Why Do MMORPG Can't Make Sense of Their Own Lore?

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Sounds like you have tried a few mmo's & haven't found one to fit your criteria. Nothing wrong with finding you own preferences, mmo's arn't for everyone & i wont say FFXIV is perfect, but seems like it's not the game for you. Good luck with the search.

Game: "We explain everything in Coil and in the MSQ. People talk so much about the fall of Dalamu..."

Player: "wHaT eVeN HaPpEnD?!?!!11 I dOnT UnDeRsTaNd!"

You know what bad lore is? When the game throws the stuff right at the start at you and explains everything leaving no room for interpretations or any speculations. If you wanna know more just stick with the story, read and listen and play the content lol. What do you expect? Getting everything presented right at the start so you know exactly every detail?

You know that you start to read a book from the first page on and don't just start with the last page, right? It's called build-up. Something that happens over time. You have to understand that back in the days we got these bits and pieces of lore every 3 months with a patch. It's not the games fault that you only started to play the game now and that you have literally years worth of content and story in front of you to understand. I would say take your time with it and actually do the side content cause it's also important for the story.

But if you don't care for the story, just skip or boost. It's no shame to not be interested in it, if you just want the social experience or the raiding experience you can even boost if you feel confident with your skills in learning a job.

And no we don't have to dumb down the storytelling just cause people have a hard time to get into it and don't take their time, the majority of problems i hear from new players come from them rushing through the game like a new expansion is right around the corner...oh...wait...

You aren’t paying attention to the story then complaining that you aren’t paying attention to the story and because of this there shouldn’t be a story.

This is a bad take.

This is 11 years worth of lore, naturally it's going to feel a bit bloated. But for the lead up into 2.0 all you really need [Yes, you will need to find the cutscenes on youtube because 1.0 is gone ]is the cutscenes from 1.1-1.2-1.25, and even that primarily Riven Road, the immediate lead up and aftermath to that including the Fall is all you really need to find to understand the rest of it.

Edit to add: I went to seek out that stuff myself, not because I did not understand the whole thing, they give you enough context clues in the game itself to have a decent grasp on it, but because I wanted to see the cutscenes and events as they happened then.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

The story (minus Disney parts) always makes you think and remember previous events, it encourages you to have a full picture of what's going on and where we are going, what is happening WHILE something else is ocurring.

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I thought that's been each successive expansion for me, especially Shadowbringers so far. Different strokes for different folks...?

As a day one player I find the pacing and the deliverance of the story on point, if you actually pay attention to the story and take your time. Granted I did not have to get through several expansions of story in one go I'm sure this is hard to diggest, old players had more time to let the story sink in and speculate about whats to come to get even more immersed. Not saying new players can't get immersed in it they just have more to diggest because the story keeps going for many many hours.

Sure the story does have its flaws here and there but overall they managed to wrap it up really well and everything that was questionable in ARR started to make more sense in ShB which is why this expansion is so well received. I don't know at which point of the story you are but if you played through ShB and still ask yourself ""wait a minute, what does any of this mean?" you clearly did not pay attention.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

I feel like MMORPG should just follow Overwatch type of storytelling - keep your lore and "mythos" in cinematics, make them impressive, give players hints while doing battles and cut all the fat and time-wasting.
r

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As someone who plays overwatch and who is starving for lore.

No thank you.

In a story driven MMO I don't want to have to watch movies AND read books AND scour release teasers for story.

It sounds like you're disregarding all the details we're given and then complaining there's no story.

I never found the story all that hard to follow. Then again, I came here from WoW, where understanding the story meant you had to not only play the game, you also had to read four or five novels, three comics, a handful of online short stories, four developers' blogs, and a fan-made chart of just what they've retconned this week. And that happened every expansion.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

I'm so lost in FF XIV lore and what in the world is going on in this story that I don't feel any need to figure it out. But the worst is that it doesn't feel like anything matters anyway. Things always end with the hooded people plotting more stuff, the game is always afraid of making people go "wait a minute, what does any of this mean?" with the worst being in ARR - a full-blown history lesson in your face, treating you like a child.

