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

[linayar]

I don't think wow should be #1, it's latest xpac writing was just awful overall, but WoW does a great job in giving players choices in how they interact with the main story and give characters meaningful ways of being part of the story.

FFXIV has good story writing but without a doubt the worst mechanism of incorporating the player into the story. Its rigidly linear. There are no alternatives or choices involved. The story is essentially told to you with minimal importance given to your character. 99% of the MSQ steps are going somewhere and talking to someone. You're not the "Warrior of Light" but a "Messager of light". You're not entrusted to get Alphy his coffee, you're only entrusted to pass the message along to the guy who actually makes it. Occasionally you fight or do something but really you're not important.

I feel like you have WoW and FFXIV mixed up in terms of incorporating the player character into the story, though I'd be interested in further explanation of your reasoning.

[Gothicshark]

To be fair, I think most people's opinions on the subject are complete and utter crap, as evidenced by things like failing to distinguish between story and storytelling. FFXIV's storytelling is actually kind of lame. It's just a movie interspersed between mostly meaningless periods of gameplay. WoW used to have vastly superior storytelling, where sure there was quest text, but a lot of it was left for the player to discover and infer as they explored the world in the form of mobs, spontaneous events, random items, and the environment in general. It treated the player like an even remotely intelligent and active participant in receiving the story, rather than a passive consumer who needed everything spelled out and spoonfed to them while they shut their brains off. That's perfect since we're playing a game, not watching a movie.

WOW's story was a direct rip off of an older game, the environmental lore was purely based on Warhammer Fantasy with a tiny bit switched around to avoid litigation. The best ideas they had were gameplay and art direction, it was never the story. And starting with the end of Wrath they pushed all their story content into books written by terrible writers.

Want a great story in an MMO that told it through the environment, that was called The Secret World before they rebooted the game anyway. That's the problem, people think success means well crafted, WOW was never well crafted, it was just good enough at the right time and the right place. I paid for 15 years of it because it became a habit, not because it was good.

[Quintessa]

WoW simply benefits from jumping on the mmo train in 2004 vs FFXIV in 2013. They got way bigger fanbase and diehard fans that think Blizzard has Stephen King level writing skills.

[Nixxe]

WOW's story was a direct rip off of an older game, the environmental lore was purely based on Warhammer Fantasy with a tiny bit switched around to avoid litigation. The best ideas they had were gameplay and art direction, it was never the story. And starting with the end of Wrath they pushed all their story content into books written by terrible writers.

Want a great story in an MMO that told it through the environment, that was called The Secret World before they rebooted the game anyway. That's the problem, people think success means well crafted, WOW was never well crafted, it was just good enough at the right time and the right place. I paid for 15 years of it because it became a habit, not because it was good.

I love when people line up to prove me right.

[Gothicshark]

Because the game world is still a deliberate arrangement and presentation of information to convey a certain set of knowledge, events, and perspectives to the player. If you can't figure that out for yourself, then you've failed to grasp something very fundamental about some combination of stories, storytelling, and games. The fact that the game doesn't spell out every single thing for the player in fact puts it in excellent company with our culture's most cherished works of literature and cinema. That you may fail to be told some stories if you choose not to engage with certain content is little different than how you will not be told a short story in an anthology you've purchased unless you choose to read it. Certainly, this sort of storytelling is a little more deconstructed than what we're accustomed to from other mediums, but it's plainly storytelling nonetheless if you have any genuine grasp of what storytelling is.

hahahha, if only World of Warcraft had that kind of storytelling. This is like inferring a Big Mac as a well crafted Food Dish because it has Pickles. Sorry no, WOW has a ton of lore, and most of it is straight rip from Warhammer, what it doesn't rip from Warhammer is a reference to LoTR, D&D, Star Trek, and simple "lols" placed as easter eggs. The few epic moments of storytelling are 100% skippable or even removed from the game outright. Best moment of storytelling Wrathgate, it's gone, been gone for years. But don't worry, we now have a story told in books driving what is going on in-game with only the barest hint of what the book did. Oh but don't worry they will spend an expansion trying to bring the factions together to end the war, only to write a book add time travel and everyone forgets why the faction war was bad, but then next expansion they have a book telling a gritty plot of why the factions are at war, while at the same time bringing them together to face a space invasion by Warhammer 40k Demons in space ships, but then they end it with a book that explains badly why the Horde commits genocide.

