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

[MoofiaBossVal]

FFXIV is doing pretty good. Almost all of the information you need to know is given to you in the game itself. The only out-of-game materials you might want to consult would be a couple of ShB short stories, as they clarify the Azem thing and Amaurotine society and creation magics, and the short story that provides some closure to the original timeline.

If you want a game that handles its own story badly, look no further than WoW.

• It was a sequel to Warcraft 3 and doesn't really explain what happened in that game or introduce the characters to newcomers. WC3 is the genesis of almost all of Warcraft's plot lines and has remained essential to understanding the WoW story, even 20 years later and 8 expansions into WoW. The original version of WC3 is no longer legally available to purchase. If you didn't start with WC3, then you have to read a plot summary on WoWpedia or watch 3 hour long Nobbel videos.

• WoW does not have a streamlined MSQ where you are smoothly directed through the entire game's story; you again have to consult out of game materials to figure out which questlines are important, the chronological order of them, and how to unlock them. You have to do hours of homework before you can even begin playing the game you're supposed to playing for fun! Several key storylines have been removed from the game over the years. The vanilla questlines, Battle for the Undercity, the MoP and WoD legendary questlines (imagine if the entire patch storyline of Stormblood and ShB was removed from FFXIV. That's how bad that was), etc.

• Warcraft routinely puts critical plot information into books. One of the main characters of WC3, Carine Bloodhoof, freaking dies offscreen in a book in between Wrath and Cataclysm. Imagine if in FFXIV, you began the Stormblood MSQ and then you were offhandedly told "oh yeah, Raubahn died. Here is his son as his replacement! Also Nanamo waltzed off and Loloritto is now Sultan of Ul'dah! Please buy the book to find out how this happened!". The entire premise of the WoD expansion is that Garrosh broke out of jail and time travelled back into the past, but again, you don't see this unless you bought the book. Illidan was depicted ingame as pretty evil in BC (he was an evil tyrant ruling over a planet and had sex slaves, after all), but then in Legion he is suddenly a good guy anti-hero, and you only get to see "his true life story" in a book. Sylvanas' motivations for starting a world war are only given to the player in - you guessed it - a book (imagine if Merlwyb suddenly launched an invasion of Gridania and you weren't given any info as to what her motivations or strategic objectives are in the game).

• Blizzard routinely makes vast, sweeping retcons to its own lore. It has become a meme. Even one of the lead writers, Chris Metzen, was embarrassed at Blizzcon by a lore nerd because he got different versions of his own lore mixed up. These lore changes very often create massive, gapping plotholes and contradict other storylines in the game, which over time makes the game feel incoherent. Also, many of those retcons were very important, and yet you only find out about them in a book. Warcraft Chronicle retcons the entire Legion, Old God, and Titan storyline and sets it up as the main conflict for the Legion and BFA expansions, but you only find out this critical information about what's actually going on if you buy that book. The writers also have a habit of only publishing these huge, sweeping retcons on their twitter accounts, so you have to be paying attention to those too... the very same twitter accounts the devs use to mock their own paying customers.

[Daralii]

Warcraft Chronicle retcons the entire Legion, Old God, and Titan storyline and sets it up as the main conflict for the Legion and BFA expansions, but you only find out this critical information about what's actually going on if you buy that book. The writers also have a habit of only publishing these huge, sweeping retcons on their twitter accounts, so you have to be paying attention to those too... the very same twitter accounts the devs use to mock their own paying customers.[/list]

I'll never get over them publishing three volumes of what was supposed to be the bedrock of the universe's lore, just to retcon swathes of it within two years before saying it's all just a point of view and shouldn't be viewed as definitive within three or four years.

At least the propensity for retcons leads to some funny things like characters lying to themselves in their own internal dialogue.