The way Square Enix depicts our characters...are we helpless, or are we heroes?

[Randis]

That's what public quests are, and it's very possible that part of the company gameplay will entail just that. There are many games that feature public quests on the side of single player ones.
But public quests can't sustain a complex storyline by themselves, as the presence of multiple people restricts a lot the storytelling possibilities.

not true in this case... did you ever notice your character actually talk? he only can shake head and make a sad face. That is all i see. that is what the rest of the party could do too, they could stand around and nod.

yes i do hope that the companies will fill the hole.

[Abriael]

not true in this case,,, did you ever notice your character actually talk? he only can shake head and make a sad face. That is all i see. that is what the rest of the party could do too, they could stand around and nod.

The biggest problem is exactly that. That the main character only stands around and nods, making them a dullard without any kind of attractive and stage presence.
This, by the way, doesn't solve the continuity problem at all, as the other characters talk to the main character, call him by name, interact directly with him. The introduction of other adventurers would require even more generic (and thus boring) dialogue.

Mind you, even if they introduced a feature like that, it still would run right into the wall of the continuty problem. Even if you brought a full group of 8 into each story cutscene with everyone nodding and prancing around like brainless dullards, with the NPCs delivering some ranmdom motivational speech to them all, it wouldn't solve the fact that there are thousands of other groups of 8 around, tho which exactly the same facts happen, exactly the same words are told, by exactly the same people.
The story would still happen in a vacuum, only a slightly bigger one.

On the other hand, a story happening in a complete vacuum gives the developer a MUCH wider storytelling freedom.
Mind you, it's not even incompatible with having other people involved, as in the screen of each platyer he can appear as the main "acting" character, and the others can be the nodding dullards.

If they start giving PCs lines in cutscenes, they're dictating a personality for them separate from the player. That's sort of a no-go. People keep saying they want to be the hero (or at least more heroic), but at its core that argument can be reduced to "I want my character to do what I want them to do in cutscenes." How much louder would people howl if their character began to act out a role wholly independent of the one they had, consciously or unconsciously, assigned to them? The only way to stay "safe" is to minimize personality.

They can give players the option to chose beteween a range of personalities, as we already do with path companions.

The "flat dullard" personality, is *by itself* a personality. It already acts in a way that's "wholly indipendent" from the role anyone of us would like to assign to his character, and is in no way safe.
The fact that quite a lot of people have looked at their character acting like spineless idiots and wondered why the hell he was acting like that is the whole reason why threads like this (it's in no ways the first) exist.

the "spineless random dullard" is in no way more appealing or more generic than the "hero", it's just more unpleasant.

I'm quite sure that the vast majority of players would rather like to see his character act in pretty much any other way than as a random dullard weakling with no redeeming point. Give people options, and the risk of having the character act in a way the player won't like is *drastically reduced*, not increased.

[Randis]

The biggest problem is exactly that. That the main character only stands around and nods, making them a dullard without any kind of attractive and stage presence.
This, by the way, doesn't solve the continuity problem at all, as the other characters talk to the main character, call him by name, interact directly with him. The introduction of other adventurers would require even more generic (and thus boring) dialogue.

It does not have to be like this at all. I agree that changing the existing quests as they are would be a problem but imagine completely new quests created with the purpose to entertain a whole party.

a player could be asked by the NPC to put a team together, once you
accept the quest you would have a symbol glowing next to your name with a little number for (rank)
you would invite people or people would ask you to join (even if they already have completed the quest)
once you have a party the NPC can address everyone by the name and those who are doing the quest for the first time are to be addressed by the NPC directly (as if they were the party leader)

You can not see how the dialog for other players is anyway and no one really would ask.
The quests could start out as simple as sending a party to kill some NM, or fight some instanced battle against the empire soldiers.

A good quest could be where you and your party are taken to some new area with a airship where you get to fight mids in a huge battle. you could be inside a small instance but all around you , you would see huge masses of NPC fighting eachother, explosions and all.

there are so many possibilities to generate cool content this days.

[Abriael]

It does not have to be like this at all. I agree that changing the existing quests as they are would be a problem but imagine completely new quests created with the purpose to entertain a whole party.

a player could be asked by the NPC to put a team together, once you
accept the quest you would have a symbol glowing next to your name with a little number for (rank)
you would invite people or people would ask you to join (even if they already have completed the quest)
once you have a party the NPC can address everyone by the name and those who are doing the quest for the first time are to be addressed by the NPC directly (as if they were the party leader)

You can not see how the dialog for other players is anyway and no one really would ask.
The quests could start out as simple as sending a party to kill some NM, or fight some instanced battle against the empire soldiers.

A good quest could be where you and your party are taken to some new area with a airship where you get to fight mids in a huge battle. you could be inside a small instance but all around you , you would see huge masses of NPC fighting eachother, explosions and all.

there are so many possibilities to generate cool content this days.

Umh. That's exactly what I'm saying Randis.
That kind of content already exists in several games (and partly in FFXIV as well). But as you said the cutscene/storytelling part is seen as each player is the protagonist, with the NPCs talking directly to the player put in a leading role on his own screen, and talking with the others in the same role on their screens.

While fights and traveling happen in a shared world, cutscenes happen in an incompatible vacuum, which is entirely acceptable, and in no ways incompatible with each player's character being portrayed as a main character on his own screen.