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offline games can wrap their story. online games, on the other hand, cannot.
So of course there must be some new villains plotting new stuff in next expansion.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

Just feels extremely bloated and incomprehensible.

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MMOs get that way, but then again, anything with four or five or six sequels gets that way, too.

I don't mean that in a literal sense; of course ARR wasn't the 'sequel' to 1.0, nor was Heavensward a 'sequel' to ARR. But, in the sense of storytelling (and counting 1.0 and ARR as 'the first story'), we are coming up to part five of our favorite summer blockbuster here. By the time I saw Terminator V (technically, Genisys?) I stopped really trying to make sense out of the story presented to me in the earlier films. Was it still fun to watch? Sure. Would I ever consider it an epic extension of the story presented in Terminator and T2? Never, ever, in a million years. /shrug

I've attempted to absorb the entire story pf FFXIV over the past couple months. Personally, I don't think there are too many places where it doesn't make sense, but that too could be subjective. I mean, Star Trek had replicators, which made no sense because just about every episode's problem could have been solved with replicators. This planet has no food? Replicate it. The medical supplies won't get there in time? Replicate them. Dilithium crystal burned out? Replicate one!

The love of the characters and overall story arc help us with our suspension of disbelief. I tend to have the same experience with FF.

There's definitely a hard stop when each xpac's MSQ comes to an end; sometimes you have to force yourself to remember that the the "Post-xpac" stories came months after the main MSQ was finished. When you hop directly from the end of one MSQ series to the start of the next, the story can seem silly or muddled. Especially when characters change their moods or focus or reasoning literally from one cutscene to the next.

'Filler story' can be subjectively enjoyed by many. For any series, episodes that deviate from the main lore ("monster / villian of the week") can sometimes be a nice break from the norm. Personally, I love all of the weird/comedic storylines, and I consider those 'filler' since they have no bearing on the main story arc.

Last thing to remember is that behind this art there is a for-profit business. Hiring better writers takes money, developing better stories takes time. If there were no deadlines nor profit goals involved, you'd see storylines on par with what the best authors of our day have to offer.

Further to that, there are restrictions on content because of the ESRB rating. Try to imagine something like Game of Thrones but during family hour on a broadcast network like CBS. No gore, no language, no sex, and very limited violence. It would have been a much, much different show, and the lore would have suffered for it, IMHO.

What we need is an M-rated MMO developed by a non-profit company with limitless resources and access to the best creative minds on the planet, who in turn will also work for free.

Take my money.

Ok well It doesn't sounds like the story is for you. This is pretty standard JRPG storytelling. Best of luck understanding the plot of Kingdom Hearts III.

Yeah.... That is... uh... not the making the point you think it is.

Epic troll thread

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

Why not make short summary?

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Isn't that the exact purpose(alongside rewatchign cutscenes) of the journal in every inn?

I want to say something about that before you closed it.

As someone who loves lore and been playing this game for a very long time. I can understand some of your opinion but here is the funny part, you are still in the beginning and yes the lore does not make sense but through the expac, you start to understand more about it and then you can start piece together things that you see from 2.0 or even 1.0. But to each its own

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

i mean, there's nothing wrong with that approach to the story. At least it isn't as dull as FF XIV with its exposition dumps and "sit down, kid, mommy is going to teach you about crystals"



Except that's not how a game's story works. This is an MMORPG and people will be taking breaks. It is impossible to memorize all of this. Why not write long detailed summary of every quest? Why not make short summary? Why not make story where you don't have to remember an event that happened hundred quests ago?

