Gamerant lists MMORPG's with best stories, FFXIV #6, WoW #1, uhh

[Payotz]

wow bad
ffxiv good

[Nixxe]

Imagine taking some clickbait top 10 list seriously.

Swtor should be #1.

SWTOR has been lacking in that department since base game. I liked the Eternal Throne stuff, but it was clearly written to be agnostic with respect to your force alignment and class, so it lacked that personal touch the original 1-50 stuff had.

[TheMightyMollusk]

How about simply as World of Warcraft versus FF14 as a more direct comparison to how the storytelling is handled? As if you are going to bring up all of WoW's extra material and games, then its only fair that we bring up all of FF series extra material and games. As a lot of what makes FF14, FF, is that it takes existing things from what came before to establish its game.

Not that I ever want to come across as defending Blizzard in any way, shape, or form, but that's not a fair comparison. WoW is the same world as all of its supplementary materials, while other FF games are not one world. It's like comparing Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit to Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons.

[Anienai]

Imagine taking some clickbait top 10 list seriously.



SWTOR has been lacking in that department since base game. I liked the Eternal Throne stuff, but it was clearly written to be agnostic with respect to your force alignment and class, so it lacked that personal touch the original 1-50 stuff had.

Very true and I quit a little after the ET xpac.

[Shougun]

When playing WC3 Illidan was my favorite, part of it was custom game creators always mistook how broke the balance was for agility and if they added anyway to overlevel or buy tomes it was GG for the dude who had ranged splash attack and dodge attacks meanwhile had like 98% armor resistance for the few attacks that went through and of course you bought a life steal item. . . so... .. lol. But I quite like anti-heroes (Illidan not a villain) and very very much like the whole metamorphosis stuff (hence why I'd love to see that as a job in FF, and like Vincent, Yuri, and Dante).

As for the article, FFXIV at #6? oof Lol . . . .

I can get if people said some of the earlier expansions, especially ARR, was slow and a bit dense to get into, but I think ShB was the first time in the history of playing MMOs that I felt "well that would have been 'good' as a single player game too". I think FFXIV does good in terms of an MMO but .. you know single player games, the really good ones, tend to have stellar stories and have less things to focus on than an MMO.

WoW does have a lot of fun side lore, and like A LOT of it- not just a little (I know some people treat WoW like it has no lore/story), but it does actually 'have' lore if you hunt for it, but it's not nearly as front and center and I feel they've not anywhere as close to handled retcons as well as FFXIV and seems like the devs just do whatever because they can (so the story telling part I've doubts to, in game at least). The warcraft universe is quite large though and there are many many books for it.

But I still have difficulty seeing how FFXIV is at #6 for story telling, especially post ShB and the trimming of the 2.0 MSQ lol. It kind of sounds like they've not really played a few of the items in the list though, like how "x y z" expansions added content to the game, of course they did! That's what expansions do xD. I've heard decent things about #2 and #3, played some of the beta of #2 (ESO) but didn't really get into it- would be interesting to see what people who play FFXIV and this game have to think about that (both of them to the end, not partially).

[Nixxe]

Very true and I quit a little after the ET xpac.

I haven't uninstalled it yet, but last time I logged on, I couldn't keep myself motivated long enough to figure out if the new content was even the sort of stuff I play, so I might be done with it. I only ever played it like it was KOTOR III anyway.

[Chasingstars]

Not that I ever want to come across as defending Blizzard in any way, shape, or form, but that's not a fair comparison. WoW is the same world as all of its supplementary materials, while other FF games are not one world. It's like comparing Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit to Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons.

And yet to understand the Warcraft world and its storytelling, you need to read various novels, comic books, story articles, art books, even playing older games to have a more complete picture of its world. The WoW playerbase has bemoaned the extra material after WoW's release multiple times as you would have key plot points that are central to it but are not included in the game itself.

This is what largely separates FF14 from WoW. 14 is always a story first, mmo second. Meanwhile WoW has always been an mmo first, story second.

You want caught up with whatever events are leading to a new expansion with WoW? Go buy a novel or pdf.
You want caught up with whatever events are leading to a new expansion with FF14? You play the game.

[Bsrking5]

I tend to ignore these as they are usually either paid or/and extremely biased while being click bait trash. Don't see any reason to stop now.

[Drkdays]

And yet to understand the Warcraft world and its storytelling, you need to read various novels, comic books, story articles, art books, even playing older games to have a more complete picture of its world. The WoW playerbase has bemoaned the extra material after WoW's release multiple times as you would have key plot points that are central to it but are not included in the game itself.

This is what largely separates FF14 from WoW. 14 is always a story first, mmo second. Meanwhile WoW has always been an mmo first, story second.

You want caught up with whatever events are leading to a new expansion with WoW? Go buy a novel or pdf.
You want caught up with whatever events are leading to a new expansion with FF14? You play the game.

Ya, cause 14 is so free with its knowledge. You start the game and all you get is that something happened some few years ago and there was a catastrophe, or something. Sure, the expacs flow into each other fairly well, but that's kind of the problem. FF14 expacs feel more like patches than riveting new content, and the patches often contain so much they're like little expacs. WoW expacs FEEL like expacs with all new arcs, not just a continuation of the same story in a new location.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The thing is, I can follow XIV's story and lore just fine without going into any supplementary material. If you want to know, say, how Vol'jin survived Garrosh's assassination attempt, or where Aggra came from, or literally anything about the actual Cataclysm, you'd better go find those novels. The game itself tells next to nothing about any of it.