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

[linayar]

I'm well aware most people would rather just passively have the story spoonfed to them.

That's how stories are communicated. It's called storytelling, meaning you are being told a story, either visually or audibly. If you have to discover or, worse, infer the story yourself, then it's no longer storytelling.

So to refer to your statement about the difference between story and storytelling, a game may have a story, but if it's not telling it to you, then it doesn't have storytelling.