The worst issue isn't actually the amount of stuff they show you but the fact that all of it is always animated the same. The entire thing ALWAYS looks the same.
When I started playing Kingdom Hearts II recently, the game kept making throwbacks to the previous entries, names, events... but I remembered all of them because every part of that story was unique, had memorable visuals, voice-acting and cutscene direction - yes, the very same direction FF XIV keeps lacking. It's gotten better and I can already recognize some scenes like Yshtola and that old magician lady but that's it. That's all I remember from HW.
None of it is memorable, there are barely any cutscenes and whatever memorable stuff there is.. it is always ruined by the same robotic 3D model movement, translation and writing which are clearly separated into chunks like "okay, this is important so we'll actually pay attention to writing and make it fun to read. And this is not important, so let's give it to our interns who will make it sound as dull as possible, with fantasy fluff on top"

I think the entire structure of this storytelling is broken by design. Why does it even need a story told through numerous repetitive unvoiced quests? Why can't it let me choose what I want to see and what I want to experience? Maybe I just want to run a new dungeon? Maybe I just want to do the goblin stuff and take in their quests? The entirety of that stuff with lords in the middle of HW was extremely boring, much like the 100 quests they added with patches or the stupid ending with out-of-place robots and what-not.

people claim HW gets better - no, it doesn't. If anything, it got worse with the exception of the ending quests which are obviously there to get you to buy the next expansion. It's like watching CSI at this point, or the worst season of The Walking Dead where someone dies just to move the plot and get you to watch the next episode, and I say this as a fan of the show..

i honestly don't get why do we even need these "storytelling" games if they are still stuck in the frame of an arcade experience: here's your cinematic, here's your boring textbox which we couldn't bother to make fun to look at, here's your battle and here's some dessert to get you to spend some money on next expansion AND DID YOU SEE THAT FF IV REFERENCE, `MEMBER four?? oh man i `member

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archiving this.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

closed topic
opinions collected

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You seem to have a thing for deleting all your forum posts because... why exactly? So nobody can find a record of how many argument-starting posts you made previously when you come back to make more?

On the small chance you just don't grasp how a forum works, this is not how a forum works. You post your argument, it's now part of a public conversation, it stays.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

archiving this.

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Beat me to it.

It's a final fantasy game and final fantasy games have deep, emotional and intricate stories involving politics and everything. That is a bit much for some people so final fantasy is not for everyone.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

Except that's not how a game's story works. This is an MMORPG and people will be taking breaks. It is impossible to memorize all of this. Why not write long detailed summary of every quest? Why not make short summary? Why not make story where you don't have to remember an event that happened hundred quests ago?

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You can open the Journal and click Complete to see a summary of what you did in every single quest. You can view cut scenes again at an inn.

They also added New Game + so you can go through on your main character if you want to re-experience it, or you can always make a fresh character and start from scratch.

I've gotten through ARR on six characters now, and through HW on a 7th, in addition to my main. The ARR story is confusing because it's a veritable mountain of foreshadowing. The Scions themselves are trying to piece together mysteries of the world based on an extremely limited understanding of what actually happened, colored heavily by misinterpreted histories, forgotten lore, and thousands of years of outright lies. Heck, false histories is the whole point of the Heavensward expansion.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You seem to have a thing for deleting all your forum posts because... why exactly? So nobody can find a record of how many argument-starting posts you made previously when you come back to make more?

On the small chance you just don't grasp how a forum works, this is not how a forum works. You post your argument, it's now part of a public conversation, it stays.




Beat me to it.

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Probably because of this:

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

I still come back to make jokes or be toxic

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Just to add, if anyone else feels overwhelmed or lost on story, that there are several lore videos on YouTube..or story summaries for a particular expansion.

Your mileage may vary, and what you want/amount of depth may differ from what I’d prefer, so..just google FFXIV story recap and browse til you find what works for you.

For example (warning spoilers obviously)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-koWaEQzkbM

FFXIV is doing pretty good. Almost all of the information you need to know is given to you in the game itself. The only out-of-game materials you might want to consult would be a couple of ShB short stories, as they clarify the Azem thing and Amaurotine society and creation magics, and the short story that provides some closure to the original timeline.

