Quote Originally Posted by Lium View Post
MMOs in the West are having a tough time. Mostly because it's all about ilvls and/or PvP ratings. FFXIV is about the story. And that's rare these days.
It's rare in general, because, well... story and MMO don't go very well together.

That's why the vast majority of the MSQ is solo only. The story is largely pushed outside the realm of multiplayer, with all the lengthier cutscenes playing after the group is abandoned and you've left the dungeon, because the one time they didn't do it like that, it went very, very badly. We know that as the Castrum/Praetorium issue. People even go as far as to disable chat to avoid spoilers and let's face it: That Lalafell jumping up and down in a pig suit is just immersion breaking.

Moreover, the story takes up quite a bit of resources, but is a one-and-done kind of deal, whereas the MMO genre lives and breathes repetition to facilitate group play. And the gating the story creates hinders meaningful player interaction, which is the core of MMOs. It's not a very good fit and creates an innate conflict of interest in the playerbase as well.

As such, single-player games and movies are simply far better suited to tell a story as neither have all that baggage and conflicts attached. The prior is superior if you want players to be able to alter the flow of the story, the latter if you just want to tell a fixed story without interaction from the viewers. And it's IMO a very sad thing that this game's story doesn't capitalize on the unique potential of the interactive medium (i.e. a video game) to make the story interactive as well.


Personally, I must confess I don't even care for the MSQ. The only cutscenes I watch are those in sidequests and I regularly find myself cursing when I skip a cutscene that looked interesting out of sheer habit from the MSQ. A long, mandatory story is a pretty meh affair if you dislike the characters and find the plot cringey. At least if that happens in job quests, it doesn't last long, so it's more tolerable.