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

[Breakbeat]

Just feels extremely bloated and incomprehensible.

MMOs get that way, but then again, anything with four or five or six sequels gets that way, too.

I don't mean that in a literal sense; of course ARR wasn't the 'sequel' to 1.0, nor was Heavensward a 'sequel' to ARR. But, in the sense of storytelling (and counting 1.0 and ARR as 'the first story'), we are coming up to part five of our favorite summer blockbuster here. By the time I saw Terminator V (technically, Genisys?) I stopped really trying to make sense out of the story presented to me in the earlier films. Was it still fun to watch? Sure. Would I ever consider it an epic extension of the story presented in Terminator and T2? Never, ever, in a million years. /shrug

I've attempted to absorb the entire story pf FFXIV over the past couple months. Personally, I don't think there are too many places where it doesn't make sense, but that too could be subjective. I mean, Star Trek had replicators, which made no sense because just about every episode's problem could have been solved with replicators. This planet has no food? Replicate it. The medical supplies won't get there in time? Replicate them. Dilithium crystal burned out? Replicate one!

The love of the characters and overall story arc help us with our suspension of disbelief. I tend to have the same experience with FF.

There's definitely a hard stop when each xpac's MSQ comes to an end; sometimes you have to force yourself to remember that the the "Post-xpac" stories came months after the main MSQ was finished. When you hop directly from the end of one MSQ series to the start of the next, the story can seem silly or muddled. Especially when characters change their moods or focus or reasoning literally from one cutscene to the next.

'Filler story' can be subjectively enjoyed by many. For any series, episodes that deviate from the main lore ("monster / villian of the week") can sometimes be a nice break from the norm. Personally, I love all of the weird/comedic storylines, and I consider those 'filler' since they have no bearing on the main story arc.

Last thing to remember is that behind this art there is a for-profit business. Hiring better writers takes money, developing better stories takes time. If there were no deadlines nor profit goals involved, you'd see storylines on par with what the best authors of our day have to offer.

Further to that, there are restrictions on content because of the ESRB rating. Try to imagine something like Game of Thrones but during family hour on a broadcast network like CBS. No gore, no language, no sex, and very limited violence. It would have been a much, much different show, and the lore would have suffered for it, IMHO.

What we need is an M-rated MMO developed by a non-profit company with limitless resources and access to the best creative minds on the planet, who in turn will also work for free.

Take my money.

[OranKells]

Ok well It doesn't sounds like the story is for you. This is pretty standard JRPG storytelling. Best of luck understanding the plot of Kingdom Hearts III.

[OranKells]

Yeah.... That is... uh... not the making the point you think it is.

[morsdood]

Epic troll thread

[Sani2341]

Why not make short summary?

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

[NekiUno]

I want to say something about that before you closed it.

As someone who loves lore and been playing this game for a very long time. I can understand some of your opinion but here is the funny part, you are still in the beginning and yes the lore does not make sense but through the expac, you start to understand more about it and then you can start piece together things that you see from 2.0 or even 1.0. But to each its own

[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.

[Iscah]

closed topic
opinions collected

You seem to have a thing for deleting all your forum posts because... why exactly? So nobody can find a record of how many argument-starting posts you made previously when you come back to make more?

On the small chance you just don't grasp how a forum works, this is not how a forum works. You post your argument, it's now part of a public conversation, it stays.

archiving this.

Beat me to it.

[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.

[Catwho]

They also added New Game + so you can go through on your main character if you want to re-experience it, or you can always make a fresh character and start from scratch.

I've gotten through ARR on six characters now, and through HW on a 7th, in addition to my main. The ARR story is confusing because it's a veritable mountain of foreshadowing. The Scions themselves are trying to piece together mysteries of the world based on an extremely limited understanding of what actually happened, colored heavily by misinterpreted histories, forgotten lore, and thousands of years of outright lies. Heck, false histories is the whole point of the Heavensward expansion.