Awfully weak story... or is it? [WARNING:SPOILERS]

[Astarica]

The story pretty much combines the worst of single player stuff (linear path with no possibility of variation) and MMORPG stuff (how you're always doing totally irrelevent things because there isn't enough relevent things to do in a story). At least when you talk about WoW, most people I know just hit 'Accept' and were never aware that they just sold out their integrity for another 50K XP. In this game, the deliberate pacing of the dialogue almost forces you to actually pay attention to the story, compared to the average MMORPG where people aren't even aware of what the main story is. Now that could be fine if the main story was good, except it's not. The amount of stupid things your character has to do pretty much ranks him as the biggest loser for a main character in MMORPG history. I'm sure there are MMORPG that are just as bad, but in those games at least they don't waste your time to present a bad story. You just hit 'accept' and will be done with it. Most people can't tell you what is supposed to be the main storyline of a given WoW arc, and this at least ensure they didn't suffered.

I mean, so far as bad single player story goes, FF14 is definitely not the worst of the bunch. But it makes sure you have to suffer unless you've enough conviction to just hit escape on something you never seen before. It's kind of like the games with 30 minute cutscenes where you know it's probably junk but you just can't skip it just in case it's somehow good, or that there's something important that happens. After you sat thorugh the entire cutscene you realize it's junk but you already suffered. That's what FF14's story does.