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

[Curisu]

About a deep lore, no game can beat WoW.
Lotr, and Swtor would be close to it.
But these 3 have so much lore just because of the age.

But about the storytelling itself in the game, WoW is more on the bottom end.
I played WoW for the first time a few month ago and tryed to follow the story but when I reached max level I knew nothing about it.

[Nixxe]

This is assuming that said deliberate arrangement is indeed trying to convey a portion of the narrative, and hasn't been arranged for another purpose. It assumes that the arrangement, if it has been wrapped to fit the game's narrative, isn't coincidentally adding or detracting from the story. This runs us into another problem with it. If we're to believe that every portion of a game that has environmental storytelling is trying to tell us a story, then the parts of the game that are trimmed down and clearly don't tell stories other than, "Hey the creators ran up against their deadline." cause a more dissonant clash with what's presented and what's there, storywise.

I don't think it's really a higher form of storytelling than a direct narrative. It's more fun, if you like to do a bit of guess work and fill in some blanks, but holes and inconsistencies affect it more than a direct narrative. There's only so far you can take it before it becomes cumbersome, and then in the next game, patch, or segment when you've got something wrong... well, tough on your imagination, heh.

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.

[Ntol]

Coming from someone who bought all novels and other lore related stuff up from Classic until Legion, I can say WoW´s lore is (currently) one of the worst ones in videogame history. This is because of two important facts:
1. Gameplay > story mentality, which the devs openly admit to doing. This means if something is cool or epic in the eyes of a developer, they will put it in the game regardless if it fits in the lore or not. If it involves retconning previous stuff they have no qualms about doing it. As of today, Warcraft´s lore is a Frankenstein monster of lore patches one on top of the other.
2. The two faction system. The fact that the playerbase is divided between two factions means no permanent change can befall any of them, or any player race for that matter. This could work if both sides were good, but in a world where both factions are constantly at war, things that make no sense are bound to happen, like one faction constantly starting wars agains the other for ever increasing absurd reasons and the other always forgiving them when an external threat appears. This is even more absurd when there are races that have cultural or even blood ties to a race in the other faction (there´s one race that is literally the same).

The storytelling also fails if you dont´buy the extra stuff like novels and comics, since a lot of important stuff only happens there and is barely explained in the game, although I will admit that practice has become less common lately.

[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.

[HeulGDarian]

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.

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.

[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.