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

[Vyrerus]

That I think it's more fun when playing a video game and lost it due to the preferences of the majority is the only point I was making.

I think you're really overestimating just how open to speculation the stuff I'm talking about is. I'm not talking about stuff that's genuinely open ended and you can make like six different cases with no real ability to determine which one is the most likely because even FFXIV has that sort of thing. Every MMORPG will have that sort of thing just because every MMORPG is perpetually in an incomplete state, including the story. I'm just saying that Blizzard opened up the puzzle and then scattered all the pieces in the game. If you collect all of the pieces, you can pretty reliably assemble the puzzle correctly. Sure, some people may get it wrong, but most will get it right because just like an actual puzzle it was made so that you could. In contrast, this game tends to be more like watching someone assemble the puzzle for you, but only 5 pieces at a time before they make you do some chore to watch them assemble the next 5 pieces.

So at what point did WoW stop doing that? I'm completely unversed in it, so I've gotta take your word for it.

[Nixxe]

So at what point did WoW stop doing that? I'm completely unversed in it, so I've gotta take your word for it.

I don't think they'll ever stop entirely, but it has become less common over the years, especially as they made a shift towards a more FFXIV-esque mode of storytelling that emphasizes NPCs explaining everything to you in the last few expansions. In particular, the sheer volume of items in WoW and Blizzard's love of flavor text means it will probably always exist in at least a small way. I also have like a decade of memories that are deteriorating and becoming muddled since I quit over two years ago and am never going back, so it's kind of hard to give specific examples anymore.

Id say debatable. There are pieces that they arent giving you straight up. Its just that people dont really care to search for it. Few examples are the reasoning behind the cure naming convention, a whole lot of the summoner/scholar/arcanima lore, what palace of the dead is, and maybe to a lesser extent what voidspawns are.

Also just call this kind of story telling Darksoulian cause thats what you guys are describing.

I've never played more than about 15 minutes of Dark Souls and don't especially like blindly making analogies of that sort.

[linayar]

In particular, the sheer volume of items in WoW and Blizzard's love of flavor text means it will probably always exist in at least a small way.

So, WoW's storytelling is good because it's in flavor text while FFXIV is not as good because it's by NPC? So you think it's better storytelling because you can miss out on important information about the story rather than having a predefined narrative (while also having extra information that you can miss out on). Again, a weird take on storytelling.

[HeulGDarian]

I've never played more than about 15 minutes of Dark Souls and don't especially like blindly making analogies of that sort.

fair enough i can respect that

[Nixxe]

fair enough i can respect that

Since both you and Vyrerus brought it up in this context, I did go and find an article talking a bit about how Dark Souls does story and I do think it's at least somewhat similar to the sort of thing I liked in WoW. The example of the archer, at least as presented in the article, is exactly the sort of thing I like. The game assumes you're smart enough to put the pieces together and let's you do so. FFXIV would just have some throwaway messenger NPC show up to report that the legendary archer is dead, while Alphinaud is on hand to say anything that that needs to be said on the player's behalf and can't be expressed with a single emote.

[HeulGDarian]

Since both you and Vyrerus brought it up in this context, I did go and find an article talking a bit about how Dark Souls does story and I do think it's at least somewhat similar to the sort of thing I liked in WoW. The example of the archer, at least as presented in the article, is exactly the sort of thing I like. The game assumes you're smart enough to put the pieces together and let's you do so. FFXIV would just have some throwaway messenger NPC show up to report that the legendary archer is dead, while Alphinaud is on hand to say anything that that needs to be said on the player's behalf and can't be expressed with a single emote.

well like i said debatable. In order to find out what miasma does i had to read up what black rose does, as well as put 2 and 2 together that what thancred was doing with his aether was exactly that.
Bio was never called out (in ff14) as poison and didnt really fit as one either but by simply watching someone duel the flame guy in bosja , i had the chance to overhear him call bio 4 poison.
I learned the nature of bad breath by the blu mage spell book , that it isnt poison but instead earth and water aether based
Cure 1 2 and 3 naming convention was from a book in the library
We can make assumption that voidspawns are just humans that lost all their aetheric balance like sin eaters only theirs is dark aether, and it fits since they are attracted to black mages aetherial attunements
the palace of the dead i learned from a nearby historian searching for broken pots that it was actually an amdapoor city if i recall correctly
Due to seeing the ascians cast acn spells , we assumed from hw that they should be as well. Shb ofc confirmed that.


etc etc. So id say youre partially correct as in it is not using the darksoulian method for the most part but there are still some instances of it.

