SE, no effort anywhere lately.

[R041]

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I'm sorry but XIV MSQ is not engaging as a video game in 2023. We're putting aside the actual writing here, because not everyone is going to like the story itself.

WoW has a far better toolkit FOR storytelling. So even if you don't like the overall plot, or even some sub-plots, at least you're engaged and can move around the world and interact with different stories the way you want as if it were an actual RPG. Just the fact that I can engage with the story and change certain outcomes in Coop makes it a better experience. Next you're gonna tell me that XIV has a better storytelling system than SWTOR. lol

So it's fine that you like the plot, I'm not talking about the plot. We can agree that the overall plot of XIV is better. But that doesn't make MSQ a better engaging game, it makes it a better Visual Novel. Most people aren't even properly told that XIV is a Visual Novel, they're baited into believing it's an MMORPG with actual coop and RPG elements.

Also XIV is so plothole ridden and all over the place, we have to go to Youtube for interpretation anyway. Doesn't matter that I sat through the 300 hours of dialog if half of it doesn't make any sense. Congratulations, XIV discovered how to write a subpar Time Travel Manga in MMO format.

[Boblawblah]

WoW has a far better toolkit FOR storytelling..

Sorry, could you go into detail on the tools WoW uses for their storytelling? I feel like I'm missing something. I played WoW's story (what little I could find), and it was completely disjointed, with stories starting in the middle, going back and forward in time, with characters that you had the feeling you were supposed to care about, but they were never introduced unless you were following Warcraft since World of Warcraft 2.

[Vahlnir]

Sorry, could you go into detail on the tools WoW uses for their storytelling? I feel like I'm missing something. I played WoW's story (what little I could find), and it was completely disjointed, with stories starting in the middle, going back and forward in time, with characters that you had the feeling you were supposed to care about, but they were never introduced unless you were following Warcraft since World of Warcraft 2.

WoW has an overarching narrative, but it really is disjointed because of how they designed the new player experience, and because each expansion is technically its own separate story. Basically, they shove new players into one of the more recent expansions immediately without a choice. After they reach level cap, their alts can choose to use "Chromie Time" which allows them to level in an expansion of their choice, but that does nothing to lessen the confusion. I would disagree though that the characters in the game require playing the old RTS titles to care about. I had never played them when I started in 2009, and I still ended up caring about a few.