If you want a game that handles its own story badly, look no further than WoW.

• It was a sequel to Warcraft 3 and doesn't really explain what happened in that game or introduce the characters to newcomers. WC3 is the genesis of almost all of Warcraft's plot lines and has remained essential to understanding the WoW story, even 20 years later and 8 expansions into WoW. The original version of WC3 is no longer legally available to purchase. If you didn't start with WC3, then you have to read a plot summary on WoWpedia or watch 3 hour long Nobbel videos.

• WoW does not have a streamlined MSQ where you are smoothly directed through the entire game's story; you again have to consult out of game materials to figure out which questlines are important, the chronological order of them, and how to unlock them. You have to do hours of homework before you can even begin playing the game you're supposed to playing for fun! Several key storylines have been removed from the game over the years. The vanilla questlines, Battle for the Undercity, the MoP and WoD legendary questlines (imagine if the entire patch storyline of Stormblood and ShB was removed from FFXIV. That's how bad that was), etc.

• Warcraft routinely puts critical plot information into books. One of the main characters of WC3, Carine Bloodhoof, freaking dies offscreen in a book in between Wrath and Cataclysm. Imagine if in FFXIV, you began the Stormblood MSQ and then you were offhandedly told "oh yeah, Raubahn died. Here is his son as his replacement! Also Nanamo waltzed off and Loloritto is now Sultan of Ul'dah! Please buy the book to find out how this happened!". The entire premise of the WoD expansion is that Garrosh broke out of jail and time travelled back into the past, but again, you don't see this unless you bought the book. Illidan was depicted ingame as pretty evil in BC (he was an evil tyrant ruling over a planet and had sex slaves, after all), but then in Legion he is suddenly a good guy anti-hero, and you only get to see "his true life story" in a book. Sylvanas' motivations for starting a world war are only given to the player in - you guessed it - a book (imagine if Merlwyb suddenly launched an invasion of Gridania and you weren't given any info as to what her motivations or strategic objectives are in the game).

• Blizzard routinely makes vast, sweeping retcons to its own lore. It has become a meme. Even one of the lead writers, Chris Metzen, was embarrassed at Blizzcon by a lore nerd because he got different versions of his own lore mixed up. These lore changes very often create massive, gapping plotholes and contradict other storylines in the game, which over time makes the game feel incoherent. Also, many of those retcons were very important, and yet you only find out about them in a book. Warcraft Chronicle retcons the entire Legion, Old God, and Titan storyline and sets it up as the main conflict for the Legion and BFA expansions, but you only find out this critical information about what's actually going on if you buy that book. The writers also have a habit of only publishing these huge, sweeping retcons on their twitter accounts, so you have to be paying attention to those too... the very same twitter accounts the devs use to mock their own paying customers.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

Warcraft Chronicle retcons the entire Legion, Old God, and Titan storyline and sets it up as the main conflict for the Legion and BFA expansions, but you only find out this critical information about what's actually going on if you buy that book. The writers also have a habit of only publishing these huge, sweeping retcons on their twitter accounts, so you have to be paying attention to those too... the very same twitter accounts the devs use to mock their own paying customers.[/list]

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I'll never get over them publishing three volumes of what was supposed to be the bedrock of the universe's lore, just to retcon swathes of it within two years before saying it's all just a point of view and shouldn't be viewed as definitive within three or four years.

At least the propensity for retcons leads to some funny things like characters lying to themselves in their own internal dialogue.

Yeah so I have no idea what the op originally said but this thread is just reminding me of why I fell in love with FF's storytelling. Because it's not half the disjointed, convoluted, self-contradicting disaster that WoW's is lmao

I mean don't get me wrong, I loved a lot of that games story points, but. Phew.

At least FF's story is, y'know. Coherent. And mostly cohesive.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

That will forever remain a mystery :)

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Not forever! Our boy's on the case!

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...082.1500906603