[Vyrerus]

well like i said debatable. In order to find out what miasma does i had to read up what black rose does, as well as put 2 and 2 together that what thancred was doing with his aether was exactly that.
Bio was never called out (in ff14) as poison and didnt really fit as one either but by simply watching someone duel the flame guy in bosja , i had the chance to overhear him call bio 4 poison.
I learned the nature of bad breath by the blu mage spell book , that it isnt poison but instead earth and water aether based
Cure 1 2 and 3 naming convention was from a book in the library
We can make assumption that voidspawns are just humans that lost all their aetheric balance like sin eaters only theirs is dark aether, and it fits since they are attracted to black mages aetherial attunements
the palace of the dead i learned from a nearby historian searching for broken pots that it was actually an amdapoor city if i recall correctly
Due to seeing the ascians cast acn spells , we assumed from hw that they should be as well. Shb ofc confirmed that.


etc etc. So id say youre partially correct as in it is not using the darksoulian method for the most part but there are still some instances of it.

All of that is exposited in far earlier instances of the game. And Dark Souls didn't invent environmental storytelling. It just capitalizes on it, and is what has introduced many people to it.

Not saying what Nixxe is saying isn't debatable, but idk, this is the first time I've heard anything about WoW having environmental storytelling on a big scale. Of course, I don't usually come to the table to hear about WoW, but now I'm curious.

[HeulGDarian]

All of that is exposited in far earlier instances of the game. And Dark Souls didn't invent environmental storytelling. It just capitalizes on it, and is what has introduced many people to it.

Not saying what Nixxe is saying isn't debatable, but idk, this is the first time I've heard anything about WoW having environmental storytelling on a big scale. Of course, I don't usually come to the table to hear about WoW, but now I'm curious.

its just the most known one.

[Nixxe]

Not saying what Nixxe is saying isn't debatable, but idk, this is the first time I've heard anything about WoW having environmental storytelling on a big scale. Of course, I don't usually come to the table to hear about WoW, but now I'm curious.

It's probably worth knowing and keeping in mind that I started playing WoW in 2007 and generally made a point of doing everything there was to do and seeing everything there was to see in it. Like I did both versions of Loremaster just because it was there to do, and the pre-Cataclysm version of it basically required downloading an addon and tracking down every single last quest in vanilla content to accomplish, some of which I had never encountered, despite leveling 8 characters to cap in that time and prioritizing new experiences. In 2010, Cataclysm happened and detonated virtually all of vanilla WoW, replacing it with a more streamlined and modern questing experience that was much more hand-holdy than what I had started with. Now it's 2020 and I suspect a non-trivial portion of the playerbase never knew a pre-Cataclysm time unless perhaps they used the Classic servers. Likewise, it's completely believable to me that people who just spam click through the quests and mindlessly follow the objective markers on their maps would never have taken the time to notice it.

[Vyrerus]

Since both you and Vyrerus brought it up in this context, I did go and find an article talking a bit about how Dark Souls does story and I do think it's at least somewhat similar to the sort of thing I liked in WoW. The example of the archer, at least as presented in the article, is exactly the sort of thing I like. The game assumes you're smart enough to put the pieces together and let's you do so. FFXIV would just have some throwaway messenger NPC show up to report that the legendary archer is dead, while Alphinaud is on hand to say anything that that needs to be said on the player's behalf and can't be expressed with a single emote.

Huh, what a weird blog post. I mean, he does describe Dark Souls correctly, but he says that 2009 him thought Demon's Souls had no story... when the intro directly sets up the story for you, and you have to talk to the Monumental, who does probably the biggest story dump of any Souls game. Like, compared to Dark Souls, Demon's Souls is practically FFXIV vs. this old WoW you're painting up for me. I wonder if the blog runner just wants brownie points for claiming to start with the first Souls game or if he's just got a poor memory.