Why Do MMORPG Can't Make Sense of Their Own Lore?

[Sani2341]

Why not make short summary?

Isn't that the exact purpose(alongside rewatchign cutscenes) of the journal in every inn?

[MilkieTea]

i mean, there's nothing wrong with that approach to the story. At least it isn't as dull as FF XIV with its exposition dumps and "sit down, kid, mommy is going to teach you about crystals"



Except that's not how a game's story works. This is an MMORPG and people will be taking breaks. It is impossible to memorize all of this. Why not write long detailed summary of every quest? Why not make short summary? Why not make story where you don't have to remember an event that happened hundred quests ago?

The worst issue isn't actually the amount of stuff they show you but the fact that all of it is always animated the same. The entire thing ALWAYS looks the same.
When I started playing Kingdom Hearts II recently, the game kept making throwbacks to the previous entries, names, events... but I remembered all of them because every part of that story was unique, had memorable visuals, voice-acting and cutscene direction - yes, the very same direction FF XIV keeps lacking. It's gotten better and I can already recognize some scenes like Yshtola and that old magician lady but that's it. That's all I remember from HW.
None of it is memorable, there are barely any cutscenes and whatever memorable stuff there is.. it is always ruined by the same robotic 3D model movement, translation and writing which are clearly separated into chunks like "okay, this is important so we'll actually pay attention to writing and make it fun to read. And this is not important, so let's give it to our interns who will make it sound as dull as possible, with fantasy fluff on top"

I think the entire structure of this storytelling is broken by design. Why does it even need a story told through numerous repetitive unvoiced quests? Why can't it let me choose what I want to see and what I want to experience? Maybe I just want to run a new dungeon? Maybe I just want to do the goblin stuff and take in their quests? The entirety of that stuff with lords in the middle of HW was extremely boring, much like the 100 quests they added with patches or the stupid ending with out-of-place robots and what-not.

people claim HW gets better - no, it doesn't. If anything, it got worse with the exception of the ending quests which are obviously there to get you to buy the next expansion. It's like watching CSI at this point, or the worst season of The Walking Dead where someone dies just to move the plot and get you to watch the next episode, and I say this as a fan of the show..

i honestly don't get why do we even need these "storytelling" games if they are still stuck in the frame of an arcade experience: here's your cinematic, here's your boring textbox which we couldn't bother to make fun to look at, here's your battle and here's some dessert to get you to spend some money on next expansion AND DID YOU SEE THAT FF IV REFERENCE, `MEMBER four?? oh man i `member

archiving this.

[Jeeqbit]

It's a final fantasy game and final fantasy games have deep, emotional and intricate stories involving politics and everything. That is a bit much for some people so final fantasy is not for everyone.

Except that's not how a game's story works. This is an MMORPG and people will be taking breaks. It is impossible to memorize all of this. Why not write long detailed summary of every quest? Why not make short summary? Why not make story where you don't have to remember an event that happened hundred quests ago?

You can open the Journal and click Complete to see a summary of what you did in every single quest. You can view cut scenes again at an inn.