asset as game developers.
Will there be raids? I hope so. Will there be pvp? I'd be surprised if not but my expectation is to also see an additional path of progression, a story-driven progression path.
Of course, until we see the actual game and reach max level, it is all speculation but my gut feeling is that we are going to see a game with deep story being the main point of playing it. If this is done for an rpg, with some tweaking the same technology can be used for successful mmo adventure games.