Need I go on about the terrible storytelling, because I can list the books, the comic books, and the effect they have on the game, while the dev team fails to add in anything but the most minor references.

[Nixxe]

hahahha, if only World of Warcraft had that kind of storytelling. This is like inferring a Big Mac as a well crafted Food Dish because it has Pickles. Sorry no, WOW has a ton of lore, and most of it is straight rip from Warhammer, what it doesn't rip from Warhammer is a reference to LoTR, D&D, Star Trek, and simple "lols" placed as easter eggs. The few epic moments of storytelling are 100% skippable or even removed from the game outright. Best moment of storytelling Wrathgate, it's gone, been gone for years. But don't worry, we now have a story told in books driving what is going on in-game with only the barest hint of what the book did. Oh but don't worry they will spend an expansion trying to bring the factions together to end the war, only to write a book add time travel and everyone forgets why the faction war was bad, but then next expansion they have a book telling a gritty plot of why the factions are at war, while at the same time bringing them together to face a space invasion by Warhammer 40k Demons in space ships, but then they end it with a book that explains badly why the Horde commits genocide.

Need I go on about the terrible storytelling, because I can list the books, the comic books, and the effect they have on the game, while the dev team fails to add in anything but the most minor references.

To be fair, I think most people's opinions on the subject are complete and utter crap, as evidenced by things like failing to distinguish between story and storytelling.

10charsssss

[linayar]

10charsssss

It's not like you've shown any merit to your own opinion on the subject matter. You just have your own preference, but that's all it is.

[Gothicshark]

To be fair, I think most people's opinions on the subject are complete and utter crap, ...

Anyone who thinks WOW has a good story is the top of that list, but I think you are just a troll, so I'm going to block you now.

[NanaWiloh]

I played wow up until cata and have played FF14 for the last 5 years or so. I wont make a list as I have never really played any other mmo but from what I know of wow's story. I would not be putting it in the number 1 spot, I think FF14 tells a better story but I wont place even it at number one. I think its kind of amusing how the writer of the article underline that MILLIONS OF PLAYERS keep coming back. I smell some heavy bias coming from that writer Tons of lore also does not make a good story, you can still end writing completely garbage depending on how you approach it.

[EmmetOtter]

I feel like you have WoW and FFXIV mixed up in terms of incorporating the player character into the story, though I'd be interested in further explanation of your reasoning.

In FFXIV I am the "messenger boy of light", weapons and armor not required. Almost every single FFXIV msq quest step involves talking to someone and rarely you're given a task to actually do that consumes any significant amount of time. Comparing talk steps to task steps I would describe it as 90%+ talk steps and <10% task-driven steps. What's even worse is that even when given an action/task/mission it takes longer to get through the dialogue than to complete the mission. Ultimately, you are told what the story is. Its very non-interactive. Even when you're sent into a raid to complete a quest, ultimately its the cutscenes that do the story telling.

In Wow its more like 60% talk/40% task in terms of actual quest steps but time spent is more like 25% talk vs 75% action. Talk to someone and they give you a mission to kill people, spy on people, steal/find something, or do some other meaningful activity that's significant to the story. You better be wearing your armor and weapons because you're going to need it! Your actions show you the story and is done primarily in the open world instead of through an instance.

Wow is on the short end of most of my comparisons with FFXIV and I even think FFXIV has better story writing but damn the philosophy/approach taken by SE into translating it's stories into the game is awful whereas Blizzard is just on point.